Anyone touring top schools and finding then all to be dumpy and unimpressive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your attitude is likely rubbing off on your kid. Be aware of that.

what is the down side of this?

[Anonymous]

Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

I don’t know why, but I just can’t agree with this. If you want to sell a brand of this beautiful groomed environment for students to be with the best, you should be a…beautiful groomed environment. These are status symbol colleges and pretending they aren’t is very strange. I also disagree with OP— most colleges are exceptionally beautiful and are well planned environments. If Harvard was dumpy looking (beyond Harvard Yard, the campus is pretty gorgeous), it would be an embarrassment for Harvard’s brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What schools?

You know you’re paying for access to expert in dozens of fields for your kid, right? That’s expensive.

But if you value amenities so much, go to High Point and call it a day.

Truth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I feel like we're (kid and parent alike) are supposed to love these schools and want to pay $90K for them and my kids can't find one they really like. I very, very, very much feel like we're being sold a product that we're supposed to want to buy because of prestige and name but when we see the product up close it doesn't look great and I feel like a sheep lining up to say "yes sir. let me put my kid through mental/emotional twister for a 5% chance of being admitted to your school and then I will gladly pay you $90K for the honor. Yes sir." It just feels... gross. Maybe not gross but yucky. My kids are like, "well I didn't really like this or that here but I could probably make it work." They too feel the pressure to LIKE these places. The Almighty XYZ or ABC school! It's supposed to be their dream!

PP back to say that I teach at a selective university, and mental health is a real issue for some kids. Some of them are genuinely thrilled to be there and thrive. Others are only there due to parental or societal pressures. They feel they should aim for certain schools and struggle hard to get in. Then they get there and realize they aren't happy, this was not really their dream. You're wise to realize this now. There are so many colleges out there, so make sure you pick something that actually makes them happy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We toured almost every T15(all but stanford and Caltech) and found them all great, and they all emphasized small classes. All my kids attend a different one of these schools and find them intellectually stimulating with less than 1/4 of their classes over 40, including stem. We never toured any school outside of T25 that was not W&M or VT or W&L, so we did not see the big schools with the pretty pools and fancy dorms we have seen online. We were looking for academics and found the only ugly/dumpy one to be MIT, yet loved the intellectual vibe of our quirky tour guide. similar-vibe tour guides were WM Hopkins and Brown, but did not select the final schools based on love of tour. People do not pick T15s for beauty, they pick them for academics: faculty, peers, smallish classes. To each his own.

Students definitely expect glamor from T15 campuses. Most also have massive classes, all it takes is talking to someone who isn’t a tour guide

My kids are at different ivy/T15 private. They each have friends at others. There are no “massive” classes. The biggest is around 200, none of mine have had more than one 200 person class, even for premed. They have all had the majority of classes less than 30, some less than 10 people. William&Mary is the same that is why it is the “public ivy”.

200 is a massive class for $90k. 30 is a massive class for $90k.

Where do you expect your kid to go and not have 30-200? Or is 30-200 “worth it” when you have a discounted price? And how do you know who is paying $90! Lots of us get need based aid and are not paying anything close to that. One of the best professors I ever had taught 300 person classes : the lectures were so well regarded students who were not registered would audit just to be there. Class size hs little to do with quality.

Class size has a lot to do with quality, are you joking? Would you spend $40k on a private high school with 200 person lecture halls? And before I get accused of “handholding,” no it’s about actually getting an education that you can’t flub and hide behind 200 people. That professor you’re talking about is a showman, not a lecturer

HS isn’t college where 13 year olds need more time and attention than 18+. That said…I doubt anyone would leave Sidwell if they announced tomorrow they plan to double or triple the size of the HS

I would absolutely prefer a lecture from a Nobel prize winning professor with 200 kids vs a random professor with a PhD.

Why are all these schools so highly rated if class size is such a huge criteria?

