I apologize to all of you, as I had separated much of what I said with new line/enter, but apparently Philip’s software melds it all together. So, in the previous comment, all of my line separations got eliminated. But all of you are smart enough to figure out what I meant, n’est-ce pas?

As I stated previously, my hubby took Norman off this weekend to visit Hanover, New Hampshire and Ithaca, New York. When I returned home from our sixth-grader’s soccer game this afternoon, there was a Dartmouth t-shirt in the mailslot with the card of an alumnus, welcoming him to Dartmouth. I must say the welcome accorded him by Dartmouth, which actually wrote him in early March to say they were planning to admit him in April, is impressive (compared to the supercilious tone of some other institutions which either waitlisted or rejected him).

Again, appreciate all your insights. Brother Philip, do you want your other teenage nephew, the computer programming geek type, to correct this flaw in your software? He is right now collapsed after a late night Sweet Sixteen party at a fancy country club. With the father out of town and therefore unable to knot his tie for him, he looked on the internet for instructions and did a pretty serviceable job.

How did we survive before the www?

Mother of student in question here (who happens to be Philip’s oldest nephew). He’s actually not really nerdy, and is working on his second serious girlfriend. But he does drive an old Taurus wagon with dents, so sometimes his girlfriend, whose attorney and pediatrician parents bought her a new Audi sedan when she got her license, drives when they go places.

In any event, here’s the rundown:

accepted to Duke, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvey Mudd
waitlisted by Harvard
rejected by Stanford

considering Harvey Mudd quite seriously as they offered him a merit-based scholarship of $10,000/year
visiting Dartmouth and Cornell right now with his father
needs to decide by May 1st, but Harvard could pop into the picture later in the summer

Parents worried he’ll choose college based on climbing conditions in proximity (that’s why he currently favors Dartmouth and Harvey Mudd). Mother here praying he gets off the Harvard waitlist since it’s several hours to good rock climbing and he’ll likely be busy going back and forth to Princeton, New Jersey for a short while anyway to visit with girlfriend (who was accepted by Princeton, but rejected by Harvard). He’s being flown out to Claremont by Harvey Mudd to an open house weekend (they’re even picking the kids up at the airport and taking them to one of Claremont’s finest restaurants). Trip with father this weekend to Hanover, New Hampshire and Ithaca, New York funded by father who wants to see whether it’s really worth $44,000 to attend an Ivy League school. Everyone grateful he has a lot of good options and just praying he doesn’t hurt himself rock climbing if he goes to Harvey Mudd which is next door to Joshua Tree National Forest or Dartmouth which is in the midst of mountains.

Thanks to all of you for your insights. Cheers!

Kevin, Steve, and Justin: I profoundly disagree with your analysis.

First, Mr. Greenspun’s point about ratios only hints at the desireability distribution. While I was doing a summer study abroad program, a couple of the girls (non-engineers) asked me “Have you ever noticed how the few girls who go into engineering usually aren’t that cute?” I was too politically correct to agree, but they were right. So the handful of girls who do choose “Nerd U” over “Collge of Books” usually won’t be mistaken for Eve Andersson.

Secondly, our young friend can’t afford 4 years hanging out with “Napoleon Dynamite” clones. Even if he’s borderline cool now, he’ll have a lot more fun, and develop more socially, if he can find some moderately cool guys to be friends with (provided they’re smart enough that he can relate to them). Otherwise, despite his best efforts, his nerdy traits will increase, leaving him socially crippled for life.

Looking beyond the Ivy League is a great book on this very subject.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140239529/103-9158435-9907020

Though I should say the great thing about going to stanford was the students, who were usually doing really interesting things. Community colleges I’ve attended for spanish or composition classes have had much better teaching, but chatting with the other students after class wasn’t nearly as enlightening. For people that don’t want to be professors, access to other students who are great role models is very worthwile.

Many have recommended the UC’s. I’m a graduate student at UCLA right now. From everything I can make out, the ‘C’ in UC does not stand for California. The lab I’m trying to get into has been outsourced to China–the prof keeps saying he can get someone form Microsoft China. As for the undergraduate school, there is probably a UCLA special that flies from LAX to Kaitak. It’ll be tough here if you are not Chinese. 1600 SATs will not impress anyone here the way being Chinese will.

