As to “diverse”, it depends on what you mean by that. If you are talking about racial diversity, you can look at the common data set and rely on the data. If you’re talking about “types” of students, your perceptions are as good a way as any to break that down.
But I do think that word means different things to different people, so if you care about it – want it or don’t – do your own research!
@gardenstategal, agree that diversity means different things to different people, whether it’s socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural, political, or something else - these were our DD’s impressions, so that of a Gen Z with their individual experiences to pull from…
Aside from their individual impressions, they did find College Niche very useful for this area of focus.
I don’t think you can rule out the fact that Haverford having four Presidents in the past six years had a negative impact on the school overall. Plus, the one for whom they did a national search, Dan Weiss, seemed particularly disinterested during his brief and undistinguished tenure.
@jtphila Thats very helpful info. I went to college during a terrible president and it really did weigh down the experience. That is a lot of presidents in a short time and certainly signals a lack of leadership or coherent vision.
In googling him I also fond that Haverford’s financial aid is loans for those over $60k per year vs grants. I did the net price calculator and it give by far the worst financial aid of any school we have looked at!
I don’t think scores are irrelevant without limits. As it stands, you can find “top ten” schools with SATs 50 points or more lower than Haverford’s. At this differential, maybe scores are irrelevant. However, at some point, average scores, as a rough measurement of academic preparation across a student body, would seem to provide some indication of the classroom experience as well as of the academics of a college in general.
@4junior The loans at Haverford are just a small part of the aid package, the rest is pure aid that doesn’t have to be paid back. There are only a handful of schools that are completely loan free. It is just not financially possible for many schools to provide that.
As for ex President Weiss, they seem to like him at the Metropolitan Museum where he now works.
I think Weiss was fine, just not there long enough. The students liked him. The Met was his dream job and I don’t blame him for leaving to take it. Besides, I don’t think any of the criteria used in the rankings factors that kind of stuff into the equation.
Haverford was totally need blind until a few years ago and they still meet the vast majority of need - much more generous than the majority of colleges.
They also just announced a new financial assistance program for low income and first generation students.
https://www.haverford.edu/college-communications/news/haverford-college-announces-new-financial-assistance-program-first
I have to agree that the students seemed to like Weiss. He even joined the students during their Humans vs. Zombies game! He seemed very hands on but left for a job he always wanted.
And the Met needed good leadership. The leader before Weiss put the museum in the hole about $40M. I think they snatched up a good leader to put it back on track.
http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a12108746/metropolitan-museum-debt/
I don’t think Haverford has dropped its standards. I think several other schools, particularly the Claremont colleges, the Maine colleges, and the Minnesota colleges, have been shooting up in the rankings. Some formerly lesser known colleges have introduced the winter term (4-1-4 system) and found other ways to enrich the student experience. Haverford is still a great school, but perhaps schools like Colby and Macalester are passing it up.
^^interesting, @meggie777. Who has introduced winter terms? All the schools we visited have had them for a long time (as in before I was in school! ) I think they are ideal for certain types of courses, especially those requiring collaboration or travel. I wonder how hard it was to shift the calendar and get faculties on board.
1- HC has had three Presidents in less than ten years and they are already looking for a fourth. What exactly is behind the frequent turn over: I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.
2- HC has a very strong strong science department. For pre-Med HC is top rate. I cannot say the same for their Latin American political studies instruction, which is plain poor or worse than mediocre.
3- HC is very much about fit. Students are highly motivated, serious, not much going on in terms of a party scene, they are very bright and dedicated to their work. And somehow they develop very strong and long lasting relationships. Men and women that graduate from HC remain very proud of their school forever.
4- Their drop in the rankings must obey to the rapid turn over of Presidents, which in turn must be the consequence of something else. Dr. Emerson was an alumni, a highly accomplished and reputable medical researcher whom I hear got in trouble with the board for being too open with the students. This is hearsay, but I believe easy access to Dr. Emerson was a great thing. Who knows…
5- in any case, I know of at least a few people with Harvard legacy who have preferred to send their kids to HC.
