Career Discussion Thread

[jvang]

Originally Posted by clowns789

Out of curiosity, would this also apply to Hendrix?

I’ve heard that Hendrix and Harding are the only ones that are actually decent, but I think that U of Arkansas at Fayetteville is probably better. Also, U of A is (I think) our only university that is classified with the highest research activity by the Carnegie Foundation. Not meaningful to humanities majors, but I’m a STEM guy so that matters to me

Taking cost into account, Harding is way too expensive; anyone qualified and rich enough to go there might as well go to a real Ivy or other top 30 school. Hendrix is closer to the cost of our public universities, so that would come down to one's impression of their curriculum. Of course, with free tuition and whatnot covered to U of A, I don’t have much of a choice to make

[jvang]

Originally Posted by clowns789

Out of curiosity, would this also apply to Hendrix?

Originally Posted by jvang

I’ve heard that Hendrix and Harding are the only ones that are actually decent, but I think that U of Arkansas at Fayetteville is probably better. Also, U of A is (I think) our only university that is classified with the highest research activity by the Carnegie Foundation. Not meaningful to humanities majors, but I’m a STEM guy so that matters to me

Taking cost into account, Harding is way too expensive; anyone qualified and rich enough to go there might as well go to a real Ivy or other top 30 school. Hendrix is closer to the cost of our public universities, so that would come down to one's impression of their curriculum. Of course, with free tuition and whatnot covered to U of A, I don’t have much of a choice to make

I do keep getting emails from our many other private colleges. The majority are religiously-affiliated but a few are not. It seems the main benefit of going to most of them are for a “small town, small college” experience; more than a couple have fewer than 1,000 students in total (such as University of the Ozarks and Lyon College). I wonder if that idea is as cool as they make it sound, especially since the particular small town that I currently live in is not very interesting in any way :ermm!

[masser]

Originally Posted by jvang

Taking cost into account, Harding is way too expensive; anyone qualified and rich enough to go there might as well go to a real Ivy or other top 30 school. Hendrix is closer to the cost of our public universities, so that would come down to one's impression of their curriculum. Of course, with free tuition and whatnot covered to U of A, I don’t have much of a choice to make

Hey, I forgot to mention this earlier: congratulations on the free tuition to U of Ark. You must be a pretty good student to have earned that. I would strongly encourage you to apply to a few additional schools, just to see what they could offer you. Treat the U of A as your safety school and explore (the very many) opportunities you may have in front of you.

If you want to stay "relatively" close to home, there are several very good schools within less than a day's drive: UT-Austin, Rice, Tulane, Washington U. of St. Louis, Vanderbilt. What if one of those schools came up with a financial aid package that was nearly equivalent to the offer from U of A? What if you had to take out student loans, but they were less than X dollars a year, where X seems small?

What if you don't care about proximity to home? There might be schools that have more to offer than U of Ark that will give you an even better financial deal. If you really want to stay in-state, plan some visits to those smaller colleges. They, too, might give you competitive offers. Do you have any hobbies (hiking, rafting, quilting, whatever) that might flourish in one of the quaint college towns you visit?

I scattered my college applications over 6 schools. I was rejected by the one I had identified as a longshot, but got accepted to the others. One of the better schools gave me a financial aid package I considered untenable. Having four realistic choices, with various pros and cons in terms of cost and opportunities, was nice.

[jvang]

Originally Posted by masser

Hey, I forgot to mention this earlier: congratulations on the free tuition to U of Ark. You must be a pretty good student to have earned that. I would strongly encourage you to apply to a few additional schools, just to see what they could offer you. Treat the U of A as your safety school and explore (the very many) opportunities you may have in front of you.

If you want to stay "relatively" close to home, there are several very good schools within less than a day's drive: UT-Austin, Rice, Tulane, Washington U. of St. Louis, Vanderbilt. What if one of those schools came up with a financial aid package that was nearly equivalent to the offer from U of A? What if you had to take out student loans, but they were less than X dollars a year, where X seems small?

What if you don't care about proximity to home? There might be schools that have more to offer than U of Ark that will give you an even better financial deal. If you really want to stay in-state, plan some visits to those smaller colleges. They, too, might give you competitive offers. Do you have any hobbies (hiking, rafting, quilting, whatever) that might flourish in one of the quaint college towns you visit?

I scattered my college applications over 6 schools. I was rejected by the one I had identified as a longshot, but got accepted to the others. One of the better schools gave me a financial aid package I considered untenable. Having four realistic choices, with various pros and cons in terms of cost and opportunities, was nice.

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...231#post489231

While I'd love to have free college because of my academic achievement, it's actually from a convenient state scholarship, the Arkansas Military Dependents Scholarship. Thus, I'm "limited" to in-state public schools. I'd love to go to plenty of other schools, and probably could've ended up somewhere cool if I hadn't messed up my junior year. But U of A at Fayetteville is good enough (I'll take "Best in Arkansas," for what it's worth), and it's basically as far from the hellhole that is the Arkansas Delta as I can get while staying in-state

[masser]

Originally Posted by jvang

I suppose I'm interested in a really broad spectrum of subjects; how would one get exposed to a variety of topics like that during college? Are study-abroad programs worth looking into, or is that more cultural immersion/tourism?

Doh! I was not reading the sister thread in blogorrhea. Sorry.

I'd still recommend multiple applications and visits to more schools. Explore your options; you might be surprised.

[jvang]

Originally Posted by masser

Doh! I was not reading the sister thread in blogorrhea. Sorry.

I'd still recommend multiple applications and visits to more schools. Explore your options; you might be surprised.

I’ve taken a look at basically every college in Arkansas (the other public colleges around here are abysmal at best), so I’d have to look out-of-state. I can’t think of any worthwhile private college that I could feasibly afford, but there are a couple of public universities that I would consider. However, I’m 90% sure that most other public colleges that have better programs than U of Arkansas are not worth the full out-of-state cost that I’d end up paying. Places like Auburn University, UNC, and the Texas/California systems.

Even if I had a plan to afford them (Auburn would offer me in-state tuition for aerospace engineering through the Academic Common Market, helps a bit) I’d still need to be admitted, and my fail year tanked my GPA (which also affects any scholarships I could consider). So I’m not really sure where else I should apply that would make sense financially and chance-of-admittance-wise...