Comments

Regarding Washington University . . . My daughter received a letter from Wash U that read as follows:

"Yes! I want the inside story on a successfull college search. Please send me a free copy of your "College Application Checklist" as soon as possible. I also want additional information on Washington University."

"Return this form, after you've corrected any errors and supplied any missing information, in the postage-paid envelope provided."

I was SO TEMPTED to correct their misspelling of the word "successfull" and then send the form back, but since her name was on the form, I thought better of it . . . .

Seriously, though, Wash U has an excellent reputation here in central Illinois. My understanding is tuition is around $40,000 per year.

-- KarenA - 01 Apr 2006

It's a reasonably nice place to go to school. (I started college there.)

-- DougSundseth - 02 Apr 2006

Seriously, though, Wash U has an excellent reputation here in central Illinois. My understanding is tuition is around $40,000 per year.

Definitely. It had a good reputation when I was a kid, and I always thought the campus was beautiful.

My criterion was I wanted to go some pace I'd have to get on an airplane to get to.

That wasn't St. Louis.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

Doug, where are you from originally?

You're in CO now, right?

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

Do you have the sense that Midwestern colleges are suddenly 'hotter' than they were??

I'm starting to think that's so....

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

Here's the IvyWise list of college admissions:

This is a partial list of schools where IvyWise students have been admitted in the past two years. The selectivity of these schools ranges from less than 10% to 60% admissions rate.

Barnard College * **
Berklee College of Music*
Boston College * * * **
Boston University * * * * * **
Brandeis University * **
Brown University * * * **
Bucknell University * * **
Carnegie Mellon University * **
Columbia University * * * * **
Colgate University * * **
Cornell University * * * **%*
BR% Dartmouth University * **
Duke University * * **
Emory University * * **
Fordham University * **
Georgetown University * * **
Georgetown, Business School*
George Washington University * * * * **
Harvard University * * * ** *
Johns Hopkins University * **
Kenyon College
Lehigh University
Middlebury College
Muhlenberg College * *
New York University
Northwestern University * * *
New York University * * * * * * *
NYU-Tisch School of the Arts
Oxford University*
Princeton University * * **
Skidmore College * * * *
Southern Methodist University*
Stanford University * * * **
Swarthmore College * **
Tufts University * **
Union College * * **
University of Arizona*
University of California-Berkeley * **
University of California- Los Angeles * * **
University of California- San Diego*
University of Chicago * **
University of Denver*
University of Miami*
University of Michigan * * * * *
University of Pennsylvania * * * * * * **
University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business*
University of San Francisco*
University of Southern California * * * * * * **
University of Wisconsin * * **
Vassar College*
Wake Forest University*
Washington University-St. Louis * * * **
Washington & Lee University*
Wesleyan University*
Yale University * *

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

My friend whose kids are in the fantastic private school told me her school pushes parents not to send their kids to Ivy League colleges for undergraduate, because the kids are taught by T.A.s

They have a list of 'non-Ivy Ivies' they encourage everyone to apply to.

She said that list is pretty close to this one.

They tell parents that if you're interested in an Ivy League school, the goal should be to go there for grad school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

"Doug, where are you from originally?"

Well, I was born in Moorhead, MN. I went to kindergarten in Idaho. I went to first grade in Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia.

I think the current PC term is TCK (third-culture kid), but when I was young it was just "air-force brat".

"You're in CO now, right?"

Yes. I work about 2 miles from where Carolyn lives, but live just north of Denver.

-- DougSundseth - 02 Apr 2006

ah-hah!

I was reading that list and thinking MILITARY!

yup

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Apr 2006

The "taught by TAs" thing varies widely from school to school (and from department to department within the school).

A student is MOST likely to be taught by TAs at a big, public University. Especially at the main campus for the state. These are the schools that combine an emphasis on research with a fairly low budget.

Depending on the school, the TA might actually teach the course or the TA might just lead a discussion section or a recitation section once a week. TAs are almost always stuck teaching the lowest level courses that no one else wants to teach. Some clever websurfing can often turn up the schedule of courses, including the instructors' names, which can be compared to a department's list of personel.

There will likely be TAs in any department that has a PhD^? program, but how the department uses them depends on their budget and their staffing (and their priorities!).

At the undergraduate level, what you want is a campus with more of an emphasis on teaching than on research and where the students are smart enough to generate friendly competition (but not so smart as to leave your kid at the back of the pack).

