Reply to Question of Parents of Kids at SLACs

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Question of Parents of Kids at SLACs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've never really paid attention to SLACs for my kid because of two concerns, but I wonder if they are justified.

1. My current junior is very undecided in terms of major or career path, and so it seems like a larger university would have more options once her direction becomes clearer.  I'm certain she won't be interested in engineering, so there's no need for an engineering school.  But generally speaking, it seems like larger schools would have a broader and deeper set of majors.

2. I'm wondering about the process of getting a job at graduation.  I'm not questioning the quality of the schools.  But large schools have tons of employers coming to campus for on-campus interviews.  And it may even matter in terms of internships and that kind of thing, given that a large school with more infrastructure for career services would be beneficial.  (I have an older kid (current sophomore) at a lower ivy and she has had a ton of summer internship interviews -- and I get the impressing that many of those firms have a list of schools they draw from.)

If your kid is at a SLAC, have you found the above to be challenging, or am I overthinking things?  [/quote]

I personally had the experience of attending a SLAC, deciding I didn't want to major in what I thought I wanted to major in, and then had to transfer out. Would have been better off at a larger university with more options. There is also the question of social cliques. My DS transferred out of a SLAC for several reasons, but among them was not fitting in with the prevailing major cliques (athletes, rich kids, frat kids) and not being able to find a friend group that wasn't from these cliques.

As for the job aspect, it depends on the school. I toured a lot of SLACs with DS and specifically asked what companies come to the campus to recruit, and the person giving the usual powerpoint presentation at the beginning was never able to answer. By the same token, employers don't make a major effort to recruit at larger universities unless it's a highly regarded one (Berkeley, Michigan, etc.)[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics