Anonymous wrote:Quality of Dartmouth has not decreased per se, but it has been in a long period of stagnation.

What measurement do you base this on?

Berkeley and Georgetown.

Quality of Dartmouth has not decreased per se, but it has been in a long period of stagnation.

Anonymous wrote:Howard, Morehouse, Georgetown, Cornell, UCB, Tufts, Lehigh

Morehouse especially!

I don't understand spending $$$$$ on party schools like FSU, Tulane, U of Conn, etc.

Per YEAR?!?!?!?!

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Anonymous wrote:Who is charging 80K? I remember being shocked at 72K two years ago!!

Almost all the SLACs. GO to the "cost of attending" page and add everything up. My Slac is now $83K a year. This doesn't pertain to instate schools.

We ran the NPC at Skidmore and it was literally $90k all in. Shocking.

Anonymous wrote:It’s by no means a bad school but Georgetown (outside of SFS) isn’t what it used to be

I respectfully disagree. Georgetown has greatly improved in terms of variety of course offerings, interdisciplinary programs, internships and research options for students. Faculty have always been and still are dedicated to undergraduates (while also being very active in research) and care for them not only as students but as persons. The university mission is embedded in all aspects of its community.

Anonymous wrote:It’s by no means a bad school but Georgetown (outside of SFS) isn’t what it used to be

You can get your degree from sfs easily if you are willing to stay in Qatar for four years. Their branch in Qatar has a 40 percent acceptance rate with a 1260 ave SAT score. (Source: from their AO)

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Anonymous wrote:Who is charging 80K? I remember being shocked at 72K two years ago!!

Almost all the SLACs. GO to the "cost of attending" page and add everything up. My Slac is now $83K a year. This doesn't pertain to instate schools.

At the tippy top privates, only about half of the kids are paying sticker price.

This. It's a high-cost, high-discount model that's been in place for years.

The people it screws is those who make $250,000 so would never get FA but can’t afford to pay 80k a year for school. Those people are the ones whose kids go to UMD.

This is very true. It's the ones earning 250-300,000 that have two kids in college and have to pay sticker price are the ones in trouble.

You don’t necessarily have to pay sticker price. There are plenty of merit scholarships at most schools.

The real issue is that upper-middle class people have an unhealthy obsession with school rankings. This leads them to ignore the potential for merit scholarships at lower ranked schools in favor of paying full sticker at a higher ranking school.

Any kid who qualifies for admission to a Top 25 college can easily get much their tuition covered by merit scholarships, provided that they are willing to attend “second tier” schools.

Anonymous wrote:This obsession with UVA's ranking between 24-28 is entirely irrelevant. Anyone with basic knowledge of universities know that UCLA/Michigan/UNC are far more respected throughout the country and the world in terms of academics. UVA has the connection with Thomas Jefferson, which is the only differentiating factor in its favor.

Those schools are probably better across a number of graduate areas and research production, but I think at an undergraduate level, I'd argue UVA may be better in a number of ways than any of them. Students at UCLA, for instance, struggle to get required classes more so than students at UVA.

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Anonymous wrote:Who is charging 80K? I remember being shocked at 72K two years ago!!

Almost all the SLACs. GO to the "cost of attending" page and add everything up. My Slac is now $83K a year. This doesn't pertain to instate schools.

At the tippy top privates, only about half of the kids are paying sticker price.

This. It's a high-cost, high-discount model that's been in place for years.

The people it screws is those who make $250,000 so would never get FA but can’t afford to pay 80k a year for school. Those people are the ones whose kids go to UMD.

This is very true. It's the ones earning 250-300,000 that have two kids in college and have to pay sticker price are the ones in trouble.

But a lot of those schools have merit money that isn't dependent on need.

I think the ranking people change the criteria just to shuffle things up. Colleges don't change enough from one year to the next unless there's a huge disruption (like COVID will affect state appropriations and budgets, financial aid, tuition revenue).

So when you're ranking huge entities that change very slowly, the way to guarantee a change in spots is to adjust the weighting of the factors and the criteria.

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Anonymous wrote:Who is charging 80K? I remember being shocked at 72K two years ago!!

Almost all the SLACs. GO to the "cost of attending" page and add everything up. My Slac is now $83K a year. This doesn't pertain to instate schools.

At the tippy top privates, only about half of the kids are paying sticker price.

This. It's a high-cost, high-discount model that's been in place for years.

The people it screws is those who make $250,000 so would never get FA but can’t afford to pay 80k a year for school. Those people are the ones whose kids go to UMD.

This is very true. It's the ones earning 250-300,000 that have two kids in college and have to pay sticker price are the ones in trouble.

Anonymous wrote:Can we stop derailing every thread with UVA arguments? I’d actually like to get back to the original topic. It seems like a lot of middle tier privates are decreasing in popularity, not sure about quality though.

By decreasing in popularity are you referring to a reduction in apps? Otherwise it seems like a tiny sample of the kids in your immediate circle and where they are applying, i.e. worthless.

Can we stop derailing every thread with UVA arguments? I’d actually like to get back to the original topic. It seems like a lot of middle tier privates are decreasing in popularity, not sure about quality though.