Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

Great - they will enjoy having a job flipping burgers. No top graduate schools and no top employers. What a waste of hard work - I guess the world needs ditch diggers too.

You're an ass.

Double ass.

Some kids are on the 5, 6 or 7 year plan because they are working part or full-time to pay for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We know of 5-6 kids from our MoCo public who turned down Ivies in favor of generous offers from good LACs but not in the Amherst-Williams tier.

I'm guessing you're not at Whitman. 192 applications to Ivy colleges, and 28 acceptances (15%). Of those 28 acceptances, 20 chose to attend the Ivy (71%).

You're correct, this isn't at Whitman.

Anonymous wrote:There is no question that kids at Whitman end up turning down highly competitive schools or not even applying due to money. I know a number of kids in that position It's unfortunate when they don't apply to ivies for that reason though because the ivies have some of the best financial aid around, relatively little of it in loans, all need based and available to families with up to $200k .
They are regularly cited as some of the best deals in the country.
They can afford it--huge endowments.

I agree. But Pew did a study a few months ago showing that the families with low incomes aren't aware of these Ivy FA programs and that the net cost at an Ivy might be cheaper than the net cost a a state school, so they aren't applying at anywhere near the rates that make sense. In any case, I'm going to guess that not many $100-$150k families bought into Whitman neighborhoods even 18 years ago when houses were $400k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

Great - they will enjoy having a job flipping burgers. No top graduate schools and no top employers. What a waste of hard work - I guess the world needs ditch diggers too.

You're an ass.

Anonymous wrote:We know of 5-6 kids from our MoCo public who turned down Ivies in favor of generous offers from good LACs but not in the Amherst-Williams tier.

I'm guessing you're not at Whitman. 192 applications to Ivy colleges, and 28 acceptances (15%). Of those 28 acceptances, 20 chose to attend the Ivy (71%).

There is no question that kids at Whitman end up turning down highly competitive schools or not even applying due to money. I know a number of kids in that position It's unfortunate when they don't apply to ivies for that reason though because the ivies have some of the best financial aid around, relatively little of it in loans, all need based and available to families with up to $200k .
They are regularly cited as some of the best deals in the country.
They can afford it--huge endowments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Name some SLACS that give good merit aid or are not 50k+ to attend.

Almost all SLACs are $50k plus to attend BUT give merit aid. The ivies do not give merit aid by agreement among them. Some LACs like Temple or Fordham that are especially eager to recruit top-tier kids give $$$$ in merit aid. I've seen this.

You have apparently missed the ginormous debate going on in higher ed today, precisely about the burgeoning student loan crisis and the value of a $240,000 degree. Especially if the student is going to major in something non-lucrative, like teaching or theater. You're not going to convince anyone that many families are indifferent to the choice between an Ivy with tens of thousands in student loan debt, vs. a good state or SLAC or LAC with lots of merit aid.

Just off the top of my head I know that Washington & Lee has a program (Johnson Scholars?) that gives full four-year merit aid. I couldn't understand why W&L, seen as a men's finishing school when I was in high school, had gotten so selective, but this merit program has given them a huge boost in selectivity. Other schools are following suit as well.

This is true, but the thrust of this thread has been about comparing attendance rates at precisely those schools (Ivies) that DO NOT offer merit aid, and using those attendance rates to question the merits of some highly regarded public schools vs private ones. And some of us are pointing out that public schools families likely weigh finances more heavily than exclusive private school families in making these decisions.

Two other things to keep in mind:

1) The parents of kids in private school are far more likely to have gone to an Ivy themselves; that gives their kids a huge leg up in the application process. All the Ivies give legacy kids preference.So their Ivy acceptance rate will be higher even if the colleges perceive their education to be the same or worse.

2) The real question for whether you have a good school is not where the kid gets in but whether they are well educated. If one measure of that is are they prepared to do the work when they get in, then I can tell you that my kid said she was as well prepared from Whitman as the private school kids were when she went to Harvard. Her performance--she just graduated--bears that out.

(And that's a serious measure--if you look at dropout rates for colleges many are astronomically high; lots of kids don't finish college or go on the 5 or 6 or 7 year track because they are not prepared. It would be interesting to compare private and public school data on that.)
Deb

Hi
Actually, Whitman parents have been informed that they misformatted the list of college acceptances and the Whitman data appears under some other school header (unspecified.) They are going to reprint it correctly in I think November.
So maybe this debate should be paused?

I will also add that as a parent of a Whitman 11th grader we bought our house for 368 K when my older daughter turned 5. There are MANY middle class parents--two working fed employees, or equivalent-- in our community. The older houses on our street go for $600 to 800K now--which is also Burning Tree Elem, highly sought after. There are many many houses in the Whitman district over $1 million, no question, but there are also a lot of houses in that $600 to $800 range, and lots of parents who bought when prices were half that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

Great - they will enjoy having a job flipping burgers. No top graduate schools and no top employers. What a waste of hard work - I guess the world needs ditch diggers too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

Same. A friend of ours daughter is in at an Ivy for next year already. Mom is thinking hard about UMBC instead. That this is even a question is interesting.

We know of 5-6 kids from our MoCo public who turned down Ivies in favor of generous offers from good LACs but not in the Amherst-Williams tier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

Same. A friend of ours daughter is in at an Ivy for next year already. Mom is thinking hard about UMBC instead. That this is even a question is interesting.

Anonymous wrote:All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.

Agreed. On a related note, a top student at our private school went to University of Maryland Baltimore County, over a number of highly rated SLACs, because the student received a full merit scholarship for all four years.

All of this is why the applications to UMD are so high from the Bethesda/Potomac public schools. Over 40% of Whitman students apply to UMD, and it looks like even higher percentages do from the other schools. The admission rate from Whitman is over 75% so these are qualified kids applying. I know some/many have gotten generous aid packages. I think more people are really starting to consider the public options much more seriously than in the past because the cost of private college has gotten just too high relative to the product, given that there are much less expensive options.