<p>OK, now I’m confused. This is what you said not too long ago…
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<p>A college is a brand that will go with you for life, so prestige is important. A high-ranked LAC is fine if you want to pursue law or medicine or an academic career later in life. Otherwise, a comparable university with better name recognition is always a better bet, unless, of course, you choose colleges based on “fit”.</p>
<p>The bottom line is, people who matter will know how good Bowdoin is.</p>
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<p>The OP goes to boarding school?
Wel then, one way to gauge the snob appeal (o.k., “prestige”) of a college or university is to ask this question: Where do graduates of the nation’s richest, most exclusive boarding schools go to college?</p>
<p>Here’s the list of college matriculations for St. Paul’s school:
[St</a>. Paul’s School ~ Matriculation](<a href=“http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=6543]St”>http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=6543)</p>
<p>Here’s a list for Lawrenceville:
[The</a> Lawrenceville School: Matriculation](<a href=“http://www.lawrenceville.org/academics/college-counseling/matriculation/index.aspx]The”>http://www.lawrenceville.org/academics/college-counseling/matriculation/index.aspx)</p>
<p>Bowdoin’s numbers are up there with the likes of MIT, UChicago, or UPenn (despite Bowdoin’s much smaller size). Rich, well-travelled, well-educated people are likely to be familiar with Bowdoin and other selective LACs. If people are not - and these things matter so much to you - then YOU might not want THEM as employer, father in law, or dating prospect. (But maybe by the time you graduate, you’ll be a little more discerning than that.)</p>
<p>Another reference point to consider is a list of famous Bowdoin alumni.
[List</a> of Bowdoin College people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bowdoin_College_people]List”>List of Bowdoin College people - Wikipedia)
Evidently, Bowdoin did not hold back Robert Peary, Alfred Kinsey, the founder of Netflix, or DJ Spooky.</p>
<p>My D attends an LAC with a similar ranking to Bowdoin. “The masses” haven’t heard of it, despite the existence of several highly prominent political figures who went there. So what? Who cares? 17 year olds don’t know much of anything. They also believe Justin Bieber is better than the Beatles. </p>
<p>I have to laugh at the sentiment posted by hzhao2004. There is far more “prestige” in having the quiet confidence to get an excellent education that may not have name brand value among the masses, than there is being the kind of person who so desperately needs others to validate him. There is a quiet sophistication about going to the Bowdoins of the world. Other people not knowing it? Just means it’s their problem and reflects on their lack of sophistication, not yours.</p>
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Oh please Pizzagirl, I think you go a little too far here. Its not a “problem” and doesn’t reflect “on their lack of sophistication” if people haven’t heard of LACs which have contributed very little to the development of humanity with regards to important research in areas like medicine, legal doctrine, history, natural sciences, etc. My dad was an engineer at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI when I applied to colleges and he had no idea about any of the LACs including Amherst/Williams and the Ivy League schools Brown and Dartmouth. That doesn’t mean that he’s uncultured-we’re a well traveled family that has lived in 4 continents and he is a coinnoisseur of certain products like cars, wine, and men’s ties.</p>
<p>Not knowing Bowdoin or Haverford or Wellesley (probably the most well known LAC by far due to Hillary) is akin to not knowing about Patek Philippe watches or Hermes ties or Bruno Paillard wine; its nice if you do but its perfectly OK if you don’t. :)</p>
<p>The point isn’t whether your dad (sorry) or my Texas friend’s neighbors have heard of a school. The point is whether OP should be affected by those who may not be so familiar with a college- or make his own best decisions, especially when Bowdoin, Amherst, Wellesley, et al, are superior LACs.</p>
<p>“Sophisticalted about many colleges.” No one is suggesting those who don’t know are rubes. Just that their personal knowledge may not matter. And, I’d question the generalization that LACs haven’t contributed many movers and shakers.</p>
<p>Why do people who pride themselves on not knowing about LACs feel compelled to knock them? Goldenboy - LACs are by definition undergraduate institutions - so a lack of “important research in areas like medicine, legal doctrine, history, natural sciences, etc.” may have something to do with that! However, many serious students want to go to LACs particularly for the research opportunities they have at them working directly with professors. Usually in universities, it’s the grad students who get to do that. At LACs classes are small and taught by professors - not TAs or adjuncts. LAC graduates are well-represented in the grad schools of prestigious universities. Those universities are very familiar with these LACs; the academic experience offered by our finest LACs are valued by grad schools. Dartmouth and Brown are universities - not LACs. If you are fuzzy on what an LAC is, I find it hard to understand why you’ve formed a negative opinion on them. To each his own - go to a big university, by all means, but you don’t have to put down others who choose a different path.</p>
<p>goldenboy8784
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<p>Wow, GB. Just wow.</p>
