Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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I went to Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges in California.

Yout cannot beat the education, he would be able to play a varsity sport, and he gets to live in Southern California. Also, their acceptance rate into grad school is off the charts.

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Just stay out of Pitzer.

~D

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

He should go to the school that he likes the most. If he doesn't know what he likes then it would be wise to give him the opportunity to tour a bunch of different schools - but if he wants to go to USC and gets into Harvard, he should still go to USC. Happiness > prestige.

Will

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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Happiness > prestige.

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Worth repeating.

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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I don't really know what grades/test scores it takes to get in where these days. I'm assuming his #s aren't quite good enough to get into the very top schools or the tough out of state public schools (so no-go on Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Berkeley). If this is the case, I think he should look into the next tier of private schools. These would include Cornell, Northwestern, Emory, Penn, etc...

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Ahem. Penn is in the top 10 of American universities by most accounts, and for business Wharton is pretty much top of the pops.

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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I don't really know what grades/test scores it takes to get in where these days. I'm assuming his #s aren't quite good enough to get into the very top schools or the tough out of state public schools (so no-go on Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Berkeley). If this is the case, I think he should look into the next tier of private schools. These would include Cornell, Northwestern, Emory, Penn, etc...

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Ahem. Penn is in the top 10 of American universities by most accounts, and for business Wharton is pretty much top of the pops.

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I'm biased because I'm going to Penn, but this person is right. You can't really compare Emory and Northwestern to Penn in terms of repuation as a whole, and Wharton obviously is top top tier. Penn is in better half of the top 10 universities in the nation and the other schools in the post don't really make it there.

That said, we are talking about BS reputation factors. You can get an awesome education at Emory or those schools. A lot of the admissions process is luck and networking, there are many more qualified kids with great scores and grades than there are spots at HYP, Stanford, Duke, Penn, etc. It's anyone's guess whether you will get a better overall education at Yale or Cornell or Northwestern or (name top school here), but the fact is for many finance and grad school opportunities the prestige of your school does matter, even if the HYP schools' repuations are propped up by history. Northwestern could be the best school in the country 10 years from now but it would never be #1 on those stupid lists and wouldn't be the school overachievers gunned for and bragged about. That is because the system is BS.

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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We will begin visiting schools next week. We are going to Maryland first and then heading up to the Boston area soon after. We'll probably go to Michigan in December (see how he likes the cold then)...

Please tell me more about Northeastern,

Also Those of you who went to UTexas and Mich please give me some more personal experiences.

Thank you all for your continuing help.

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As Thug said, Northeastern is famous for its long-established co-op program, and Boston itself is a student paradise. But in the pecking order of Boston universities, Northeastern is not too high on the totem pole (yeah, I know the metaphor is mixed).

UT-Austin has an excellent honors program which is very cost-effective even for out-of-state students. UT-Austin is very popular with Louisianans who don't want to spend a bundle, but who, rightly, think that LSU doesn't cut it. UT-Austin is really an outstanding university, competitive with some of the prestigious private universities, and people seem to like living in Austin very much.

One of the so-called public Ivies that hasn't been mentioned is the University of Vermont--but I understand that it is pretty expensive for someone out-of-state.

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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I don't really know what grades/test scores it takes to get in where these days. I'm assuming his #s aren't quite good enough to get into the very top schools or the tough out of state public schools (so no-go on Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Berkeley). If this is the case, I think he should look into the next tier of private schools. These would include Cornell, Northwestern, Emory, Penn, etc...

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Ahem. Penn is in the top 10 of American universities by most accounts, and for business Wharton is pretty much top of the pops.

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I'm biased because I'm going to Penn, but this person is right. You can't really compare Emory and Northwestern to Penn in terms of repuation as a whole, and Wharton obviously is top top tier. Penn is in better half of the top 10 universities in the nation and the other schools in the post don't really make it there.

That said, we are talking about BS reputation factors. You can get an awesome education at Emory or those schools. A lot of the admissions process is luck and networking, there are many more qualified kids with great scores and grades than there are spots at HYP, Stanford, Duke, Penn, etc. It's anyone's guess whether you will get a better overall education at Yale or Cornell or Northwestern or (name top school here), but the fact is for many finance and grad school opportunities the prestige of your school does matter, even if the HYP schools' repuations are propped up by history. Northwestern could be the best school in the country 10 years from now but it would never be #1 on those stupid lists and wouldn't be the school overachievers gunned for and bragged about. That is because the system is BS.

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Yeah, Voltron87, I'm biased too. I have three Penn degrees, and Judy Seitz Rodin was in my senior seminar section. (Donald Trump and Candace Bergen were there when I was there too, but she flunked out.)

But you are definitely right about the BS reputation factor. The ugly truth is that Harvard is just plain not that good. The faculty is inbred, and Harvard is the poster child for grade inflation. You can indeed get an excellent education at many schools if you pick and choose carefully among the offerings and faculty and do the necessary hard work. But prestige (even if it's not fully warranted) is actually worth quite a bit. A student who graduates from Harvard or Yale is immediately hooked into a very powerful alumni network--if he or she wants to be. A lot of doors will open just because of the name on the diploma. Ask anyone who went to MIT. BTW MIT is NOT the poster child for grade inflation, not at all.

Re: Which college should he choose?
 

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