A website, complete with a forum for discussion, that I found helpful was College Confidential. It’s a bit overwhelming, so you may want to have some specific search terms in mind before you start browsing.
Also, as a parent who went through the college selection process about five years ago, I have to say I have always found @MandaJo’s posts on the matter to be very common-sensical. From my experience you can trust her observations.
(Sorry for the double post; I thought of some more stuff a few minutes later.)
Becoming a medical examiner/forensic pathologist is a challenging career path - if your daughter is an enthusiastic student in STEM classes, it may be a good fit. However, there are other options that might allow her to pursue her interests (depending on what specifically interests her about forensic pathology) if she decides she doesn’t want the long slog of getting into and completing medical school and a residency.
I don’t know a lot about it, but my son’s previous girlfriend started out wanting to be an ME, and when the STEM stuff proved too much for her (she liked biology but things like organic chemistry were too daunting), she explored other options. Forensic anthropologist, medical illustrator, coroner, and ME’s assistant were all careers she looked into.
I will say that these days your choice of university barely matters.
The edge cases are the Ivy League schools where you can come out making BIG BUCKS in a few professional areas such as attorney or doctor or engineer. No question a degree from MIT is super valuable. And I think the value of going to Harvard or Yale is mostly in the relationships you form which you can leverage for jobs down the road. This is no small thing and also very valuable.
But after that…degrees are all kinda same(ish). As long as she goes to an accredited 4-year university with a decent program in her chosen field she’ll be as well off as most anyone else.
It’s been a while but I used to work in HR for a national company and they didn’t care one whit where you went to school beyond it being a legit university (so NOT places like the University of Phoenix or Trump University). There are plenty of BS “universities” that are a ripoff.
If money is tight choose a state school. You’ll get the best deal in the state you live in but if she goes to another state she can apply to be a resident there and get a good deal. Each state is different and some are easy and some are hard to become a resident.
As long as they have a decent program for what she wants she’ll be fine. Every school is different in what they offer and what they excel at so you have to do your homework on them but no need to worry too much either.
Her first job will be the hardest to get out of school and after that her experience on the job and recommendations will matter waaaay more than what school she went to (with the caveat that she has all the appropriate accreditations for her job which will certainly require a degree or two).
To add:
Don’t be surprised if she changes majors. She might not…but also she might.
She’s young and figuring stuff out. It’s all part of the process. No big deal (usually…my nephew changed majors more times than I can count and was a perpetual student…there are limits to it).
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I did a lot of recruiting for a Fortune 500 company and our HR had a list of universities from which we took all our employees. Even at PhD level. The head of HR who reported to the billionaire CEO had to sign off on any exceptions and he usually said no.
Unfortunately the better schools get more attention from recruiters.
Make sure that she understands that ME is a government job. She’s not likely to make big bucks working for some county. An MD is expensive, and that has to be paid somehow.$250K in student loan debt and $60K in pay is a hard row to hoe.
StG
Is this for a first job?
Maybe I can see that.
But my brother never graduated from a university (he went and dropped out) and he is the most successful member of the family by far and has no shortage of people wanting him to work for them.
I am not saying to drop out of school, I am saying that after a few years of work most businesses care more about your work history than your school transcript.
But every company has its own deal and maybe your billionaire guy would tell Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to f-off because they had no degree.
My understanding is that these days colleges want to see someone applying early admissions, and a lot of the class is filled from that pool.
They also consider applicants who have visited more serious than those who don’t. Plus, getting the sense of the campus and the students is very important. My two daughters went to two very different types of schools and they both were happy with their choices - and would have been miserable at the other choice.
As for CCs, one of my daughters went to some CC classes in high school and found the college age students unmotivated. Back then we knew kids who went to CC (which was cheap) only to stay on the parent’s insurance. This was before ACA. That is a bad environment in which to learn, especially if you are living at home.
On the other hand we visited a CC in Western Wyoming (for the dinosaur statues) and the place had dorms, was gorgeous, and seemed to have motivated kids.
Yes, this was recruiting from college. Now it is true that college isn’t as important once you have experience, but the company you work for is, and it is easier to get into a top company from a top college. I worked in tech at top tier companies, and we recruited from companies like us, and it was easy for me to move from one top company to another.
Sure Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Scott McNealy laughed at him for it. But he had a rich father, and doing that is easier with a good support system.
