The Great Student Swap

[Anonymous]

We live in Westchester County NY. SUNY schools are very reasonable in cost in-state, especially considering how expensive most things are here relatively speaking. But there is no true “flagship” and the top academic schools like Binghamton and Stony Brook don’t offer the full ra-ra experience of say a Penn State. Our local HS regularly sends tons of kids to Michigan and Wisconsin but very few to SUNY.

[Anonymous]

Delaware is full of NJ students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Delaware is full of NJ students

PA kids too—if you’re from the Philly burbs and want a flagship experience without going super rural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only Illinois kids who go to University of Missouri are those who didn’t get in to UIUC.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only Illinois kids who go to University of Missouri are those who didn’t get in to UIUC.

Same. The only VA kids in our region who go to UGA, Clemson or NCState are the ones who cannot get in to UVA or VT.

Yes but it's not because they don't have the stats, it's because the schools would rather get OOS money from similarly qualified students. Musical chairs where the students lose (or the parents' pocketbook).

Which schools are easier to get into for out of state? Not UVA. Not UGA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In-state at William and Mary costs $43k (tuition, room/board). Likelihood of getting merit is slim if in-state.

OOS at a flagship with merit for my DS is $40k (tuition, room and board). Likelihood of getting merit for OOS is high for students with decent stats.

I can't think of any state flagship that is much like William and Mary (maybe UVM is the closest but the average stats are MUCH lower). ANd I especially can't think of any state flagship that has a comparable student body that will give enough merir to bring it down to 40K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Delaware is full of NJ students

Delaware isn't a good example, though, because it is a very small state. It isn't so much that the Delaware students are going elsewhere in droves but rather that kids from Maryland/Pennsylvania/New York/New Jersey all added up end up outnumbering them.

[Anonymous]

My kid didn’t apply because he didn’t like the school, but likely couldn’t have gotten into UVA from his high school because the necessary stats are artificially inflated b/c of the high school’s applicant pool, but he got into a higher ranked state flagship in another state. We could afford the tuition so off he went.

Our next DC doesn’t want to stay in VA and wants to go south and our finances haven’t changed so he’ll leave VA too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can also be because of a strength in a particular area. For example, Indiana U is strong in music. Most of the colleges that are as good or better than IU in this area are private colleges, particularly conservatories. If your kid wants to major in music but you want them to have the full college experience, IU's only rival among public universities is UMichigan, which is a harder admit.

Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois (as states, not just the eponymous Universities) have a notable round-robin exchange of undergrads between them. Points have been made that this is economically inefficient for the students. But there are also a variety of reasons including specific program strengths, families' original homes, etc.

I'm familiar with New Jersey kids wanting to go to school outside their home region. The ones I knew all moved back home but they genuinely seemed to like trying something different for a few years.

New Jersey is tiny in size and the most densely populated state in the country. Virtually every student in the state lives within 2 hours of the campus, most much closer. That's a big reason why so many go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can also be because of a strength in a particular area. For example, Indiana U is strong in music. Most of the colleges that are as good or better than IU in this area are private colleges, particularly conservatories. If your kid wants to major in music but you want them to have the full college experience, IU's only rival among public universities is UMichigan, which is a harder admit.

Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois (as states, not just the eponymous Universities) have a notable round-robin exchange of undergrads between them. Points have been made that this is economically inefficient for the students. But there are also a variety of reasons including specific program strengths, families' original homes, etc.

I'm familiar with New Jersey kids wanting to go to school outside their home region. The ones I knew all moved back home but they genuinely seemed to like trying something different for a few years.

New Jersey is tiny in size and the most densely populated state in the country. Virtually every student in the state lives within 2 hours of the campus, most much closer. That's a big reason why so many go elsewhere.

Rutgers is a very fine school but a crappy campus and doesn’t give the “college experience”.

If Rutgers had the Princeton campus (putting aside the 18th century buildings…just if it had the space in a quaint part of NJ), it would be massively oversubscribed from in state residents.

[Anonymous]

My kid went to Pitt instead of UMD because she wanted out of the area. UMD was too close to home. If cost had been an issue would have definitely stayed in-state.

[Anonymous]

For state schools with high in-state tuition, losing their best students is a risk they are willing to take. Maybe the state gov't doesn't care, or believe the kids will come back post-grad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For state schools with high in-state tuition, losing their best students is a risk they are willing to take. Maybe the state gov't doesn't care, or believe the kids will come back post-grad.

State governments (e.g. legislatures) don't really care too much about flagships. Few of their actions directly make the flagships notably better or worse. And their actions don't threaten the continued existence of flagships.

There is a certain amount of yapping about favoring in-state students but a lot of that is just class self-interest (along the lines of "people I know can't get their kids into the school"). That's not about retaining the best students for the good of a state's economy. It's about what affluent people and alumni expect from life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid didn’t apply because he didn’t like the school, but likely couldn’t have gotten into UVA from his high school because the necessary stats are artificially inflated b/c of the high school’s applicant pool, but he got into a higher ranked state flagship in another state. We could afford the tuition so off he went.

Our next DC doesn’t want to stay in VA and wants to go south and our finances haven’t changed so he’ll leave VA too.

Didn’t have the stats for UVA in-state, but go into Berkley, UCLA, or Michigan OOS? Which one? I’m so curious. I thought those were way tougher than UVA.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s not so much about these schools being “easier to get in” from out of state as it is that they’re not serving a mission of educating all the best and brightest of the state that want to stay close to home.