<p>Oldfort and Readingnow are correct. It’s a nice looking campus in a warm location with a ton of majors. They got D’s info from College Board. I have been amazed at how many schools have done the same thing. I guess it is all about marketing these days and getting your application numbers up.</p>
<p>I am also good at name that poster, and name that boyfriend.</p>
<p>^^^ I want to see oldfort compete against that student from North Texas (per latichever). ;)</p>
<p>Rollins College near Orlando</p>
<p>Sorry; I missed it was Barry. I know that Lynn and Rollins try to lure good students to their campuses.</p>
<p>Barry is down here in my neck of the woods. It’s awful. Glad your daughter had the sense to decline the offer. She would have been miserable.</p>
<p>And Lynn caters a lot to kids with learning diffrences</p>
<p>Oh, bookworm! Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the fact that you would utter the name of Rollins in this conversation suggests we need some help defining tiers on this site! 
My research suggests there’s something like a 275 point spread in average SAT between Rollins and Barry, and a six-point difference in average ACT (27 Rollins; 21 Barry). U.S. News calls Rollins College the #1 regional university in the South. There’s no comparison between Rollins and a school such as Barry (or any other accredited institution whose base is truly average and even significantly below average students).</p>
<p>Glad I checked back before leaving for work</p>
<p>Sorry. My colleague has taught evening classes at Barry, and his UG was Harvard. I know other faculty there, but no students. Never seen the campus. I have seen F.I.U. Lynn and Rollins are beautiful.</p>
<p>Rollins: SATs 1140-1300 ACT 24-29</p>
<p>I had Rollins on my mind, because I’ve been talking to Dean there. I also know many contented Lynn students.</p>
<p>It seems that most people have these fixations on what is or isn’t a top shelf/brand name/first class education. Isn’t it about what you do with that education? How many top shelf dude left their school to go find their fortunes as entrepenuer without ever taking one business/enterpenuership course was it the school or was it inherently the person? What difference does it make if you scored 36 on the ACT or 24 if neither student can read a map to find the classroom on campus? I really wonder if as I read all these post just how many people here actually graduated from the schools that they so long to have their children attend? Maybe it’s just my midwestern sensibilities or all the HYPS/stay home moms that are dropping their kids off this morning at my kids school or the unemployed Ivy dads that are trying to lose weight, get plugs and get back in shape to appear younger and more vigorious, because they have to compete for a job with my son who is graduating from one of those second tier/regional universities 100% debt free.</p>
<p>I’m an Accountant CPA/MBA and we have a rule called “substance over form” and I think that rule is applicable to education as well--------the education and what you do with it is more important than the wrapper of the package and names are nothing more than a entry point after that it’s about merit and ability.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re right, but the fact remains that there are qualitative distinctions among institutions of higher learning, and there are still people who aggressively deny that fact. HYPS is no magic ticket to life success; but sending one’s kid to a low-ranked, bargain bin school that is a poor fit for her abilities and telling yourself that it won’t have any negative impact on the educational experience is willful self-delusion.</p>
<p>Check out the specific faculty in the specific department that she’s interested in as her primary subject – check out the publications and research of the faculty members, bearing in mind that people can and do move. I’d personally be more worried about a situation where my child would be taught and mentored by people who have never written on the subject, do not keep up with the literature in their fields, do not regularly present at conferences and who have few contacts with others in the field – than I would by the name or ranking of the university itself. Look at where the faculty got their graduate degrees and where else they have worked.</p>
<p>gotta give readingnow and oldfort a shoutout for their sleuthing skills. Here’s the most recent CDS I could find on Barry’s website: <a href=“http://www.barry.edu/includes\docs\institutional-research\cdsbarry11-12.pdf[/url]”>Error - Barry University, Miami, FL; Although I understand that Barry is off the list for the OP’s d, I find it interesting to look at what the data says about the incoming freshman class in 2010.</p>
<p>Of 651 enrolled students, zero percent scored 700-plus in Math, and 4 percent (26-ish of 651) scored 700-plus in Critical Reading on the SAT. 8 percent (52-ish) scored between 300-399 in Math, and 10 percent (65) scored in that range for critical reading. A student who scored 1430/2150 would have to look hard to find academically similar classmates. That may be more important to some than others.</p>
<p>The real tell is the 6-year graduation rate of 35 percent for the class that entered in 2003. I’m not at all locked into the mindset that says kids should go to the most prestigious or selective school they can afford. I can see that there are excellent reasons for high-scoring kids to pass up very highly regarded schools for unknown ones. But I think there is a point at which quality of the school trumps what the kid can make happen for him or herself there, and that schools like Barry are beyond that point for students like the OP’s d.
