Why Charter Oak State College is better than Thomas Edison State College

[KittenMittens]

Your calculations are not based on anything. COSC has not tracked all of their students who have gone on to graduate school. You don't get into a prestigious graduate program because of luck.

It can be due to a lot of reasons a lot of which can be ascribe to "luck" – a fully qualified candidate with a high GPA (>3.7), high GMAT, top name school, proper recommendations, e.c.s still has about a 10% chance of getting into one of these schools - is 10% not, in a sense, luck? Now try doing it from a bottom of the barrel school. Even in medical school with a 32 MCAT, 3.7 GPA, and typical e.c. activiites, and recommendations, you still have about a 5 – 10% of getting in. With two candidates of equal stats – who do you think is going to get in –*the "elite" one or the one from Kentucky Bourbon School of Learning?

but the odds of doing it from COSC are significantly lower than it is from an ivy league school or "ivy league caliber school" like Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Emory, NYU, etc. Are you really disputing that? Even if we did track all their students, are you really arguing that someone from one of these schools is on equal footing as someone from one of these more expensive schools? Because if you are – then less people should go to ivy league schools and do what we’re doing because they’re obviously fools.

Do you have anything to back this up your claim that a COSC graduate with similar stats would be much less competitive than a graduate of a higher-ranked school? You throw all of this information out there with nothing to back it up. It doesn't even make logical sense. More Harvard students are going to the top graduate schools because they have high GPAs and high test scores. Harvard is known for grade inflation, but since they only admit highly-intelligent students in the first place, these students score higher on graduate admissions exams. They also are more likely to have the money for tutors and preparation courses.

Actually, yes I do – go to mdapplicants.com for some data . Do a search for graduates from Harvard Undergrad (or even any regular institution for that matter which is where my son went), versus those from one of the big 3, and see where the ones with a 4.00 from Charter Oak got into. Tell me – do you think a 3.0 from undergrad would get you into medical school with a 32 MCAT score from Charter Oak. Hint: it won’t. But from a top school – it can and it will. If you're really arguing that a 4.00 from Charter Oak or any equivalent caliber school, where there is no SAT/ACT requirement, no formal competition to get in, and they just accept you based on writing a check for $75 is the same or better than an ivy league where you get a lower GPA, then we're clearly on two different planes of thinking here.

these students score higher on graduate admissions exams. They also are more likely to have the money for tutors and preparation courses.

Here's the thing many of these students don't need tutors or prep courses and are plenty capable of doing it on their own. They don't need tutors because they don't have problems learning the material. Sure many do go with preparation courses, but you'll find that prep courses like Princeton Review cater more to students who are not looking to get a higher score. Compare that to say The Berkeley Review which prepares students for getting extremely high scores. I think many of the struggles people have come down to subjects in math, and hard science – it's a problem with the education model in American before post-secondary education and also the cultural beliefs in this country that math/science are boring and not as "fulfilling" as liberal arts degrees that generally pay pennies. Even the universities try to force this crap down our throats that a liberal arts degree makes you "well rounded." Well that's great, but now you have college debt and probably poor job prospects. Compare that to a field like in computer science where you don't even need a bachelor's degree, and can be pulling in over $100,000 for having marketable technical skills like in web development (javascript, ruby on rails, etc. etc.).

Post-secondary particularly graduate level is cutting edge in America, but before then i.e. high school, middle school, etc. not so much.