<p>Personally, I believe that the very best private universities are better than the very best public universities (ie, Yale > UC Berkeley). However, 99.99% of us do not have the 4.8 GPA, 2380 SAT to get into the top Ivy League schools. If you are able to get into a high ranking public university, the $25,000 tuition cut is worth a few overcrowded freshman classes. Also, many of the UCs (not sure about other states, since I’m a California resident) have multiple nobel prize winning professors. The large number of public university alumni is like free networking, as well. It’s easy to find the flaws with Public Universities, but they do have their strong points.</p>
<p>What is better for one is not better for another. This type of statement has no meanning when you start going thru one’s personal priority list. And then there are diff. majors. For pre-med., for example, there is no diff. what UG they attend. The most important for Med. School admission is GPA and MCAT score. Perfect GPA and high score from any lower ranking school will have much better chance than GPA=3.0 and lower MCAT, say, from MIT or Harvard. These are known facts that people deal with. Again, engineering companies mostly hire locally. There are anecdotal exceptions to any statistical data, but most people are sticking to statistical evidence when planning few years ahead.</p>
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<p>Four of the five classes my son is taking in the fall are honors classes with less than 20 students. They are Eng. Lit, Philosophy, Econ, Gov’t. Only his sociology class is non-honors. I imagine that once you start your upper division classes for your major you would take less honors classes but at that point the classes are pretty small anyway. I attended the same university and by the time I started taking intermediate and advanced accounting courses the classes were down to less than 25 students.</p>
<p>As for study abroad - all students are eligible to study abroad for 3 weeks, a semester, maymester, spring break, a year - whatever works for you. You just pay your travel costs. The school has a large study abroad office that will work with each student to customize a study abroad program for them.</p>
<p>I do think that personal fit is the most important aspect of selecting a college (including financial fit - some people can’t live with being in debt, others are okay with it). I think assuming that somehow top students are ‘settling’ for a public university is a little short-sighted. My son applied to a wide range of private and publics - got into about half (equally split between the two) but when we sat down and evaluated what best fit his personal criteria for the ‘ideal’ school, the honors college at our state flagship was the perfect fit. AND we gave him no financial restrictions - we could have paid the $50,000 a year. He felt like the honors college gave him the best of everything - small classes, a LAC feel, access to world-class research, a wide variety of majors to pick from, a school with a big-time football program, located within driving distance from home, a school located within a urban setting.</p>
<p>What bothers me more is that son had classmates who applied to a variety of top ranking schools and then picked the highest-ranking school they got in to - no matter what that school was. That is scary to me. A school needs to be evaluated on much more than it’s USNWR ranking. There is a top 20 school not to far from us. We went a looked at it and were not impressed with its facilities. On top of that, I got unsolicited reports from 5-6 people that their kids were there and were not happy about the level of academic support their children were getting. Yes, it is a ‘top’ ranked school but that doesn’t mean squat if your child is not happy or is struggling or doesn’t fit in with the other students. There’s a lot to consider when choosing a school.</p>
<p>I am frankly not bothered by anybody’e decision in regard to their choice. Yes, some of them will be mistakes. Some are learning by failing. Failure in anything could be the best lesson in life. Attitude is everything and thinking positively is a winner in any situation. So approaching from this perspective, there are no errors, there are learning experiences in life.</p>
<p>I think if a child or parent picks a school only because it is top ranked or an elite private verses a state public they have self esteem issues. A school should be chosen based on so many other factors like program of study, final COA, climate of school, size of student body, etc. The final decision might be an elite private or a 2nd tier public. If the student is driven they will find success. If the student is lazy, it doesn’t matter where they go to school. </p>
<p>An elite private, because of the selectivity of the admissions process should have a larger percentage of driven students, but a large public will probably have a larger number of driven students, plenty for other driven students to befriend.</p>
<p>"I think that the source of much of the condescending attitude – as well as circulation of negative stereotypes or myths about public colleges – comes largely from a need for people to rationalize their choice to pay the high cost of private colleges. So they convince themselves that the public school options can’t possibly give them or their children whatever wonderful options are prominently advertised in the private school brochures. "</p>
<p>You don’t find THAT attitude condescending? To assume that families that have picked a private university haven’t thought long and hard about their public options? If there are people who rationalize their choice of privates, are there not also folks who picked a public for financial reasons who feel a need to rationalize it?</p>
<p>I can tell you in Virginia no one simply dismisses publics as a group. Its generally “of UVa, VTech, and W&M, which can I get into and will that school work for me?” If none of the reachable schools out of that trio work, then its “of the remainder, JMU, GMU, VCU, etc, will any of them work for me as well my private options?” </p>
<p>Huge numbers of people pick the publics. Significant numbers find a private option that works better for them - enough better to justify the cost.</p>
