High School Senior, 15 years later

[This is the initial e-mail that started this blog.]


A week ago, I chatted with relatives whose daughter at UMass Amherst just finished her freshman year.  She has the option to transfer to Boston University.  The parents would prefer for her to transfer because of higher ranking and better job prospects for BU.  I wrote the e-mail below to share my thoughts.  I then forwarded my message to friends and acquaintances, asking for their feeling about this topic.



Hi Josh and Marisa!

I just wanted to follow up on our discussion at the bar-mitzvah.

Naturally, you should take everything that I say with a grain of salt - I have not gone to Umass or to BU.  So, all of my thoughts are completely generic and abstract.

Josh, you graduated from the BU law school, right?  However, you know a lot more about the law school than any other department.  NYU is stellar in math and horrible in biology.  Moreover, you know BU, but not the undergraduate training there.  For a molecular biology Ph.D. program, I would avoid NYU like the plague, but I would instantly choose NYU over Berkeley for an undergraduate in pre-med or biology.

And even if you do know about the undergraduate experience at BU, you don't have the proper alternative experience at UMass Amherst to make a comparison.

Since few people get undergraduate degrees simultaneously at two different colleges, no one can reasonably compare the undergraduate experience of Amherst to BU.  That's why we rely on rankings.  And this is something that I have a huge issue with.  The rankings are indicative of very little.  Yes, the number 1 school is better than the school ranked #500.  But comparing US News rankings of BU at 53 and UMass Amherst at 94 - the difference in ranking here is completely meaningless.  I can write pages on this, but luckily, Malcom Gladwell already did.  Please read his essay "The Order of Things (What college rankings really tell us)".

If we ignore the rankings, there is still the argument of "job prospects."  Here, I think the statistics truly do not tell us anything.  There may be more unemployed Amherst graduates, but that does not mean anything for Mia's prospects.  The proper question is not how many graduates from this or that school get jobs in a particular field.  The proper question is whether  a given student, after Amherst or BU has different job prospects.  This is a much tougher question to answer in a proper study.  If you could do the study well, correcting for all socio-economic factors, I bet you would find that there is zero difference for a similar student in their life/career prospects.  I am positive that Mia, as a graduate of either college, would achieve the exact same success.

I do agree that the network of alumni matters.  Although, I think it matters little out of undergraduate, compared to MBA, law, or other graduate training.  Furthermore, I think Mia might have a better network out of Amherst, because everyone is on campus in a community, rather than the urban setting of BU.  Speaking of network and lifestyle, UMass Amherst has a 50-50 male/female split.  BU has an enormous gender bias with only 40% males.  That is a horrible setup.  I don't mean with respect to finding a husband.  I mean for everything.  It's awful.  NYC has a slight female majority, and it has dramatic  consequences for women in the city.  The BU female majority is insane and probably has a hugely negative impact on friendships and competition between females.  If I had a son, I'd have nothing against him going to BU.  For Eeva, I would strongly advise her against BU.

I repeat, I don't know BU or UMass Amherst per se.  I am just sharing what I think are the wrong metrics.  We all use the wrong metrics because they are so accessible and easy to compare.  They are wrong.

The questions that Mia should be asking in deciding between BU and Amherst are:

1) Given the majors that I am likely to be interested in, which school has better teachers/professors?  Are the professors teaching (you don't want teaching assistants, most of the time)?  Does the school value teaching when it hires?  Columbia math department couldn't care less about teaching skills.  I've been on the Berkeley hiring committee of faculty - no one asks about teaching; it's all about research and ability to bring in millions of NIH dollars.  Some professors are spectacular teachers, most mediocre, and some atrocious.  A school that cares about the teaching talents when it hires can have most of its professors as stellar.

2) Are both schools equally stimulating environments, intellectually?  Are the people next to me better than me?  If you think you are smarter than most, you are in the wrong place.  You should always feel inferior (at least slightly worse than most people in your class).

3) Which lifestyle, campus, surrounding activity appeals to me more?  Where will I enjoy myself more?  It's four years of your life.  You are working hard.  It should not be miserable.  These should be some of the best years of one's life.

4) Given the majors that I am thinking of, what are the required courses?  Are they interesting to me?  How much flexibility is there in the curriculum?

5) Which place will inspire me more and keep me interested in learning and discovering myself and the world?

I have no doubt that Mia will do well, regardless of the school.  Worrying about BU or Umass Amherst on the undergraduate level is like me worrying about Columbia versus Stanford, 15 years ago.