<p>I’ll call this the “State School Strategy”. If your child is planning on Professional School I would strongly consider a “good state school”. Speaking from experience - if I would have gone to JHU in Baltimore I doubt I would have been accepted to medical school due to the intense pre-med competition for grades and recommendations that the pre-med committee can only give so many highest recs.</p>
<p>By going to a “State School” you can be @ the top of your class, honors program, and get the best recs and maybe be in a program not so cutthroat. Several of my colleagues also prescribe to this strategy as we feel it improves your chances @ professional school admission and is very “practical” also in terms of costs.</p>
<p>Of course if your S/D is a genious - they will do weel no matter where they attend. This is strictly my opinion.</p>
<p>my D turned down Emory for American!! she loved the school when she visited and she did not like Atlanta and Emory’s campus… i was a little disappointed at first but seeing her now at AU I can tell she made the best choice! she is having a blast!!</p>
<p>Money was the primary reason dh chose the school that he did. He was accepted to schools on different lists – let’s see, he turned down four Top 20 USNWR National Universities (one being UChicago) and two extremely highly-ranked public colleges/universities. If money were no object, I believe he would have ended up at Georgetown, which was his #1 choice going into the admissions game a year ago. </p>
<p>He’s at a Top 20 LAC with a full ride scholarship. The money we’ve saved will be his for law school or grad school.</p>
Great point! Our oldest daughter turned down three schools that were ranked higher than her eventual choice. Money was the primary reason she turned down two of them, though other factors (size, location) also came into play.</p>
<p>The one many folks didn’t understand was why she turned down Cornell for W & M. She’d been accepted into Cornell’s ALS school (which used to be called a Cornell “statutory school”; don’t know if this still applies). It was a great deal for NY students, because tuition was the cost of SUNY tuition plus the difference between that and tuition at Cornell’s private schools. (Did that make sense?) All numbers were much lower in 2001 than they are right now, as was OOS tuition at W & M.</p>
<p>The cost was just a bit higher than OOS tuition at W & M, and, of course, Cornell is a better-known, more highly-ranked institution. My d’s primary reasons for feeling that W & M was a better fit were that she wanted to be farther from home, and she wanted an institution where she’d come in knowing almost no one. There were nearly 50 students from her hs at Cornell when she was an applicant. She said she didn’t want to see herself coming and going; we countered that 50 acquaintances spread out over so many undergrads at Cornell probably wouldn’t make much difference. She disagreed, and W & M it was. It turns out to have been a great choice.</p>
<p>CJMadison – re: the state school strategy. That really depends. Some flagships are real pressure cookers (engineering at UIUC comes to mind) or really aggressively weed out in early science courses. Not easy paths to good GPAs for grad school, depending on the student. A smaller private who gives you good merit money might be the way to go, especially in terms of getting attention from profs.</p>
<p>S felt wanted at his #1 choice (accepted EA + merit money) and an afterthought at the higher ranked school (off wait list, small grant + work/study).</p>
<p>My son realized that prestige really means nothing for undergrad. No one ever asks from where you got your degree after you get your first job. Graduate school can be a different story. </p>
<p>He wanted to spend 4 years where he would challenged, felt comfortable, and would be taught be Profs rather than TAs. It was the right decision for him.</p>
<p>I’m not sure this is the same thing…but DS, a music performer, decided to attend a fine University program with a great music department (conservatory type program within a large university) instead of attending two of the well known conservatories to which he gained acceptance. The reason…the private instrument teacher was one he wanted to study with.</p>
<p>My daughter is attending her sure-bet school. Yes, money was a factor, but less because of the $$ and more because it represented “we want you here.” The college “wanted her” ($$), the music department “wanted her” ($$$), and after she accepted, the college decided they were happy she was coming ($). </p>
<p>The biggest factor for my daughter, however, was the niceness factor; we often joked (and still do) that there must be something in the water that exponentially increases how nice people are at her school. Last, but not least, she was pleased at the level of understanding and acceptance when she explained to various profs/administrators the difficulties that her chronic health condition might present once she was a student. In retrospect, this has proved to be the best reason of all…they’ve really come through for her on those occasions when her illness has derailed her, and despite the bumps in the road, she will graduate in June with honors and with her cohort.</p>
<p>Is there a distinction between “clearly higher ranked” and “clearly more prestigious”? I would consider Chicago > Harvard to be a perfectly normal conclusion; Penn State (or any other non-elite state U) > Harvard (not considering cost) is much rarer.</p>
<p>CountingDown - Don’t you also know folks who attended “said tippy-top schools” and were blissfully happy? And folks who turned them down for the flagship due to cost and regretted the decision? I do. In my experience, the two extremes occur about equally.</p>
<p>CJ - The only problem with the State School Strategy is being SURE that you’ll be at the top of your class in 4 years. You WILL have competition for that level of success.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=Iron Maiden]
He wanted to spend 4 years where he would challenged, felt comfortable, and would be taught be Profs rather than TAs. It was the right decision for him.
