<p>I had never thought of trying to download a lecture ....
Besides this, are there other ideas out there on how to judge whether a student it likely to be "challenged"? The overnights and class visits all have seemed a bit contrived to my S - fun, but not quite sure how "real". If you don't know any students there personally, how can a prospective student guage the academic rigor or class involvement?
Or maybe the visits are more "real" than he thinks?</p>
<p>Hey, if money is not an issue, send them where they want to go. Let them make the decision so if they are happy, you are happy. If they are not happy, they have to take responsibility. Being in a class full of high achievers can be stimulating, necessary, stressful, or even a turn-off depending on your S/D. Your child is growing and becoming and academics are extremely important, but "definately" not everything.</p>
<p>Different issue entirely for those of us to whom money is an issue. Honest, money and a critical mass of bright students are not mutually exclusive. Just because a school is willing to give your student lots of money does not make them lame, it makes them wise!</p>
<p>I think teachers must teach to the mid range of their class. I taught at 2 different law schools, a top one and an average one. I taught the same material. The speed at which I could teach was different, the context of class discusions was different and oh my were the test papers of different quality.</p>
<p>My overall feeling is that the very top colleges are cherry picking a phenomenal group of future leaders. If you can have 4 years among this group without too much financial stress I see it as an amazing opportunity.</p>
<p>kirmum:</p>
<p>Amen, Amen, Amen.</p>
<p>What a great discussion - respectful, interesting, insightful.</p>
<p>DD doesn't have the full information on her applications yet, but we do know that $ will play some part in deciding where she will go. She wants to go to grad school eventually but is far from deciding what field. This is a kid with great math and science skills who says she wants to learn about different countries and learn lots of languages, so there are many possibilities in her future. She reads poetry and novels and seeks out interesting films and music, but not with anything I'd consider intellectual focus or drive. So I'm sure she will take some time to explore and find her passion and she has the smarts to do so. This can happen in a variety of settings, but she does not want to be around people who party all the time and show no dignity (my word, not hers). But she also doesn't like the kids like the ones in her honors/AP classes who just care about their grades.</p>
<p>My daughter took the full scholarship 4 years ago instead of the admittance to the top tier schools she was admitted to. She will be graduating in May with no debt. She won several years of outside scholarships, and this year has a school internship which also covers her room, board, most of her books, and a lot of spending money. Our costs for each semester this year was $634.00. </p>
<p>For the most part, she doesn't regret her decision (she could have gone to U of Florida, and does kind of regret the excitement of the Basketball and Football championships.) Other than that, she loves it. She is well known, well liked by her fellow students and her professors. There were a few lower level classes that she felt were "too easy", but she sought out the harder professors, and learned a great deal both in and out of class.</p>
<p>Her scholarship paid for her semester abroad. It also paid for her to attend a summer class at LSE. (We had to pay about half, but it was much cheaper than it would otherwise have been.)</p>
<p>The results -- she was offered a job at a top NY investment firm in October. It was her first interview, and she starts this summer. She did intern with the firm last summer, but most of the kids she was with did not go to the "elite" schools, and were all probably offered jobs, if they wanted them.</p>
<p>We have contributed to her Roth IRA to reward her for all of her hard work. She has said more than once that she is so grateful not to have any debt. Good jobs can come out of schools that aren't top tier. She has a number of friends who have been selected for Med school and law school. If she chooses to go to grad school down the road, she won't have the burden of undergraduate debt. She has earned all that she accomplished. I don't think she would do it any other way.</p>
<p>"Only a virtual handful of kids every year actually turns down actual acceptances at HYPS or MIT to go anywhere other than another of those schools."</p>
<p>It probably happens more than you think ut it happens at the self-selection stage. Brains and talent in the country are probably distributed more or less equally across all economic classes in the country though undoubtedly actual academic performance does not reflect that for all the social reasons any idiot can list. The relative paucity of truly middle class kids at HYPS strongly suggests that the best amongst them must be self-selecting out - probably based on the merit blind admissions policies of these schools and the high EFC's a middle class student and his family would have to deal with. The net result is I think you will find a lot of next tier honors programs and state u honors programs packed full with a lot of very very impressive kids who never said hello to a HYPS admissions officer even in an email.</p>
<p>Back to the hard question
Defining "too much financial stress"
If you are not used to debt at all, then it seems like an absolutely crazy thought to borrow 40k for an undergrad experience. Yet I hear people saying this is a good idea. For those without accountants, financial advisors, etc - because there are no investments - this question of defining appopriate debt is a new language.</p>
<p>kirmum</p>
<p>My question to you is: After all is said and done and both sets of law school students have passed the bar exam, does one have a huge advantage over the other? I really am asking because I don't know.
