"I just posted a link to this article that highlights “colleges that are probably better than Harvard.” Thank you for posting this story and hopefully the article below can offer some perspective about other fine institutions for students.
What I think this article shows, albeit with a catchy title, is that there is a strong argument that the elite LACs do a better job with undergrad instruction and offer an overall better experience for the undergrad. Not a new thought.
In fact, I’d venture to say there are a lot of Ivy League, Chicago and Stanford grads who might agree there’s something there (although even Harvard grads insist that graduating from “the college” is the functional equivalent of attending a LAC).
With all that said, the examples cited by the article have four things in common: they’re small LACs, they’re private, they’re expensive and … drum roll … they’re highly, highly selective.
People who don’t understand this should: kids who get into Pomona, Wesleyan, Amherst, CMC, Swarthmore, etc. are kids who tend to have access to the Ivy League and comparable schools. I know, for example, that there is a big overlap in admissions between Brown and Wesleyan, between Dartmouth and Tufts, etc. etc.
I’m sorry … I didn’t learn anything from that article, other than perhaps that undergrads sometimes teach courses at Harvard.