<p>I’ll just say by way of point of information, that one has to very careful not to conflate lack of famous graduate schools with lack of “movers and shakers”, especially where some of the eastern colleges are concerned. Just a small sample of contemporary movers and shakers (never mind the Hawthornes and Longfellows) would reveal:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Governor of Colorado</li>
<li>the senior Senator from Michigan</li>
<li>the senior Senator from Colorado</li>
<li>the junior Senator from Colorado</li>
<li>the Governor of Vermont</li>
<li>the head of the National Cancer Institute</li>
<li>the founder and CEO of America Online</li>
<li>a former head of the NAACP “Inc Fund”</li>
<li>the present Director of the Keck Observatory, and</li>
<li>several advisors to President Obama</li>
</ol>
<p>@OP, I have a child who is thriving at Swarthmore, looking at a career in biomedical academia. That said, I would not dismiss the importance of the lay prestige, and not just the domestic prestige but also the global prestige. IMHO, LAC may not be the best choice unless you are going to grad school, or you absolutely NEED an intimate environment. Most LAC attributes can be found in large universities if you know where to look, especially if you are in Honors or other special programs.</p>
<p>Of course, this is just one middle-class parent’s attempt to be “practical”. You may not need to be too concerned about practicality, or you may not care to associate yourself with people who do not appreciate Bowdoin. That’s fine, too.</p>
<p>One advice: Pay no attention to Bowdoin being more selective than Cornell, or whatever. Once you have made your decision, forget all that stuff immediately. Outside the CC bubble, no one cares, and neither should you.</p>
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<p>Yes. That’s the whole point. It shouldn’t matter to the connoisseur. If I’m a watch connoisseur, should I care that the average person knows Rolex but not Patek Phillippe? That’s the question the OP posed. It’s not the watchwearer’s problem if someone else looks at the Patek Philippe watch on their arm and say, “Gosh, I never heard of that.” Likewise, it’s not the OP’s problem that many people haven’t heard of Bowdoin. It doesn’t matter in the least. Quality doesn’t need to be widely known to be quality, and Bowdoin is quality by any reasonable measure.</p>
<p>Have to agree with Pizzagirl on this one. And, as much as I hate to fan the prestige-seeking flames, for the super-elite snobby people I know who went to those schools, the fact that they are unknown by the common man only increases their cachet, the way that Krug is better than Dom Perignon or Phillipe Patek is better than Rolex. So, if you really are interested in playing the status game, the proper response when someone says that they haven’t heard of your school is to sniff haughtily and say, “No, you wouldn’t have.” (Tongue firmly in cheek.)</p>
<p>That’s Patek Phillipe, of course. :). (Darn. I’ve never been able to pull off the snob thing.)</p>
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Huh, how was I knocking LACs? I was merely proposing a reasonable rationale as to why they are so inconspicuous: they don’t conduct cutting-edge research in a lot of well known fields of study and lack professional schools. That’s how a lot of schools gain prestige domestically and abroad. That’s merely a fact, not an indictiment of these fine institution types.</p>
<p>I mentioned Brown and Dartmouth since they are LAC-like in that they don’t have world-class faculties like say the University of Wisconsin or the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>By the way, a lot of smaller private universities are very undergraduate-focused. The best students will find ways to interact with stellar professors no matter what type of institution he/she is enrolled in.</p>
<p>Hope that clears up the confusion.</p>
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I was only talking in terms of what the faculties at LACs have accomplished, not what graduates of LACs have gone on to accomplish. There’s obviously a key difference here. The best LACs provide an incredible undergraduate education and no one here is denying that. However, they will remain “hidden gems” since they don’t have Division 1 athletics, major graduate/professional programs, and produce so few alumni.</p>
<p>I felt like the same way, OP: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1284523-feeling-very-insecure-help.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1284523-feeling-very-insecure-help.html</a></p>
<p>I currently go to Pomona and I have learned to move on beyond the lack of common prestige and take the value of education and my time here beyond it. </p>
<p>Bowdoin is like the Pomona of the East Coast because it highlights both a fantastic and rigorous education and a fantastic quality of life- you will get an AMAZING education, trust me. You will be treated as an individual by the administration, you will get resources beyond what you would have expected, and you will get have the time of your life. The community experience will stand out among your memories as well as your intense rapport with your professors. These are values that top universities can do, but not to the same extent as top liberal art colleges like Bowdoin. This should be equal to, if not exceed, the value of having the common person knowing about your school.</p>
<p>With top liberal art colleges like Bowdoin, their peer schools are liberal art colleges and the Ivy League/similarly respected universities. In other words, you will meet plenty of people that have turned down more prestigious options for a reason. Cost wouldn’t be it as Bowdoin has one of the most generous FA policies in the country. I talked to someone who turned down the golden standard for prestige (albeit it does deserve it, but still), Harvard, and I asked them why. They said it was because they simply felt like a better fit at Pomona. The point therefore ultimately pins down what is the best fit for you, and in your case, it sounds like you fell in love with Bowdoin!</p>
