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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Boy this is a dumb thread even by DCUM standards.  Still, I'll add my two cents.

All of our kids are five years or more out of college.  When they were applying most were very good students and we were, to put it mildly, full pay.  Yet it never occurred either to them or to us to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a college education.  [b]Study after study has shown that the only group of students who does significantly better in life by attending an "elite" college over, say, a state school, are URMs from modest economic backgrounds.  F[/b]ast forward five or ten years post graduation, for the vast majority of DCUM posters you won't be able to tell which of your kid's friends went to State U a school like Middlebury.  It simply doesn't matter.  It won't even matter at cocktail parties -- instead of bragging about what school your kid got into, you'll be bragging about their job.

[/quote]
You and your pesky facts. This is the internet, where people just say stuff. [/quote]

You mean professionally. And you think that’s all college is, professional preparation? [/quote]
what are these other types of preparation? and how does a Middlebury education prepare you for them, while a state school does not?[/quote]

I’m not the PP but I will attempt to answer this. I am the PP that posted about Wooster and Midd attacking their own tribes whose DD was waitlisted at Midd. So I have one in a flagship and one in Top 50 SLAC. Different kids and different schools. In general I am biased toward the liberal arts because I want my kids to be educated for the sake of being educated. So when I look at the books my son is reading in college and the small discussion based classes I see a model of engaged students and open discussion around a classical education. And that is a great thing for my DS - frankly it truly is a luxury in this life. But he’s also at a small school so he doesn’t have to learn to self advocate or navigate a large organization like my daughter does. Also somewhat ironically because most of the students at her flagship made their decision partly based on financial decisions I actually think the competition is tougher. Some of the students are hungrier and are used to having to fight for what they get.

And I’ve seen it when talking to friends of mine that hire. The students, especially the honors students, from the flagships are usually known to be hard workers that realize they will have to work and fight for their opportunities. They will also lack the quiet confidence that the typical student from Midd possesses because he grew up opportunity rich and has a certain level of comfort knowing that his social network will provide. So the students from Midd come from educated families that maybe discuss how the world economy works over dinner and has the fit and finish of knowing how to behave and engage in social and business functions.

Two different kids, two different experiences, two different set of life expectations. The Midd supporters on this thread understand this difference - heck just attending Midd is social signaling.

So, I see value in both. Frankly I would suggest a SLAC for undergrad and a research university for graduate. But not all young people want the small school experience which was the case with my daughter.

And last in some industries like finance and consulting they are looking for kids from these schools because of the social signaling attendance at schools indicate. Hence the popularity of economics as a major.

Know your kid and do what’s right for them.

And personally [b]I’d pay for a Midd before I’d pay for a Northeastern or NYU[/b].[/quote][/quote]

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