<p>Some folks cannot understand why someone else made a choice that they would not have. Sometimes its values that are different. Sometimes its circumstances (you assume kid A got into UVa or W&M and they did not, sometimes you assume Private school X was super expensive, when need or merit based grant money was available ). Sometimes its the kid (kid A had terrific reasons to favor a small campus. Kid B loved football. Kid C wanted a program in which a particular public was strong. Kid D wanted a program in which the only strong instate public was a bad match for other reasons) </p>
<p>I think we should not only respect each others choices, we should stop assuming all the condescension, or all the rationalizations, are on one side or the other.</p>
<p>There is enough condescension, and enough rationalization, to go around.</p>
<p>"If the student is driven they will find success. If the student is lazy, it doesn’t matter where they go to school. "</p>
<p>are all students either driven or lazy? My DD is gifted, intellectual, artistic and ADD. She will work passionately on something that grabs her, and yet often fail to reach out to available resources. She is not driven. She is not lazy. She is far better at focusing her energies than she was a few years ago, and presumably will be better in several years. She needs challenges, and still needs just a little hand holding.</p>
<p>Should I have just pushed her into the 20,000 student school she dreaded because someone on the internet said there are 2 kinds of students?</p>
<p>"I’ve seen the same thing, actually, among parents who opt to send their kids to private schools for elementary and high school (they rationalize that they have “no choice” because the local public schools are so terrible, etc.) "</p>
<p>And again, don’t you think that the people who send their kids to private schools (and those who home school) ever wrestle with the choice, do the research, and make a difficult but well thought out decision?</p>
<p>“For pre-med., for example, there is no diff. what UG they attend.” </p>
<p>This is not really a “known fact” from what I read on CC, actually there are some credible dissenting views.</p>
<p>to wit:</p>
<p>"…I respectfully dissent.</p>
<p>You indicate that ivy league students= top students= high achievers= med schools admissions. That’s true to some extent. However, the reputation and prestige of the institution DOES play a role, whether subjectively or objectively in the individual adcom’s decision.</p>
<p>U of Chicago students have lousy GPAs because of the well known grade deflation that the school has. However, at the time of comparing it to the 4.0 sate u student, coming from U of Chicago, has a definite advantage. Just an example…(from an adcom’s point of view) "</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>"I’m going to be perfectly honest: if you don’t attend a top 25 college, you have a really really low chance of getting into a top med school. And we’re talking about schools where the acceptance rates are in the 2-5% range already.</p>
<p>You think you’ll be competing against boatloads of state school grads. In reality, you are competing against boatloads of MIT, Harvard, Cornell, Duke, Berkeley grads. I had the fortune of interviewing at 13 medical schools, 6 of them ranked in the top 20. At the very top med schools, 3/4 of those interviewed came from a prestigious college. At my own medical school, over 70% of my graduating class came from a top 25 college."</p>
<p>“engineering companies mostly hire locally.”</p>
<p>True, but to the extent they don’'t, they recruit out of region at top engineering schools, not just any engineering school. So your chances of getting a position out of region are better if you attend a “top” engineering school. Many top engineering schools are state Us though, so the out-of-region recruiting situation may be different at these schools I don’t know.</p>
<p>At the large midwest engineering firm I worked at, we recruited from basically every engineering school within the proximate region. Out of region they only went to a few well-known schools. We had people from MIT, Rice, and Cornell, none from Berkeley that I recall, I’m not sure they recruited there.</p>
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<p>It’s certainly true here in Illinois. There are few places where you can’t get to with a UIUC degree. It’s also the UIUC grads who are successful enough to be sending their kids to the top privates fully-paid, and that fact isn’t lost on people.</p>
<p>Brooklynborndad, I’m with you on all your posts. </p>
<p>We are thrilled that our oldest picked our state flagship. It met all his needs and comes in at a good price for us.</p>
<p>My younger son sounds a lot like your daughter and I’m not sure he will need or pick the same type of school. He’s intrigued by the state flagship, but seems a little overwhelmed by it and has shown interest in smaller schools. He’s a rising junior, so we are now just really starting to explore schools, so we’ll see. Our goal will be to do what is best for him (and hopefully that can be done with minimal debt).</p>
<p>monydad, my oldest does have hopes for med school and we feel pretty comfortable with his choice of UNC for undergrad. He plans to be a chemistry major and UNC has an excellent chemistry department. UNC is a top ranked public, so I don’t think doors will be shut on him. My husband is a physician and he has told my son that no one ever asks him where he went to undergrad or med school. Now, maybe undergrad made a difference when he was applying to med school, he went to BU, so who knows.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why others opinions so irk some people. I am an Ivy grad, and one son went to a second tier public, the other to a second tier LAC. Some people looked down on their decisions. I didn’t care nor did my sons. </p>
<p>What matters is whether the school is a good fit for the student and whether the student’s family can afford the school.</p>
<p>I</p>
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<p>Me, too.</p>
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<p>NSM, I agree.</p>
<p>monydad,</p>
<p>As I mentioned, there are anecdotal exceptions to the statistical majority. One have to decide for themselves what they want to consider. Our family considers statistical majority, not anectodal exceptions, others might do opposite. And then, you picked out my statements out of content, which make them completely not true and making no sense whatsoever.</p>
