<p>most people generally agree that on a pure pestigege scale(not a good reason to choose a college) that bowdoin rates the highest of the maine schools. most people ive heard from say that colby and bates are on the same level(this is backed up by us news). but then there are some people ive heard from on cc who claim that bates is significantly more prestigious than colby and that colby really isnt prestigious at all(i can sight examples if you guys want). why is this? where does this viewpoint come from? was bates historically more selective and the gap has lowered over the years? does bates have a better connection to top NE prep schools?</p>
<p>i dont want to get into which college is better, im just looking for an answer as to where this viewpoint is coming from.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard those various viewpoints. I think you are splitting hairs. They are all three fine schools with long histories and have similarities and differences but more to the point of what the individual wants in terms of campus, location, financial aid etc. Academically/Statistically I think they have very similar student profiles. I can’t speak to which school admits more kids from prep schools vs. public schools.</p>
<p>As a proud Colby alum, I can tell you with great conviction that when I attended, back in the day, Bates was rated W-A-Y below Colby. Honestly, there was absolutely no comparison. I was blown away when D & S started looking at colleges to find that Bates was considered to be a “hot” school. My reaction was, “Are we talking about the same Bates?” So, although I would clearly still rate Colby above Bates, apparently things have changed!</p>
<p>Bates got some mileage out of the final year project. The three are incredibly similar. They tend to attract the same type of students; the faculty are also very similar. What distinguishes them is basically the location.</p>
<p>I know kids who felt Colby was just the perfect the place for them after looking at a number of similar schools. The same goes for many other school clusters that seem so alike on paper.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think it’s splitting hairs to say one is “better” than the other. There are some differences: Bates is slightly more selective, admissions-wise, and Colby has a substantially higher endowment. Bates is more urban, Colby is more rural. Bates has Short Term and Colby has the Jan Plan. Colby has a much more expansive feeling campus, Bates’ campus is a little more condensed. Bates has a thesis, Colby doesn’t. Etc, etc.</p>
<p>There are certainly differentiators between the two schools but I <em>really</em> doubt you could say one is better than the other (and I’m a current Bates student!). I think a student would have a great education whichever one they went to and would probably face similar challenges re: name recognition outside of the Northeast when they graduate. Both offer strong academics, good food (!), opportunity to get involved in the campus community, similar faculty, etc.</p>
<p>Bates definitely would win in mascot wars though – bobcats versus… white mules??</p>
<p>This has REALLY changed in the past 5 years. Probably the class above me (09) was the last real ‘quirky’ class. We have become both more multicultural and substantially more preppy.</p>
<p>No you were right – it’s definitely “seen” that way, since (I assume) it’ll take some time for perception to catch up to reality. But I’ve certainly seen the student landscape change in my 3 years there and it will probably continue to change. I’ve seen Bates mentioned often alongside Hampshire and Evergreen and a student who would love going to either of those colleges would not be as happy at Bates, probably.</p>
<p>According to my sons extremely prepared guidance councellor, as well as the private councellor we hired, bates is a “reach” while colby is a “safety” That perception is a prevalent one in NYC privates. For example – on an empirical basis – many many kids apply to bates as ED and very little, and not so strong, to colby. This is not to compare/contrast the merits of either, but to answer the OP</p>
<p>How well are midwesterners represented there? I always heard of these schools since I grew up in the east. Would being from Midwest (IL) be any kind of advantage, even slight for admission? Just curious.</p>
<p>It may have less to do with stats and more to do with the fact that Bates gets a LOT of applications/has a lot of students from NYC privates. I don’t know about Colby. Perhaps they get less, so while Bates is choosing from 300 qualified NYC private students, Colby is attracting a different pool, and is only choosing from 100 (those are completely fictional numbers).</p>
<p>Being from the Midwest may help, depending where in the Midwest you’re from. I can’t see Chicago being a huge help but Missouri? Wisconsin? Minnesota? Those will definitely give you some geographic diversity in admissions. The top 5 feeder states for Bates are (I believe) – Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and California.</p>
<p>If you looked, I’d bet you’d see that the vast majority of students in those Maine colleges are from the New England/New York and Mid-Atlantic regions. My step-D graduated from Bowdoin (2001). She was one of a handful of kids from the midwest. That may have changed some in recent years. I live outside of Boston now and tons of kids who want an LAC with strong academics visit the three Maine colleges and lots apply. Is being from the Midwest an advantage–maybe a very slight advantage for a student who posesses all the right stats, but I don’t think it would be enough to overcome any deficits in GPA or SAT.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the stats and the perceptions, there are some real differences among the colleges. First off, look at the endowments. I haven’t checked recently, and the last 18 months have played havoc with a lot of endowments, but historically Bowdoin has been financially the strongest, Colby in the middle, and Bates a distant third. More subjectively, Colby and Bates both seem to be much more supportive, friendly communities than Bowdoin. It may just be the result of an accumulation of local anecdotes, but Bowdoin used to be by far the most popular of the Maine colleges at the private school my kids once attended, until several alumni had really bad experiences there. I don’t think anyone has gone to Bowdoin in the past five years, and Bates replaced and surpassed it as the popular Maine destination. </p>
<p>Colby is prettier and more isolated than either of the others. I know some faculty there who are very good, and they are fiercely proud of the college. They hate being lumped together with Bowdoin, because they are certain that they do a much better job of educating students and of creating a good learning community. I can’t remember the details, but I know my Colby friends say that there is a night and day difference between the philosophical and curricular approaches of those two colleges. They admit Bates is more similar.</p>
<p>Ten years ago, when we looked at Bates and Bowdoin for S1, someone referred to them as “tweedledee, tweedledum.” The admission rep made the same pitch about wanting more diversity (they each had 18% “minority” enrollment in which Asians and Asian-Americans were the largest group–at some schools, “minority” does not include Asians and Asian-Americans).
S1 decided against applying to Colby, although he’d spent four very happy summer in its vicinity, because of its relative isolation. He got into both Bates and Bowdoin. Bates had the best food but he liked Bowdoin better, partly because of Brunswick, partly because he knew someone there (from summer camp near Colby). In the end, though, he decided to head south. Unlike S2, he does not like the cold.</p>