Colleges Lose Pricing Power

[IUHoosiergirl88]

Honestly, most of them only let their kids apply to their one in-state flagship, HYPMS, and a bunch of schools who make it rain with merit aid. So in their brains, when their kid wins $20k in merit aid at Kalamazoo, it means all privates are cheaper than all publics.

They also believe that if you went to a state school, you had a far inferior education to their special snowflake

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by IUHoosiergirl88

They also believe that if you went to a state school, you had a far inferior education to their special snowflake

One of my best friends went to Reed College and got an absolutely world class education in physics and math. He then went to Portland State to brush up on his pre-med requirements.

Reed is a hard-ass college which has a bizarre hippy dippy grade policy where they believe that education, not perfect GPAs matter. They do keep track of your GPA, but so long as you have a C-average, you're doing great.

The fact that he had a C-something average really came to bite him in the ass when he applied for med school. He can't even get admitted in the Caribbean despite a pretty stellar MCAT.

Sometimes, that simple state school education and the accompanying high GPA can be a really good thing.

Also, some state schools have honors colleges which are a lot like private schools, but at a much lower cost.