Are the NESCACs worth the money?
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Anonymous
How did you come to this conclusion ? NESCAC schools are ranked #1, #2, #6, #9, #13, #17 tie, #17 tie, #25, #46, & #50 LACs by US News. Tufts is ranked #28 National University by US News. |
Anonymous
+1 They've done a pretty convincing job of coming off as an abhorrent human being! 
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Anonymous
Nice sentiment, but an unreasonable statement without knowing each person's situation. Everything is relative. OP asked: "Are the NESCACs worth the money ?" The best answer may be: It depends. It depends on an individual's options. For example: Is Hamilton or Colby worth full pay $80,000+ per year versus a full tuition scholarship to a large public university honors college ? What if the honors college scholarship covered more than just tuition & fees ? What about any NESCAC at full pay versus Georgetown's School of Foreign Service or Penn's Wharton School ? What about any NESCAC at full pay versus any top 15 National University also at full pay ? What about full pay at any NESCAC for one intending to go to medical or law school with the option of a full tuition & fees scholarship elsewhere ? It is both a personal and a financial decision as to whether or not any NESCAC is worth the money. |
Anonymous
| I graduated from a NESCAC and have always understood the value proposition. DC graduated a different NESCAC and is at a FAANG earning nearly 200k two years out. Is a NESCAC worth it? I’d say yes if you can afford 85k/year because it’s an investment in your child’s future that’s enduring and will pay dividends over a lifetime. If you can’t afford the investment (and it’s important to understand that’s what it is) then the obvious answer is no, it’s not worth it. |
Anonymous
I do believe in a small liberal arts education, but for the quality of that education, not to guaranty a $200k salary a year-ish out of college. Someone posted on another thread that their kid is making $200k at a FAANG after dropping out of 2 years at Purdue, but presumably you wouldn’t recommend that. I know you noted the college experience is a “lifetime investment” and I agree. |
Anonymous
The isolation is a major negative. Worse than DCUM trolls. |
Anonymous
I think the big thing is that, for the right kid, going to the right NESCAC might be a lot of fun, and maybe less intimidating than going to Purdue or Virginia Tech. No parents who’d struggle financially to send their kids there should feel guilty about saying the aid package is too skimpy and they can’t afford it. But, if I heard of a high-income, wealthy person who refused to send a great kid to a school like that, just because the parent thought the state flagship was just as good, I’d look down on that parent a little. It seems to me as if the most wonderful luxury is to have a wonderful child and to be able to afford to send the child to a great school that the child likes. W |
Anonymous
Duke also has scholarships as well as Northwestern. I'm curious as to why PP chose to pick on Emory? WashU, Rice, USC, Carnegie Mellon etc are all ranked ahead of Williams College on the WSJ ranking. |
Anonymous
Because Emory’s yield is terrible. |
Anonymous
Northwestern merit scholarships must be new within the past 2 or 3 years. Might have been created as part of a reaction to two issues: 1) Fear of taxation of large college & university endowments which was / is being pushed by a longtime US Senator from Iowa; 2) In reaction to the current anti-trust litigation against 16 elite universities (including 6 of the 8 Ivies) regarding alleged cartel like collusion on need based financial aid. Defendant universities are: Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth College, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Yale, Duke, MIT, Chicago, Emory, Northwestern, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Rice, and Georgetown. The defendant universities thought that they were exempted from antitrust laws under an exemption numbered 568. Northwestern is awarding financial aid in an even more generous fashion than it did prior to the discussions involving the two topics that I noted above. https://bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/antitrust-suit-could-cost-elite-universities-billions/ The good news is that all of these 17 super-elite universities can afford to pay any such judgment--except for Georgetown University since its endowment is much small than that of the other defendant universities. |
Anonymous
Who cares? Everyone knows that Williams is the more prestigious school. |
Anonymous
| Nope |
Anonymous
I think it's still all need based, unless I missed something. My kid was accepted this year, and we got FA, so poured over those pages a few times! |