Sure…if you (general “you”) want to work for a top tier company for a really nice salary straight out of college you need to go to a college with a top tier program and come out of it near the top of your class.
If you do that awesome! You got the Gold Ticket. You worked hard (and will continue to) but you will be sought after by many employers.
That’s great. Really truly. But 95% of people don’t fall into that group. And that’s ok. No complaints. But it is fine if someone goes to the University of Iowa and graduates with a “B” average as opposed to MIT and graduates Summa Cum Laude.
The Iowa graduate will likely do just fine. Probably not as well as the MIT grad but still fine.
The point is, I don’t think it is useful to discourage anyone who can’t get into a super-school because a billionaire dickhead will deem them unworthy.
For your first job it defintly matters where you went to school and from what I’ve seen your second job has a lot to do with where your first job was. What I mean is that if you don’t get recruited into a fortune 500 company at the start trying to move into one from a small company is very difficult and for that matter I’ve seen a lot of small companies refuse to hire people who have too much time at large companies on their resume too. Of course most of this is in the oil field and its its own thing but it seems that way in the mining world too from watching my wife’s career.
Starting off your career with a name brand college makes it easier to get a name brand first job which opens up a lot of options for a second job. I’m fortunate I accidentally went to a top 3 college in the world for petroleum engineering I never looked for a job for more than a month because there was always an alumnus willing to put in a good word and hire me. You see the same thing with Texas A&M kids once a company hires one they multiply like flees (aggie joke but also true) they have an amazing alumni network.
I went to the best school in my region for grad school and while it was a lot more fun and they took better care of the students the recruitment was not the same. Go to the best school you can if you want to be an ecologist go to UC Davis not Arkansas Tech.
Yeah…as I said, there is definitely an advantage to going to a top-tier school. No question about it.
But the vast majority of people don’t. I am speaking to them. The other 95% that makes up the vast majority of the US workforce.
If the OP’s daughter can get into a top-tier school then yeah…she should absolutely go for that. It can definitely pay off.
Although I am not sure that there are really wealthy MEs who went to Ivy League schools and not so wealthy MEs who didn’t. I could be wrong though.
I wasn’t saying that someone not going to a top college will starve. I’m saying that the quality of the college makes a big difference to lots of companies - which you didn’t seem to believe was true. And we did have a GPA cutoff, under which the recruiters wouldn’t talk to you, but no thought about top of the class.
BTW you can’t graduate MIT Summa Cum Laude. MIT does not even publish class rankings. People are crazy enough out of self motivation, no need to increase it.
BTW the people I know who work for Microsoft are the opposite of lazy.
And the billionaire in question is indeed a dickhead. He didn’t enjoy his (very good) undergraduate school so at one point we weren’t allowed to recruit from there.
I’m not defending it, just giving what goes on.
That’s interesting. I don’t know if it works that way for tech, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Do you think that the small companies figure the new employee would be looking for a chance to jump back into a big company?
Great thread and I’m glad there’s a challenge to the way too prevalent advice about community college is THE way to go.
My random thoughts:
One thing to keep in mind is that in many community college classes you’re going to have a lot of non motivated students, many of whom have no idea what they’re doing there except that they didn’t have the high school grades to get into a 4 year school.
As far as the transfer to a 4 year college, as mentioned above, the credit will transfer for almost every class but they might not be exactly what you need. The physics example above is a good one but the same can be said for economics. The college economics classes may not be rigorous enough and they’ll only be accepted for general studies credit, fine for English majors, but not for business, engineering or Economics majors. Trying to teach economics without math is like teaching sex ed using only Disney films.
There’s also the constantly changing nature of general studies at 4 year universities. Diversity is hot and will likely be getting hotter. Michelangelo and Shakespeare exclusively ain’t gonna cut it, you’re probably going to need the Art of Africa or LGBT writers.
Also, there’s definitely something to be said by being surrounded by other motivated students who are focused on school, a lot of the socializing helps with school and life in general. Sitting in a community college class with someone who’s just pulled the overnight shift at Walmart isn’t likely to be joining you for coffee after class where you can study and work on assignments. This goes double when you’re away from home and you’re all figuring out life together.
Other random thoughts:
Definitely focus on the 4 year graduation rate. My school used to be infamous for the 5 year plan, now that’s a scarlet letter. Advisors definitely work hard with students to keep them focused. Dropping under 12 hours is now a serious pain as well as endless major changes after the first couple of years.
