Reply to What do you think? Indiana, Clemson, Penn State, Auburn, u of Miami

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[quote=Anonymous]Asking for the opinions of people you don't know and who likely have very little knowledge of the schools is not the best way to make a decision. Discuss with the student what factors are most important in choosing a college to meet their own individual needs, then do research with the data that's available and with visits to the finalists, both virtual and in person, if financially feasible.

You especially want to ignore those who tell you what's best based on rankings, because a) the rankings are almost certainly not based on the criteria you'd use to make a decision, and b) there's not as much distance between colleges as there appears to be in ranked lists. This website looks at this in detail...

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/

The USNWR ranking of business programs is 100% based on the OPINIONS of biz school deans and senior faculty based on a scale of 1-5. They admittedly know more than we do, but who knows how they came to their decisions?

A ton of data is available to you in each school's Common Data Set. Use it!

Does class size matter to you? For the schools you mentioned, the percentages of classes with under 30 students runs from 60-69%, which is not much to set them apart. For classes of 50 or more, it runs from 9-17%, with U Miami being the clear winner at 9% and no one else under 14% (they also have the most classes under 30).

How about diversity of the student body? 80% and 81% of the students at Auburn and Clemson respectively are white Americans. At Penn State and Indiana the numbers are 66% and 69%. And Miami is only 44%. If your kid is looking for diversity, Miami is clearly the way to go. The same is true for faculty diversity.

SAT scores are good to look at as a rough guide to how rigorous classes are likely to be. The median SAT scores for these 5 schools run from 1235 (IU, which doesn't even require scores from all applicants) to 1350 (U Miami again). This seems like a pretty big spread of scores, but the percentiles only run from 85 to 94, which in my opinion is not likely to make much of a difference.

The percentage of students who return sophomore year is a good gauge of how happy students are, and these number run from 91-94%, so kids are pretty happy at all of these places.

You get the idea. There's all sorts of data out there, including on each school's website. Much of what you'll need in order to make your decision also requires visiting the campus and asking lots of questions of the students and faculty there. Unfortunately in your case, this means a lot of travel. Maybe you can narrow it down some with numbers you get online before going to see the finalists.

Best of luck to you! You have five strong schools to choose from, and your child will have the opportunity for a great education at any of them.[/quote]

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