Do you have a link for this? Thanks.
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There’s a lot of information out there:
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Here is 60 years of history re: baccalaureate origins of PhD students. To focus on LACs, choose baccalaureate in the Carnegie Roll-up pull down menu (lots of other ways to sort too).
ETA: the source data for this is the NSF: https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/builder/sed
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My bad - somehow my summary lost Williams entirely (I was using NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates). It seems that when I did my calculations, the data for Williams did not download with the rest of the college data. I was only looking at the top 100, and did not notice that the Williams data was missing entirely.
I guess that I need to revise my advice for Williams.
However, Williams is probably not #10, but closer to #20. Your list is missing Oberlin and others, which proportionally produce more PhDs (Oberlin has around 40% more students, but has produced 2X as many PhDs as Williams). Westminster shouldn’t be there at all. There have been 579 PhDs who did their undergraduate at Westminster, and, while their enrollment is now around 1,200, it has historically been 1,500. Compare that to Pomona with an enrollment of around 1,400, and a total of 2,771 students who went on to do a PhD, and the ranking of Westminster makes zero sense.
Middlebury at #32 is reasonable.
Swarthmore created a summary in 2017, which tries to calculate the percent of students who go on to do a PhD, based on the NSF data. It seems that they also dropped Williams - it may be that the data for Williams didn’t export well from the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates site for a while. Their list is better than that of the Washington monthly.
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Lovely colleges! My kid got into Williams early decision (he is now a senior there), but told us afterwards that, had he been deferred, he probably would have applied ED2 to Middlebury. So, your daughter likes the same type of college!
Please recognize, as I continue, that I am a parent and therefore my views are secondhand, at best.
I think Middlebury has a much prettier campus: there is a more elegantly uniform look to the buildings and its buildings are maintained much better than those at Williams. And Middlebury has better food. But, IMO, Williams has the edge in most other regards, including its built-in social networking for freshmen. In terms of academics and career opportunities, Williams is amazing. It is a wonderful four years of immersion in the life of the mind with great class discussions with fantastic professors.
As far as being an introvert goes: this might be true anywhere, but I think I’d give Williams a mixed review on that.
One plus for a more introverted kid at Williams (vs. Midd) is that the Williams freshman “entry” system- 40 students living together in a dorm unit with 3-4 unpaid junior advisors who have no disciplinary role but act like big siblings- really helps provide a built-in social group at the start. Your daughter will have people to eat and hang out with from the beginning. Add the separate Ephventures orientation group, and there’s another source of friends right from week one. That helps.
But I think it is not uncommon for people to be lonely at Williams.
There are some very, very social people at Williams. Some are party-hard types. There are others who hang out more quietly in small groups that happily play board games, play video games, watch movies, go apple-picking, attend concerts, etc. So, if your daughter is looking for a group of like-minded people with whom to hang out quietly, there is a good chance she will find it.
And, because Williams enrolls some of the brightest students anywhere, there are many people who might self-define as introverts.
Certainly it is typical for people to study hard and spend much time alone to do that, even though they meet up with friends for meals or organized clubs or Friday nights, etc.
But there are many loners, too. Some have trouble finding people with whom to connect. Some isolate themselves and seldom emerge from their rooms.
I was surprised, given the high rates listed for graduation and returning freshmen, at how many people my kid knows who have left the college either for a semester or year or permanently, even before Covid.
Last year was particularly rough. The college handled the Covid epidemic by isolating people so terribly with their policies. Last year was a bad year for a lot of kids- and there were three deaths with unannounced reasons that, though the students don’t know for sure, some students are assuming were suicides. This year seems MUCH better.
In short, I think Williams could be a very happy place for a certain type of introvert- someone who enjoys studying and retreating to a private room or taking independent nature walks, but who also is able to make social connections with other like-minded students when there are opportunities that make it easy to do so, but where you at least have to show up and make the effort to do so: like class projects or the entry system or club participation. That type of introvert will thrive at Williams.
It sounds like Williams would be a good match for your daughter. But I put the other info in here for others who may read this.
Overall, though, I highly recommend Williams. It provides a truly extraordinary intellectual experience.
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I would suggest that, perhaps, a LAC in a less isolated place than either Middlebury or Williams may have benefits for an introvert. In colleges which are attached to small towns like Middlebury or Williamstown, the college may be the only place to be, and even spending time in the watering holes in the towns does not provide a respite from the other students. A location where there are places to be where a student can have some level on anonymity may be attractive for introverts who sometime want yo “be alone in a crowd”.
That does not seem that different from Midd, in my (also second-hand) experience. They have their dorm units, though they are less formalized, and they also have a similar orientation (I think that most LACs do) - my kid spent a week hiking and fixing trails.
On the other hand, I cannot speak that much to introverted kids. My kid is more of an extrovert. While she does have a couple of introverts in her close friend group, who are doing very well, part of the reason is that (if I may brag a bit) my kid reached out to them. I cannot say what the experiences of other introverts are, they may have a more difficult time than Williams students who are introverts.
No bad choices here.
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I got the distinct impression that the OP honed in on Williams and Midd because they were slightly larger than than some of the other NESCACs, ~2000 students. Here’s another reason to consider Wesleyan (~3000 students): it offers an extraordinarily luxurious movie experience - in fact, several of them: cavernous, state-of-the-art film auditoriums that are in constant use. The well-regarded, student-run, Film Series is in operation three nights a week, including Fridays and Saturdays. Honestly, can anything compare to sinking into the anonymity of a darkened movie theater? Steps away from your dorm?
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Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate everything you had to say. It’s a tough call. She likes them both equally. We visited most of the LAC’s in New England and these are the only two that we visited twice and might be going back for a third to make a final decision of where to apply ED. Thanks again!
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