Which LAC you will go full pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

It's really crummy when parents don't set parameters around what they will or can pay before their kids apply to schools, and I find it particularly enraging when parents decide to pull the rug out from under their older, hard-working, high achieving child in order to subsidize their younger one(s). Would your niece get a good education and find like-minded peers at Macalester? Sure. But this student was accepted at Amherst, a school that, all of the anti-LAC troglodytes on this site notwithstanding, from an academic perspective is equivalent to HYP; and the fact that she apparently would be full-pay suggests that her parents can in fact afford to pay for it. If she goes to Macalester under duress, the only thing that will save her relationship with her parents will be if her sibling has to make an equivalent choice a few years down the road. If I were your niece and my parents decided not to pay for Amherst so that my lazier, dumber sibling could attend some mediocre school or I ended up choosing Macalester while my sibling got to attend Amherst or an equivalent three years later, I'd cut my parents off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Too funny and dumb. Hope the kid is smarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but if you are asking this question you probably should not send your kid to any LAC full pay.
I really don’t think there’s meaningful difference in their academic quality or financial outcomes of graduates in top 25 LACs. It really depends on kids.
They are much more similar to each other than different.
They are all very good.
In order for you to consider full pay, I think you should be comfortable paying it.
If not, please send your kids to public university and save money.

This! If you have to ask…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Too funny and dumb. Hope the kid is smarter.

Faculty at LACs do produce research. And since LACs also prioritize teaching, professors at LACs tend to be competent at both which is often not the case at universities (do you think that knowledge flows down from professors to students via osmosis?) There is also no indication here that the student in question applied to and/or was accepted at a major R1 university. So if anyone has limited intelligence, critical thinking skills and knowledge here, I'd say that the three posters I've quoted certainly do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Yeah so she can be a lapdog for grad students instead of doing research directly with a professor and possibly getting published.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Too funny and dumb. Hope the kid is smarter.

Faculty at LACs do produce research. And since LACs also prioritize teaching, professors at LACs tend to be competent at both which is often not the case at universities (do you think that knowledge flows down from professors to students via osmosis?) There is also no indication here that the student in question applied to and/or was accepted at a major R1 university. So if anyone has limited intelligence, critical thinking skills and knowledge here, I'd say that the three posters I've quoted certainly do.

Agree
If the kid is so brilliant she will do well
At either and then go to a great grad school. She should research which has better depts related to her interests and be done. I have heard lovely things about the culture at Mac not so much at Amherst, there will be smart kids at both so what does it mean to her to “find her people” ? Does she mean a welcoming community of hard working students or people who care about prestige as much as her family does?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Yeah so she can be a lapdog for grad students instead of doing research directly with a professor and possibly getting published.

Stop spreading your silly misinformation.

The gifted student needs to be in an educational environment that can match his needs. Small schools have limited course offerings and few professors.

[Anonymous]

If my kid really makes a good case for a college or university, that's where she'll go, no matter the price.

I need her to convince me, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

NP

Excellent point.

Agree that the student is too advanced to be limited by an LAC environment. Definitely needs an R-1 National University.

Too funny and dumb. Hope the kid is smarter.

The kid is too smart to be limited by an LAC environment. National Universities offer a greater breadth and depth of courses because they have a greater number of students and because they have graduate programs which this gifted student needs.

Tired of the LAC hucksters who post rude comments when someone doesn't buy into their ridiculous arguments that LACs are the greatest at everything regardless of the facts and circumstances.

[Anonymous]

First kid is going to SMCM full pay (merit scholarships but no need based aid). The major he wants is a well respected program there. He plans to go to grad school immediately after college. We will support him as much as we can with that too.

[Anonymous]

CMC: fit, no aid elsewhere, saved for any outcome, ROI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you do Amherst (full pay) vs Macalester (25K merit/year) for a high achieving kid (doing linear algebra and diff eqs in 12th grade) interested in math, econ, and languages? My niece is still deciding. Her parents would like her to choose Mac to save money for their second kid in the next few years but prestige and academic rigor do matter to her (and them, as they've instilled that in her) and she wants to go to Amherst to find her like-minded peer group.

I'm not sure a kid like this will find what she needs at a LAC. Wouldn't she be better off at a place where the faculty is active in research?

I think she ED'd to Brown and it didn't work out unfortunately. The college counselor sort of led the family to believe that she would be a shoe-in and then she had to scramble to complete other apps. I think her other options might be Michigan and UCLA (both OOS), though she is on the waitlist at Penn. I'm not sure why they haven't considered the other options as carefully.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but I have one kid at a LAC and one at HPY. Pay full price in the LAC is a better value. Way more time spent with the professor, smaller classes I could go on and on, so I don’t really understand this question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I have one kid at a LAC and one at HPY. Pay full price in the LAC is a better value. Way more time spent with the professor, smaller classes I could go on and on, so I don’t really understand this question

No you don't.

[Anonymous]

Funny- LACs send more kids as a percentage of the class to PhD programs than R1.