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    Joined: Jul 2010
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    Originally Posted by Val
    Originally Posted by Tallulah
    MIT subsidises all undergrads. It costs them about $70,000 to educate them, the full sticker price is $45,000. They can do this because they have an enormous endowment. I don't know about funding of grad students.

    I'm skeptical of this claim. I started college in the 80s. The cost of a year at my private seven-sisters college went from 10K the year before I started to 20K the year I graduated. So it doubled in five years.

    Every year, they told us that "tuition doesn't begin to cover the cost of your education." They've been repeating that line ever since. With the exception of the last couple of years or so, tuition increases have risen at more or way more than the cost of inflation, so I have a lot of trouble accepting that tuition hasn't caught up with actual costs yet.

    What I suspect is really going on is that the "whole cost of your education" claim is referring to the costs of the new dorms, the new rec center (with lazy river!), the new horsey barn, and all those shiny new research buildings. As for those buildings, undergraduates may or may not even enter them during their four years, much less make use of them beyond a possible summer gig or a fourth-year project.

    That and the colleges are gouging parents, and in many cases, students through non-dischargeable-even-in-death student loans. In other words, they raise tuition because they can.

    So tuition at MIT is $43,720. If a student takes 8 classes in a year (4 per semester), this means that each class costs roughly $5,500 per student, or $110,000 for 20 students. I have trouble believing that even a course in cell culture or molecular biology could cost that much, let alone general chemistry or...a math class.
    Chalk is super expensive! And those nice slate chalkboards!

    The shiny new labs at MIT are govt/industry funded. Classes at MIT are all taught by faculty, with a low teaching load (that's how to attract great faculty), so for a class with 60 students there are three professors, and it's a quarter of their nine month salary/cost of hiring (at a guess, maybe $5000 in staff costs per 10 students per subject per year?). Then there's heating costs, and plant maintenance and cleaning and IT and who the hell knows what else goes into these institutions. And because it's a private university none of that is public. I'd be fascinated to know how the calculation is done for a public school. But not fascinated enough to dig through business or accounting reports. Booring.

    Howler, your post was tl;dr, but the last bit - the fancy amenities are what drives recruitment, high apps means lower acceptance percentage, which makes you seem selective, driving more recruitment, and probably more better students too. And better students earn more afterwards, and donate more.

    There is also the coupon effect. They raise the sticker price and offer more scholarships to attract students, because $40,000 with a $15,000 scholarship is obviously a better deal than $25,000 with no scholrship.

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    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    To piggyback upon notnafnaf's post, also-- it is more than possible at a larger college/uni to have all of those things happen in different courses/departments.

    DD is at a large state flagship. She is in the much-smaller Honors College there, where the enrollment is about 4-6% that of the larger institution. She has lecture courses with 400+ students in them, in which a student has to WORK to make themselves known even to the TA's in the class, never mind the instructor.

    The thing is, she knows that such personal interaction is key to being given the benefit of the doubt-- ever-- and also to getting insider information regarding upcoming assignments, tips about what the instructor is thinking re: certain assignments, etc. The unwritten stuff that matters.

    On the other end of that extreme, she also has some small (<12 student) seminar/discussion classes where class participation is a HUGE portion of the student grade, since it's the engine of learning for everyone taking the course. I don't consider that hand-holding, really-- almost more like nowhere-to-hide. LOL.

    She wasn't that shocked by having so much riding on just a few assessments-- but it is clear that some of her classmates have been. Some of them have been downright stunned by the level of difficulty and lack of gentle coaching from instructors, never mind the lack of "second chances" at things.

    One of the only things that she has found maddening is a lack of accountability from faculty-- far from there being no hand-holding (except on demand, and as noted, DD goes to pretty great lengths to have her professors KNOW her), good luck even knowing what your grade is in a class prior to the final exam. DD has had courses where she didn't have any information on her course performance between the second week and the posting of final grades. Not kidding. Faculty also give assignments with MADDENINGLY short turn-around times-- and students are expected to basically be plugged in and nervously checking-checking-checking like rabid squirrels with ADD, I guess-- because if they don't, they will fail to notice that there is now a 5 page essay due in 24 hours. (I'm not actually exaggerating that by much-- 4 pages with citations, and 40 hours' notice).

    College is now VERY much more hostile toward non-traditional, disabled, and older students, from what I've seen. The notion that students are "always on" and the assumption that they live ON CAMPUS-- is a huge disadvantage to those who are commuters, who must work, or have family caregiving in the picture. I truly don't know how those students have enough hours in the day now, because the ground is constantly shifting under them like quicksand. frown

    There is also a patchwork of different electronic notification systems in play-- so some faculty use one, some use another, some prefer nothing at all and others use e-mail exclusively, etc. For DD's six classes this term, she has a variety of very different styles to contend with there, and no fewer than FIVE separate websites to check a minimum of five to six time daily to keep on top of it all.

