I second this! Even if you end up having to explain what your degree is to everyone you meet, it almost obligates you to pursue a graduate degree to give yourself definition.
(HH, a state university honors program grad)
I agree with this. I also think that you’re better off if you get a high GPA at a lesser chool than if you attend a prestigious school but struggle and wind up with a mediocre GPA, particularly if you’re thinking about graduate school. (And since college attendance is so common now, I think one should seriously consider grad school.) There’s also the advantage, at a smaller or lesser school, of being the big fish in a small pond.
I just wanted to make sure that people aren’t scared off by the high sticker prices at some schools.
However, some prestigious schools, appreciating this, have grade inflation (Harvard for instance - don’t know if they fixed it yet.) So it is not at all clear that you would get a GPA in a smaller school. It is probably a good idea to go to a school where you can do reasonably well, though.
bolding mine
I don’t think he’s suggesting that you’d get a better GPA at a smaller school (assuming the word “better” was intended but omitted from your post). Kind of the opposite, I think he’s suggesting that you might get a better GPA at a less expensive top tier state school than you might at a prestigious private school – say UVA (14,000 undergrads) or a UM (24,000 undergrads) versus Harvard (6,500 undergrads) or Yale (5,300 undergrads).
And by the way, it’s my understanding that damn near every institution has caught onto grade inflation – not to would concede inferiority.
I think we’re centering in on the real “is it worth it?” question, and that’s top tier private versus first and second tier public. It’s no secret that the vast majority of highly prestigious universities and colleges in the US are private. Is it worth it to spend a fortune on undergrad at Harvard, USNews #1*(knowing grad school is in the future) when you’ve got a free ride to UF, USNews #50 – literally the bookends of the top tier? What if it’s Notre Dame or Ohio State? I have made it clear that I think the most bang for the buck (particularly at the undergrad level) is at the state school.
*I know these polls are hated, but they are widely read. Inclusion is more indicative of prestige than exclusion.
simple. what’s the priority in allocating money? when you spend a couple million on a football coach, it’s that much less for a professorship.
Because of the huge scholarships available at small private liberal arts schools, it cost me a LOT less to get a bachelor’s degree at Agnes Scott College than it did to get a masters’ degree at the University of South Carolina. As for academic rigor, there is no compare. USC was almost insulting. Actually, let’s be honest and say it was insulting. Actually, I took a few undergrad classes for personal enrichment and it was a little downright depressing sometimes. I’d urge almost anybody to go to a small college, unless one wants to go into a field only available at a bigger place (for example, I might be wrong, but I suspect the best place for aerospace engineering is going to be Georgia Tech or MIT or somewhere.) There’s a big difference between Agnes Scott or Randolph Macon or Williams and Downtown Little Crappy Degree Granting Building, however.
Awesome campus. Easily the best kept secret in Decatur. I believe a few years ago, ASC had the highest per-pupil expenditure of any institution of higher education in the country. (I visited the campus for a few days doing research.) When I was at Emory we had the same food vendor (Aramark?) and I couldn’t believe how much better all the food was at Agnes Scott.
Just to add, the majority of students I met had huge financial aid support.
Hope you ate well when you were there!
Sadly, my alma mater (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) didn’t believe in grade inflation, or else my GPA would be less pitiful. But I’ve heard many stories about the grade inflation at Harvard. A few years ago, about half the grades issued at Harvard were A’s or A-'s. Apparently giving lower grades would discourage the apparently emotionally fragile students of Harvard University.
[Cite: A New York Times article of December 5, 2001 written by Jacques Steinberg: “Harvey C. Mansfield, a longtime professor of government who specializes in political philosophy, said he believed that his colleagues were awarding so many A’s because they feared discouraging students who had been accustomed to getting A’s all their lives.”]
I live just down the road from Agnes Scott. Great area!
Not counting royalty or those who inherited or married into money?
The richest people in America have attended college/university:
- Bill Gates, Harvard U.
- Warren Buffet, U. of Pennsylvania and U. of Nebraska
- Paul Allen, Washington State U.
- Michael Dell, U. of Texas
- Lawrence Ellison, U. of Illinois
A university is a collection of colleges and schools.
