Anonymous wrote:Why won’t anyone name the specific CTCL school that they’re bragging about?

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Anonymous wrote:Check out Colleges that Change Lives. It's a book about overpriced second tier colleges for B students for parents who wish their kids could get into top schools but can't. DCUM families drool over the book . . .

OP, instead of believing this nasty post, I suggest you search for other threads on DCUM about CTCL. No need to rehash here what has already been discussed ad nauseum by proponents and opponents of those colleges and the types of students who actually attend them

OP, CTCL schools give very generous merit aid. Get him to study for the SATs. It pays dividends.

OP, CTCL schools are second tier and half their students don't graduate. They're a total scam. Send your kid to a solid Catholic college -- Jesuit if you can -- and they'll actually graduate with a marketable degree and do well. Don't waste your time on second tier liberal arts colleges.

Anonymous wrote:OP, all this back and forth about CTCL, here’s a real life example instead of one or two posters’ sweeping generalizations. My DD graduated in the top 10% of a very well-regarded NOVA public high school. DD knew what she wanted to study but not a lot of SLACs offer it, wanted to get away from this area and wanted a SLAC so she applied to a few of the top New England colleges (Bates, Colby, Etc.), one in-state just in case and a CTCL. None of us had any clue about CTCL until DD actually applied to one. DD was accepted to a couple of the top 20 SLACs, in-state and the CTCL school and choose the later after visiting all. It felt the most personal and it had great research opportunities both on and off campus in her field. It also offered great merit $, which was an added bonus since DD has 2 younger siblings. DD has since graduated and is getting her PhD. at a top national university. Meanwhile, a couple of her college friends are in med school, another in graduate school in a science field and another couple are working in good jobs. The school was all we could hope a college experience to be: wonderful professors, mentoring that continues to this day, research opportunities, challenging classes and bright, inquisitive, interesting peers from all 50 states and all over the world. We didn’t fall for a marketing ploy, my DD had more “prestigious” higher ranked options and her college peers weren’t a bunch of losers. I would recommend checking a few out if you think your DC might be interested.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, all this back and forth about CTCL, here’s a real life example instead of one or two posters’ sweeping generalizations. My DD graduated in the top 10% of a very well-regarded NOVA public high school. DD knew what she wanted to study but not a lot of SLACs offer it, wanted to get away from this area and wanted a SLAC so she applied to a few of the top New England colleges (Bates, Colby, Etc.), one in-state just in case and a CTCL. None of us had any clue about CTCL until DD actually applied to one. DD was accepted to a couple of the top 20 SLACs, in-state and the CTCL school and choose the later after visiting all. It felt the most personal and it had great research opportunities both on and off campus in her field. It also offered great merit $, which was an added bonus since DD has 2 younger siblings. DD has since graduated and is getting her PhD. at a top national university. Meanwhile, a couple of her college friends are in med school, another in graduate school in a science field and another couple are working in good jobs. The school was all we could hope a college experience to be: wonderful professors, mentoring that continues to this day, research opportunities, challenging classes and bright, inquisitive, interesting peers from all 50 states and all over the world. We didn’t fall for a marketing ploy, my DD had more “prestigious” higher ranked options and her college peers weren’t a bunch of losers. I would recommend checking a few out if you think your DC might be interested.

My DC had the same experience. Got into 7 of the 9 schools she applied to. One was a CTCL, which was lower ranked than the rest. In the end she preferred it, due to the sense of community on campus. We are very happy so far. She gets an amazing amount of individual attention from professors, and school staff. She is being very well educated, and feels less judged and stressed than she did in her W high school (MCPS).

Anonymous wrote:OP, all this back and forth about CTCL, here’s a real life example instead of one or two posters’ sweeping generalizations. My DD graduated in the top 10% of a very well-regarded NOVA public high school. DD knew what she wanted to study but not a lot of SLACs offer it, wanted to get away from this area and wanted a SLAC so she applied to a few of the top New England colleges (Bates, Colby, Etc.), one in-state just in case and a CTCL. None of us had any clue about CTCL until DD actually applied to one. DD was accepted to a couple of the top 20 SLACs, in-state and the CTCL school and choose the later after visiting all. It felt the most personal and it had great research opportunities both on and off campus in her field. It also offered great merit $, which was an added bonus since DD has 2 younger siblings. DD has since graduated and is getting her PhD. at a top national university. Meanwhile, a couple of her college friends are in med school, another in graduate school in a science field and another couple are working in good jobs. The school was all we could hope a college experience to be: wonderful professors, mentoring that continues to this day, research opportunities, challenging classes and bright, inquisitive, interesting peers from all 50 states and all over the world. We didn’t fall for a marketing ploy, my DD had more “prestigious” higher ranked options and her college peers weren’t a bunch of losers. I would recommend checking a few out if you think your DC might be interested.

Anonymous wrote:Here's my thinking on the CTCL issue. Generally speaking, the schools' target audience is parents who really wish their kids could go top ranked private colleges but know that they can't. The book feeds into this insecurity by marketing the schools as somehow special. But they're not. They're mediocre and tend to attract underachievers with disappointed parents -- a recipe for low graduation rates.

If I were a parent of a B student (I wasn't), there's no way in hell I'd pay private school tuition to send my kid to a school full of pampered underachievers. I'd look instead at the top 10-15 schools on the regional university list on US News. Take the northeast region, for example. A half dozen of the top 10 -- Providence, Loyola of Maryland, Fairfield, Scranton, St Joe's -- are Catholic and mostly Jesuit. They are full of B students who worked hard in high school. They offer practical programs and practical degrees, virtually all of them have graduation rates above 80 percent -- which virtually none of the CTCL schools do -- and the students get good jobs. And it's not as if the schools have less name recognition; no one's heard of most of the CTCL schools at all.

To me, it comes down to who your peer group is. Are your fellow B students hard workers from solid families, or underachievers with pampering parents? You the former to rub off on your kid, not the latter.

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Anonymous wrote:If it has as a 3 in front of it, it is a B (albeit a high B).

Breathe, your kid is smart and will do fine, if you stop treating this like a competition

Where do you get the idea that I am treating this like a competition? I asked people to recommend schools their kids went to and liked.

The comment was made to the person who seemed to be questioning whether 3.9 could somehow be interpreted as an A since THEIR child had taken difficult classes

Just trying to understand the range of colleges we should be looking at with that profile. In other words, do colleges feel that all Bs are the same? Would it be better to take easier classes to get As if you want to go to a great college? My sense is that it isn't like that, in which case not all Bs are the same. Or are they?

Anonymous wrote:If it has as a 3 in front of it, it is a B (albeit a high B).

Breathe, your kid is smart and will do fine, if you stop treating this like a competition

Anonymous wrote:Michigan.

note: No financial aid, legacy, private K-12, and five years of verified demonstrated interest (summer camps and programs).