It would seem to me that in some fields it might make a difference where you graduate from, but in others it might not make as much of a difference to employers.
Maybe the major chosen has to be factored into the discussion of Ivy vs. top LAC.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why wouldn't it be better to be attending HYP vs top LAC or even top UC, so that she could finally be in a place where she could be in a classroom of bright/creative students-instead of just 3 or 4 students
[/quote]
</p>
<p>One take on why to look beyond the "peer factor" in assessing fit: I think Tarhunt's brilliant letter of recommendation has part of the answer: true wonderchildren are pretty rare, even at HYP. And Curm's D's description of the top 20% at Rhodes supplies the other part: if you've got that kind of critical mass of bright, hard-working (and above all) intellectually curious students, you've got the peer ingredient that you're looking for.</p>
<p>I think it's a bit disingenous to equate the "top 20%" of any college as being comparable. I don't think there is a critical mass of intellectually curious students at a good number of US colleges and universities, even a good number of well ranked ones.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. We've already spent a lot of time thinking about this. Have sent both sons to elite schools, for reasons of fit. In our desire to be fair, we wanted the best for D as well. What we have learned is that "best" and "best for D" might not be defined the same way.</p>
<p>Early on D's tendency was to look for name brand schools in big cities - because that's what big bros had. We just didn't see her as a big city kind of kid. We had to guide her through some soul-searching to discover that she needed to choose schools where SHE would be happy, because her brothers would not be going there.</p>
<p>Bro #1 is a brain. Bro #2 is a gifted musician. Little sis is quite smart, but not bro #1. She is quite talented musically, but not bro #2. Finding a place for her meant starting from scratch. No Ivies, no conservatories. Which, in the end, has been a blessing. It meant the college search was all about her. Not about competing with her brothers. Not about competing with friends. Not playing some game of gotcha. </p>
<p>Early on in our search, Carolyn offered a great tip about not only exploring what schools had to offer you, but what you had to offer schools. We took that to heart, and found that this process helped us figure out what schools meshed best. </p>
<p>Due to a convoluted financial situation over the past few years, we have need, but FAFSA does not recognize it. So money will play a role. Not a huge one, but fortunately, D likes all six of the schools she applied to, and merit aid will probably buy her affection.</p>
<p>higherlead: If you read my statement carefully, it acknowledges your point. Many kids feel like they are choosing College X over Harvard when they decide not to apply to Harvard, and that's fine. But the question the OP asked was Harvard at $25K vs. Centre for free?, and it seems relevant to me to note that not many people choose anything other than Harvard in that situation.</p>
<p>One can also note that of the 22,000 kids who apply to Harvard, relatively few choose to apply to Centre, notwithstanding that many of them would probably be excellent candidates for a top scholarship there.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, if all those kids who don't apply to Harvard notwithstanding their great qualities applied to Harvard, almost none of them would be accepted. That's because almost no one who applies to Harvard now gets accepted, and there's no evidence that the pool of non-appliers to Harvard is substantially stronger than the unbelievably strong pool of kids who DO apply.</p>
<p>By the same token, if all those Harvard applicants applied to Centre, almost none of them would get a full-ride scholarship, because Centre doesn't give out so many of them, and hardly anyone gets one already. The composition of the interview pool might shift a couple of degrees, but the mere fact that someone was accepted at Harvard doesn't mean he or she could have snapped fingers and commanded a lucrative LAC scholarship to appear. (State unis may be a little different -- they might actually absorb the 2,000 kids Harvard accepts.)</p>
<p>Everyone: I just want to make clear that I don't make nearly enough money not to feel real pain from an extra $25,000/year. I can do it, but it hurts a lot.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't think there is a critical mass of intellectually curious students at a good number of US colleges and universities, even a good number of well ranked ones.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No argument here--my point is that being sure that there is a core of such students is more important than that they're 20%, 40%, or 60% of the student body. Once you've achieved critical mass, you can worry about factors other than having enough interesting peers, and HYP doesn't have a lock on that kind of environment.</p>
<p>binx, coherent methodical thinking.</p>
<p>JHS, same to you. But Pain is paying money for local taxes when you don't use the schools, have to persuade the trash to be removed, gnash teeth at heating bills, and almost every crack the money trickles into. Paying that tuition for your kid might be the only blessed pleasant way so spend the filthy lucre,..</p>
<p>A slight change of direction...but I think still related to the topic of this thread:</p>
<p>Curm has mentioned on this thread, and others, that his daughter was particularly attracted to the promise of doing "real" publishable research as at St. Judes as part of her special scholarship at Rhodes. Do you think the full ride at Rhodes would have won out over Yale and Amherst if this very specific research component had not been part of the offer? Did she feel that similar opportunities would not exist at Yale Med school for an undergrad?</p>
