<p>My kid turned down three top-5 ranked in his intended major, and 2 top 10 nationally ranked research Universities to go to a top-15 ranked LAC. The main reasons: LAC offered a full tuition scholarship, had a much better reputation for UG teaching, high PhD productivity among its graduates, guaranteed research, and the size, location, and student population were more to his liking. The scholarship also signalled to my kid that they “really want me there.” Graduating without debt was certainly the dominant reason, but the other factors made the decision easier. I still am uncertain whether this was the best path to take to go into his intended career because the LAC’s program is more general.</p>
<p>“(Does HLS really take 40% of its class from Harvard College?)”</p>
<p>No, it’s more like 15%. At any given time, there are about 200 Harvard College grads at Harvard Law, but that’s across all three classes. There were about 70 of us in my HLS class. HYPS plus Duke, taken together, made up a good 40% of the class.</p>
<p>70 Harvard College grads per class makes a lot more sense to me than 200. And Yale, Princeton, and Stanford averaging about half of that also makes sense. That was roughly the proportion at my law school (Stanford), with the names switched around. </p>
<p>But does Duke really claim a lot more slots than the (many) comparable private universities (starting with Brown and Dartmouth, which like Princeton don’t siphon off any of their own grads, and are solidly within the New England sphere of infulence)? Not to mention large, high-quality public universities with many more students? Duke has come up in prestige since my day, but it wasn’t chopped liver then, either, and I don’t think its alums represented more than 1% (n=2) of my law school class.</p>
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<p>For one, the financial aid game. The highest ranked schools on my list are not my top choices - although one is very highly ranked (the other comes after the Top 50). If Stanford or Yale come through with a better financial aid package, there’s a good chance I’ll attend. If WashU or George Washington manage to get their act together, I will certainly be attending one of them - they are my first and second choices, respectively.</p>
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<p>For one, the financial aid game. The highest ranked schools on my list are not my top choices - although one is very highly ranked (the other comes after the Top 50). If Stanford or Yale come through with a better financial aid package, there’s a good chance I’ll attend. If WashU or George Washington manage to get their act together, I will certainly be attending one of them - they are my first and second choices, respectively.</p>
<p>Furthermore, people might have legacy or connections at certain schools, making their odds equal at or better than a lower ranked school. Thus, the Harvard legacy who wants to go to Dartmouth would apply to both, with Harvard functioning as a sort of “safety.”</p>
<p>I haven’t read every comment on the prior 15 pages, but part of the issue to me is the original question implying that college rankings are somehow perfect measures of what might appeal to individual applicants. Rankings are arbitrary and highly dependent on the criteria being evaluated. From that standpoint, an individual’s choice of college may have very little to do with how some media publication happens to ‘rank’ various colleges.</p>
<p>Right. There’s a certain real lack of sophistication in making one’s own choices based on “what everyone else thinks” which is essentially what the rankings are. In fact, I submit it’s the very opposite of being “elite.” The rankings are useful for the info they provide, and to tier things into bands. But really, someone who is talking about turning down #5 for #15 and thinking of it as “turning down a higher-ranked school” is like the proverbial angels dancing on the head of a pin. To be meaningful, it might be turning down #5 for #50.</p>
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<p>No, Keilexandra. Only among people who favor such things. There’s a very big world out there. The sad thing is, the so-called “snobs” who think that the world begins and ends with the top 20 schools really haven’t a clue.</p>
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<a href=“http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf[/url]”>http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf</a></p>
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<p>Because there is no guarantee that you will get into that “clearly lesser ranked” college. A girl in my D’s student got into HYP but not into her first choice- Georgetown.</p>
<p>^ ^ ^
<a href=“http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf[/url]”>http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf</a></p>
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<p>PizzaGirl, following your own premise, why is the number 50 ranking any more indicative of quality or lack thereof than the number 5 or 15?</p>
