<p>What would you rank as the best small (<5000 undergrads) colleges?
The obvious are Olin, Deep Springs, Caltech, MIT. But what else?</p>
<p>I don't know if I would really say MIT is a "small college." They have many, many graduate programs.</p>
<p>the top LACs</p>
<p>Haha. MIT is not small. They own half of Cambridge and they are literally eating up the neighborhoodaround where I live. The freshman MIT class is bigger than undergrad population of Caltech.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, top 15, great school with undergrad population of 4600.</p>
<p>The Cooper Union - 1000 total students</p>
<p>Pomona, Pomona, Pomona</p>
<p>Bowdoin. Go Polar Bears.</p>
<p>Amherst....</p>
<p>Colgate, Wesleyan!!!</p>
<p>^^ Essentially all the top LACs. Other than Johns Hopkins and Brown, what other top national universities are there other than top LACs with under 5000 undergrad population?</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is around 5k ugrad. Caltech is also pretty small.</p>
<p>Rice. 10char</p>
<p>See the US News Rankings? See the list of top universities? Turn two pages over.</p>
<p>I'd go with Dartmouth, Rice, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Middlebury.</p>
<p>If I were to be reasonable, I would naturally mention any of the top lac's: Amherst, Swarthmore, Smith, Colby, Williams, Pomona, Haverford, Hamilton or Middlebury. But, I have to say Bowdoin is the best. Not only does it rank among the top lac's but it also embodies the very spirit of what a liberal arts college should be: dedicated to learning for learning's sake in an intimate environment where students with similar outlooks can gather and learn from one another.</p>
<p>Rice. Amherst.</p>
<p>If you are into science, Wesleyan is a great option.</p>
<p>Deep Springs? While they have exceptional transfer results, the school is ultimately only a two year institution that does not grant BA/BS degrees. So really, it cannot be compared to the other institutions mentioned in this thread. </p>
<p>The others mentioned, such as Rice and Wesleyan, are more consistent with what would be an appropriate answer I think. Obviously specialty schools like Cooper Union, Harvey Mudd, Olin, and Babson also belong.</p>
<p>Engineering? Rose Hulman.</p>
<p>Dartmouth's good as a quasi-LAC, quasi-research university.</p>