<p>Some of these full ride, or near full ride, offers contain so much more than a financial comparison. To those who need to quantify things, these "extra" opportunities could probably be quantified...but it's important to note that there's often much more offered than just $$. Does that research opportunity (or some of the other special opportunities listed on this thread and others) counterbalance being with the (debatable) cherry picked group of phenom leaders?</p>
<p>
Well stated. I think that captures a huge part of the reason that the very-most-selective-option-possible is not right for every kid. My kid found the necessary critical mass at 3 schools - all different - but liked the "other factors" at the two that were somewhat less selective than the elite.</p>
<p>
I'm not seeing it AM. Help me out here by fleshing this out if you would. Equate the top 20% of any college with what? Comparable to what? Where do you think there is a critical mass of intellectually curious students? Sorry, I am just not "with it" today.</p>
<p>I have a few thoughts on this topic:
1. Don’t you wish life were like duplicate bridge? You could play it one way, then move on to another seat at the table and play it again another way. We were able to pay so our son took the path of least resistance and applied ED to a non-merit school. I do believe that had he ended up at one of his “safeties” he would have received a good education, but comparable? Now, knowing what I do about the experience that he’s HAD (past tense) at Williams it’s impossible to even consider risking any of the benefits incurred. I’m just sincerely grateful for the opportunities that he's had.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The peer group is supremely important, but at the Second Circle” schools in addition to the very smart and accomplished kids who are lured by merit you’ll find uber-intelligent kids who don’t have the grades and scores to get admitted to super-selectives. I think there’s enough material to form a critical mass of brain power among the population at Second Circle school, even at a small LAC.</p></li>
<li><p>The factor that I think is the most persuasive is the caliber of the faculty. If you peruse the line-up at the most selectives and compare pedigrees with the professors at the Second Circle may find a considerable difference. Teaching positions at these schools are highly coveted and highly competitive. They go to the best and brightest and like any job recruiting and attracting top talent is a complex and multifaceted endeavor that involves families, environment, opportunity for advancement. Try it as an experiment: take a department at a superselective and the same department at a potential merit school. Compare where the professors did their PhDs. Here’s an example comparing art history departments:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Williams: Pennsylvania, Harvard, Columbia, Bryn Mawr, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford, BU, Rochester,
Smith: Columbia, London, Berkeley, Yale, Harvard, UCLA, Chicago, Cornell
Kenyon: Kansas, BU, Rutgers, Oregon, Louisville<br>
Hamilton: Princeton, Michigan, Toronto, Cornell</p>
<p>Same goes for the number of faculty and the number of classes offered. The range is remarkable.</p>
<p>[Note, 5 years ago when my son was applying, Hamilton and Kenyon were considerably less selective than they are now. I have no way of knowing whether they would have offered my son merit money, but for the sake of argument let’s just say they would have. Obviously my son wouldn’t have considered Smith, but I include it because I think it’s a viable choice in this discipline for the other 50% of the population. Also, I acknowledge that Williams is a powerhouse in art history so maybe it would impossible to find another LAC that stacks up, but I guess personization is the point of this discussion.]</p>
<p>My conclusion: My son wouldn’t have found the same breadth and depth of experience and education among the people who have taught him at his less selectives. </p>
<ol>
<li>Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water, along come graduate/profession school. We’re now having the same d?j? vu all over again. Go for the money or go for the name? And pursuant to point 3, think about the connections for those recommendations.</li>
</ol>
<p>Do you think the full ride at Rhodes would have won out over Yale and Amherst if this very specific research component had not been part of the offer? Did she feel that similar opportunities would not exist at Yale Med school for an undergrad?</p>
<p>Hmmmm. Since it is not a guarantee that she will get it (although she feels she will) I would say that it was not the specific program itself. More the fact that Rhodes had St. Judes, a connect with the researchers at The University of Tennessee Med School several blocks away, and the very exciting research done in Rhodes' own labs (which she is now engaged in and will attend something called the Serym ). She knew she'd get to choose but even she was surprised that she's doing real stuff as a freshman at a cancer research lab funded by an NSF grant for the next three years. </p>
<p>So, no. Not the specific program but the idea that it was there waiting on her to put on her lab coat where at Yale she wasn't as sure. She was pretty sure. She doesn't lack for confidence. So if she had been deciding between Yale and a scholarship at any other school the size of Yale where she felt the research opps were the same, she'd be at Yale. </p>
<p>And before someone asks why not Amherst? D said "If I'm turning down a full ride to Rhodes, I'm going to Yale." I don't think any of us are completely immune to the siren's call. At least not any of us who admit to being sailors. ;).</p>