College road trip/tour planning

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Decide beforehand what you as a family can afford. My old SLAC is not $65K a year not including airfare and definitely not worth it. How many kids do you have? What can you afford after taxes? A lot of these smaller liberal colleges, IMHO, are just not worth the excessive fees. Please don't dangle a carrot in front of DC if you can't afford full freight for 4-5 years (a lot of kids are now taking 5 years to comoplete).

Curious what SLAC are you referencing? Which did you attend? We are interested in the SLACs but we are hearing what you said from others as well Perhaps we just go Virginia and let the chips fall where they may.

West coast but after having toured many on the east coast, I have to say many SLACs or LACs just aren't worth the $65K a year. Period. We're aiming for VA universities since we live there. $9500 for tuition for multiple kids can allow for savings for grad school later. $65K a year for multiple kids won't.

How do you define "worth it"? What convinced you that the schools you visited didn't meet that standard? What convinces you that "many" other SLACs don't meet that standard? What kind of research have you done besides touring campuses?

Obviously, there are some great schools in Virginia, including Wm & Mary, but is there any basis at all for your rather broad and unsubstantiated conclusion other than your family's financial situation?

Yes, I am an educator and on many college boards. Read Andy Ferguson's "Crazy U".

Those are your credentials, but what is your reasoning? And, BTW, I loved "Crazy U", but don't know why you'd cite it as evidence for your conclusion.

No, I'm not going to respond because you came on here with a nasty attitude problem and I would like people like you to stay off the college forum. So neither you nor other readers will get the benefit of what I could tell you. And there's no way you read the entirety of Andy's book if you don't know what I am talking about. You read just the funny sections.

I'm surprised that you think that asking about the reasons you reached your conclusion demonstrates a "nasty attitude". I find advice more helpful when the advice-giver explains his/her thinking.

Well, at least, we agree that Ferguson's book (I'm not on a first-name basis with him as you are) is funny, For the record, I did read the whole book, and I still don't recall him arguing that no SLAC is ever worth the tuition.

T too read the book and it is indeed funny. But, there is a ring of truth about whether/if paying $65,000 to attend some "lesser" SLAC is really worth it. For that answer, simply look to see the X-missons from those schools into grad/law/medical school. Yes it is true that "some" of their graduates are indeed getting into grad schools but no way are they top notch grad/law/med schools. On the other hand, perhaps for a particular student that is the best the student can do in which case it may be worth the investment. Ultimately, it comes down to the individual student and family budgets something one cannot decipher on the DCMUM boards!

Don't you think that attending any "lesser" school is less advantageous than attending a "top" school in the same category? Sure, going to a "lesser" SLAC (however you might define that) is going to make it tougher to get into a top grad/professional school. Similarly, going to a "lesser" university, whether public or private, will be less advantageous than going to a "top" university, public or private. Conversely, though, graduates of the the top SLACs do very well in post-college employment or grad/professional school admissions, as do their counterparts graduating from the top public and private universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You two are being silly. But the pp charging, guns-blazing, demanding to see credentials was unnecessarily offensive, condescending and picking a fight, IMO. (Even though I generally agree that "worth it" is intertwined with personal finance and choices and Andy Ferguson doesn't change my mind.).

NP here - I didn't read it that way at all. I think asking someone to clarify their meaning is a perfectly appropriate line of questioning for a subject like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You two are being silly. But the pp charging, guns-blazing, demanding to see credentials was unnecessarily offensive, condescending and picking a fight, IMO. (Even though I generally agree that "worth it" is intertwined with personal finance and choices and Andy Ferguson doesn't change my mind.).

NP here - I didn't read it that way at all. I think asking someone to clarify their meaning is a perfectly appropriate line of questioning for a subject like this.

I think this is the language we're talking about -- not sure:

How do you define "worth it"? What convinced you that the schools you visited didn't meet that standard? What convinces you that "many" other SLACs don't meet that standard? What kind of research have you done besides touring campuses?

On the college forum, not under cross-examination, I find this overly aggressive and way more than "merely requesting clarification" (and I agree that "worth it" is almost undefinable). Usually the college forum is a place safe to ask questions and get helpful info from people who have been there. If it were up to me, I'd like to keep it that way.

[Anonymous]

We visited UPenn, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, and Harvard over DC's spring break in junior year of high school. It was too full a schedule, I would recommend one school a day and four schools at most on any one trip. DC has also visited UVA, Georgetown, Chicago, UCLA, and Stanford on other occasions.

[Anonymous]

In terms of the SLACs, many offer very generous merit scholarships and need-based aid, so if your child has high stats or your family has demonstrated need, you may find that the cost could end up actually lower than an in-state option. So, don't necessarily write off an SLAC that you really like because of the sticker price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We visited UPenn, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, and Harvard over DC's spring break in junior year of high school. It was too full a schedule, I would recommend one school a day and four schools at most on any one trip. DC has also visited UVA, Georgetown, Chicago, UCLA, and Stanford on other occasions.

We were able to do two a day, but not EACH day. So we did NYU and Columbia in one day, and Stanford and Berkeley in one day. But we couldn't do them one day after another (never mind the geography).

[Anonymous]

Are Saturday visits a waste of time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Saturday visits a waste of time?

Nah. It's not like the tour leaders let the group interrupt a class in session. Saturday tour groups might be larger than weekday ones, that's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Saturday visits a waste of time?

Depends. We visited a small college on a Saturday at 10 am. The campus was deathly quiet (what you'd expect in the summer). The tour guide had to mention that most people were sleeping in after a late night. At the end of the tour we went to the dining hall. The only kids where were girls, as it turn out. So that college was (probably unfairly) crossed off the list. Maybe go later in the day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You two are being silly. But the pp charging, guns-blazing, demanding to see credentials was unnecessarily offensive, condescending and picking a fight, IMO. (Even though I generally agree that "worth it" is intertwined with personal finance and choices and Andy Ferguson doesn't change my mind.).

NP here - I didn't read it that way at all. I think asking someone to clarify their meaning is a perfectly appropriate line of questioning for a subject like this.

I think this is the language we're talking about -- not sure:

How do you define "worth it"? What convinced you that the schools you visited didn't meet that standard? What convinces you that "many" other SLACs don't meet that standard? What kind of research have you done besides touring campuses?

On the college forum, not under cross-examination, I find this overly aggressive and way more than "merely requesting clarification" (and I agree that "worth it" is almost undefinable). Usually the college forum is a place safe to ask questions and get helpful info from people who have been there. If it were up to me, I'd like to keep it that way.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one - I just didn't see anything particularly aggressive or over the top about those questions.

[Anonymous]

I think it's all this language. I, too, find snark creeping on the college board and am not going to participate when inquiries get nasty or people start slinging mud:

"How do you define "worth it"? What convinced you that the schools you visited didn't meet that standard? What convinces you that "many" other SLACs don't meet that standard? What kind of research have you done besides touring campuses?

Obviously, there are some great schools in Virginia, including Wm & Mary, but is there any basis at all for your rather broad and unsubstantiated conclusion other than your family's financial situation?"