Apr 23, 2015
We are continuing our series on looking at colleges outside your
comfort zone by taking a virtual tour of public colleges and
universities in the Great Lakes region. Complete show notes for
today's episode, including links to all of the colleges mentioned,
can be found at http://nycollegechat.org/27. In our last episode,
we said that we were going to take you on a virtual tour of
colleges across the U.S. to try to stretch your thinking about
colleges that might be attractive to your child. As we start our
tour this week, we are going to spotlight public colleges. We are
going to talk about four-year colleges only, reasoning that
students headed to a public two-year college are highly likely to
go to one in their home state and are not, therefore, looking to
leave their own geographic region right away. If your child is
headed to a public two-year college, just save this information
until it might be time for your child to transfer to a four-year
college later on. Again, we want to make it clear that there is no
statistical basis for the colleges we are going to name in each
region. While we do not promise to name a lot of great colleges in
every state, we do promise to name a lot of great colleges. And as
we said last week, if you have a college you would like us to talk
about on the air, please email us or call us and tell us what it is
and why it is great, and we will certainly consider it. Let us also
say again that no college has asked us to name it and that no
college has paid us anything to name it. These are entirely our own
choices. To be sure, some of the colleges we will name will require
that your child have very good high school grades and college
admissions test scores to get in. Others will be a bit easier,
especially if a college is looking for out-of-state students to
enhance its student body’s geographic diversity. But, because each
student’s profile of grades and test scores and extracurricular
activities and outside-of-school experiences is his or her own
unique package, it will be up to you to look at your child’s high
school record to see which colleges might be appropriate. One
general note about the location of college campuses: It used to be
that most colleges had a single campus. Then, large public
universities looked to serve more and more students as the
college-going rate increased in the last century. We started to see
branch campuses of these large public universities—a couple and
then five or seven or more—as supply rose to meet demand. Now,
private universities and colleges have started to open more
locations, too—probably in an effort to attract students who do not
want to commute to or live on the main campus. All this opening of
branches and locations has made talking about colleges a bit
complicated. When we talk about the colleges and universities in
this episode, we are going to be talking about the main campus—that
is, the one that most people associate with that institution. And
one general note about enrollment figures: While we tried hard to
pull enrollment figures from college websites in order to give you
an idea of how large or how small our spotlighted colleges are, we
believe that the figures are not necessarily comparable from
college to college. For example, sometimes colleges include
part-time students, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes you can’t
tell whether they do or don’t. So, use the enrollment figures we
are giving as just an approximation of the actual campus
enrollment. These figures are certainly good enough to help you
understand whether the student body is the right size for your
child. In other words, it doesn’t really matter if a university has
19,000 undergraduate students or 25,000 undergraduate students; it
is still a huge school. 1. The Great Lakes Region The Bureau of
Economic Analysis (an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce)
has divided the U.S. into eight regions, with each region’s
covering four to 12 states. So let’s get started with the five
states that make up the Bureau’s Great Lakes region: Illinois,
Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. For those of you who are
listening in our home state of New York, I am guessing that the
Great Lakes region sounds far away, except perhaps for Ohio, which
we can think of as right across New Jersey and/or Pennsylvania from
us. For those of you who are listening in the South or Southwest or
on the West Coast, I am guessing that all these states seem far
removed from where you thought you might send your child. But there
are a lot of great colleges and universities in the Great Lakes
region, so let’s begin. 2. Flagship Public State Universities One
notable category of higher education institutions in these five
states is the flagship public state university. Each of the Great
Lakes states has one, though some are better known nationally than
others. They are all good schools, and I would argue that at least
a couple of them are, in fact, great schools. While these
universities have smaller branch campuses in other locations in
their states, it is the main location—that is, the flagship of each
state’s public system—that we will talk about here because that is
the campus that is best known and likely most respected both in the
state and outside the state. If you want to apply to one of these
campuses from out of state, your child will need good to excellent
high school grades and good to excellent college admission test
scores, with some being a bit harder to get into than others. Just
remember, the best and the brightest high school students who live
in these states really want to go to their flagship state
university. Why? Because these schools are relatively inexpensive
(because they are public), academically respectable, well regarded
across the state and across the country, super-competitive in
sports arenas, chocked full of student clubs and activities, within
driving distance of home, and a social hub for lots of their high
school classmates. They are the place to be, if you live in that
state. That attitude might be hard for those of us who live in New
York State to understand, because we do not have the same kind of
famous flagship campus that draws a large percentage of our state’s
best high school graduates. The State University of New York (SUNY)
operates more like individual colleges located around the state
rather than one main campus with branches of it around the state,
as in the Great Lakes region. SUNY does not have one big flagship
campus that the majority of New York high school students are dying
to go to. So, what are these flagship campuses in the Great Lakes
region? They are the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor,
University of Wisconsin–Madison, Indiana University Bloomington,
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and The Ohio State
University in Columbus. While these universities are located in
different kinds of settings—from medium-sized college towns to
state capitals (and let me tell you that Madison has one of the
prettiest state capitol buildings you are ever going to find)—and
while some have colder weather than others (like Michigan and
Wisconsin—believe me, I know), they also have a lot in common. For
example, they are huge. The average number of undergraduates
enrolled at the flagship campuses in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana,
and Illinois is almost 30,000, with a total undergraduate,
graduate, and professional student enrollment averaging almost
45,000, Ohio State is bigger still, with about 45,000
undergraduates and a total enrollment of about 58,000 students.