Going way out on a limb here and positing that the kid who scored 36 will figure out how to read the map. If you’re referring to common sense, kids who score 36 will usually pick some of that up along the way. And kids who score 24 do pretty well for themselves, too.</p>
<p>While I agree, for the most part, that your education is what you do with it, but, for college, name recognition and connections do have a lot to do with getting that first job in many fields. A student that did an “build your own” engineering major at Barry has zero chance of getting an engineering job out of college, for example. For careers like accounting, that doesn’t matter as much because there is another “test” to take before you can get that job that will determine how well you did in college and what you learned in college so where you go doesn’t matter as much.</p>
<p>
soccerguy, the school in question had 1000 at the “upper quartile,” which I took to mean the 75th percentile. You’d have to look at some place like Ferrum College to be below that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So true, and yet as I read this thread, what I’m feeling is that many of these fields with outside accrediting bodies are considered second tier careers. Oh well, you only want to be a teacher or a nurse or pursue something locally . . . </p>
<p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe I am just sharing midwest sensibilities with Schoolhouse. </p>
<p>Or my religious upbringing is taking offense with the idea of service professions being relegated to second tier.</p>
<p>Or my blue collar background is bubbling up at what looks like real snobbery because we’re not talking smack about just the school but other students, other human beings, at said school. </p>
<p>I don’t know why this is bothering me so much. Really, if you’ve got the money to spend, education is a great thing to spend it on. Why not go for the best school you can afford? Why not buy the advantages that come with the better school? It’s really not that different from any other purchase. And bottom line, there would be schools I would discourage my own kids from attending.</p>
<p>OP: I know you’ve heard many opinions on the matter already but I just thought I’d share my experience as a parent. My S1 had a full ride offer at Auburn last year and it was pretty hard to pass up but we did. He is attending Stanford and our EFC a little over $15K. Together with the student expectation, we pay a little over $16K since he received an outside scholarship to help. I know that many people are going to say that where you get your UG doesn’t matter and for the most part I agree. Many schools will give a similar academic eperience. In fact, he had other offers that would have given him some help but I told him I just couldn’t justify paying thousands of dollars when his education could be free. I did, however, relent when the Stanford acceptance came in. I just figured that opportunities like that didn’t come around often. In no way do I mean to disparage Auburn as I am sure they are a fine institution. I do, however, think that it has been worth the cost as he has been challenged already (got a “B” first quater… the first of his life) and absolutely loves the school. When he fell in love with the school after his first visit, it was hard to say no to him.</p>
<p>I do not regret the money we are spending in sending him there. I’m sure we could have put the money to good use but I knew he had worked hard for that opportunity and so couldn’t take it away from him. You just have to decide if it is worth it in your situation. I hope everything works out.</p>
<p>Speaking of the Jeopardy College Championship… Tonight’s episode will feature a student from Goucher College.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Blessed!?
Well, I guess since the football season is over, God has time now to put money in bank accounts.</p>
<p>The only think I’ll concede being “blessed” with is my two children.</p>
<p>Everything else I worked damn hard for.</p>
<p>To add to Tripletime’s comment:</p>
<p>UVA is not Stanford, but it’s only a small step down from Stanford in the academic pecking order. It is one of the most highly respected public universities in the country – there are only four or five others on its level.</p>
<p>To give up a school like UVA for a no-name small private school with low admissions standards and no reputation would be a huge sacrifice.</p>
<p>I realize that at one point, your daughter expressed a preference for Clemson over UVA. This choice would need to be made thoughtfully, but it’s not in the same league as the choice between UVA and the college we’ve been talking about.</p>
<p>Tripletime,</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son on getting into Stanford. I feel compelled to note, though, that the choice your family made is not in the least analogous to the hypothetical choice the OP posed. Many people would support the choice of Stanford, one of the most selective institutions in the nation, at a “reasonable cost” (let’s assume for now that your EFC was “reasonable” for you), over Auburn, a solid but much more accessible institution, for free. Maybe most people would. Put it this way, there’s every possibility you would be embroiled in something like a 50-page thread if you made the other choice (witness the long and winding discussion over a young valedictorian’s choice of Baylor over Harvard, if you dare: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1275140-michigan-valedictorian-chooses-baylor-over-harvard-yale-duke-rice-51.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1275140-michigan-valedictorian-chooses-baylor-over-harvard-yale-duke-rice-51.html</a>). But the post that launched this thread is about whether it would make sense for a high-stats kid to go for free to a school where ZERO percentage of the kids have an SAT M or CR over 700 and only 11 percent have scores above 600. Compare to Auburn: 15 percent with M scores over 700, 14 percent with CR scores at that level. Substantial percentages with respectable 600-700 scores for both M and CR. A smart kid at Auburn would not be surrounded by the smartest of the smart as he or she would at Stanford, but he or she would find a peer group. That would truly not be possible at a school such as the one that was on the table for a nanosecond for the OP’s family.</p>