Dan Weiss, a highly regarded art historian also in possession of a Yale MBA, came in to help revitalize the college’s finances. Most folks with close ties to Haverford would say he did a good job, laying the groundwork for the school’s recent and successful capital campaign. He left to run the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, one of the most prestigious positions in his field. He left with Haverford’s blessing and wouldn’t have been hired by the Met if he didn’t know which end was up either as a scholar or executive; indications are that he has done well at the Met. Kim Benston, himself a highly regarded scholar and teacher, had been Provost (and spearheaded the capital campaign) and was a logical choice to replace Weiss. Benston is a team player and is known for his ability to build a collaborative work environment, something consistent with Haverford’s mission and a trait highly valued by the board. He had been upfront that he wanted to serve for a limited time due to his desire to spend more time in the classroom, where his passion lies. Kim has been a stabilizing influence and I think he has done a good job overall.
Haverford has always been a relatively small school and has a smaller endowment compared to some of its peers among the elite LACs. Benston and the board pulled back on guaranteeing meeting demonstrated aid for all students to ensure viability of the financial aid program for the long term; sounds like prudent decision making to me. I could see a change in the financial program methodology having more of an impact on rankings than presidential turnover.
I have heard some Haverford parents mention that there is a perception that the bulk of the entering classes are comprised of kids either paying full price or needing almost full aid. Whether or not this is true, there is a feeling that folks in the financial middle are less prevalent on campus now than in times past. Personally, I don’t know one way or the other. I recommend that prospective students to any college use that college’s online net price calculator to ensure they can afford it. I found Haverford’s very accurate in my family’s case. If you are really interested in Haverford and will need aid, I encourage you to apply ED1 or ED2, especially if you are an international student.
Rankings are but one of many sources of information a prospective student should consider. Ultimate, finding a place that you can get into, where you will be happy, that provides solid curriculum for you intended field of study, and that you can afford is where you should go. Caveat emptor and best of luck.
I’m a bit surprised that the OP’s daughter’s friends were looking at Hamilton, Bates, Colgate or Colby over Haverford—if they are going off of academics and post-graduation placement.
I graduated from Haverford 15 or so years ago. When I applied, it was consistently 5 or 6 in USNWR. I thought of it as being a tad less prestigious than Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore, but certainly on par with places like Middlebury, Bowdin, Pamona, Claremont, and Wesleyan. Heck, just a few weeks ago Ross Douthat mentioned it in the New York Times: “the slice of the American elite that’s privileged enough and intellectually-minded enough to choose Swarthmore or Haverford or Amherst over a state school or a research university.” Although, he and I are about the same age, so maybe he’s just showing that he is out of step with 17 year olds at NYC prep schools.
My wife went to an elite (but non-Ivy) research university and I have friends who went to most of the Ivys and other NESCACs. In general, my Haverford classmates have perused the same careers as graduates from Ivys, et al. I have friends in White Shoe law firms, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, tenure track positions at well-known universities, medical research, and in the more competitive medical specialties. The only big lacuna is electoral politics, but we are still young. I know that my Haverford degree was seen as a big plus when I matched into a prestigious residency in a competitive field. FWIW, I’m now an extremely well compensated medical specialist.
I would say that compared to NESCAC and Ivy+ schools, there are fewer in finance, consulting, tech, and politics, and more with PhDs and MDs. I attribute this to the Quaker ethos which tends to favor service and shun filthy lucre.
The biggest difference I noticed between Haverford and some of its peer schools is that there is much less social posturing and overt displays of wealth. My wife’s freshman year roommate had a closet full of Chanel clothes, many of which she never ended up taking the tags off of. This woman has since married a centimillionaire and lives on Long Island. I have a friend who went to one of the Big Three and had roommates who would throw parties that cost a few thousand dollars (remember, this was 15 or so years ago) and then would ask my friend, who was of relatively modest means to chip in.
