<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I am looking for good LACs in Massachussets and New York, and even connecticut. </p>
<p>I plan to major in History, World Studies, international relations, etc. I'd like to take courses in Philosophy too, maybe Economics, political science. </p>
<p>I like the idea of Liberal education, and I already know of Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore, etc. Any others you guys can point me to?</p>
<p>There are lots of great LACs in the area - Bowdoin and Wesleyan are my favorites after Amherst and Williams, then there's Middlebury, Wellesley if you're female...you need to be more specific.</p>
<p>Barnard College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Bryn Mawr College
Haverford College
Middlebury College
Smith College
Tufts University..not sure if this is LAC
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University</p>
<p>those are the ones i know of that are "Great" in the North East</p>
<p>unregistered, well I am looking for sort of matches or low reaches. For example, I would consider Swarthmore, WIlliams and Amherst and notch below Harvard and the other ivies, I think. So I am looking for colleges a notch under Swarthmore and Amherst. </p>
<p>Thanks for the list Sheed!</p>
<p>Tufts isn't a LAC, instead it is a small research university. However, its focus is on undergraduates and its student-faculty ratio is 8:1 which is actually the same as Amherst's! In a way, it is the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore would perhaps be considered a "notch below" Harvard and some of the other Ivies, but not all of them. </p>
<p>Check out Bowdoin and Wesleyan.</p>
<p>A starting point for discussion on the tiers of LACs and small universities in the Northeast:</p>
<p>Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore</p>
<p>Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Haverford, Wellesley, Tufts, Vassar</p>
<p>Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Colgate, Barnard, Brandeis</p>
<p>Bucknell, Lafayette, Mt. Holyoke, Connecticut College, Holy Cross</p>
<p>Union College, Clark U, Wheaton, Hartwick, Skidmore, Franklin and Marshall, Dickinson, Muhlenberg, Gettysburg</p>
<p>TourGuide446 has a great list to start with. I'd also recommend looking at Trinity College which I'd put in the same category as Bucknell, Lafayette, etc.</p>
<p>I don't really see why you would categorize Wellesley and Tufts as being behind your "first tier."</p>
<p>probably because wellesley and tufts are peers of the schools in the second tier more than they are of schools in the first tier.</p>
<p>Holy Cross, Trinity, Connecticut College.</p>
<p>Tufts is a univeristy, not a LAC.</p>
<p>
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probably because wellesley and tufts are peers of the schools in the second tier more than they are of schools in the first tier.
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</p>
<p>I really don't understand what you're basing this on. Hearsay? Supposition? Fancy?</p>
<p>If you're going to rank LACs and small universities in one stroke—a flawed idea, to begin with—look at the stats of accepted AND enrolled students. You'll see that Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Dartmouth, Tufts, Brown, Wellesley are all very similar with negligible differences.</p>
<p>first, the question is not whether there are negligible differences between tufts and swarthmore/williams. the list above is a list of negligible differences, not a list of grand tiers. the pertinent question is instead whether the differences between tufts and swarthmore/williams are less negligible than the differences between schools like middlebury or bowdoin and swarthmore/williams, prompting anyone to obviously move tufts from the second category of schools listed above to the first. </p>
<p>and i'm not basing what i say on supposition or fancy. instead, i'm basing it on SAT averages, acceptance rates, and % of students in the top decile of their high school class of the enrolled students at each college. in no way is tufts/wellesley closer to williams than it is to bowdoin. to wit, for last years data in USNEWS: </p>
<p>tufts: 1330-1480, 80% in top decile, 28% admitted
williams: 1340-1530, 88% in top decile, 19% admitted
bowdoin: 1320-1470, 78% in top decile, 25% admitted
wellesley: 1310-1480, 77% in top decile, 34% admitted</p>
<p>i don't know how the above numbers could be construed differently. it should be noted that no one is saying tufts is a bad school, but rather that its peer set is the schools listed and less (if we're to make these distinctions at all) the schools in the top category. this ranking is akin to ranking HYP above columbia brown and dartmouth. while no one really cares, few dispute, however close the acceptance rates get, that HYP are a top category for universities. the same is true for AWS. the difference between the tiers is negligible, you're right. but that isn't a claim sufficient to move any of the schools.</p>
<p>Lolabelle, are you just offended that Tufts is in the second tier behind AWS?</p>
<p>If you're arguing that Tufts should be moved into that first tier, then I'll place my money on Wesleyan as well ;)</p>
<p>^ ^ ^ I agree. I think Wesleyan, Bowdoin, and Tufts should be up there</p>
<p>I actually think the HYP distinction gets overblown sometimes, too. I mean, has anyone met anyone under the age of fifty who's actually gone to Princeton? :/</p>
<p>i know tons of kids who have gone to princeton, a lot come from NJ so maybe thats why :) We have a great pub school system</p>
<p>"A starting point for discussion on the tiers of LACs and small universities in the Northeast"</p>
<p>"Tufts is a univeristy, not a LAC"</p>
<p>What part of "small universities" do you not understand? Yeah, places like Tufts, Clark, Bucknell, Wesleyan, & Bryn Mawr are technically universities because they have significant grad schools, but still the overall size, atmosphere, and student-faculty contact is more comparable to LACs than to larger research universities.</p>