<p>Most of the people in the top of their fields highly respect liberal art colleges. I’ve had interviews with the Scripps Institute of Research, the Rockefeller Institute, and the UK-Fulbright Summer Program and they all mentioned that they really appreciated Pomona graduates or something to that extent. I am sure they would say the same for Bowdoin. You won’t be at a disadvantage for attending a top liberal arts college, especially if you apply to graduate programs, where they are well-represented. </p>
<p>It’s also important to say that my points aren’t to disparage universities. Universities offer an equally good, but ultimately different, experience. Universities can be undergrad focused, as Rice, Dartmouth, and Princeton tend to be. But you are a great place and you should <em>never</em> feel discouraged because of it!</p>
<p>A couple random thoughts on this issue, which is an issue I faced with my kid, who passed up UCLA to go to University of St Andrews in Scotland (which was kind of a Bowdoin-like decision) This is just a supposition, but let’s say a top graduate school is selecting students for its next class.</p>
<p>They probably want to accept students from lots of different schools.</p>
<p>So perhaps they might do something like this:</p>
<p>“Let’s take one kid from Harvard, one kid from UCLA, one kid from Michigan, one kid from Bowdoin, one kid from Pomona”.</p>
<p>If that is what they do, then the liberal arts college actually has more power, because it is a much smaller school, so your LAC degree is worth more than a degree from a big school. </p>
<p>Maybe they do take 10 from UCLA for every kid from Bowdoin, because it is 10 times larger, but I doubt it.</p>
<p>In the end though, comparing a small LAC to a big university is like comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>You will notice that Dartmouth does not fair well in many world rankings, because the criteria they use in ranking schools is not criteria Dartmouth would do well in.</p>
<p>Also, I think your major counts as well. While no one has heard of some LACs, a particular LAC may have a great reputation in a particular field. </p>
<p>For example, when I was a kid, Franklin & Marshall was known as a great pre-med school. Most layman have never heard of the school, but if you can get into medical school from there, who cares if your second cousin never heard of it.</p>
<p>Also, I suspect that the location of the LAC may be important. For example, I would bet that a kid who graduates from Reed College gets good jobs in Oregon. And that a kid who graduates from Colorado College will do fine in the State of Colorado. In some states, the small LAC might in fact be the best college in the whole state, and employers in that state know that. (That might not be true for a northeastern LAC of a California LAC, because there are so many top colleges in those regions).</p>
<p>Also, small LACs often have great networking. </p>
<p>Also, I think it is less likely you will get lost in the shuffle if you attend a small LAC, as opposed to a gigantic university, where you may be invisible.</p>
<p>Also, in any case, the name of the school may only take you so far. I went to a big name law school, but at my summer job, there were kids sitting right next to me who went to lesser named law schools. We all wound up in the same place.</p>
<p>Now, all that being said, I do think that the LACs could market themselves a little better.</p>
<p>Even I had never heard of Pomona, or Haverford, or Carlton College, until my kid started applying to colleges, and I have attended many top colleges, and have been in the work world for 35 years.</p>
<p>Thanks, you guys have all been really helpful. I feel much more confident in my choice now. You guys are definitely right; why am I looking to my fellow 17 year olds for validation? I don’t go along with my peers in other areas either, so why should I only apply to the colleges that they like?</p>
<p>Just happened on to this thread. Cannot believe what I have read. We are all really in trouble if there can be a debate like this about Bowdoin. Must be symptomatic of something very, very wrong with our culture. There are schools two and three tiers down from Bowdoin that can give you a wonderful education and get you wherever you need to go if you have what it takes and use the resources available effectively. I keep reading this thread and expecting to see a name like Ursinus or Hendrix or Wooster (all great schools IMHO), but I’m seeing Bowdoin – a school pushing Williams and Amherst and recently with a lower admit rate than Williams. Bowdoin is one of the very top colleges in the entire United States. And who cares if someone has heard of it? I usually don’t like to refer to US News, but in a case like this, if someone says “what’s that?” or “where’s that?” just point them to the rankings. Do you want to go to one of the very best colleges in the country or to one that was in last year’s NCAA Final Four?</p>
<p>Early on, someone posted that if a person doesn’t recognize an elite LAC, it’s because they’re ignorant. Bates was once my dream school and whoever I told about it said “Oh, I’ve never heard about it”. It’s not even like we’re far away from the school, I live in NY.</p>
<p>The definition of ignorant is to not know or to be uninformed. So, people who don’t know about LACs are in fact ignorant about them. Perhaps if people spent more time comparing what kind of education they’d get at various schools, and less time worrying about prestige, we’d all be better off.</p>