^ Yep, if you go by alumni achievements, Reed is an Ivy-equivalent (exact same tier as Bryn Mawr, Carleton, CMC, Oberlin, Smith, and Wellesley and among the top 14 LACs in the country):
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1-p1.html
Reed is very strong in a lot of subjects.
The sole reason the are ranked lowly by USNews is because for the longest time, they refused to play the rankings game.
I think you get the best education when you are happy at a school, participate, show up for classes, enjoy your classmates… If that is at a small LAC, then yes, it will be a significantly better education. If you prefer to be in a big classroom with a lecture and not talking about page 27 of some book for 3 days, then and LAC is not right for you.
Yes, but the OP wasn’t asking big vs small. They were asking top 20 LAC vs lower ranked LACs.
Public U’s are being ignored on this thread. So many of them are better than all of the LAC’s listed for diverse majors. Why go to a LAC when you can get more from a flagship U? Large U’s are composed of smaller units- you do get to know nationally known professors, get personal attention et al. if you are in the same academic peer group as those at the elite schools Percentages compared to absolute numbers- so what if 90% of ten people go on- what about 20 of 100? That would be interacting with more than twice as many in the large school.
One size does not fit all. Post #21 states this, I like how a supposed advantage can be looked at as horrible. There are pros and cons with every school- from the vaunted Harvard down to Podunk U. “Nurturing” and so many other “positives” about different environments are negatives for some who can handle life better without handholding…
A much worse education if the LAC, of any ranking, does not handle the wanted major well- or doesn’t even have it. A “science building”, the library versus many. Never hearing about subjects because no courses offered- even if you never take that one…
None of us can be everyone. One gender, ethnic mix, area lived in… means we can’t be the other person. Does it really matter if college X has whatever reputation? Not if it isn’t the right fit. Plus, there simply is not enough room for all who may fit in to be able to go to any one school.
And- as mentioned- who determines the “top” twenty?
They are being ignored because it is not what the OP asked.
My kids have had access to (but have not used all of them) similar supports/professorial mentoring listed in post #9 at their large state publics. Visiting depts and asking questions helped my kids filter through which depts would support UGs with those types of experiences and which ones wouldn’t. Depts vary. I would suspect the feel/focus is going to vary amg LACs as well.
If your student is interested in grad school, access to UG research, poster presentations, etc are going to be important. Ask what their current students are doing and where they have gone after graduation.
LACs might not be a good fit for students entering with academic backgrounds that have them ready for upper level coursework. For students that have completed courses beyond AP level, make sure that there are enough upper level classes to keep them challenged and progressing.
The question is compare to what? The bottom 20? Then yes.
@twoinanddone “I think you get the best education when you are happy at a school, participate, show up for classes, enjoy your classmates.”
While I was originally asking about the difference between LACs (mostly because it’s close to comparing apples to apples), I think this is so true and was the advice I kept giving my daughter. Her choice came down to Grinnell or Macalester vs Knox or Lawrence. I struggled with whether or not the significant extra price for the first two was worth it when so much about all the schools were so similar. I knew for her she was going to do best at a place where she felt didn’t feel intimidated by the other students and was able to gain the confidence to be a risk taker. Grinnell didn’t feel like that place, even though it has an amazing reputation with greater name recognition.
In the end she went with her heart and is going to Lawrence, which was where she felt the most comfortable, yet will still be challenged and I couldn’t be happier about her decision. I was just curious as to what people here would say about the differences.
The OP asked a specific question about LACs so if this can avoid being another LAC vs U thread that would be most helpful to him/her, I’m guessing. That said, LAC does not always mean private, there are several well regarded public LACs that can be a great deal if you are in-state and their focus fits you - New College of Florida, Minn-Morris, SUNY Geneseo, UNC-Asheville etc. If you have one in your state you should take a look. And some large public Us can offer LAC-ish benefits, like the Ohio U tutorial college.