    I mention that because I thought that I was pretty well in tune with what the executive demands of the environment were like-- I had no idea how much more complex it was than when I was in the classroom. Be warned, those who have kids headed toward early matriculation-- executive function needs to be VERY good indeed. I still have to scaffold this, and the other home-town kids that we know? Yeah, their parents help with scheduling weekly, too-- it's just too much, too scattered for most of them otherwise. It's very fragmented now.

    I think that faculty all (sort of) have to produce something akin to a syllabus-- though she has had a few that don't really do that, either. But there are no restrictions on how often they have to update student grades, how long they have before returning work to students, etc. This is quite alien to me-- never, never would I have been allowed to do to my students what DD's professors seem to expect her to put up with. It's outrageous, IMO.

    At her state flagship, I am very pleased to say that there is little hand-holding, and even less grade inflation. Not working hard is a route to poor grades. Period. The retention rate is about 80% from beginning of freshman year to sophomore fall, which is probably as it should be.

    Other than that-- what Val said. Oh-- one more thing. DD's "full tuition" scholarship still leaves us shelling out about 3-4K annually in additional "fees" and such, and she doesn't even live on campus. If she did, we'd also be writing checks for 12-16K every year. What this means is that her tuition is effectively about 14K annually.

    Now, sure-- that is a fraction of the cost of an institution like BU, MIT, or HMC. Sure. But it is definitely not what most middle class families will find "affordable."

    It angers me that so much of that cost is going toward things that seem to me to be quite unrelated to the academic mission. No, a fancy climbing wall and a 24 hour sushi bar are not "essential" campus amenities, and I'm tired of being forced to support that stuff. Supporting the library? Fine. Good, even. A new "recreation center" on campus? Uhhh- no.

    So basically the lecturers are making the students pay for their (the lecturers)lack of executive function skills? I hadn't thought of some of this. When I was at university computers were a useful tool but most students used pen and paper 90% of the time. There was a stated marking turn around of less than a week for lab stuff or some fixed length for other stuff. Personallh I think it is unethical to have a second assignment due before the first is back as it prevents learning from mistakes until they have been repeated. If I were paying for my child to attend I would expect better. Basic accommodations and amenities are fine, substandard teaching practice is not.

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    Originally Posted by ElizabethN
    That said, MIT is indeed its own unique and singular place, and it's not really "just as good" to just go there for grad school.

    I would have loved to have attended MIT as an undergrad.

    That said, the students who went to MIT undergrad seem to be happy only looking back in remembrance. There is a reason they MIT has the slogan "IHTFP" that always shows up on the school ring. For everyone else, IHTFP stands for "I Hate This F* Place".

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    Yeah-- I'm regularly appalled by it in some of her classes. I'd NEVER have done that kind of thing. I always considered a syllabus my contract with students, and they knew when every quiz, exam, and assignment was due on the first day of class, and I tried for about a 48 hour turn-around. DD would LOVE to have a professor meet that kind of standard now.

    The other thing that she's had happen is that document-sharing (for scheduling appointments and such) requires that students have access to do data entry-- but the problem is that they can then OVER-WRITE others' entries. Oh-- and so can the TA's, which is what I strongly suspect is happening at least some of the time.

    DD basically only got about 4 hours' worth of unrestricted time on campus each week to do required appointments for a computer science class. She has also fairly routinely had an appointment over-written/deleted/moved without warning or notification. So she shows up, and voila-- she no longer has an appointment, in spite of having documented it with a screen shot on her phone (yeah-- it's been that regular a thing, that she wised up and started documenting it).

    She doesn't like to be "a butthead" about this kind of thing-- but I finally INSISTED that she needed to let the class professor know about it, as she is a commuter with an overload that includes lab times-- there is simply no WAY for her to compensate for this kind of nonsense on a regular basis. The professor agreed (with alacrity and ire) and came down pretty hard on the TA corps.

    She also quite regularly has to REMIND two other faculty to please post the week's assignment-- but only because she and I sit down each Sunday to see what her schedule for the week holds. She has practices three evenings a week, is doing a research hour and working in an arts activity as well-- which isn't a problem but for the executive demands of that 19 hours at the hands of 6 different faculty, all of whom have their own idiosyncratic method of doing things.

    She has a schedule grid in an excel document. The uni doesn't provide them with anything to help them manage their time. WE do, and before anyone suggests that this is helicoptering-- I got the idea from her 19yo friend's parents, who do the same exact thing. It's just too scattered for kids who are age-appropriate in terms of executive function-- and I mean that even for those are are more typical in age.

