Reply to Anyone regret sending kid to big state vs a mid size NE or vice versa?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Anyone regret sending kid to big state vs a mid size NE or vice versa?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Know and accept that you have a bias. You are most likely going to prefer - whatever college experience you had, whether a small LAC or large state school.

DH and I valued our large state school experience. So many options for majors, class sections, class times, different professors. No need to get a sign-off, convince a counselor if you wanted to change your major, drop a class, try-out a class in a very different subject just for fun. You charted your own course. [/quote]

Ummm....many good large state schools have 75% of the majors as "impacted".  So nope, you cannot just try a course, switch majors, etc.  
At smaller schools (my kids are at 5-8K undergrads) it was much easier to change majors (2 of my 3 kids did so, one changed their major about 90 mins before registering for fall soph courses).  It was very easy to take courses outside your major, switch your major, drop a class.  The difference is before dropping a course you have to talk to your advisor/the dept coordinator for your major.  Which is a good thing.  They guide you and make sure you don't do something stupid---like dropping a course that takes you below "# of units required to keep your Financial aid"/etc.  They help guide you to tutoring and extra help before you hit the point of needing to drop a course, because the goal is for you to succeed.  An 18/19 yo needing a bitof assistance is not coddling, it's helping prepare them for life.  In the real world good companies have mentors assigned to new hires to help guide them as well
[/quote]
Smaller schools have less majors than larger schools to choose from or switch to.

IMO, my youngest would do better in a smaller school academically, but socially, they would despise it.

My older goes to a large state school.  They are doing great.  They joined social clubs to make the school feel smaller.  They have never needed academic hand holding. They have always been a straight A student (magnet HS and now in college).   But, their advisor was terrible, and they did have to figure some things out on their own. Still, they've had some amazing internships (that paid very well).[/quote]

There are plenty of schools in the 5K-10K range that offer most majors, just like your large state schools.  We encouraged our kids to find the right size school for them (all 3 picked 5-8K range ultimatelY).  We also encouraged them to pick schools that had lots of majors and more importantly that you could easily switch to those majors.  The only limits were you had to be directly admitted to nursing at all the schools and cannot switch in, as the curriculums start fall freshman year, not to mention there are only so many spots for labs and clinical.  Only other limits are one kid is at a school with top level music school (think conservatory level), and you cannot just decide to switch and become a music major, you have to audition and be admitted.  Otherwise, my kids could switch to any major they wanted.  Want to drop engineering and become a finance major, no problem (at many schools that is an issue).  Want to add CS as a double major with engineering?  No issues.

So while I"m sure there are a few random and unpopular majors that my kid's schools don't offer, they offer well over 100 at all of them and two of them offer 160+ (our state U with 30K undergrads only offers ~180).  [/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