Yes, of course Dartmouth and Princeton are peers. How could they not be? If successfully marketed magazine rankings are your guide, #1 and #13 are peers by every version of the definition. On a different listing (Forbe’s) the two are #3 and #11, even closer.
Anyone parsing magazine rankings into portions smaller than 13 (or 8, or even 20) spots is making an emotionally-driven mistake. To quote the inimitable Yoda: “Be your guide, let logic be.”
Most informed people, (while recognizing their differences) would view Princeton and Bowdoin as peers academically.
That said it seems apparent that you don’t view Bowdoin as being as prestigious as Williams. It is fine and you shouldn’t continue to force it or defer to others. Don’t risk going through life when asked what school you attended being tempted to say it came down to Williams and Bowdoin and I choose Bowdoin. My 2 cents.
This thread (and others like it) go a long way in explaining the subtle change in vibe that the top magazine ranked colleges have experienced over the years: more pre-professional, more risk-averse, less “quirky”. Williams College used to be the “fun”, “Hail fellow, well met”, little three college. I don’t get that sense anymore.
There are lots of Princeton and Williams people out there working for people from schools like Rutgers, Penn State and name your flagship or lesser school.
I think you’re putting waaaaay too much credence into this entire “reputation” or “rank” thing.
At one school, you need to take off a year. You have no plan what to do in that year. That’s a year away from academics (which could hurt you when you come back), a year away from meeting kids your age, a year that later in life, you’re going to miss a year of income at your highest point. As others have pointed out, even though you disagree, your “secure” opportunity at Williams isn’t as secure as you think. I don’t personally know that but many others who have athletes have noted that for you.
You continue to come back to the same point that you’ve read a million opinions on that differ from yours.
In the end, if you’re stuck on your original thought (and that’s certainly your right), then so be it - but you’ve got to move on. As it is, it’s August and I can’t imagine with school starting, there’s even still a decision for you to make.
This is very typical of threads like this. The OP begins by asking a valid question but the subject quickly migrates to “Why should I believe you over the USNews?” This really indicates a lack of self-confidence in being able to navigate the competitive, upper-middle class signaling that marks so much of modern American life. They are looking for clear guard rails in order to avoid what - to them - feels like a life-threatening decision. I almost want to dig a little deeper and inquire more about their “milieu”. But that would be off-topic.
The most pernicious inconvenience you would endure as a Bowdoin alumnus would be having to correct people who mispronounce its name.
These are both great schools, as are Dartmouth and Princeton. I’ll reiterate: concentrate on things that matter, like whether or not you want to take a year off, major and course differences, etc.
I entirely agree with your viewpoint but apparently to OP the perceived (reality or not) differences in prestige does matter. While OP asked the question it is a personal decision and not right to attempt to impose our value systems.
OP isn’t “wrong” if it matters to him/her. We advise and move on. OP will spend a lifetime with the decision.
All of us are earnestly preaching “fit” without knowing OP beyond anonymous posts. Perhaps for OP perceived prestige will be OP’s top criteria for eventual satisfaction. While unlikely we don’t know.
I know, I get it. It’s the same as every other time someone asks about Dartmouth and Princeton, or Harvard and Penn, or Duke and Stanford – we typically tell them to concentrate on the things that matter.
The reason we try to take the conversation away from prestige is because those are all prestigious schools. If it were Harvard vs. Regional Tech U, the difference in prestige likely would mean easier access to future academic or vocational success. But there is no such difference between Bowdoin and Williams – they are cut from the same swanky cloth.
I’ll leave it lie – no sense in beating a dead horse. hehe
OP can’t make a wrong choice, as long as that choice fits what she wants.
In this case a dead polar bear😀.
Your advice is absolutely sound and I have found it useful in the past. Sorry wasn’t directed at you more a general comment for us adults.
Both schools offer the very best of what you initially said you were looking for.
But if you feel Williams is a better fit—socially, academically, or athletically—then choose Williams.
Your hesitation about Bowdoin is hard to understand if it’s based on reputation. Among elite law school folks, Ivy League grads, foreign service professionals, investment bankers, software engineers, etc., they’re both considered great schools and almost every bright former student who went through applying to elite colleges will respect both equally.