Haverford had very little of that behavior when I was there. For someone who came from a lower-upper-middle-class background, this was generally a blessing. I socialized with the children of centimillionaires and billionaires and never had my face rubbed in it. I think that this was a carryover from the school’s Quaker heritage. Everyone was very friendly, although pretty nerdy and mousy.
The downside of the culture was that if you were a little more conventionally “cool”, into the beautiful person scene, liked to wear pastel colors, etc. there was a lot of informal social policing. Haverford just didn’t do exclusive or over the top. In retrospect, it was better for me to be at Haverford than at say, Princeton or Duke, but when I was 18, I think I would have liked the sports/frat scene, even if it wouldn’t have been good for my psyche (or grades). I did seriously consider transferring to a bigger school that was a bit less nerdy.
Maybe things have changed, but Hamilton, Bates, Colgate or Colby had reputations of being more “preppy” with sports, parties, and social status having a more prominent role than at Haverford.
TL;DR: Haverford is a great college that will get you jobs very similar to NESCAC and Ivy+ schools and is filled with thoughtful, understated, and unpretentious students. But, the sports, party, frat/club scene is essentially non-existent.
@o2bdownsouth wrote:
Woah. Do you really mean that or is that just a convoluted way of saying that Haverford is need-aware? Two different things. A college can be need-aware and still undertake to ensure that 100% of the family’s need will be met, IF the child is admitted.
I have no dog in this fight except to say that Haverford’s saga is not so different from Wesleyan’s which began the USNews era in the late 1980s near the top of the National LAC ranking when it was based almost entirely on reputation and began a slow descent as the magazine added more and more bells and whistles a great preponderance of which were tied directly or indirectly to how much money each college had hidden “underneath the hood”. The irony here, of course, is that Wesleyan, in almost every way that would have impressed my 17 y/o self, is ten times the better school today than its 1988 version (when it was #6 in the poll.) I think the institution basically has to follow the beat of its own drum and trust that it will find a market for what it offers, regardless of where it stands in the rankings.
In answer to the OP’s question, the USNews ranking system has become so finely calibrated over the years that almost any fluctuation can cause a disproportionate result from one year to the next. In the case of the national LACs, look closely at the Faculty Resources metric. It is a joke. Unless they’ve changed their methodology, USNews routinely takes the entire teaching payroll (not sure if that includes adjuncts - but, let’s assume it does) and divides it by the number of professors. The reason that disproportionately affects LACs is that LACs typically hire professors right out of grad school and thus always have a significant cohort group that rises through the ranks from lecturer/instructor to assistant prof to associate, all the way to full-professor. Thus, a school can go from one that is slightly overweighted by highly paid tenured professors to one that is slightly overweighted by less expensive (but, highly talented) junior faculty almost overnight once that cohort reaches mandatory retirement age. I’ve seen LACs drop two or three ranks in one fell swoop because of the Faculty Resources metric.
What the USNews gods take away, they can also give back:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
Haha. Interesting. My first thought was that I assumed Colby would move up, not down, with their aggressively lower acceptance rate.
Overall this list makes more sense to me than the past few years: Wesleyan and Haverford moving up, Colby down, and the cluster of Bowdoin, Midd and Pomona together. I still feel the women’s colleges are ranked a few notches too high (especially Smith) but overall this reflects what many I know who are going through the process feel is a general appropriate rank.
According to the latest rankings, Colby needs to drop off of her list immediately. She can now safely go to Haverford and mock the dummies who went to Colby (since for no particular reason they swapped places on the list this year).
EDIT: Internet humor doesn’t always translate. To be clear, I am mocking the system, not your daughter. I get where she is coming from, both trying to get into a good school and dealing with the social pressures of being 17.
No worries, I hear you. This thread was my first posting on CC and I have learned a whole lot about a whole lot since then! D never even visited Haverford in the end, and she didn’t love Colby so the issue is moot to our family. She visited Hamilton and loved it, applied ED2 and is now enjoying her semester in London as a Hamilton Jan.