What is the most overrated school popular among the dc metro area crowd?

[Anonymous]

University of Virginia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Virginia

+1.

Based on Naviance, my DD's stats would make her very competitive for UVA (nothing's guaranteed, I know) but she's not even applying as a potential bio/biochem major. She doesn't like the vibe (snobby, preppy, fratty, stressed-out Asians) and even she thinks it's overrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Virginia

UVA = Overrated.

[Anonymous]

UVA is definitely overrated, but the cost is oh-so-nice for Virginia residents.

[Anonymous]

UVA

[Anonymous]

It’s great to know that so many think UVA is overrated. Please, do not apply. My son really wants to go.

[Anonymous]

Tulane and Michigan

[Anonymous]

Univ of VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Univ of VA

UVA = Overrated

[Anonymous]

UVA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

I'd argue that what you see in that list is largely schools with higher percentages of their alumni settling in areas with the highest cost of living: San Francisco/Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago. If you adjust for cost of living, I wonder what it would actually look like.

Why does Virginia Tech have higher ROI than UVA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

I'd argue that what you see in that list is largely schools with higher percentages of their alumni settling in areas with the highest cost of living: San Francisco/Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago. If you adjust for cost of living, I wonder what it would actually look like.

Why does Virginia Tech have higher ROI than UVA?

Mix of majors. VT’s undergraduate engineering enrollment is twice the share of UVA’s: 30% vs. 15%.

These NPVs are highly misleading if you don’t understand how they’re calculated. They are impacted by mix of majors (technical and professional majors pay more), dominant location of alumni (big cities offer higher salaries), and average cost to attend (elite privates are boosted by lots of financial aid, which drives down average cost but may not reflect your cost).

[Anonymous]

The NPVs are from the Center on Education and the Workforce. Their NPV work makes a ton of assumptions. However, if you don’t want to deal with that, they also offer first-year salaries for a variety of majors from various colleges. Keep in mind, comparing these salaries still have their challenges. For example, more graduates from some colleges work in big cities where salaries are higher. Here are the monthly salary stats for business and economic programs at VA not-for-profit schools:

1) UVA McIntire – Business/Commerce $6,300
2) University of Richmond – Economics $5,458
3) UVA – Economics $4,975
4) Washington and Lee – Economics $4,500
5) College of William and Mary – Economics $4,133
6) George Mason – Economics $4,133
7) James Madison – Economics $4,025
8) Virginia Tech – Economics $3,750
9) VCU – Business/Commerce $3,467
10) Christopher Newport – Economics $3,383
11) Randolph Macon – Economics $3,317
12) Hampden-Sydney – Economics $3,275
13) VMI – Economics $3,175

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

I'd argue that what you see in that list is largely schools with higher percentages of their alumni settling in areas with the highest cost of living: San Francisco/Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago. If you adjust for cost of living, I wonder what it would actually look like.

Why does Virginia Tech have higher ROI than UVA?

Mix of majors. VT’s undergraduate engineering enrollment is twice the share of UVA’s: 30% vs. 15%.

These NPVs are highly misleading if you don’t understand how they’re calculated. They are impacted by mix of majors (technical and professional majors pay more), dominant location of alumni (big cities offer higher salaries), and average cost to attend (elite privates are boosted by lots of financial aid, which drives down average cost but may not reflect your cost).

Engineering graduates make about over 1.5X as much on average as the average non-engineering major. If you look at VT, it has 27% engineering majors (and 73% other), UVA has 13% engineering and 87% other. William & Mary has 0% engineering, 100% other. Based on this, all things being equal, you would expect VT grads to have 7% higher income than UVA, and 14% higher than William & Mary. The ROI/NPV numbers from the report shows VT at 2% higher than UVA and 7% higher than W&M, so this suggests to me that VT has no advantage over either UVA and W&M (and may be slightly lower in earnings per major). Similarly, UVA would appear to have no advantage in earnings over W&M for non-engineering majors.

So I would say 1) make sure your kid doesn't discount engineering out of hand if they are interested in earning potential 2) be careful when comparing NPV of different schools due to differences in majors (and cost of living of where graduates settle).

The last thing that I noticed in the NPV analysis is that the public schools tend to be very similar in ROI (other than ones like Georgia Tech that has a huge percentage of engineering graduates and very high NPV). But the same isn't true for top privates. A number of those more selective private schools have significantly higher NPV than the public schools with which they might be compared. Duke for instance has an NPV of $1.754M while UVA is $1.291M and UNC is $1.185M. Duke has about 15% engineering vs 13% at UVA and only 1% at UNC, so majors would not appear to explain the 36% difference vs. UVA in NPV and the 48% difference vs. UNC. If you can get admitted to these schools and get a reasonable financial aid package, it would appear you should not rule them out vs. state flagship schools even if the state school is less expensive.

[Anonymous]

UVA