<p>I am confused with how my post about driven students finding success and lazy students not was read as if I said there are only two types of students. Students, like every other group of people are very diverse. </p>
<p>My daughter is also not what I would call driven, but she is certainly not lazy. She has friends whom I would readily label very driven, the type that study into the wee hours of the morning and review everything over and over again so they score perfectly on exams. Instead, my daughter keeps up with her classwork, review as needed and makes sure she fully understands the concepts behind the facts, but you will never catch her staying up late at night reviewing the same material over and over again.</p>
<p>Every student is different and if I gave the impression that I think only two type of students exist, then I apologize - I guess I wasn’t clear.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t, after living in both NYS and the midwest. I don’t think the mindset is quite the same. The main issue, IMO, is that NYS has not really, effectively, singled out a true “flagship” U to attract its very top students.</p>
<p>In the suburbs of NYC where I’ve lived, the very top students in a class do not routinely head for the SUNYs unless there are financial issues involved. At the elite private schools in NYC that I have personal experience with, very few kids chose to attend state universities in New York. U Michigan yes, but not a SUNY.</p>
<p>By contrast, in the most elite private school in the midwest area I lived in, a significant chunk of the student body chose to attend local flagship state universities, including the valedictorians in each of the last two years D1 attended. And in the public school in the wealthiest suburban area, where D2 attended, an actual majority of the students, including a good representation of the top ones, attended these same few state universities. A good chunk of these people could afford otherwise.</p>
<p>They have a different mindset about their flagship state universities there, IMO. Alums who stay in the area are actually advantaged in alumni network and are ubiquitously the most represented in all the better jobs and professions there. A good chunk of the area’s top students routinely attend those flagships, and people don’t feel they are compromising very much, if anything, by doing so.</p>
<p>I, for one, never got the sense that this is exactly the same situation here in New York.
The “money” part of the “money vs. quality” equation seems somewhat more influential in the decisions in NY than where I lived in the midwest. To me.</p>
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<p>I see every bit as much rationalization from those who choose public elementary/high schools and colleges. We sent our kids to private schools from pre-school on and even to boarding school. Yes, our public schools were unfit, but a lot more went into the decision. </p>
<p>I went to a Big Ten school and love public universities. My daughter’s 2nd choice school was actually my alma mater which happens to have one of the very top music programs in the country. Both of my kids wound up at private universities and both turned out to be the right fit. None of us look down on state schools- especially the flagships- but there are definite plusses and minuses to both state universities and private colleges. </p>
<p>I don’t get the defensiveness and the need to diminish the choices of others.</p>
<p>People are worrying about artificially created problems, the ones that they create for themselves. Well, if one is so dramatic and enjoys it, so be it. Isn’t it so stressful though to worry about explaining yourself and your decisions to others? Why such a burden? Don’t you want to feel free and happy? Then you do not have to explain nothing, it is personal decision and people who respect you will not stick their nose and ask inappropriate questions. Well, if they do, then it is a good test of how they feel about you in general, maybe it is a good idea to drop an artificial “friend” or two, and unburden yourslef of constant explaining and worrying about it? But if you enjoy all these drama, then it it fine too, you have found your type of entertainment, everybody should have some in their life.</p>
<p>As some other poster pointed out, there are all sorts of state universities: good and the bad, just as there are good and bad privates. UC Berkley, UCLA for example hold their own against top institutions. </p>
<p>That said, state universities do not do well in the rankings such as USNWR as they have often some sort of admission criteria which might lead to students with lower scores getting in. For example, the top 4% (or even 25%) of a HS class are guaranteed admission. Or they may have GPA cut-offs. This creates an impression that standards are watered down.</p>
<p>Second, state universities (especially the flagship ones) tend to be on average larger than most private schools. 20000 students in a private institution is very large, while you have many state schools much larger. I think Arizona State has about 45-50000 just on the Tempe campus. When you are admitting so many students, your GPA and test scores will be lower. So a private that can be selective and may appear to be better.</p>
<p>Third funding issues in state universities are very public. If tuition is raised or number of scholarships is reduced, then many groups are up in arms. There is a lot of publicity on how the cuts will affect education and this creates a negative impression. If a private university does the same thing, there is no discussion. State universities often have to fund programs that may not make sense so there is less money for other programs.</p>
<p>And finally, some state universities have got the reputation as party schools, leading to again lumping state universities as party schools.</p>
<p>So state universities have an image issue. Some can be improved, others cannot.</p>
<p>We have gone around and around this topic SO many times on CC. Private vs. Public. “Fine dining” vs “beef & beer”. “Throwing your money away” vs “thrift/common sense”. It does get old. If there any value to these kinds of threads, it would be educate all of us to be more sensitive in talking to college parents and students. Not all of us have thick skins…
I have to say though that I do like the “smile and nod” approach…a genius strategy IMO.</p>