<p>I can personally now answer why would some one turn down a full ride scholar ship to one of the most elite universities in the u.s. as well as turn down an offer to go pro right out of h.s.</p>
<p>I now know why a cousin of mine turned everything down and just settled going to a community college. it all made perfect sense. oust of the the whole 49 states here in the u.s. and out of all the universities there are NOT A SINGLE ONE OFFER WHAT HE WANTED. except for 1 and that 1 is a very very small, hardly even noticed community college. But! he got a bachelors degree and has a recession proof career and is doing better then another person who graduated from M.i.T.</p>
<p>^ </p>
<p>What’s a recession-proof career? </p>
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<p>Yes, I have seen many different rankings. Looking at the CRITERIA underlying the rankings is food for thought, but an applicant should make up the applicant’s own mind about which criteria are important and how to weight them. We are lucky here in that our oldest son’s interests are such that our state university appears to be a reasonable “safety” college (we don’t know admission results yet) from which it is hard to trade up. We will be in position of having to compare financial aid offers and a few other issues, so he is applying to more than one college.</p>
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<p>That’s missing the forest for the trees. Only the minor differences between US News and any other ranking will depend on the criteria. On the whole, all sorts of different rankings correlate extremely well with each other — you can rank by endowments (once they stabilize), by faculty awards, by US News or Gourman or Jiao Tong ratings, by graduates’ salaries and it doesn’t change the list very much. </p>
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<p>No, the inter-correlation of rankings has everything to do with applicants’ choices, whether they use the rankings or not. First, it shows that the stratification of schools “objectively exists”. Second, any given applicant might have one personal ranking criterion in mind before enrollment (which school will have the smartest classmates), a different one while in college (which school has the best major in economics) and another after graduation (which school has the highest median alumnus income after 10 years). That is OK if one chooses according to a criterion, such as US News college ranking, that correlates will all positive outcomes. If you choose according to unrelated criteria such as “best party school” or “most beautiful dorms”, it is much less likely to correspond to a high ranking based on the unknown criteria that will be more important later in life.</p>
<p>Another anecdote, FWIW. A very bright, highly capable and accomplished young lady from geek_son’s high school (val of her class, active in many different areas and excelling in some) resisted tremendous pressure from family and faculty to apply to Ivies. Said that if she were accepted, she would not matriculate, so why should she take someone else’s spot? She lives at home and attends the honors college of the local flagship on a full ride. This is her senior year. She’s loved it from day one. Many, many opportunities for her including several nice internships, and she now plans to apply for a staff position at the same university and use the tuition benefits to fund her graduate education.</p>
<p>The reasoning she stated:
- her academic program is well known and highly ranked
- the scholarship paid for everything including computer
- she loves her family and is happy to be with them a bit longer
- after such a small high school, she relished the thought of being in a <em>big</em> place</p>
<p>The heat she took for her choice was really outrageous, but time has shown that it was an excellent choice for her. She knew what she wanted, knew where to get it, and would not be shaken from it. Not quite the same story as turning down acceptances from the Ivies, but everyone around her believed (right or wrong) that she was an Ivy shoo-in – so her decision not to apply must have felt very similar to rejecting actual acceptances.</p>
<p>I’m a senior, undergrad, at a <em>good</em> school, but not a great school. </p>
<p>Got accepted to a few great schools, but ultimately was offered a full athletic scholarship to the good school (amounts to over $200,000 since it includes all of my housing, living expenses, books, etc.). I knew back then that I wanted to go to grad school, so I figured I’d save my family some money and put it toward grad school instead.</p>
<p>Turned down Cornell, Rice, Duke, Reed, Carleton for UNC because of the money. Upper middle class kids get no meningful offers of money these days, and for someone planning to go on to postgrad, doesn’t make sense to take on huge debt.</p>
<p>My DD turned down UVA, W&M, Wesleyan, and Wellesley for Bard. She wanted a co-ed school which killed the Wellesley idea though they clearly had the best financial package. Any school in VA was too close to home, and Bard just had the best theater program of any with a superb music department. The campus was the most compelling and choice-by-fit turned out to be the correct one. She couldn’t be happier.</p>