Sounds like you want a SLAC…so there is a small school for your kid out there (BTW…I assume OP may have visited some top SLACs and they also find them dumpy).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We toured almost every T15(all but stanford and Caltech) and found them all great, and they all emphasized small classes. All my kids attend a different one of these schools and find them intellectually stimulating with less than 1/4 of their classes over 40, including stem. We never toured any school outside of T25 that was not W&M or VT or W&L, so we did not see the big schools with the pretty pools and fancy dorms we have seen online. We were looking for academics and found the only ugly/dumpy one to be MIT, yet loved the intellectual vibe of our quirky tour guide. similar-vibe tour guides were WM Hopkins and Brown, but did not select the final schools based on love of tour. People do not pick T15s for beauty, they pick them for academics: faculty, peers, smallish classes. To each his own.

Students definitely expect glamor from T15 campuses. Most also have massive classes, all it takes is talking to someone who isn’t a tour guide

My kids are at different ivy/T15 private. They each have friends at others. There are no “massive” classes. The biggest is around 200, none of mine have had more than one 200 person class, even for premed. They have all had the majority of classes less than 30, some less than 10 people. William&Mary is the same that is why it is the “public ivy”.

200 is a massive class for $90k. 30 is a massive class for $90k.

Where do you expect your kid to go and not have 30-200? Or is 30-200 “worth it” when you have a discounted price? And how do you know who is paying $90! Lots of us get need based aid and are not paying anything close to that. One of the best professors I ever had taught 300 person classes : the lectures were so well regarded students who were not registered would audit just to be there. Class size hs little to do with quality.

Class size has a lot to do with quality, are you joking? Would you spend $40k on a private high school with 200 person lecture halls? And before I get accused of “handholding,” no it’s about actually getting an education that you can’t flub and hide behind 200 people. That professor you’re talking about is a showman, not a lecturer

HS isn’t college where 13 year olds need more time and attention than 18+. That said…I doubt anyone would leave Sidwell if they announced tomorrow they plan to double or triple the size of the HS

I would absolutely prefer a lecture from a Nobel prize winning professor with 200 kids vs a random professor with a PhD.

Why are all these schools so highly rated if class size is such a huge criteria?

Sounds like you want a SLAC…so there is a small school for your kid out there (BTW…I assume OP may have visited some top SLACs and they also find them dumpy).

The great thing about higher Ed is that if you go to Harvard or you go to some noname state school, you likely won’t be taking classes from a Nobel any time soon. You’re more likely if you go to Berkeley, but even then, will they be that great of a teacher?

Most people on this thread went to universities. Did you really do research with some industry-defining person or was it a random who happened to have a PhD and had good research output?

I do think a lot of mental health issues and competitiveness spur from big classrooms with cold professors and damaging curves. Now your peers become your competition and your prof doesn’t teach that well, so you have to grind yourself to a pebble trying to beat everyone else.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

Tours are a good idea because then the admissions office knows you were there and thus you have demonstrated interest.

OP. None of the top schools track demonstrated interest.
We're touring schools in the summer because we and kid(s) have the time. The tours are packed so we're clearly not the only ones.
We don't view top25 schools as safety schools. Read my post. We toured other safety schools last year. These are non safety.

I do think it's good to keep in mind is that you are paying for the education and not the facilities. But are you really? Do you actually have contact with world renowned faculty as an undergrad? And does it matter whether the guy teaching your organic chemistry class is also doing tertiary research in organic chemistry (vs someone who is just really competent at teaching organic chemistry to college sophomores)? I would say no.

It feels like you are paying for the name on your diploma and for being adjacent to greatness.

Yes. I have first hand knowledge (myself, each kid, spouse) and many friends with kids at others and yes, they have seminar and larger classes taught by the world renowned people. These professors doing ground breaking research not only let undergrads in their lab to do real research, they let in underclassmen and yes they do real experiments and can get published. At office hours, students can get to know these world renowned people. I did. My kids are. Some are approachable and excellent teachers, some are so brilliant they are kind of comical in lecture, but yes they meet them and these people give good advice as well as send emails to colleagues across the usa and even internationally to help undergrads get summer experiences.

