Reply to The Other VA publics: CNU, GM, JMU, Radford, ODU, UMW, VCU

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread really feels like it's deteriorated to "mine is bigger than yours" quality.[/quote]

That's not the intent.  The intent is honesty on an anonymous board.  [b]No kid with UVA caliber stats wants to go to JMU.[/b]  Or VCU.  Or GMU.  You get the picture.  They just plain don't.  You need a very strong record for UVA, and the kids who work hard enough (or are blessed enough intellectually) to accumulate that record are simply aiming higher than the other schools.  It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the other schools; it's just reality.[/quote]

But actually, I said earlier that my daughter prefers JMU and is not interested in UVA.  [/quote]

+1
My son actually did apply to W&M and UVA (because we insisted he apply to most of the VA schools).  He was admitted to both, as well as Tech, but chose JMU because he absolutely loved it.  The smartest kids are the ones who decide where they'll be most happy, period.[/quote]

My best friend from high school was admitted to JMU, UVA, and W&M, and graduated from JMU.  He loved it and was a HUGE fan (he passed away recently).  I think he viewed the choice as being an expression of his independence from conformity.  That said, I did hear him speculate a couple of times on what it would have been like had he gone to W&M, so I'm not sure he completely escaped the weight of expectations.  The best advice, which is probably tough to follow due to human nature, is to make your choice and don't look back.  College won't (or at least shouldn't) define you.  In the high tech field I work in, no one ever really talks about Alma Maters in a professional sense after the initial hire.

To get back to the crux of this thread, there has been analysis that shows that choice of major has more impact on future earnings than the college.  So there can be good paths through the "Second Tier" schools.  Another report from the same group also shows that the mix of majors at different colleges can explain differences in future earnings (rather than the institutions themselves).  The links are below:

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/5rules/#full-report 
"Five Rules of the College and Career Game shows that more education is usually better, but majors matter more. College is less about the institution name and more about the field of study."

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/college-rankings/#interactive 
 [/quote]

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