<p>It has nothing to do with impressing strangers and everything to do with the day to day reality of getting a job, getting into a top medical or law school and even getting into a top graduate school.</p>
<p>We often hear repeated how well LACs prepare students for grad school and the touted high PhD productivity rates. This is largely a myth (at least in the sciences) with very few exceptions. Top LACs do not do better than top private universities and actually do much worse in the sciences at placing their students into top graduate programs. Simply attending any PhD program is a meaningless metric when getting a tenure track position virtually requires attending a top 10 program at a major research university. NRC data shows that students who attend a top LAC as undergraduates have a significantly lower probability of being admitted to a top science PhD program than their counterparts at top private research universities. While a Harvard grad has a 72% chance of being admitted to a top graduate program, an Amherst grad has only a 25% chance or nearly a third of the Harvard grad’s chances. Only Swarthmore at 42% has a respectable showing. Schools like Reed have a dismal showing. Even your average Berkeley grad does better at 48%. </p>
<p>Why this disparity? In a different thread, Mollie who went to MIT undergrad and Harvard as a graduate student explained that applicants are not on level playing field. Admission to a top graduate program depends as much on actual research, connections and recommendations as it does on grades and undergrad college quality. With everything else equal, when your undergraduate advisor is a peer of the head of the department at the top program you are applying to, may be an editor in the same journal, and can write a glowing letter of recommendation, the LAC candidate does simply not have the same chances. Sure, the occasional Swarthmore grad may get in, but in the meantime so will boatloads of MIT, Yale and Princeton grads. </p>
<p>It is not very different from getting an article published in a peer reviewed journal or getting an NIH grant. More often that not, it is who you know and where you do your research that gets your article published or your grant approved as opposed to the merits of your paper or proposed research. if anything academia is much more prestige conscious than the general public.</p>
<p>@cellardweller: “Struggling” as it does with its 38% yield (= roughly Northwestern), Swarthmore’s admission rate is about equivalent to Penn’s, and it admits a significantly lower percentage of its class ED compared to Penn. So, yeah, there may be ten universities with lower admission rates, half of which are HYPS and MIT. That’s hardly a sign of a categorical disability. The number of applications per slot Swarthmore gets is equivalent to Harvard or Stanford. And, while many of the 600 students who don’t enroll at Swarthmore after being admitted there are probably going to top universities, many of the 370 students who do enroll are turning down top universities.</p>
<p>And lots of the students who apply to LACs aren’t applying to universities at all, because that’s not what they want (and vice versa). Head-to-head competition is relatively rare, and below the HYPS level plus a little bit, the universities don’t win anything like all of 'em.</p>
<p>cellardweller: Thankyou so much for explaining all that to me. You truely are a gift to this world. I hope you have big mirrors in your house so you can look at yourself often to remind yourself of how great you are.</p>
<p>I went to Reed but you already know that. Nothing better to do than check up on me. Your disparaging comments about Reed’s results in having graduates admitted to top Universities to get PhDs are bald faced lies. Some of my fellow students at Reed were science prodigies. One thing I learned about them is that when someone is truely smart they don’t go around talking about it. It is the people with inferiority complexes who have to talk about how great they are.</p>
<p>What Cellardweller says is probably true across the board for math/science. But we have to make a distinction between top schools and second-tier schools, whether LACs or universities.</p>
<p>One reason my S chose to attend a university is the availability of graduate classes in his major. This would not have been possible even at the LACs with the strongest programs in his field. So students like my S have a leg up in the graduate sweepstakes; but only in math and sciences which are sequential and/or require students to have lab experiences and research opportunities not always available at LACs. This is a generalization. There are some LACs that are well known for turning out prospective Ph.D.s in the sciences. I’d include Reed and Swarthmore and Williams in their number.