While some of these campuses brag about the relatively small class
size of many of their classes and the kind of personalized
attention they give their students, you can be sure that a shy
student could easily get lost in the shuffle of a very large campus
and in what will surely be some large lecture halls, with lots of
students trying to get the professors’ attention. Within each
flagship university, there are from 11 to 19 different
undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and colleges—arts
and sciences, education, engineering, business, agriculture and
life sciences, nursing, law, medicine, veterinary medicine,
architecture, and more—including, at Indiana, the famous Jacobs
School of Music. These universities offer from about 135 to almost
250 undergraduate majors—truly something for every student, almost
no matter what the student is interested in. As befits any huge
university, each one has hundreds and hundreds of student clubs and
organizations and more than 20 men’s and women’s varsity sports
teams (plus club sports and intramurals). They are all part of the
Big Ten athletic conference, so you can be sure that students go to
football and basketball games and root for the home team. This is
all part of the college life and proud traditions at these
universities. Each of these five flagship universities is well
enough known and highly enough regarded to attract students from
virtually every state in the U.S. and from typically more than 100
foreign countries. Interestingly enough, New York and California
are among the top states outside the Great Lakes region that send
students to these schools every year, so they aren’t secrets—at
least not to parents and guidance counselors who are well versed in
college options outside their home states. All of these public
universities would cost an out-of-state student more than a public
university in his or her own state, but would still cost less than
most private colleges—that is, before any financial aid package is
figured in. More important, they are better academically and more
widely recognized than many private colleges in the U.S. There is
no prestige in attending a private college that is not as good as a
great public university. So this might be the time to consider one.
3. Other Public State Universities In these five Great Lakes
states, there are also other public universities—not branches of
the flagship campus, but other universities in their own right,
some of which are also quite well known. One of the best-known of
these—and perhaps the best in many respects—is Michigan State
University, located in East Lansing, just outside Michigan’s
capital. It is actually larger than most of the flagship campuses
we just discussed—with about 39,000 undergraduates and 11,000
graduate and professional students. Like the flagship campuses, it
draws students from all states and more than 100 foreign countries,
has more than 15 colleges, offers about 160 undergraduate majors,
and is a member of the Big Ten. The state of Michigan is one clear
example of a state where the two largest public universities—the
University of Michigan and Michigan State University—are virtually
equal in their fame and appeal. Another example of a state where
the two largest public universities are virtually equal in their
fame and appeal is the state of Indiana, which has both Indiana
University Bloomington and the Purdue University public system,
with its main campus in West Lafayette. Note that Purdue is a
public university, even though the name does not sound like it (it
was named after a very large donor, John Purdue, in 1869). Another
member of the Big Ten, Purdue enrolls about 30,000 undergraduates
at the main campus (plus about 9,000 graduate and professional
students)—maybe just a bit smaller than IU Bloomington. Given
Purdue’s good national reputation, it draws students globally;
barely over half of Purdue undergraduates are actually Indiana
residents. Purdue offers 10 undergraduate and graduate schools,
with over 100 majors for undergraduates; it has a very highly
ranked College of Engineering and some highly ranked business
majors. When we attended the National Association for College
Admission Counseling’s college fair in New York City last weekend,
we had a nice chat with Amanda Wulle, the Assistant Director of
Admissions (NYC Regional Representative) at Purdue, who did a quick
audio pitch for her alma mater for NYCollegeChat. Be sure to listen
to it in our recorded episode. Several smaller (but still quite
large, by anybody’s standard) public choices are Wayne State
University in the city of Detroit, Western Michigan University in
Kalamazoo, and Kent State University in Ohio (with its main campus
in Kent). Each of these public universities has about 20,000
undergraduate students and from 5,000 to 10,000 graduate and
professional students at its main campus. They offer from 10 to 13
undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and colleges,
including a well-known medical school at Wayne State and a College
of Aviation at Western Michigan (which you just don’t see every
day). Interestingly, the vast majority of students at each
university come from within its home state. That could mean that an
application from a student in a far away state would be especially
attractive. And I couldn’t mention Western Michigan without a fond
word for one of its longtime, now retired, education professors and
an amazing colleague, Daniel Stufflebeam. Dan was one of the great
innovators in the field of educational evaluation for decades
(actually since his groundbreaking work at Ohio State). As we said
earlier, all of these public universities (and there are even more
in these states than those we mentioned here) would cost an
out-of-state student more than a public university in his or her
own state, but less than most private colleges. So, consider
looking at public universities beyond just the flagship university.
Listen to the podcast to find out about… How students get around
the campus and the town/city How “livable” the college town/city is
and how much of a plus that is for students How ethnically and
racially diverse these campuses are and how that might affect your
child’s admission chances Check out the higher education
institutions and programs we mention by visiting our show notes for
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