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 02 Apr 2006

I visited St Louis a couple of years ago, and was dismayed by the mood of the place. It seemed to me that it had real inner-city problems... Wash U is right by a ghetto.

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Apr 2006

The neighborhood around Wash U isn't that bad, but the neighborhood surrounding St. Louis University, where I went to undergrad, is pretty dicey and definitely not someplace you'd walk at night.

I lived in St. Louis for 5 years. My husband grew up there, and we get back there probably every other month. There are a lot of racial problems there, and the poverty and crime in the African-American parts of the city is bad. The racial attitudes are probably more like a Southern city.

There are a lot of very wealthy suburbs, and it's a real "class-conscious" place. I would never want to live there again.

-- KathyIggy - 03 Apr 2006

I applied, and was accepted to, Wash U back in the dark ages. When I visited, I found the campus to be very, very Jewish. I liked the feel of the campus, didn't have a problem with the very-very-Jewishness, but it wasn't my number one choice, and they were more expensive than my number one choice, and didn't offer me any money.

At the time, I compared the times posted in their fieldhouse with my HS bests and realized I could have been a walk-on on their track team.

-- GoogleMaster - 03 Apr 2006

Where did you go to school?

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Apr 2006

"At the time, I compared the times posted in their fieldhouse with my HS bests and realized I could have been a walk-on on their track team."

So, did you pick a different school because Wash. U.'s athletics uniforms are so ugly? (It's Christmas every day at "The Home of the Scholar-Athlete". But not in a good way.)

I will say that the 1/3 mile track is very hard to get used to.

-- DougSundseth - 03 Apr 2006

There are a lot of very wealthy suburbs, and it's a real "class-conscious" place.

Also a color-conscious place.

-- CarolynJohnston - 04 Apr 2006

When I was applying to colleges, back in the dark ages, my parents (or somebody) came up with the following scheme. I am recommending it to my niece, who will be going through the process next year.

Take a wild guess at a major, to have some criterion with which to narrow down the schools. I ended up changing my major after applying, but before attending school, but that wasn't a problem.

For the purpose of this exercise, assume that you can get into any school of your choice. Take the pool of all schools in the known universe and put them into three categories:

1. definitely interested
2. maybe interested
3. definitely not interested

Then cull through category 1 and move them down into category 2 until category 1 has a manageable number. Make sure to include one fallback school in category 1.

I ended up with six "first choice" schools and six "second choice" schools. The "first choice" schools included two to shoot for, three that I was interested in (including one military academy), plus a sure-thing state school to fall back on in case none of the others accepted me.

I didn't bother applying to the six "second choice" schools. They were not second tier by any means -- IIRC, they included Chicago, Northwestern, and Rennselaer -- but I just wasn't as interested.

The two Ivies, Wash U, and the state school accepted but didn't offer any money. I forget how much Wash U wanted, but the Ivies wanted $18K/year for tuition + fees + room + board. (I said this was the dark ages.)

I narrowed it down to the Academy and a small private school. I decided I didn't want to be career military, and that to take advantage of the free tuition in exchange for four or five years of service would be dishonest. So I went with the small private school that was cheaper than Wash U and about half the cost of the Ivies.

Athletics had nothing to do with it; in fact, our football team won five games total during my four years there. The fact that I figured that my parents would be footing the entire bill had a lot to do with it.

The funny thing is that I made school visits to all of my first choice schools except the state school, and the ones I visited were all several hundred to 1500 miles away from home.

-- GoogleMaster - 04 Apr 2006

Hmmm. My thinking on choosing a university:

• There are two university engineering schools in NZ. One in Christchurch (Canterbury University) and one in Auckland (Auckland University).

• I have lots of relatives in Auckland and renting there is very expensive.

• I have one cousin in Christchurch.

• I'll go to Canterbury.

Which was more sophisticated than most NZ students university picking. Which is "Which is the closest uni to me?"

What a difference population size makes.

-- TracyW - 04 Apr 2006

lol

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Apr 2006

my thing was just: board an airplane to get there

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Apr 2006

not quite....junior year I had a boyfriend who'd gone off to Amherst, so that was the first I'd even heard of the 'Seven Sisters' and all that....

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Apr 2006

Catherine -- was "board an airplane to get there" a "must have" or a "must not have"?

-- GoogleMaster - 05 Apr 2006