Scarcity is precisely what’s driving that mentality. In the society (and in many people’s mind), scarcity and high value are nearly synonymous, rightly or wrongly. Just look at most luxury consumer products, or even products like precious stones or cryptocurrencies.
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My point is that those opportunities exist at publics too. My D’s friend did a fully funded trip to Finland for his research this year. Another was flown all over the country on the school’s dime to present at conferences. My D has classes as small as 10 people (and for the record, not an honors class, just a normal upper level course). The dean of her department knows every single student by name and knows where they are going to work or grad school, has taught them in one of their fundamental classes, and meets with them one on one. One of her profs is also on faculty at CMU, others are from Cornell, others from Stanford. And yes, there are also some from schools no one has heard of but that seems to be the exception, not the norm.
I’ll be honest that as an Ivy grad myself, we were skeptical until we saw first hand the public flagship resources. And I realize that I’m also only speaking about our own experiences with specific majors/industries with engineering/CS.
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I’m sincerely happy for your kid and their room mate for all the great opportunities available for them (seriously!). However if you’re spending $80-90K a year for college, a “fully paid” summer abroad isn’t exactly free.
My kid picked one of his less expensive options, partly because he’s interested in study abroad; this school (and the cost savings that go along with it) will give him a lot of financial and academic flexibility.
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Makes me think of the ‘free laundry’ touted by some schools we looked at. DH and I kept making, “Actually think that laundry costs about $70k/yr” asides to one another and giggling.
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At the $80K need-blind, no merit colleges that have fully funded, no-cost-to-the-user summer offerings, even a full-pay family is getting a significant subsidy on the true cost to educate their child. I think at MIT it’s in the neighborhood of $40,000.
ETA: check that, it’s $60,000
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I think @neela1’s point is that you don’t want the colleges that don’t provide those benefits if you’re going to spend that kind of money anyway.
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But the actual issue is that plenty of schools offer summer funding for internships and study abroad over the summers. The benefits touted by some as unique to ‘elite’ schools aren’t actually unique at all.
At almost every mid level SLAC we’ve toured (coast to coast) - summer funding, internships and connections are ubiquitous. As well as plentiful merit aid, in addition to need based aid.
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People have many reasons for paying less. I am not saying people should all spend 80k. This statement is politically incorrect — but I wouldn’t pay 80k if my kid wants a non lucrative major/career. We thought very hard for my other kid as to what we were willing to pay for, and draw a tight circle around that list of colleges. Even if the kid is commercially minded. And he is at a large flag ship public. And he sorely misses all the things that he would find at a small private. But he and us would not pay for small size if the private is also not well regarded in his major. So it varies from family to family, and what the needs of the kid are.
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Exactly. For example, Earlham offer $5k stipends for students to travel/intern/get clinical experience etc.
And students can get the $5k more than once, just a proposal required.
I’d agree with this, for sure. (I hope most of us here would agree…)
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Makes sense.
But I’ll add that - just as not all private schools are equal; nor are public flagships. The latter vary widely. Some are well resourced, provide a lot of opportunities, etc. while others do not. So the school matters, whether it’s private or public.
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I agree the school matters. I guess we were looking at CS and all publics were seriously under resourced and being OOS, not worth paying for. So all/most OOS publics seemed non viable for us. Unless you got into an honors program. If it is between an honors program at a large public (like a Turing or uiuc honors) and an Ivy, we still took the Ivy. Publics may feel like a better fit for other majors.
I mean I will point out, you can’t blame parents and kids for thinking this way when schools themselves advertise that they ‘produce’ world leaders and people who change the world. Harvard’s mission explicitly states that.
If that’s the case, no wonder people want to get in so desperately. Because who doesn’t want to learn how to be a world leader or to change the world.
My kids find the idea of becoming a world leader highly overrated 
I think I’d like to be one.
But I didn’t go to Harvard so I lack the secrets to be one 
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I wish you the best :-).
I think this must vary a lot by school (and probably also by major / department). We have mostly been looking at publics, and oddly enough, some of the higher ranked ones we visited seemed to have the most “under resourced” feeling and most competition for resources, with students complaining to my son about trouble getting access to professors or trouble getting resources for their projects. On the other hand, students at some less highly ranked (or less famous) schools seemed to have plenty of fantastic resources available, at least for the things my son wants to do.
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It is possible. For example my son got into UPitt CS. The class size seemed cozy. I was more open minded than him that we should go and visit. Eventually we wouldn’t have gone there I guess. He didn’t even want to visit. I was ok with that. It is really peer quality that you miss when you go down substantially in ranking — this is a sensitive topic on CC, so I won’t dwell on it. These are really network effects. Also the rigor of classes taught will depend on the capability of the students in the class.
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Agree with the posts above about the stupidity of a lottery system. What is a problem which feeds into the hysteria of the unfairness/randomness of admissions for “elite” colleges is the lottery like admissions rates, especially compared to historical rates. The number of seats has remained fairly constant – it is the tremendous increase in applications, IMO driven by the Common App. In my day, Ivy acceptance rates were north of 20%. Each application was unique and either were typed or handwritten. It was hard to apply to more than 5/6 schools.
I find merit in @prezbucky’s system, except it will never be done. I think a far more practical solution is to limit the number of certain schools that you can apply to through the Common App. To avoid any subjective determination on what is a T25 or T50 school, put any school that had an admissions rate of less than “20%” on the list of restricted schools where an applicant can only send “5” applications (actual numbers to be determined by analyzing application data so that restrictions will have an impact but still leaving applicants some amount of choice). I believe some elite private schools already practice this by limiting the number of schools that it allows its seniors to apply to.
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My son’s concerns about peer quality mostly evaporated when he observed which kids at his high school are planning to attend various types of schools. Some of the kids who are going to elite schools are not kids that he’d like to be in school with… and many great kids are going to non-elite schools, including schools that are not well-known or highly ranked nationally, but are simply good fits for those kids.
My husband and I do worry about peer quality… maybe more than we should, though. We are worry warts and worry about everything 
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