We had similar experiences as Pontoise a few years ago. We live in Queens in a very diverse area so this talk and look isn't a shock to us. On our tours we were always inundated with diversity, pronouns, and the clubs mentioned focused on what pontoise pointed out.
My son couldn't wait to get out of the northeast and chose a school for its sports atmosphere and good business school.
the minute you start throwing around pronouns or diversity dismissively, this is about politics and not school quality.
at that point, the big things that have changed are in the cities southerners no longer reflexively dislike and marginalize carpetbaggers, and gladly want to be just as ideological the other direction and greet anyone who salutes it. you will fit in great as long as you follow whatever trump whims are popular down here.
if you are the wrong side of that, criticize conservative politicians, liberal, gay, black, darker skinned hispanic, not religious, not a preppie, etc. -- it's less cute and attractive.
Perhaps it depends on the school and program within the school.. My son, a centrist but Jewish NYer, feels at home outside his comfort zone with students who grew up differently. He doesn't dwell on Trump, Biden, politics in general and hasn't been challenged. He's done externships and lined up a good internship for the summer at a good firm. A few friends who never visited NY spent a weekend this past June and attended some festival at Citifield. So far he's had the experience he was hoping for which is why he turned down schools in the northeast that offered him even more merit aid.
sorry but to me if i had solid grades and scores, was gonna end up at state school, it'd be UC-something (maybe SB with the beach or santa cruz), boulder, austin, madison, not some SEC school in a small city. it feels political like picking college station over austin. you wouldn't do that for fun and culture and kid town. you would for politics.
that is to say, the WSJ frame excludes popular strong state schools that don't lean right.
What the article doesn’t hit on is how wealthy families are now in the USA. Families can now afford to pay out of state tuition at these big southern football schools. It’s happening everywhere and not just the southeast. I live in one of those big SEC school towns and we have kids from everywhere not just the Northeast. Another thing that baffles me is fraternity and sorority “parents weekend” at the SEC schools. They are held on non football weekends and are a major windfall for local economies. Basically the kids parents come in for the weekend. Get an expensive hotel, go to expensive dinners and then parties and then go out to the bars and get hammered with their kids. Sometimes I think it’s the parents that are pushing their kids to these schools. They get to travel and do college again.
Let's be real: For the most part, these aren't kids of all backgrounds hoping to avoid "campus politics", it's kids with Republican parents in search of conservative political environments.
The real story here is the power of propaganda. Starting with the University of Missouri protests in 2015, there has been a huge amount of media attention devoted to teenagers protesting, doing sit-ins or demanding divestment because of X social issue, despite these activities having little or no real-world impact. This media onslaught, which has cast colleges as bastions of far-left chaos, has radicalized Republicans against college in general, but especially against schools that have been caught up in these kinds of headlines. (The fancy ones in the Northeast always get the most attention.)
You can see from this 2019 Pew survey that Republican views on college began to shift massively in 2015. Naturally, there has also been huge shift in where they send their kids to school.
Americans see value in higher education whether they graduated from college or not. Even so, there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction – even suspicion – among the public about the role colleges play in society.
sorry but to me if i had solid grades and scores, was gonna end up at state school, it'd be UC-something (maybe SB with the beach or santa cruz), boulder, austin, madison, not some SEC school in a small city. it feels political like picking college station over austin. you wouldn't do that for fun and culture and kid town. you would for politics.
that is to say, the WSJ frame excludes popular strong state schools that don't lean right.
He didn't choose an SEC school, but he chose to leave the northeast for the reason the article gave. Funny, he looked into some the schools you mention but chose to stay closer to home. Madison is popular with NYers but it was a bit too cold for him.
GlobeSt.com, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, continued the calculations. Out of a total GDC of $26,529,774,000,000, the Northeast was responsible for $244,106,000,000 in Q1 2023, or 19.87%. Those six southern states hit $270,969,000,000, or 23.64% of total GDP.
The comparisons aren’t exactly apples to apples because the southern states don’t form a continuous group but require the addition of Texas from the Southwest. Then again, taking the entire Southeast, a group of 12 states, the GDP contribution is 21.8% in the first quarter of 2023.
'Liberal hellhole campuses' are only that if you're there primarily for the social and atmospheric aspect of college.
The kids in STEM classes and working in labs prioritize rigor and access to top professors, facilities, and educational opportunities.
Can't access those labs and stem classes when your school shuts down in person classes due to anti israel protests(like at Columbia) or a pandemic that targets people age 75 and older (every blue state school)
Sec schools stayed open during covid for in person classes and didn't shut down over pro palestine protests.
'Liberal hellhole campuses' are only that if you're there primarily for the social and atmospheric aspect of college.
The kids in STEM classes and working in labs prioritize rigor and access to top professors, facilities, and educational opportunities.
My son is at a Northeastern "liberal hellhole campus" (actually, it's gorgeous), and he's thriving, adulting(ish), and he has become so much more knowledgeable (and he was smart to begin with). If only they would teach him to par-tay! In that regard, the school is failing him.
the minute you start throwing around pronouns or diversity dismissively, this is about politics and not school quality.
at that point, the big things that have changed are in the cities southerners no longer reflexively dislike and marginalize carpetbaggers, and gladly want to be just as ideological the other direction and greet anyone who salutes it. you will fit in great as long as you follow whatever trump whims are popular down here.
if you are the wrong side of that, criticize conservative politicians, liberal, gay, black, darker skinned hispanic, not religious, not a preppie, etc. -- it's less cute and attractive.
Perhaps it depends on the school and program within the school.. My son, a centrist but Jewish NYer, feels at home outside his comfort zone with students who grew up differently. He doesn't dwell on Trump, Biden, politics in general and hasn't been challenged. He's done externships and lined up a good internship for the summer at a good firm. A few friends who never visited NY spent a weekend this past June and attended some festival at Citifield. So far he's had the experience he was hoping for which is why he turned down schools in the northeast that offered him even more merit aid.
Nothing wrong with choosing to leave your home area to get exposed to newness. Sounds like a wise 18 year old.
People make choosing a college far more complicated than it needs to be. Go to the best school you're accepted to. If you're accepted to multiple that are basically equal, then pick the one you like the best. Then if you don't like it or aren't satisfied with the academics, transfer to an equal or better one.
With this article, everyone they profiled is from NY. A Clemson or whatever degree is basically equal to a NY public.
Only world class schools do something with their rank. You’re better off in a N.E. school for the network than the middle of nowhere.
Whatever you want to say bout political life on a number of campuses, 35 years ago, there was also a clear understanding at highly selective colleges in the North/northeast that there was comparatively a lot of fun to be had at many schools in the South.
Are you seriously pretending there weren't tons of pro-Hamas encampments? Did you see Columbia in April? UCLA?
I saw a preposterous amount of media attention get devoted to pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia and UCLA. Some students sat in tents and made signs! Can you believe it!? Made about as many national media headlines as the actual war in Gaza.
I wasn't clear enough with what I wrote. I don't care about whatever the latest US news report but especially the WSJ ranking says as it's off. There's enough 'separation' among the tiers and little separation among them. Some are debatable (e.g. Northwestern) but some are not.
Choose which one you like the most from the highest tier you're accepted into. Assuming $ plays no role, people don't turn down higher tiers for lower tiers with very rare exceptions.
