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What’s a recession-proof career
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<p>Supposedly my career: nursing. However, many of my fellow nursing graduates are living with their parents, or working as a server/bartender because they can’t find jobs.</p>
<p>Oldest turned down Notre Dame for U-Va. Number two turned down Carleton (and William and Mary) for Grinnell. Both decisions were made on the basis of cost and perceived fit.</p>
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<p>These are not examples of turning down a “clearly higher-ranked college.” This is like turning down Harvard for Yale.</p>
<p>I’m the kid in this case, but I ended up putting American over many higher-ranked colleges, including Harvard/Princeton, because I enjoyed it more. I felt it was somewhere I loved when I visited it, and that’s all it came down to really.</p>
<p>DS turned down Emory for Tulane. Don’t know if that is considered a “clearly higher” ranked college, but the $$$$$ made the major difference. There were some other variables (wanting to get a little farther away, etc) and DS liked them both, but financially it was a much better choice.</p>
<p>Tulane is as good as Emory.</p>
<p>Okay, I didn’t really turn down Yale. They rejected me. I went on to Brown, which surely was not as prestigious. No regrets. </p>
<p>Anyway, as a journalist I later spent a lot of time at great colleges that no one in my old neighborhood in Westchester, NY ever heard of. Be wary of the Name Brand Mania. </p>
<p>This is a great discussion thread. More thoughts on the subject of Window-Decal Colleges in my book of true stories of kids applying to college:</p>
<p>kroe, I think you made an excellent choice. UNC is a great school and their big scholarship winners are usually fellow students who had the kinds of excellent acceptances you had.</p>
<p>Don’t know if I posted it on this thread, but we know folks who turned down Ivies (including HYPs) for the flagship. The ones who come immediately to mind started taking graduate courses freshman year.</p>
<p>I disagree about Emory and Tulane -any comparison I’ve ever seen of universities has always put Emory above Tulane.</p>
<p>I chose Oberlin double degree (conservatory and college) over Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Juilliard - for the music-college combination and merit scholarship.</p>
<p>Actually, I clearly understand the forest from the trees. Some colleges now refuse to participate in some of these so-called media efforts at ranking due to their arbitrary nature. I stand by my original assertions.</p>
<p>D2 turned her back on Cornell for Oberlin. Not that much of a drop, I suppose, but Ivies do have prestige factor. By the way, she loves it in the Midwest. Cornell’s campus was impressive, but D2 wasn’t enamored of any campus that was so large the school has to operate a campus bus system. Oberlin just felt right. No frats or sororities. Super smart kids who are not hyper competitive and are politically very liberal. Best library of any LAC. Freshman permitted cars on campus. The prestigious Conservatory (400 concerts a year), and now the Jazz Conservatory. The merit scholarship from Oberlin was also a factor.</p>
<p>Just a quick note for you people who can’t resist the compulsion to point out that rankings are arbitrary and/or subjective whenever someone commits the mortal sin of mentioning the word “rank”: Zip it. We’ve all heard it a hundred millions times already.</p>
<p>^Why? We seem to continue to go on and on and on about this school ranked more than that school and rank rank rank on CC…</p>
<p>So I say for every post going on about the value of ‘rank’, we need a counterpoint to get it all back in perspective. People may have heard it before but for some reason simply can not let it go. Must be all that media and marketing hype. Its powerful.</p>
<p>Well, “ranking” is pretty arbitrary. My son turned down Berkeley for a LAC ranked around #40 or so by US News. But there was no comparison - he wanted small classes, close interaction with faculty, and a focus on undergraduate education. His chemistry class had about 10 students and he was often in the lab working one-on-one with his prof, and ended up developing a close relationship with the prof. At Berkeley, I’m sure the introductory chem classes have 1,000 students in them, and the kids are probably lucky to get face time with their TA’s. </p>
<p>My d. turned down Univ. of Chicago for Barnard. On paper that’s a top 10 university for a LAC ranked around #30 something. But that’s based on a ranking system that fails to take into account the intimate relationship between Barnard & Columbia. Columbia and Chicago are ranked as equivalents, so obviously my daughter was not in fact making a choice for a “lesser” college. (In fact her choice was dictated largely by financial aid). </p>
<p>I think that ranking is a very superficial way of looking at colleges. Back when my son was looking at colleges, we re-ordered the US News list by his criteria (class size, faculty-student ratio) - and his LAC always came up at the very top. It was only when weighing in stuff he didn’t care about that other LAC’s ranked better. (My daughter didn’t have ANY criteria that was measured by US News – so we looked to other resources entirely. Again, we had our own “ranking” – which was based on the factors that were important to her.)</p>
<p>I’m about ready to pull my hair out.</p>
<p>Yes, college rankings are superficial. And arbitrary. And subjective.</p>
<p>We all get it. We all get it!!! Everyone one of us! We get it.</p>
<p>Thank you for enlightening us for the ten billionth time. It’s all been discussed before. And we ALL GET IT.</p>
<p>Can we get back on-topic now?</p>
<p>That WAS on topic, completely. In one case, the student used data elements in USNWR’s ranking system but re-weighted them based on his own preferences, and went to a school that was very highly ranked on his criteria, although significantly less highly ranked by USNWR (and, I venture to guess, pretty much everybody else). In the other case, the student chose her college based on unique characteristics that compensated for the lower ranking, and better financial aid. What’s the problem?</p>
<p>And it’s wrong to say that rankings are arbitrary, etc. Every organization that attempts a ranking system does it on a basis that it argues is rational, using objective data when possible, and subjective data where necessary and with a methodology that attempts to correct for the subjectivity. </p>
<p>But every ranking system is balancing (or refusing to balance) competing criteria, and a system is only as good as whatever the argument is for the particular weighting regimen it uses. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the weights assigned to this or that factor, and a reasonable person could easily say “I accept that most people would use weighting set A, but personally I am going to use weighting set B.” For example, the USNWR ranking system excludes (weights at 0) such factors as communal/co-ed bathrooms vs. in-suite/single-sex ones, funniness of college name, number of i-bank recruiters, and hotness of girls/boys, but any brief perusal of these discussions on CC will turn up any number of students for whom such considerations are highly relevant, if not paramount. Even if they would not suggest that everyone should care as much as they do about those types of factors.</p>
<p>Most of what we discuss on CC has been discussed before, and much seems like it has been written for the ten billionth time. MS, I assume your post was directed to the one directly above you. Her post seemed on topic to me.</p>
<p>Cross-posted with JHS.</p>
<p>My post is directed at anyone who feels that we need yet another discussion of how rankings are arbitrary, subjective, and superficial. I think we all know that, and to continue to point it out is simply condescending to those of us who like to use the word “rank” as easy shorthand for “relative quality as most people think of it”. But it appears that some people do a daily search on CC for the word “rank” and then post the same, tired, old boilerplate about how arbitrary, subjective, and superficial rankings are. It gets so old, and I’m sick of it. This thread was not intended to be yet another stupid debate about the value of rankings. The OP obviously wanted to know why some kids have turned down more highly esteemed schools for lesser schools. That is the topic. If you don’t like it, start your own thread to debate the value of rankings…again.</p>
<p>“But it appears that some people do a daily search on CC for the word “rank” and then post the same, tired, old boilerplate about how arbitrary, subjective, and superficial rankings are. It gets so old, and I’m sick of it.”
MS, this is a PUBLIC forum and posters can post what they want to without getting your permission first. If you had been on CC for a long time, then you would KNOW that threads can often vere off into other, related discussions, that may not be COMPLETELY on target. If you don’t want to read what others post, then go elsewhere. Neither the OP or you are “in charge” here. sheesh.</p>