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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Peer group:
Grinnell: 1480, 51% submitting
Pittsburgh: 1360, 50% submitting

Grinnell's median and percent submitting are on par with schools like BC, UVA, W&M, BU, WFU, etc. while Pittsburgh's stats are closer to Virginia Tech's. [/quote]

Grinnell has about 400 students per class. You’d better hope they’re all top notch because there’s no one else for miles.

Pitt has about 4500 students per class. You could just hang out with the top 10% at Pitt and have a larger peer group than the entire school at Grinnell. [/quote]

I am a Pitt grad.  That's exactly how it feels.  There are plenty of top of the class students. Anyway, college is mainly about what the student themself puts into it, not the credentials of the people seated behind the student in the lecture hall.  Btw, I left PSU Honors College for Pitt because University Park was not a fun place...too isolated, too socially focused on watching sports and drinking, and the Honors Program was too slanted towards guys & engineers at that time.  I hear they have fixed it.  But I really think it makes a big difference to be in a city where you can escape from an undergrad monoculture.

[b]I also think it's true that many SLACs have low national brand awareness and they do best in their home regions.  [/b]That doesn't mean they aren't good schools - it means no immediate recognition bump from an HR person/employer unless tapping the alumni network or in region.

I also feel Pitt will have more internship and research opportunities.  The scale of a major research university is much different.[/quote]
As opposed to state schools? I have 0 dog in this fight as an Ivy grad, but even you’d have to concur that most Pitt grads end up right back in the rust belt/Pennsylvania area? This is just how colleges work unless you are recruiting from across the world like Harvard.[/quote]

PP. You are right, other PP, many schools place regionally.  Pitt's grads are localized around Pittsburgh.   DMV is well within that circle because DC is a jobs magnet for professions that aren't common in Pittsburgh.  There's also a NYC/Northern NJ contingent.

There's a large NBER-published study on this topic that shows some schools have a different pattern and place more than expected outside their region.  It's quite interesting although it doesn't give data for either Pitt or Grinnell.  That could be gotten from the researchers.  However, any college with alumni databases has the info for their people and sometimes you can tell just from where the alumni club chapters are.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30088

Regarding Pitt and public health...I know that the Pittsburgh medical community has global awareness.  And medical-related professions are nationally mobile.  A public health grad could stay in a tight radius near Grinnell or near Pitt, but my hypothesis is they might either return to DMV or go anywhere in the US.  I just think a research university has a better background for employers.  Perhaps there's no difference or one or the other has an advantage for grad school admission...that is not something I have a background in.

Geographic proximity to where you want to work and the location of anyone you want to build your life around is important.  For many people, college choice does have a big influence on where you move next.  I think geography should be considered.  But so far we only know what OP's kid thinks about the immediate community.  The kid should think about post-grad a bit too.[/quote]
Most people in public health have a masters, and that’s where the training for those jobs comes from. DC is interested in biostats and basically has to do traditional CS internships until they get into grad schools, since the grad research advisors only approve graduate lab students and summer internships in biostats are quite rare if they aren’t for URM.

Health careers in general aren’t the typical path and most of your professional experience is delayed.[/quote]
+100. Public health is a graduate path.[/quote]

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