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This is the line many name and no-name private schools use to recruit impressionable parents and students. Going to college is to learn, and if someone needs all that attention to learn, maybe they shouldn't be attending college at all.
That is why I went to my professors' offices, volunteered to be a research assistant, got hired to be a teaching assistant, and got my first two professional jobs through those professors. You might consider taking full advantage of the resources you're paying for too. You might learn something.
It's not even a "need more attention" thing. There are students who would simply prefer to work directly with experts and build relationships and connections, and aren't particularly interested in being one of hundreds of faces in a large auditorium or lecture hall, or winding up with somebody's TA, instead. Or who just plain enjoy class discussion, etc. with a small, focused group who wants to be there and is prepared to be there.
This is the line many name and no-name private schools use to recruit impressionable parents and students. Going to college is to learn, and if someone needs all that attention to learn, maybe they shouldn't be attending college at all.
Maybe the attention is not about learning but getting on the radar of a prof for research opportunities, letters of reference and such down the road. My daughter has become close friends with a couple profs and they have asked her to tutor other students, invited her to assist in research and such. She has gotten A's in the classes so she didn't need the attention to learn. These relationships will be critical for her down the road.
Also, there are some classes that are just harder than others and if someone is having trouble understanding a concept or whatever, having access to the prof is beneficial. Not to mention, ALL of the profs speak English as a first language.....
I'm sure it must be an amazing life having never needed help with anything, Quaker, but the reality is, even the smartest people in the world don't know it all or need help at times.
As you can see from this thread, the reason is that people don't know they are "no-name" schools. There were a handful of private schools in the area where I grew up which offered nothing over cheaper state schools, but they marketed themselves heavily to the state's high schools and everyone had the impression that they were among the more well-known schools. If you move to another state, you discover another handful of schools that everyone thinks are good, that you'd never heard of in the state you used to live in. People are easily fooled by just having heard of something, and the process of applying to school is so overwhelming (there are thousands of them, after all), that anything that narrows it down a little helps. If the schools gives some aid or recruits or offers an athletic scholarship, that suddenly makes it a good choice. After all, most students really don't have any way to narrow down a thousand schools all over the country, or to visit the ones that are far away, so going with what they have heard of is not a completely unreasonable strategy, but a foolish one if they end up paying full private tuition for a mediocre school when they could have gone somewhere cheaper. I think the lack of good guidance in the process combined with lack of exposure to other options is responsible for most of that.
5. Small regional schools typically prioritize and value teaching, and often have all or a majority of classes taught by full professors. Large programs depend more on TA's to handle instruction while professors instead focus on research and publication over instructing.
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Originally Posted by Quaker15
This is the line many name and no-name private schools use to recruit impressionable parents and students. Going to college is to learn, and if someone needs all that attention to learn, maybe they shouldn't be attending college at all.
We hear that line about teaching vs publication and small classes vs auditoriums full, but I wonder how much truth there is to it. Now I'm not saying there aren't auditorium classes and there aren't profs who focus on research, but that it's not the all or nothing so many tend to believe. Even in the big flagships, you will have plenty/most of your classes in a small class setting directly with the prof. And if the prof is doing research, great. Ask them about it. They'll love telling you and before you know it, you're right in there with them actually learning by doing at the frontier of the discipline rather than reading about.
As you can see from this thread, the reason is that people don't know they are "no-name" schools. There were a handful of private schools in the area where I grew up which offered nothing over cheaper state schools, but they marketed themselves heavily to the state's high schools and everyone had the impression that they were among the more well-known schools. If you move to another state, you discover another handful of schools that everyone thinks are good, that you'd never heard of in the state you used to live in. People are easily fooled by just having heard of something, and the process of applying to school is so overwhelming (there are thousands of them, after all), that anything that narrows it down a little helps. If the schools gives some aid or recruits or offers an athletic scholarship, that suddenly makes it a good choice. After all, most students really don't have any way to narrow down a thousand schools all over the country, or to visit the ones that are far away, so going with what they have heard of is not a completely unreasonable strategy, but a foolish one if they end up paying full private tuition for a mediocre school when they could have gone somewhere cheaper. I think the lack of good guidance in the process combined with lack of exposure to other options is responsible for most of that.
