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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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
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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]
OK, but smaller schools still can't offer the same amount of majors or different types of classes.  And schools where you can easily switch to CS are probably not that highly regarded.    Usually, CS programs that are more highly regarded are LEPs, so it's difficult to switch into.  Ex: UMD.

Also, we are talking small colleges, but even mid sized ones have less choices than the bigger state schools.[/quote]

My one kid had 4 acceptances (3 in top 50, one in the 60s) and a WL at a T30 where you can literally switch to whatever major you want, including CS.  All "highly regarded" schools.  But attending does mean that you can actually major in what you want, minor in what you want, switch it up as you learn, because what 17 yo is 100% certain what they want (2 of mine were, one had to switch, to finance, so good thing they were somewhere they could actually do that).

And I will take 160+ majors and smaller school versus 30K+ undergrads and 180 majors.  Those "extra 20 majors" likely won't matter to my kid.  But if you feel you need that, then sure go for it

[/quote]The schools can do this is because not any one of their majors is in demand or highly regarded. The restricted majors are generally in engineering, business and CS and I'm sure that none of the 4 acceptances and WL were at schools that are highly ranked for these majors. Even the Ivies with the better engineering schools don't make it easy to transfer in to engineering.  [/quote]

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