<blockquote>
<p>If CC is going to be helpful, you need to have an open system for listing of specific colleges for discussion. Having participated in some of those discussions, I found it led to for us a false sense of reality about the breadth of colleges and their quality. Please, CC, open up the individual college discussion area for ALL colleges to begin to try to reverse this growing elitism in American colleges.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>The discussion board here on CC is only as good as its members. Rather than complaining about about colleges that other people aren't discussing, start discussing them. Put up posts about these colleges - discuss away.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My use of the term "elitism" is not sour grapes on my part since my daughter has been able to consider a number of "good" schools and at one of the "top" schools - St Olaf - has been invited to their Buntrock Scholars weekend. (This has occurred for her at all the schools she applied to.)</p></li>
<li><p>If you SEARCH for names like "Heidelberg" and "Alma" you will find that I started threads on them over a year ago. I first lobbied over a year ago to get Elizabethtown included in the available College Visits list. It took me a number of months to get it in. I decided then not to bother with these other two. The difference is if a school is on the offered College Visits list, it implies something. Otherwise someone has to have the name of the school and search for it to see if there is a thread.</p></li>
<li><p>I speculate that within 5 years the US News ranking will be greatly diminished because of what the colleges are doing - refusing to cooperate. The 25% of the rating that comes from "peer assessment" is clearly not a valid criteria in light of the comments by college presidents that they don't really know that much about that many schools to be able to offer a valid ranking. So many leave that piece blank. </p></li>
<li><p>I'm not sure these days what the title "top school" means. When we set out on this search, we hoped our daughter was a candidate for a "top" school. We found out she was a candidate for numerous "top" schools. But I can't discern that the term "top" really distinguishes a school. Some of the schools we visited from the Colleges That Change Lives book did not come across in the spirit that Pope saw and experienced them. Some of the schools did. So his "top" were not the same as our "top." US News and CC do function with not simply an implied but a clear "top" school list. At the least I would like to know from CC what is the criteria it uses to list schools for the dedicated College Visits list.</p></li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p>Deloar, interestingly enough I have read quite a bit about those schools on College Confidential. One of the first posts I read on CC was about Kenyon and its writing program. Later, I read about St Olaf's math program, about Macalaster international programs, about Beloit (again see Carolyn's major contributions) and the list goes on via Earlham or Berea and many others.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>That's the point I am making...the make up of this list is the perceived "top" schools. And yes, those schools and their programs are pretty well covered here.</p>
<p>I realize that this thread is almost singularly me maintaining one perspective and the rest of you challenging or disagreeing with my view point. I don't want to stretch this out just for the sake of debate. I appreciate all the comments made. For my part, I will TRY not to post further, even though I will look in, because I realize it may just turn more into a personal piece than an informative and change piece.</p>
<p>I apologize! I misspoke. I didn't start threads here until recently on Heidelberg and Alma. I did start some good conversational threads over on Carolyn's board admissionsadvice.com after I gave up here in trying to get other schools listed on the dedicated College Visits list. That was over a year ago.</p>
<p>You are very welcome to post further, on this thread or any thread. A lot of college applicants are starved for reliable third-party information about whether or not a particular college would be a suitable place to study. The college's marketing department will of course send out mail suggesting that it's a great college. For other sources of information, we depend on parents like you who have personal experience and a willingness to share that experience. I hope that you and every parent and every student feel welcome to share news about any college you know about.</p>
<p>I lurked for a long time before I became more "active" on the board, and I think that actually the boards have become a lot LESS focused on top schools than they used to be. This is particularly true of the Parents board, which now discusses so many more schools. I think CC and sites like it began as places where people who were interested in Ivy and elite school admissions could get help, advice, and perhaps "inside" information. But now parents come to talk about so many aspects about their children's admissions processes, and the names of so many more schools seem to come up. I agree that the message might still be implicit at times -- when the title says, "Good Schools for B students," or something like that. </p>
<p>There is also the very real fact of regionalism. People come from different places (a very obvious point, I know) and have not heard of some smaller schools. I DO resent the implication that a regional reputation means a school is "inferior." The argument usually has something to do with whether a potential employer has heard of your school. I think the actual instances of a "name" school tipping the scales during an interview are rare and limited to certain fields. There have been many threads posted by people who do hiring and testify to the fact that they hire and are impressed by graduates of "regional" or "lesser" schools.</p>
<p>I think the real crazy elitism can be found on some of the student threads, and it makes me sad to hear the kids tell each other that "prestige is always important" and to always go for the name school. But I try to keep that in perspective as well -- they also like the schools their friends go to, etc. The most inexplicable schools suddenly get "hot" at my daughter's school.</p>
<p>The real prize is finding the place where your child will be personally successful. The rest is a game, albeit a highly entertaining one.</p>
<p>Deloar, don't quit posting. Those of us pushing what we think are better college-choosing values are vastly outnumbered and we need more folks like you. We're just saying you're not alone, and that you should keep truckin' along with the rest of us.</p>
<p>Oops, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was leaving the whole board! I just meant that I thought I was possibly pushing the point too far in this thread. I hear from you aibarr and dbwes concern about the overall way the college search system in this country has fed to labeling some schools as "top" while others are not considered that.</p>
<p>One of the schools my daughter was accepted at and at this point is not generally considered a "top" school said they were just about to begin a national marketing program because they were a regional school. They realized that would mean that the academic level of incoming students could rise because their number of accepted students wouldn't change, but with a wider market they would get more applicants.</p>
<p>So...if marketing is part of it, could that override the on the ground reality of what is perceived to be by we the consumers (students and parents) what is the criteria of a "top" school?</p>
<p>I think an applicant has to consider what the applicant can find out from current students, from the current students' parents, and from alumni, while also considering the college's marketing efforts. The college marketing itself can add value to the student's degree over time. A strong student, of course, directly adds to the college's reputation and sometimes helps the college's marketing efforts considerably. </p>
<p>You may enjoy the new book </p>
<p>Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer </p>