Among random people on the street outside the northeast probably more would have heard of Williams than Bowdoin. But the vast majority won’t have heard of either of them. Plus, those probably aren’t the people making the hiring and admissions decisions that likely matter to you. Nor are they likely to be a significant part of your social circle.
It’s all good – I agree with you. People value things differently, and sometimes logic fails to move the needle.
This is exactly right. Anyone who went to an elite Northeastern school or hires people from elite Northeastern schools will recognize either as peers. The academics at both will be equally amazing. This is really about culture, location, fit.
Anecdotally, I have hired or managed people from both schools over my long professional career. They have all been sharp, collaborative and kind. Some have struggled to hop into a professional setting with a fast-paced, service orientation. My advice is to make sure you intern during summers. It will orient you to working life.
Note that the OP initiated this topic with a request for a comparison of academic environments. Comparative prestige appears to be an aspect introduced by others.
Recall that the OP will be entering their senior year of high school this fall.
I recommend you consider to what degree individual statements have been supported. Through this, you can use the information and opinions here to arrive at your own conclusion.
No, the subject of rankings was introduced by the OP fairly early in the thread:
I keep forgetting the gonna be a senior.
Op doesn’t like the idea of a gap year and for good reason. Others with knowledge of sports recruiting said his sure thing is no sure thing.
Op has to decide …I think everything that could be covered has been.
I don’t know if this was figured out upthread somewhere, or if I’m having a senior moment and conflating threads. But I thought one of the issues with Williams was assuming that an athletic spot (referenced as “good as gold” somewhere) will be waiting for the OP next year. If I haven’t completely screwed that up, then I’d say the OP can make a wrong decision … bigly. Another cite to a third-party ranking won’t help here. An athletic slot tomorrow is no more worth the same as an athletic slot today than a dollar tomorrow is worth a dollar today. They are not the same. A lot can change, including the employment of the coach making the “promise”. These people change jobs all of the time. Recruiting priorities change year-over-year, supporting AOs change year-over-year, and the entire recruiting context (e.g., competitiveness of the recruited cohort) changes year-over-year. If this were presented to one of my kids through the recruiting travels, a promised spot ‘next year’ would be HEAVILY discounted on the basis of probability, not to mention getting started in college a year later. It borders on foolish.
Frankly, in my limited anecdotal experience, Williams can suffer from the same name problems as many NESCACs and other LACs do. Sometimes I think it’s worse for them because “Williams” is otherwise just a common last name.
“Bowdoin” got some pub with McDreamy; and it is a prestigious-sounding name to the uninitiated. I’d say the same about Tufts and Amherst: it has a certain “ring” of importance to the ear. People know next to nothing about those schools, but they somehow sound eastern and elite.
Williams? Middlebury? Bates? Colby? Swarthmore? I’ve gotten blank stares many a time throwing those names around. When I told a relative that Williams was recruiting one of my kids, she responded asking me if it was a junior college. You need to be around a plugged in and well-educated group of people out west for anyone to really know the significance of Williams.
Certainly everybody has heard of Wellesley. Fewer but still strong, Smith. Bryn Mawr and the first of the Seven Sisters, Mount Holyoke? Not so much. It really varies. Even in the west, Claremont, Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer are not household names, and their utterance doesn’t impress most folks out this way.
This is a great post. And while you’re probably right that a foray into milieu would likely be viewed as off-topic, it would help explain why the OP wants others to confirm her own confirmation bias.
I have no emotional skin in the game and thus do not care one iota where the OP chooses to go to school. So with that said, a forced “gap year” (which I’ve never heard of a coach asking a kid to do in highly selective D3 recruiting) and the risk discount on promised future athletic support a full recruiting cycle later, coupled with these schools being more or less* academic peers, make the choice fairly obvious from the rational actor POV. Thus, it would seem that this unrelenting favor of Williams in the face of these compelling considerations means Williams is the only college for the OP. If that’s the case, then what are we talking about and why was this thread started?
*to alleviate any concern by some that “peer” does not mean perfectly equal across the board.
I would argue that even a conservative reading between the lines would strongly suggest that comparative prestige is the only thing this thread is really about as it relates to the OP’s purpose and inquiry.
For this, see the Bowdoin fitness center.