I’d suggest having your daughter pick a couple of schools and follow them on social media, larger schools will likely have a second social media account for admissions as well as the general school site. Larger schools will also have an app she can download. Finally, there’s also YouTube. The school will have an official YouTube channel but there’s likely to be lots of other videos about it. Maybe there’s even a student with their own YouTube channel.
Even if she decides that school definitely isn’t for her, it’s not bad to learn what you don’t like.
I think MandaJo made some great points about community colleges but I think alot depends upon the CC and the program.
For example Lake Area Tech in Watertown South Dakota. You talk about getting that first job? This school boasts a 99% employment rate.
They have a Medical Laboratory Technician 2 year degree (cost around $8,000 a year) that has an 82% graduation rate, a 97% employment rate, and a average graduate income of $20.12 an hour 6 months after graduation.
No, a med lab tech isnt nowhere near the same as a medical examiner but my point is many CC’s offer programs that can lead to good careers or they can be careers that can be stepping stones if they want to go onto other careers. Maybe your daughter can look into some of those?
Hey. If you are getting overwhelmed ( and you likely are), first steps are:
Money first. I cannot emphasize this enough. Way too many families think of the money as the last step, and it isn’t. The money situation controls the list of schools–and it’s way more complex than rich kids can look at fancy schools and poor kids can’t. It’s almost the opposite, in fact.
If you can tell me her course rigor (what % of advanced classes offered at her school does she take?), GPA, and SAT or ACT (or PSAT), I can give you much more specific advice.
No, some of its culture and some of it is job duties. When I’ve worked for the large companies I was a widget designer and I was expected to know everything about widgets including how they fit into the big picture. I wasn’t expected to be able to design doohickies that would come later in my career when the doohicky designer would switch jobs. The theory was after a decade or more I’d have a deep knowledge about a bunch of stuff.
When I worked for the small (I still ran a department with a 100 mm budget) company I was expected to be able to do all of the jobs in my department on day 1 since if the dookicky guy was out then I was going to do both jobs until he got back from vacation. There was still specialization I wasn’t expected to randomly work in another department but my job was very broad. At the end of my oil field career I went back to a large company and was miserable because they stuck me back in the hole they had for me rather than letting me range.
Now close to a decade later I’m involved in a sanitizer start up running logistics and engineering. Some of the logistics people were brought in from fortune 100 companies. I had to sit down with everyone of them to explain that their job wasn’t narrow they didn’t get to finish a spreadsheet and hand it off they hand to follow it for its whole life and were responsible for everything involving it. I remember on guy who thought his job was just to compile inventory counts from other people whenever they go around to it and he could publish missing or incorrect data if they didn’t meet his publication timelines he was quite surprised when I told him since other people were unreliable his job was now to go out and support himself and do the inventory counts right. He quit two months later when he realized he wanted to go back to his cube.
I’m obviously biased since I chose the small companies over the big ones. My wife kind of the opposite she works for some of the largest companies in the world and was shuffled into a roll that is very focused. Everytime she tries to get out they tell her she doesn’t have the necessary experience to leave her roll. She is well regarded in he field so she stays. After close to two decades in the roll across 4 companies she finally went to a consulting company that would allow her to expand her role and almost immediately found herself running a startup. Now she complains that she is expected to write the COVID plan for her company or spend a month interviewing new hires instead of her roll of developing new technology for the firm.
Just to echo a couple of points that others have already made:
Do not assume that the “sticker price” is what you would actually pay to attend a particular institution!
Going away to college is a very different kind of life experience from living at home and taking classes at the local community college: one that may be a lot better for her—but that’s going to depend on the student, the campus, and the home situation, and may still be influenced by Covid next year.
I can’t argue with most of that MandaJo. Part of my success was probably due to going back to college being a little older and more mature. What I will dispute is the ease of getting a significant scholarship.
Unless you consider “middle class” to be high income the scholarships just aren’t there for the vast majority of students. My oldest son got a 50% scholarship for playing college football which was huge for us but is definitely not the norm. My second son had to borrow it all; actually they forced my wife and I to take on about 1/2 of his student debt. My daughter is doing running start at a local CC and so her first two years will be paid for. Hopefully she come out better financially than my second son.