In the humanities and social sciences, I do not think that graduates of research universities have an advantage over graduates of top LACs such as Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams. These LACs are well-known to faculty at top universities (indeed many of these faculty send their own children to LACs). Bear in mind that the pool of profs is the same, so they probably know one another and respect their recommendations, which are quite important for grad school admission.</p>
<p>@Pea: I am a confirmed elite research university fan. I didn’t want to go to a LAC, and neither did my kids. My sister-in-law, a big-U professor, spent a semester visiting at a top LAC and thought she would die of boredom – and it wasn’t one of the really isolated ones, either. But when I look at the world, I see really smart kids choosing LACs, and coming out and doing great. And I think they do a good job educating their students. It’s a different job, and some opportunities aren’t there, but there’s no question that for a number of students the intimacy compensates for that. </p>
<p>I am being honest: In my snooty, over-educated, Ivy-soaked professional world, Amherst (and Williams, and Swarthmore, etc.) is a plenty magical name. Where I grew up, Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan were seen as clearly superior to most of the Ivy League, and, guess what?, my generation runs plenty of stuff. A couple of decades ago, when my sister chose Stanford over Williams, it was for one reason only: California. No one thought she was going there for a better education. (Being honest, that wouldn’t be true today. And a student like she was wouldn’t have a prayer of getting into Stanford or Williams today.)</p>
<p>I was not trying to bash Swarthmore. I actually think the school does exceptionally well in admissions statistics. But Swarthmore (and to a lesser extent Williams) is a lone bright exception that confirms the rule that few LACs perform as well in the sciences. (Excluding Harvey Mudd which in my opinion isn’t a true LAC any more than MIT is a not a liberal arts university). </p>
<p>While I don’t believe the yield rates support that the theory that many co-admittees pick a top LAC over a top university (especially HYPSM), it is also true that LACs are self-selecting and that for some students that is their clear preference. My eldest D attends a research university and my second D is more drawn to a LAC.</p>
<p>JHS: I have found all of your posts to be well-written, diplomatic and most of all respectful. You are clearly intelligent and well-informed. I hope you are a professor at Swarthmore, or if not Swarthmore then somewhere else. You would be a good teacher.</p>
<p>Cellardweller is a very perceptive! In this world it does matter to people what the public thinks or doesn’t think of their school. It also does matter to the self esteem of the students that their college is prestigious and well known. Small liberal arts colleges with less students than most high schools usually have plenty of explaining to do to their peers and potential employers. If for example you mention Haverford, Tufts and Emory to 100 people its guaranteed most will have never have heard of Haverford or have any clue where in the world it’s located while the vast majority of the top 50 universities would bring praise. It is just human nature for most students to want to attend a top tier elite university for the same reasons people buy Mercedes and Infinitis…it just makes them feel good about themselves and the attention it attracts…and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s the same reason parents and students put their school’s stickers on their car rear windshields…they are proud of their school and they want others to notice them. No matter what many small liberal arts college attendees may say there is a difference among schools and it is not shallow to want to attend one of the elite top 50 universities with name recognition.</p>
<p>But that’s not what Cellardweller is arguing.<br>
A student who graduated from Amherst has a better shot at being admitted to HYPS grad school than say a student from UMass-Amherst.
I totally agree that Williams and Swarthmore and a couple of other colleges are, to a large extent, sui generis among LACs. But so are HYPSM. </p>
<p>The original question was whether LACs (undifferentiated) are inferior to universities (undifferentiated). It was not about whether Swarthmore is inferior to Princeton. For my own kids, I would have preferred that both go to a LAC, for the same reasons that most LAC boosters offer; only one did. The other needed access to graduate programs. But the overwhelming majority of students who attend research universities do not take graduate courses.</p>
<p>
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<p>Really? I would much rather send my kids to a top 20 LAC than #50 university.</p>
<p>WaitingDad, I really don’t know what planet you are on. HYPSM, maybe yes, but top 50? No way. I told you about one of my son’s ex-gfs --you don’t think a legitimately poor Hispanic woman with great grades at a competitive high school and good test scores could write her own ticket anywhere but HYPS? She could, and she wrote it at a LAC. Another was just a stunning student, the top of her class at a top private school, with validated achievements out the wazoo. She was one of the best students I’ve ever seen. I think she could have gotten in anywhere, but I’ll never know because she applied ED to a LAC somewhat less popular than Amherst or Williams. One of my virtual nieces just picked a midwestern LAC over Chicago and Carnegie-Mellon (CS), the latter with a nice merit scholarship, and over a public with a full ride plus stipend. She took herself off the Princeton waitlist, but stayed on another top LAC’s. Her sister was the #2 student at a private school that sends 30% of its class to Ivies or Stanford; she applied ED to a top LAC. </p>
<p>These aren’t unconfident kids, or unsophisticated ones. They aren’t immune to prestige, although it’s not their only criterion. And in the world in which they live, they are making prestigious choices. Who gives a crap if someone at the drycleaner’s doesn’t know where Haverford is? Their Mom’s law partner went there, and was on the Board of Trustees. Three smart kids from the class ahead of them went there. Everyone they care about knows what it is.</p>
<p>Obviously, there’s some class differences going on here. Everyone I’m talking about (with the exception of the Hispanic gf) is relatively affluent, native born, with native-born parents with graduate degrees from “top” institutions. No one in their families, none of their friends or teachers, and no one in their friends’ families (but see below), thinks that the top 50 universities are preferable to any LAC. Some think that the top 20 LACs are preferable to any research university. For the most part, public school kids who were immigrants or first generation and nonaffluent DID apply only to research universities, despite their guidance counselors (all of whose kids went to LACs) begging them not to do that. They were NOT the confident, well-integrated kids, though. Well, some were, but mostly they were insecure and confused, or at least that’s how they came off. Thinking that LACs were second-rate, not being willing to consider applying – generally, that was a marker for being socially marginalized to some extent.</p>
<p>It seems like we get to have this discussion with Cellardweller at least once a year on one thread or another.</p>
<p>Women who attend liberal arts schools have historically been at an advantage when it comes to being earning PhD’s, and ESPECIALLY science Phds:
“Liberal-arts colleges send a higher proportion of women on to get doctorates in sciences than research universities do……… In 2005 the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is sponsored by several federal agencies, released a report about where students who received Ph.D.'s between 2000 and 2004 had earned their bachelor’s degrees. Across the board in all fields, liberal-arts colleges sent a higher percentage of women on to get Ph.D.'s than did doctoral institutions……The gap was most pronounced in the sciences, especially the physical sciences. 2,485 Ph.D.'s in the physical sciences earned during that period by liberal-arts college graduates, 36 percent went to women. In contrast, of the 8,388 Ph.D.'s earned…by graduates of research universities, just 24 percent went to women.”</p>
<p>Survey of Earned Doctorates 2000-2004
Cited in Chronicle of Higher Education 5/5/06</p>
<p>Here’s another list that will show that liberal arts grads have done just fine earning PhD’s --in all categories, including science and engineering: (even though it’s from Swathmore’s site, it uses NSF data and contains info. on other liberal arts colleges)</p>
<p>It’s likely that CD probably has a low opinion of Economics PhD’s (even from his beloved MIT???), but here’s some info. for others on this thread who are concerned about liberal arts grads and PhD’s:
“18 of the 25 American undergraduate institutions that send the largest percentage of their graduating classes on to earn a PhD in economics are liberal arts colleges. Graduates of liberal arts colleges also have shorter time-to-degree and higher verbal GRE scores than other economics PhD students.”
