Hamilton vs. Lafayette vs. Middlebury

@OldbatesieDoc A better comparison would be Colgate

what I meant was that someone picking Bucknell over Hamilton would pose the same type of choice as Lafyette vs Hamilton, in that Bucknell and Lafayette are in similar tier schools and Hamilton, while it may be ‘ranked’ higher, may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Not everyone picks by rank. I know people who turned down schools like Northwestern, G’town, Tufts, for schools ranked ‘lower’ for a variety of reasons, ie; weather, presence of a sibling, overall vibe. So just because you ‘can’t imagine’ someone picking Lafayette over Hamilton, it’s not out of the question. Lafayette is a very good school. It’s not like someone choosing a school out of the top 100 instead of Hamilton

Yes but I stand by my comment.

Well, sort of. By statistics related to selectivity, Lafayette appears in the top 104:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9

That said, Lafayette’s environment and programs could be highly appealing to many students.

A dear friend of one of my children did all the college tours, applied to many of them and was accepted to most, including Middlebury (did not apply to Hamilton). She chose to attend Lafayette for her own reasons. Five years have passed since graduation and she could not be happier with her experience during school and with post graduation opportunities. If one had suggested that any reasonable person would chose Middlebury over Lafayette she’d just laugh. There are many, many, worthwhile places to pursue one’s college education, thank goodness.

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My kids both opted for schools lower ranked than others that accepted them: my oldest chose brown over UPenn and UChicago. Youngest chose Tufts over WUSTL, UCLA, USC. He opted not to apply to JHU ED, where his counselor thought he’d be accepted (did an overnight visit before the ED app & was really disappointed with the classes he attended & what he heard about the school from students he met). Both love their colleges, and neither regrets his decision.

I feel attacked. I’ve said MANY times that students should go where they feel most comfortable. However, the OP wants a finance career. I think Midd and Hamilton have closer Wall Street connections-now I guess Wisteria will post something about how they don’t.
I also have a problem with anyone who thinks Brown is lower than UPENN and UChicago. Those are all top tier. Now choosing Lafayette over those schools would be an odd decision. I also think Tufts would be ranked higher than UCLA or USC in my universe.

Can’t please everyone!

@OldbatesieDoc, I agree with you on all counts. I was simply referring to the USNWR rankings as that’s what seems to count on this forum, though it obviously didn’t in my household. That’s all.

@OldbatesieDoc ‘I guess Wisteria will post something about how they don’t’

Oldbatesie - sorry you feel attacked. I don’t think anybody intended that - I certainly didn’t. Though I do think now you are being a tad melodramatic! What I was responding to was your declaration that you “couldn’t imagine anyone picking Lafayette over Hamilton” That seemed melodramatic too. There could be lots of reasons why one would pick Lafayette or another similar caliber school over Hamilton and I pointed out an instance where that happened. I have no idea about wall street connections from those schools, so I won’t comment there. And full disclosure - I have no skin in the game at Lafayette. My D toured there and actually didn’t like it, but she did love Hamilton.
Perhaps you didn’t mean it this way, but it sounded like you were implying that Lafayette is so much farther down the food chain than Hamilton, that it would be irrational for someone to make that choice. And for that, I simply disagree.

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Midd and Hamilton for Econ and Wall Street ties – probably, yes. Probably also for most humanities and social sciences.

But for STEM, I imagine Lafayette is the strongest of the three overall. They do offer Engineering, which Midd and Hamilton lack.

Overall, there is probably more varied program strength at Midd and Hamilton. But i’m almost certain Lafayette holds its own academically. Looking at their CDS, they certainly have plenty of smart kids.

And academic ranking aside, plenty of people on this site have given the Lafayette campus rave reviews. All you need to do is peruse the “tours/visits results” thread – it’s called something like “schools your kids liked and hated on visits” – which has been one of the most popular threads on this site.

If Midd is Penn, Hamilton is Northwestern and Lafayette is, oh, Tufts or Boston College… who’s to say some kids won’t find a better fit at BC/Tufts than they would at Penn or Northwestern? If they are following their fit preferences and taking cost into account properly, they can’t make a wrong choice.

Those are three good LACs. For athletics one is D1. Location wise one is much closer to Wall Street than the other two. That school is Lafayette.

In terms of outcomes, as that should be the focus, there are many options better than any of the three in terms of feeding into top MBA programs or Wall Street.

So, if the choice is between the three only it is personal.

I’d like to think that posters at least skim through the links on the threads they post on, but often it seems, as in this case, that they do not:

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-mba-programs

N.B., Middlebury and Hamilton are two of only 20 schools that appear in the analysis.

With respect to economics, a key component of the initial inquiry, these same two colleges appear in the top five here:

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html

Hamilton and Middlebury have supported Apker Award recipients (for undergraduate research in physics) and Hamilton enrolls math majors at seven times the national average. Among the three schools, I believe Hamilton and Lafayette are two that have educated students who went on to win Nobel Prizes in a science field.

Well, how closely have you looked, @prezbucky?

When statistical comparisons are made the differences between these schools become most apparent:

ACT Middle Ranges

Hamilton: 31-33
Middlebury: 29-33
Lafayette: 27-31

Questions about fit postponed for the moment, it would appear that, while some overlap exists, Hamilton picks up academically about where Lafayette leaves off.

I said there are plenty of smart kids at Lafayette. I guess it depends on your definition of “smart”, but if at least one-fourth have an ACT of 31+ or equivalent SAT, I think we could say there are plenty of strong students.

This conversation feels more like a reflection of a competitive event than a balanced and well-considered search for the right fit. And speaking as a parent, I more than understand the spirit of the moment - the feeling that my child must get into the “best” school possible, or they might never reach their potential.

The maxim “what you actually do once you get to college is so much more important than where you go to college” isn’t just a expression of consolation for those whose dream schools remained elusive, it’s empirically substantiated. All of the colleges and universities mentioned in this thread are incredible places of higher learning where students can go on to achieve all of their aspirations.

That said, what school can match Middlebury’s combination of a world class education in one of the prettiest places on earth? Sign me up! -Dang, too late…by 35 years…

I like to write entertaining and factual posts when I can. Maybe I’m "melodramatic’, I prefer “colorful” or “expressive”.
As I said, the OP wants to go to Wall St, and I think , as do others, that Hamilton and Midd are more “connected” in that regard.

Yeah, I think some of us genuinely believe that Middlebury and Hamilton would be among the country’s strongest choices for econ, which connects directly to the original question. The OP could do really well at Lafayette, this was also acknowledged.

@prezbucky : I agree that Lafayette enrolls many strong students (statistically and otherwise). If I seem to have implied you were inaccurate on this, then I’ll retract any suggestion fully now.

@merc81 what is this you are posting from and why should we believe it is accurate? Current? Legitimate?

@ClarinetDad16 :

The ACT scores appear in the respective 2015-16 Common Data Sets.

The IDEAS data relating to economics programs indicates accuracy as of September 2016 and seems to be a scholarly compilation.

I haven’t looked into the College Transitions methodology.

How do we know Lafayette plays D1 sports? Should we believe this to be accurate? Current? Legitimate?

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For Apker Award college affiliations, you can scroll through the recipients here:

https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/awards/apker.cfm

Regarding math majors at Hamilton (post #31), you can see here that, as of 2010, 0.8% percent of college students graduated with a math/statistics major:

http://www.economicmodeling.com/2012/01/11/humanities-or-stem-majors-looking-at-the-most-popular-degrees-for-us-students/

Then you can compare this to the current USNWR, which lists math under “most popular majors” with an 8% figure. (So Hamilton actually enrolls math majors at ten times the national average.)