[Anonymous]

The narrative that at a university you’ll meet some stellar researcher who teaches your classes and chooses you over their litany of prospective grad students to be in their lab is obnoxious. I went to one of these universities, and labs from that high of professionals was gatekept outside of maybe 5 top of the top undergrads who were in some insane first year position (think math 55 A+ level students, which most people will never achieve). The typical high stats kid isn’t doing work with Allen Bard

[Anonymous]

I sort of liken it to how the truly wealthy often drive old cars and have expensive but possibly tattered interiors, generational wealth that whispers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We toured almost every T15(all but stanford and Caltech) and found them all great, and they all emphasized small classes. All my kids attend a different one of these schools and find them intellectually stimulating with less than 1/4 of their classes over 40, including stem. We never toured any school outside of T25 that was not W&M or VT or W&L, so we did not see the big schools with the pretty pools and fancy dorms we have seen online. We were looking for academics and found the only ugly/dumpy one to be MIT, yet loved the intellectual vibe of our quirky tour guide. similar-vibe tour guides were WM Hopkins and Brown, but did not select the final schools based on love of tour. People do not pick T15s for beauty, they pick them for academics: faculty, peers, smallish classes. To each his own.

Students definitely expect glamor from T15 campuses. Most also have massive classes, all it takes is talking to someone who isn’t a tour guide

My kids are at different ivy/T15 private. They each have friends at others. There are no “massive” classes. The biggest is around 200, none of mine have had more than one 200 person class, even for premed. They have all had the majority of classes less than 30, some less than 10 people. William&Mary is the same that is why it is the “public ivy”.

200 is a massive class for $90k. 30 is a massive class for $90k.

Where do you expect your kid to go and not have 30-200? Or is 30-200 “worth it” when you have a discounted price? And how do you know who is paying $90! Lots of us get need based aid and are not paying anything close to that. One of the best professors I ever had taught 300 person classes : the lectures were so well regarded students who were not registered would audit just to be there. Class size hs little to do with quality.

Class size has a lot to do with quality, are you joking? Would you spend $40k on a private high school with 200 person lecture halls? And before I get accused of “handholding,” no it’s about actually getting an education that you can’t flub and hide behind 200 people. That professor you’re talking about is a showman, not a lecturer

HS isn’t college where 13 year olds need more time and attention than 18+. That said…I doubt anyone would leave Sidwell if they announced tomorrow they plan to double or triple the size of the HS

I would absolutely prefer a lecture from a Nobel prize winning professor with 200 kids vs a random professor with a PhD.

Why are all these schools so highly rated if class size is such a huge criteria?

Sounds like you want a SLAC…so there is a small school for your kid out there (BTW…I assume OP may have visited some top SLACs and they also find them dumpy).

The great thing about higher Ed is that if you go to Harvard or you go to some noname state school, you likely won’t be taking classes from a Nobel any time soon. You’re more likely if you go to Berkeley, but even then, will they be that great of a teacher?

Most people on this thread went to universities. Did you really do research with some industry-defining person or was it a random who happened to have a PhD and had good research output?

I do think a lot of mental health issues and competitiveness spur from big classrooms with cold professors and damaging curves. Now your peers become your competition and your prof doesn’t teach that well, so you have to grind yourself to a pebble trying to beat everyone else.

Not all research leads to this type of discovery, but in fact my chem prof was a nobel winner, and my kid at a different T10 is doing cutting edge BME research on a team that includes a nobel winner and yes they get to interact with this person and all the up and coming superstars(the post docs) in the lab.

As far as competitive: yes all these schools are competitive but it is usually self imposed. Your student is either up for that or they arent. No one spoon feeds these kids. They didnt back in the 90s at the same schools: it is up to the students to do the problem sets, go to office hours, read before lecture, spend time on the research and writing. Don’t pick an elite school if you aren’t independent and self motivated. Most of my med school came from T25s . We were all in the same mold and thrived under the rigor

[Anonymous]

Research doesn't need to be at your home institution. LACs get preference for REUs, but anyone can do them. There's also many research programs for students through the NIH and other big governmnetal agencies like SETI Institute or NASA. Most undergrads won't benefit from being in a field-defining lab, but instead should be in a lab that gives them some autonomy and has potential for them to make contributions.

[Anonymous]

Name the schools Troll

Princeton
Stanford
Northwestern
Duke
Rice
…… oh yeah, those are crap campuses.

[Anonymous]

You haven’t been at Duke or Richmond then. Not dumpy in the least.

I found UNC and UVA unimpressive. Harvard has never needed to pander to looking good. It’s like a waspy house.