[re:</a> Education: Liberal Arts Colleges and Economics PhDs (Jordi Molins Coronado, Spain) | Stanford | World Association of International Studies](<a href=“http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=31303]re:”>http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=31303)</p>
<p>And one last piece of research:
“Liberal arts colleges are an important source of PhD students. Although they award only
eleven percent of all undergraduate degrees in the United States, liberal arts colleges account for seventeen percent of all PhDs awarded to American students. The most recent data suggest about 5.3 percent of all graduates from the best liberal arts colleges eventually earn a PhD, while only 2.2 percent of all graduates from the best universities do. Graduates of the best liberal arts colleges also go on to earn a PhD at a rate that is about three times as great as graduates from lower ranked colleges.”
<a href=“Faculty and Research | The ILR School”>Faculty and Research | The ILR School;
<p>One of my kids seriously considered applying to a well-regarded LAC. Loved the place. He spoke with four professors in the areas he wanted to study; they all told him they could not keep him sufficiently challenged for four years. One said, “The last kid we had like that transferred to Harvard.” (Clearly, this was several years ago.) Granted, S was coming in with considerable college-level coursework, but it was a legit concern for him, and one of the reasons he ultimately focused on midsized research universities where he could get easily access to graduate courses.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd, while not a typical LAC, does get many students into top grad schools.</p>
<p>If there are so many top kids who want to got to LACs, why aren’t there more students applying?</p>
<p>Williams had what, 6,000 applicants this past year?</p>
<p>I’m guessing Amherst and Swat had similar numbers. Maybe Pomona. Then the numbers probably drop. Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>Although, these schools are small and they can only handle a few hundred new students every year…there is no limit on how many can apply. How come over 20,000 applicants don’t apply to Williams? Over 20,000 apply to Stanford, right? Nobody is stopping students from applying to Williams or Amherst or any of the other LACs. Where are these students? And if 6,000 students apply to Amherst and 6,000 apply to Williams, how many are just the same students applying to both schools? 5,000?</p>
<p>Lacs are fine. Many students want to go them…but not that many.</p>
<p>Have you heard of Bryn Mawr? Have you heard of Drew Faust? Well Bryn Mawr is where Drew Faust went as an undergraduate. And Drew Faust? She’s the president of Harvard University.</p>
<p>The Val of my S’s graduating class went to Mt Holyoke. You’ve never heard of it, either? never mind. The Sal went to Harvard.</p>
<p>JHS is spot-on. People in the know consider LACs every bit as good. People who don’t know better – well, they don’t know better, so who cares?</p>
<p>Do you have to wear common designer clothing to impress others, too?</p>
<p>I’m considering east coast LACs for my midwestern kids and I couldn’t GAS who out here doesn’t know Haverford from a hole in the wall. How low class to think that way.</p>
<p>I think this depends on the circles you travel in, but I strongly disagree with Cellardweller and WaitingDad. I can tell you in the circles I’m familiar with: Ivy League grad program, the elite investment bank, the top 10 law firm (in profits and in revenue), the major research university, the well-to-do-suburb (east coast), the high-level federal government posts… LACs are EXTREMELY well-respected. Williams, Amherst, Haverford, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin are considered equal to the nation’s very best (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, etc.). </p>
<p>I know plenty of people with Tufts and Emory (both excellent schools) stickers on their car, but who would have preferred to have Haverford, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, Wellesley, or Carleton adorning their Mercedes or Lexus or Prius.</p>
<p>BTW, that’s precisely what’s so amusing about all the immigrants who are falling on swords for HYPSM. Being unduly impressed by those schools and being unaware of the top LACs is a clear sign of na</p>