[/quote]
What if the best fit school by these criteria is an expensive reach school? That’s the case for many students who apply to LACs–to be taught by profs rather than TAs, and where they feel comfortable–yet end up with the large state flagship as their cheapest option. Honors programs are really geared for people who socially WANT a big school-spirited environment, not for true LAC-fit types–you will still take the majority of your classes as non-honors, and if in a popular major like Psych or English, class sizes don’t necessarily shrink much in the later years.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I am NOT a prestige-chaser. Without financial factors and peer pressure, I would choose Carleton or many other LACs over Yale any day. (Due to my family circumstances, Yale would be much cheaper AND more prestigious, which matters to my parents.)</p>
<p>But I’m also quite cynical about the non-cost (“feeling wanted” being much the same thing, as accompanied by $$) influences of turning down a CLEARLY higher ranked school. (Not the fine-line distinctions between Chicago and Ivy.)</p>
<p>Financial factors is a valid concern. Peer pressure should not enter at all into any decision like this. You may have to consider parental pressure if they are paying, but peer pressure - forget about it.</p>
<p>My son turned down Columbia Univ. for Oberlin Conservatory. It was not a matter of cost; it was because of a specific music program and private teacher. I wasn’t an easy decision, but it was absolutely the right one. He hopes to go to NYC for Grad. school.</p>
<p>^^ Well, a specific kind of peer pressure–depending on who else goes (and if I get in, chances are that many of this particular group will too, for an obscure reason), -I- will want to go to be with them. But that’s a terrible reason, and thus I term it “peer pressure.”</p>
<p>SJTH - Columbia and Oberlin’s Con are about equal in respective prestige (obviously in different circles), and Oberlin is probably better for music.</p>
<p>“nice” is good. We have encountered schools where everyone is “nice” and schools were there was clearly an “attitude” neither of which correlated with prestige or ranking. If it were me going to college I’d pick nice anyday. Responsiveness, also. We were on a trip and a couple weeks before I sent an e-mail to a possible school telling them we wanted to stop by and that we couldn’t be sure of timing and how flexible were they with drop-ins. Neither Son nor I heard anything back, not an e-mail not a postcard. Now 7 months later we are being bombarded by information and we’re 9 hours away and not returning to the area. We didn’t hear a response so we “never” stopped. Son has no interest and he would have been a very attractive candidate.</p>
<p>I turned down U of Michigan for Michigan State. </p>
<p>Both were essentially free to me so cost was not an issue. </p>
<p>However, I just plain liked MSU better than U of M. I liked the people, the programs, and the campus better. I just had to go with my gut of where I wanted to be for 4 years.</p>
<p>I think “nice” is important. When DS1 had a 105 temperature for over a week, I was surprised by how many of his profs sent him emails asking how he was and telling him not to worry and that they would help him “catch up” with whatever he missed in class. Nice is nice!</p>
<p>I turned down Cornell and Dartmouth for JHU. I really do not love cold weather, and Cornell is so gray and cold all winter and through much of the fall. Dartmouth is beautiful, but very isolated, with difficult traveling options…not to mention all that snow! Comparing the PAs for these schools told me that Hopkins is at least on par academically with my other choices, so I felt comfortable making my selection. I made the right choice, because I loved Hopkins, and am so grateful for the quality of education that I received, and my long lasting friendships. It was so much fun, and a great choice for me.
I am attending an Ivy grad school now, and I can tell you that more that a couple of professors have mentioned how impressed they are with the Hopkins education.</p>
<p>Mine turned down a top ten for a lower ranked State U. because of cost alone.</p>
<p>I have got to wonder if elite private graduate and professional schools will give preference to private school graduates over public school graduates with only slightly better test scores and GPA’s, activities, etc. in the interest of “defending the franchise”.</p>
<p>Private schools have got to offer something for their immense costs. Perhaps graduate/professional admission over better qualified public school students is or will become part of the payback.</p>