Have you been through the college search within the last decade? There are a myriad of ways to find out about small colleges. I have to admit having three kids taught be a lot and I learned more about the whole process with each child. However, it really was a no-brainer to realize the difference between a regional small private and a nationally known one. We went to the large college fairs AFTER doing on-line search. While we did visit a couple of local small privates, they were never on our radar screen. Why would someone go to a small local private instead of trying out a new area of the country? One of the things we realized quickly was that geographic diversity is something that colleges specifically seek out. None of my kids went to a college closer than 7 hours away.
I think the HS counselors at our small HS tend to steer the kids to the State U's, but in PA, there are many to choose from and also combination of partially public, like Temple, Pitt and Penn State - or their branch campuses. The privates that our (my kids HS) kids attend though are very likely to be in any state, including ones on the West Coast. As far as visiting, each family is different, but we did do swings to other states in New England and North Carolina where we saw three or four colleges in an area. Another strategy is to apply, see what the financial aid is, and then visit. Maybe our HS is an anomaly, but our local privates don't really make a pitch to recruit local kids unless they are athletes needed for their teams.
Have you been through the college search within the last decade? There are a myriad of ways to find out about small colleges. I have to admit having three kids taught be a lot and I learned more about the whole process with each child. However, it really was a no-brainer to realize the difference between a regional small private and a nationally known one. We went to the large college fairs AFTER doing on-line search. While we did visit a couple of local small privates, they were never on our radar screen. Why would someone go to a small local private instead of trying out a new area of the country? One of the things we realized quickly was that geographic diversity is something that colleges specifically seek out. None of my kids went to a college closer than 7 hours away.
I think the HS counselors at our small HS tend to steer the kids to the State U's, but in PA, there are many to choose from and also combination of partially public, like Temple, Pitt and Penn State - or their branch campuses. The privates that our (my kids HS) kids attend though are very likely to be in any state, including ones on the West Coast. As far as visiting, each family is different, but we did do swings to other states in New England and North Carolina where we saw three or four colleges in an area. Another strategy is to apply, see what the financial aid is, and then visit. Maybe our HS is an anomaly, but our local privates don't really make a pitch to recruit local kids unless they are athletes needed for their teams.
I've only been through the search maybe a hundred times or so in the last decade, seeing as how that's part of my job.
Your children are in the minority. Only about 15% of students choose schools that are not driving distance to their parents' home. The overwhelming majority stay within their state. Do you really need to ask why someone would choose something closer to home rather than try out a new part of the country, where one has no resources, no family, and no familiarity?
Let's see...first, the college visit alone would be hardship for many families, who can't afford to travel half way across the country to visit schools they've only read about on the internet.
Second, although the many rankings available are certainly a good tool for narrowing things down, they don't really narrow it down enough unless you are looking at maybe elite schools. But for the average student, the choice is still huge. And if you don't live near a school, then you don't have any word-of-mouth to go by, and don't know anything about the area first-hand or even second-hand, without visiting.
It takes a lot of research online, and good research skills to locate a far-away school that meets your financial, social, geographical and academic needs. You'd be surprised how few people have those skills. If you do, and did this for your child, then good for you. But I can assure you that you are in the minority. About 15%, to be precise.
Most of my students only apply to about 3 schools, and their back-up is usually community college (which I think about half eventually go to). They usually apply to one really great school that they have a slim chance of getting into, and 2 schools that aren't so great but which they are sure they can get into and which are within driving distance. They usually visit the 2 local schools before deciding, and are primarily swayed by 1-availability of a major and 2-that they can actually get in. They rarely do a lot of research on the internet, and their parents are not usually involved at all. You would be shocked at how many didn't do any research at all, but relied on "my friend goes there and he told me...." or even "I heard...."
I'm not saying that's the best way or even a good way - far from it. I'm just saying that's what usually happens.
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