Reply to “Colleges That Change Lives”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s really sounding like the kids that go to these schools aren’t actually ready for college but have parents with a lot of money who just push it along.  I’ll bet a year or two in community college would’ve a much better and more cost effective approach.[/quote]

And it really sounds to me like you are doing some selective reading of this post.  There have been several, including me, who’ve posted saying either they or their child had been accepted to higher ranked or much more prestigious/selective colleges but decided to attend a CTCL.[/quote]

So you went to some [b]third tier LAC.[/b].....great, I’m glad it worked out so brilliantly for you.[/quote]

This is obviously a troll, but I see a similar lack of awareness of the higher ed landscape in more well-intentioned discussions. There are well over 1500 liberal arts colleges in the US.  [b]The bulk of the CTCL schools are in the top 100--many in the top 50 or 75--of USNWR. These are schools that are included in the Princeton Review etc. which is meeting a bar that the vast majority of colleges in this country don't meet. They routinely send people to work in top firms, to elite grad programs etc. [/b]  People need to get a clearer view on the full range of colleges in the US when thinking about tiers.  Are these schools in the same league as Swarthmore, Grinnell, Williams etc.? No.  Many drift nearer to and further away from colleges just outside the top 20 like Oberlin, Kenyon etc.   But they have stronger entering profiles of students and student outcomes than many state flagships (not the UVA's and the Uof Ms) and the vast, vast majority of liberal arts colleges in the US.[/quote]

Simply not true.  Go ask any hiring manager of a large firm like myself if they even know what CTCL is.  They won't.  They don't.  They are looking for solid employees who are well-educated (and hey that can include great public schools as well which are a lot cheaper than CTCL) who will show up on time and perform well and not be a SJW or PITA on the job.  Any child that has been coddled through his or her education will not perform in the marketplace and employers know that. [/quote]

Look at the student outcomes of the schools. I have for the ones we reviewed for our kid and they are solid.  They list all the places grads from various departments get jobs and what those positions are.  Your perception is utterly skewed.  These kids aren't coddled--they just receive a quality education.  And often for much cheaper than a public education due to merit aid. Look at their salaries at 34 (good way to judge lasting effects of school on income).  [b]A hiring manager doesn't care what CTCL is --and it's not like kids say I go to a CTCL[/b]--they get a particular major in a particular college.  And you can look at data about this rather than going with your gut feeling.  As a hiring manager you should know about looking at data.[/quote]

Precisely.  [b]The hiring manager doesn't care what CTCL is, nor do they even know.  This is why a lot of posters here are trying to tell you that CTCL is a marketing scam. [/b] And, no, these kids don't receive a quality education "often more much cheaper than a public education due to merit aid".  Maybe you were the rare one who did, but most of these price tags  of the privates are now approaching $80K a year.  It takes a LOT of merit aid to match in-state tuition available at far more reputable public schools.  The merit aid offered (unsolicited) to my DD from two CTCLs still left a big gap between the CTCL private and UVA, plus the CTCLs were schools few had heard of and didn't have the type of engineering DD wanted.  All the CTCL schools wanted was her ACT score, which I know, because they told me they had purchased the list of DDs in certain locales with particular interests who had scored over a 32.  They didn't want DD because she hadn't even submitted an application - the CTCLS were desperate for top scoring students. When I said DD had retaken the ACT and now had a 36, there was a rustling of paper and then the person who called US (unsolicited!) said that in light of the 36 DD qualified for "the President's scholarship" of $28K.  That still left a huge gap between the CTCL and  UVA, so DD went to UVA.[/quote]

This logic makes no sense.  I wouldn't expect most hiring managers to have heard of any small school in the nation, or any random state school that doesn't have a well-known sports team.  It's not their specialty--doesn't make it a 'marketing scam.'  They know the schools they particularly recruit from and the famous ones. With a small school you look at the outcomes of graduates of that school--doesn't matter if it's Denison or Middlebury--not some vague impressions of a person who claims to be a hiring manager on the internet.  These schools have partnerships with particular firms and loyal alumni networks that provide connections.  It's a different way of job-finding than a larger state school--but if you look at outcomes it can be very successful for a SLAC (or also less so, that's why you have to do your research).

My high-scoring kid also got marketed at by a ton of schools from all sorts of tiers (most offers of unsolicited merit aid came from out of school publics).  But DC has received merit aid from SLACs that makes it less expensive than our in-state options.  And DC is not interested in engineering (which is not a major highlighted in most SLACs of any ranking,  it's often done in partnership with other universities through a 2-3 program--so I can understand why she wouldn't be interested or get the best offers).So people's experiences vary that's why you look at data at the particular school you are interested not reason wildly to others from your own anecdote and vague opinions.

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