Reply to Anyone have a high stats kid who ended up at their true safety school?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Anyone have a high stats kid who ended up at their true safety school?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes.  Friend was NMSF, 1590, top 5%, tons of rigor including AP Stat and BC Calc.  Applied nursing to UVA and UNC from oos.  Thought scores were good enough so didn't try elsewhere.  Ended up at state university but not even in nursing program.
Now....mistake was only having two reaches.  And nursing makes everything unsafe. [/quote]

OOS is always a crapshoot, sure, but instate, Nursing

If she's not getting into nursing instate, who is?!

Is she permanently blocked from nursing, or just has to apply after first year? [/quote]

Direct entry nursing is VERY competitive. I am in another state with our flagship acceptance rate of 65% but the BSN has 6% acceptance rate. I am sure UVA nursing is even more difficult to get into. I don't know who actually get in. People on DCUM don't really talk about nursing programs. [/quote]

This is really interesting to me.  I thought nursing was like teaching.  Isn't there a shortage of well-trained nurses?  Why aren't the programs expanding?[/quote]
I likewise thought the same and had my eyes opened when DC went thru the application process this past cycle. Direct admit is indeed difficult and some schools don’t even offer it.

It’s just one of the reasons DC took a direct slot at a lower-ranked school (that still has a Level 1 trauma teaching hospital on campus). While it’s “direct,” it is still dependent on a 3.0 in certain prescribed classes like chemistry and biology. Didn’t want to have to “apply” yet again next Spring.

After much conversation with family and friends who are RNs, we’re still unsure it’s worthy of a $100K+ (total) degree when, as has also been pointed out here on DCUM, that the undergrad diploma location is largely a shoulder-shrug. DC has aspirations of NP or PA so it’s as much of a “see how it goes” as the actual degree. Plus, DC worked their a$$ off to have good enough grades, scores and ECs to get enough merit to keep the cost <= any other STEM (where the “M” could mean Medical) degree that has a lot of post-grad and occupational options.

So we are their biggest cheering section, atm. [/quote]

DP.  We know someone in the same situation and were wondering (to ourselves) why the student didn't simply go to a less expensive in-state university for nursing.  It really doesn't matter where you go for undergrad nursing.[/quote]

Why are people so mystified that someone might pay more than the bare minimum for a degree? Do people always go with the cheapest option when they pay for a house, car, wedding ring, watch, suit, vacation, bottle of wine,  computer, TV, or dinner?[/quote]
Unless you have a lot of money, yes, people on budgets go for the cheaper house, ring, tv, dinner, etc...

Also, that dinner is like $50, compared to $85K+ per year.   Splurging on a nice tv, or vacation is not the same as spending that much money for a college education that you pay for four years.

How privileged you are to not realize this.  Perhaps you should get out of your bubble, just a bit.[/quote]

Yes, but the point is, some people have the money to spend. Maybe it's grandparents' money (often it is), maybe they've just saved forever, whatever. Maybe they just have one kid and this is what they want to spend it on. That people have different spending priorities should not be so shocking.

Personally, we are spending money on a more expensive, selective college for our oldest and I have a close friend with similar earnings who spends more money on houses, cars, vacations, spas, etc., who I know finds it silly. I didn't say anything when they made their kid choose a far less selective state school over the private he really wanted. It's all about choices.[/quote]
The vast majority of colleges aren't worth $60K+/year from an ROI standpoint.

Your priority is spending money on your kid's college experience; others prioritize their vacations, or in our case, retirement.

Personally, I think it's silly to spend that much money on college just for the 4 years of that particular college experience.   If they want to experience being out of state, they can get a job out of state and experience that. Heck, DH got a job across the pond to experience being out of the country.

Generally, people spend 10+ years in their house, so I can understand wanting a nice house.  It also appreciates better.

I don't drive nice cars or buy name brand clothes, but we do prioritize experiences like traveling, and retirement.

The outcome for a kid who went to a $40K school vs most $60K+ school for the same major isn't all that different.  [/quote]

Again, that's your opinion. It's not all about the "outcome" -- which I assume you mean is the job? People have different amounts of money and value it different ways. I genuinely believe you make different kinds of connections and relationships in different schools settings that follow you all your life, for example. That's worth the money to me. You can do what you want with your money.[/quote]
Well duh, but the vast majority of people do need to think about ROI.  If you only care about the MRS degree, then sure. But outside T20,  the vast majority of colleges aren't worth that much money in terms of career and income outcomes.[/quote]

You’re hyper focussed on quantifiable numeric returns. The easiest to pinpoint probably (eg, salary at year 1 and salary at year 4). We get that.

A lot of us, especially in DC and NYC (note: DC does not include NoVa. It’s DC) are less observant with plotting ROI data on a graph as the only metric. We can afford to prioritize softer criteria. [/quote]
eh.. a lot of us in the DC area cannot afford to not think about ROI.  Read through the forum about college costs.

And certainly the vast majority of parents in America need to think about ROI.

you realize that not everyone on this forum is from the DC area or NY, right?)[/quote]

ROI is hard to quantify and to me encompasses softer criteria as well as the hard numbers. So we saw it as striking the right balance for the particular kid's desires, career goals, our budgets.

#1 was easy -- VT was his #1 choice but was also a safety (based on acceptance rate for his major) and he's taking one of the highest starting-salary majors at the school. He had no interest in spending more, applying to other schools, has been very happy and as a senior has a job waiting for after graduation. In two years will have more than earned what his education cost.

#2 was more challenging - wants to go into a career field that's not very high paying but valuable and something she has a real passion for. Wanted a LAC environment, will need to go to grad school, college prestige doesn't seem to be an important factor in this field but experience is. So she goes to a regional LAC where her major is one of the school's biggest programs, they have some unique opportunities to get experience while in school, and she had an internship after 1st year with a college connection. She could have been competitive for highly ranked LACs but that would unreasonably stretch our budget so she picked a school that was a good fit and, after merit, costs similar to VT. She could have gone to UMW for half the cost if all we cared about was out-of-pocket expense but the other elements (environment, strength of major, her desire to go OOS) also had value. But, they didn't have enough value that we'd have been willing to spend $60K+.    [/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