    This is what we have to take into consideration each Sunday:



    I still sit down with DD once a week and prompt her to go through:

    a) all of the paper that she's been handed that week,
    b) twitter notices from one activity and one professor/TA
    c) e-mail accounts (two-- one on campus and one regular account for an extracurricular)
    d) Canvas online system
    e) Blackboard online system
    f) Pearson's MyMathLab for math homework
    g) Pearson website for a gen ed class
    h) other independent class website
    i) each course syllabus to check for reading assignments, exam dates, etc-- there are few reminders, and sometimes she has to PROD a faculty member to post an assignment if it is due in the coming week and not up by Sunday evening...



    We have an excel spreadsheet with a running schedule grid and additional notes, including upcoming events, homework slots, entry spaces for extracurriculars by the day, and a timed grid that runs from 8AM until 10PM 7 days per week.


    It's nutty. Truly. I'm an insanely organized HG++ adult, and it's a LOT even for me to keep on top of. DH can't-- and, um-- he's got her schedule grid each week, and is HG/EG and enormously successful professionally. He still has to ask me re: when her practices are, what she is doing at any point in time, who is picking her up from campus, etc.

    It isn't that technology has made it "better" so much as (from what I've seen) it makes it an order of magnitude more complex; students are expected to just deal with that and cater to each idiosyncratic set of preferences. That has always been somewhat true-- but the range of conduct is now so broad that it's kind of crazy. IMO.






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    While some of the fancy stuff may be over the top, college in the US has always been more than just academics. My eldest works out at the nice rec center. It would be really nice if the school had a softball field (no DI team, but a club team using a city converted soccer field - artificial turf outfield so no metal cleats).

    Middle kid is still considering playing ball if she goes to a DIII school, and all of the DIIIs she likes are in cold climates. She would appreciate nice indoor athletic facilities for winter workouts. She also likes the water park facilities at warmer climate schools. When she heard one kid at her school had decided on Alabama, she asked if that was the school with the good water slide. Yes it is (lazy river too!), and if that piques her interest in a school that would give her full tuition+ - then that is fine with Mom and Dad.

    As for sushi - even our public schools serve sushi in the middle school and high school. It isn't a 24 hour sushi bar - not yet.

    That said, my eldest chose her school for academics, and middle kid will too. However, if the academics are equal, the fancy stuff could tip things in favor of one school for middle kid.

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    Watching this thread with interest. We will soon embark on negotiatiating the University system in the US for DD due to a posting Stateside in the next 18 months.

    HK you are scaring me! Life at Uni was not that complex when I was a student here. There was a couple of sheets handed out detailing assignments and their due dates and when the tests were for each class. That was about it. Fortunately DD is pretty organised and seems adept at negotiating Internet accounts and school systems for obtaining and posting assignments etc. But still...ugh.

    At some point I will start a thread asking questions about negotiating the American university system. It's a very different admissions process to what we have. It's also hard to get a real handle on what would be a good school. We will be limited to where we will live as I want DD to live at home. She will only be 15 or 16 and in a new country so that's a given.

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    Originally Posted by mithawk
    That said, the students who went to MIT undergrad seem to be happy only looking back in remembrance. There is a reason they MIT has the slogan "IHTFP" that always shows up on the school ring. For everyone else, IHTFP stands for "I Hate This F* Place".


    Well, I am looking back in remembrance, but I think I really was happy as an undergrad there. Of course, I had an unusual experience because I was a transfer student (I did one year at UC Berkeley before I transferred). I think I was happier because I understood better what it was like to go to a school that wasn't a good "fit."

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    MIT freshman grading (pass or no record) is described at http://web.mit.edu/registrar/reg/grades/freshmangrading.html . I think not showing failing grades on a transcript is a little dishonest. It's a transcript, not a highlight reel. The essay from the MIT admissions blog Skipping Class and Failing Bio shows that the freshman grading policy encourages some students to be irresponsible.

    Universities can be evaluated by many criteria, and I understand that MIT is a great school for many people. Most of the student blogs leave a much better impression, and MIT is to be credited for its openness in sponsoring the blogs.

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    I recently visited my alma mater, a small, selective (top 20) liberal arts college, and found the facilities looking much as I had left them 20-ish years ago. I think the gym had been spruced and there was a new science center. The dorms--the same. Spartan. Very. (A few are nicer by virtue of being old and pretty.) I compare this to my experience in several large state university towns, where new dorms, eateries, and buildings pop up like mushrooms and are swank as hell. Very interesting.

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    ndw, just wanted to understand when your DD would be entering college. Probably best for a new thread, but is she Class of 2016 (entering college Fall 2016)?

    If so, and if she is going to college in the US, she should be taking (or have taken) the SAT, ACT and/or Subject Tests.

    Do you have any say in where you live in the US? If so, how much flexibility in location? Will you move to the US after she has applied and been accepted (so you would know where to purchase/rent)?

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