Amherst/Williams might be a good choice. I myself went to a small liberal arts school and got a full scholarship. Would not recommend a no-name school–you never know when you might need it and if he ever plans to be an academic, the undergraduate school will count too. One more thing, except for MIT and CalTech, the big name schools may not be harder or more competitive than the lesser known ones. So why not a big name–Stanford and Harvard give a lot of A’s.

Another no for Cornell. Forget the lousy weather – you don’t want to go there because undergraduate classes are enormous (the intro biology course overflows the 2000 seat concert auditorium), you have no contact with professors, the non-English speaking TA problem has been a campus issue for at least twenty years now, and (probably worst for “nerdy” kids) the campus culture is fraternity oriented – the university doesn’t have enough housing, and after freshman year you have to take your chances with a limited upperclassman housing pool, join a frat, or live off-campus. In the sciences and engineering freshman year is a pressure cooker and Cornell has the lowest honors graduation rate in the Ivies. The city of Ithaca has no real culture or industry other than that supplied by Cornell and Ithaca College (another 4K students). If I were to do it all over again I’d go to a school of about 2000 in a city within an hour of a major metropolitan area with guaranteed housing and professor-taught small classes.

Bill Mill said:

“Ersatz intellectuals in fields other than biology read The Selfish Gene or equivalent popular biology book and imagine biological research as witty British academes exchanging verbal jabs, unlocking the mysteries of life, and receiving millions of royalty pounds from their cloned maize patents . In reality biology is a windowless lab above the food court in Longwood, with 3 chinese guys, an indian, and a russian, packed into a 6×8 space, trying to do just enough work so that they don’t lose funding and get deported. One autistic asian girl does all the wet lab for the entire department and a team of shell-shocked dot com losers are responsible for absorbing all the grant money still being allocated to various dead-end “informatics” programmes. The female doctoral candidates all decide to abandon ship and go to optometry school or manage a pet shop after their thesis defense whilst the male PhDs seem more inclined to waste even more life with endless journal clubs, data sharing, journal sharing, data clubs, and so forth for the rest of $20K/yr post-doc eternity.
”

Well, speaking as an ersatz intellectual from a field other than biology working in a 6×8 cubicle in a small, windowless lab above Longwood cafeteria with an Asian MD/PhD and a shell-shocked dotcom programmer absorbing all the grant money still being allocated to various dead-end “informatics” programs, the real trick is to avoid graduate school altogether and find a cool boss who will allow you to do research. Take one class per semester, really focus on the final project, and make a great impression on the professor. He’ll give you a project to work on, but don’t accept money, because your boss already agreed to pay you. In return, just ask him to send you to conferences where you find out where the exciting research is really going on, and where you learn about how science really works. Help your professor write a large grant proposal, and he’ll remember you forever. Get involved in open-source community projects that are for a good cause, and you’ll feel good about what you do. Every once in a while, you’ll run into people who are concerned that you are “not yet a graduate student” but for the most part, you look and act more like a post-doc than a grad student, because you are actually having fun. When you get tired of the roller-coaster, world-traveller existence, you can always apply for grad school and see where they’ll accept you. Fortunately, having met all the professors you want to work with outside of a classroom context, you are in a much more informed position than the typical grad school applicant.

Oh, the other thing about Rice University is the financial aid. U.S. News ranks it #1 for “least amount of debt among graduates” out of 1,600 private schools in the United States. Its endowment per student is also larger than MIT’s. (Sorry for all of the comparisons to MIT, nothing against MIT.)

I didn’t attend this school, but I think the best choice for him could be Rice University. It is as small as a liberal arts college but offers as many or more undergraduate research opportunities as MIT. Because real estate in the Museum District fo Houston is about 1/3rd the price of Cambridge, many professors live nearby – something that Greenspun appreciates. The weather is fantastic during the school year (despite being very hot and humid when the students are gone). If they aren’t familiar with Rice University, it would behoove them to look into it. With 1600 SAT, he would be pleased to know that Rice has a greater percentage of National Merit Scholars than does MIT. His parents will enjoy the fact that Rice has lower tuition than MIT and that Kiplinger’s ranks it #1 among college values.

Ben Lunsford, UVa Grad and Rice Admirer