UCB covered the basics well. But I’d add lack of money usually means inferior financial aid, cost cuts in everything from dorms to the career/writing center, inability to offer stipends so student scan take unpaid internships, etc. Wittenberg is a lovely school but a friend’s child transferred because classes were being cut making it difficult to get what was wanted/needed. Same thing happens at state Us, of course - having more money means more resources. Denison, roughly LAC #50 (I assume USNews when someone says “ranked” but YMMV), has a lot of money. Denison kids have sparkling new science labs and an amazing aquatic facility and anew arts center on the way, students get funding for research and other pursuits during breaks. I admit I mentioned Sweet Briar only because I know it almost closed and was rescued by alumni but is still struggling. A family member went to Antioch in the early 90s and the education was great but the physical plant was crumbling.
So IMO, the endowment size (per student) for the LAC you are considering is a data point worth adding to the spreadsheet. As well as the existence and use of programs. Practically every LAC has a writing center but is it open all the time? How long does it take to get an appointment? Is the career center running programs in resume writing and interviewing and such or is it a glorified bulletin board of jobs anyone can find on google? Etc.
@cb4bowie - Lawrence was on S 12’s list and I thought it sounded awesome, read a lot about it. It is as I recall a CTCL school and most of those are “lower ranked” (Lawrence is 58, hardly scraping the barrel there) and deliver a great education.
For many families, needing really good financial aid is a key difference between the top 10+ and the rest. For full pay or merit-seeking families, “lower ranked” LACs can be much better. It’s very school-specific, IMO.
I would guess there are probably 50-60 excellent LACS in the US (maybe 100), but ranked below that, students may notice differences in their peer group perhaps not being as motivated/prepared/smart etc. than at more highly-ranked colleges they could have attended. (There are probably differences between the top 20 and those ranked 40-60.)
@LBowie, that’s only if you think USNews is some perfect arbiter of student body quality. For example, Reed is ranked #82 by USNews, but they are a top feeder in to PhD programs in almost every discipline. I don’t see how a ton of kids can be sent to PhD programs if they aren’t motivated/prepared/smart.
Not always…I don’t think you can paint smaller liberal arts colleges with one brush. They are very self selecting places especially in the Midwest and most give a very high quality education. They have very different personalities and don’t different student bodies. I don’t think it is possible to rank order them. Some of the very best get little attention from CC which still to this day skews largely NE. A really good way to measure them is to look at PhD production and graduate school acceptance rates. After that it is the same old rural vs urban vs suburban and which majors are known to be strong and perhaps how difficult it is to get there from the coasts.
The scientific way to answer this question is to conduct an experiment. Compare the outcomes (i.e. jobs, research out put of grads, etc) of the top 20 LACs to that of the next 20 LACs, then to next 20, so on and so forth. But you first need to decide whose ranking system you accept. Or perhaps the ranking system(s) has/have already answered that question for you, if the system has a metric that includes outcomes. For example, QS releases an annual employability ranking system that measures employability outcomes of all schools.
@PurpleTitan while they might not have Reed College correct and should be a much higher rank, it’s likely an outlier I wouldn’t dismiss most of the rankings. In general, they seem to be fairly accurate.
@gyrase777 Do studies like the ones you shared account for the fact that students who are able to be admitted to and afford high ranked schools are already better positioned to be successful in life, whether it be because of natural intelligence and internal drive or families with money and connections? I have to laugh a little when I see highly competitive schools tout their med school acceptance rates as a reason why you should go there. Of course Harvard has excellent med school acceptance rates. When you’re full of students who were smart enough to get into Harvard, you’re doing to be full of kids who are smart enough to get into medical school.
@socaldad2002 What leads you to believe the rankings are accurate?
…which is a strong endorsement for LACs like the CTCL schools that have great results with much less competitive “inputs” (if you will forgive me for calling kids inputs).
These rankings publish the methodologies they use for their rankings. You might for find the answer to your question there (i.e whether they adjust for household income etc ). The New York Times had another ranking last year which I recall adjusted for these things.
Well the rankings in post #33 are for universities so not really relevant to this discussion, but there are LAC rankings that take post-grad outcomes (income, grad school etc) into account. They’re all kind of flawed, IMO (like they use Payscale self-reported salary data) but they’re out there.