For instance, the University of Wisconsin-Madison includes:
• College of Letters and Science (social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences)
• College of Agriculture
• College of Engineering
• School of Education
• School of Business
• School of Nursing
• School of Music
• School of Journalism
• School of Medicine
• School of Law
• School of Pharmacy
etc.
Americans use “going to college” to mean going to both college or university.
I think the difference between the two come from old European classifications. A University is a collection of Colleges (the college of language, the college of philosophy, the college of math, etc at the university of XYZ). So a school that only offers a few degrees (Bachelors of Arts) is a college, but a university offers more than one degree.
As for you and your location, The Colorado College is an excellent school that offers two degrees: a Bachelors of Arts and a Masters of Arts in Teaching. You can study biology, math, literature, etc. But the degree you get is a Bachelors of Arts. Thus make it a College, not a University.
The Colorado College offers mass scholarships, especially to those who cannot afford their tuition. Check them out. Quality schools look for quality students first, then the money you can pay.
-Tcat
One of the most demanding and unsual educations that you can get is from St. John’s College (Annapolis and Sante Fe). It’s a very old college. I think perhaps the third oldest in the country.
It’s very small and has an unusual number of National Merit Scholars. All of the classes are required. The curriculum is based on the Great Books of the Western World series.
I graduated from Peabody College for Teachers. A few years later, it became part of Vanderbilt University and that’s what it says on my transcript. I think Peabody was harder to get into, but Vanderbilt was pricier at the time.
I’d bet you that a degree from, say Oberlin college, would be more respected than one from the University of Phoenix. But a degree from the University of Chicago would be more respected than one from, say, the College of the Ozarks.
The main difference IMHO is name recognition/reputation, regardless of the designation as University or College. A small private college might have outstanding programs, and built extensive ties to to the local community with an eye toward placing their graduates into decent career paths. And if you expect to remain the the vicinity after graduating, you couldn’t do much better than selecting such a school.
OTOH, if you want to move out of the area after graduating, there’s a good chance that this kind of degree won’t have any particular benefit. By which I mean it won’t help make your resume stand out from the others to a corporate type. They will recognize an Ivy League name, or a handful of others, a few like Oberlin, most of the others state universities. They understand that, if nothing else, getting through those schools wasn’t a cake walk. (Insert your own George Bush Ivy League education joke here.)
I’m not sure about the others, but Bill Gates dropped out before graduating. He probably isn’t someone you want to use to contradict that post.
The one thing that I believe many are forgetting is that it is not only the students and employers that are looking at a schools reputation or ???
It is also the faculty and administration that look at the schools reputation. Thus, the better teachers and administration look to where they want to be. And that can have a profound effect on the education that one ultimately receives, as well as the reputation that a school commands.
Sure, the best professor in the world could choose to work at the local community college. However, the resources that they can utilize in their own educational and professional pursuits can and would be limited to that that the school is able to provide.
A “better” school is made up of people that are superior at what they do and how they do it. In my experience, lower quality institutions focus on the theoretical and rote, whereas a higher level of education can be had in applicable concepts. The main example being that of a teacher that simply repeats exactly what is mentioned in a text versus one that is able to convey the readings into something that one can use in the real world.
So yes, a better ‘ranked’ or ‘reputable’ institution will provide a better education. The people there will give the student a better education than at other schools.
A school is, in reality, a combination of faculty, administration, students and resources (location, buildings, etc). Whatever the name, you need to look at the substance and how it will benefit you.
Best-
-Tcat
a. I am aware that he dropped out.
b. He probably is someone I do want to use to contradict that post, which talked about attending college, not graduating.
When I was there they redid the dining hall, which meant hell for a year but when it was done the new one was awesome! There was a Flatbread Dish of the Day, for example - always some tasty vegitarian ethnic thing. They baked all their desserts in-house, too.
They’ve built a new science building that’s supposed to be the bees knees. I’ve only been in the lobby but I hear the labs and all are super-nice.
I was totally shocked to get to USC and find out that Agnes Scott (when I was there, there were 700 and some students) graduates as many or more physics and astronomy majors than USC does. And those are hardly the big majors at ASC. You can also get a dual degree with Georgia Tech there and end up with degrees in, like, creative writing and aerospace engineering.