<p>Which school would be the most competitive in helping me get into a good graduate school (HYP + Stanford + Oxbridge)</p>
<p>Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin?</p>
<p>Obviously they are all great schools, but does any one of them have an advantage in grad school admissions?</p>
<p>Depends entirely on the subject.</p>
<p>Based on my very limited sample, I’d say great. I know exactly one Williams grad (physics), and he is now in the Ph.D. program at MIT.</p>
<p>the subjects I’m interested in are history/poly sci.
how do these schools stack up?</p>
<p>i would agree it depends on the subject but check these out:</p>
<p>[The</a> Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition](<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>http://wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm) [wsj ranks williams 5th best “feeder school” to harvard, yale, and stanford professional programs after harvard, yale, princeton, and stanford]</p>
<p>[Williams</a> College Department of Physics](<a href=“http://www.williams.edu/Physics/]Williams”>http://www.williams.edu/Physics/) [click on “after williams”. i can tell you after looking at a ton of other college’s placements that this blows everyone else out of the water in terms of percentages]</p>
<p>i can speak about law school admissions and can say that outside of harvard and yale, and perhaps to a lesser extent, princeton, good colleges like those above, or the rest of the ivy league, provide little to no boost as measured by whether applicants from such schools are admitted with lower LSAT scores. applicants to law schools from harvard and yale colleges (though many of them regularly have LSAT score above the medians) sometimes receive a boost in admissions because of where they went to college. the schools above are all fantastic places and for law school admissions they will never hurt your chances, but attending them will be no different than attending brown, or johns hopkins, or rice, or dartmouth (all of which, though they may represent tangible differences in prestige on this board are indistinguishable in the shadows of the LSAT and undergraduate GPAs of applicants).</p>
<p>thanks for all the info you guys, but I don’t really care about law school admissions, as I am intersted in eventually getting a Phd and teaching in acadamia? The subject would be either history or poly sci. That’s specifically what I’m asking when it comes to these schools.</p>
<p>they are all exceptionally good for grad schools especially PhDs. in many ways, i think LACs are the best training ground for future PhDs in the liberal arts. all of these schools will be looked on highly by graduate schools in political science and history.</p>
<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>This won’t consider the caliber of graduate schools of course, but it’s another it, especially considering that the other link seems to be predominantly focusing on professional schools.</p>
<p>As Poli sci PhD who sits on graduate admissions committees, I’d pretty much rank them as more or less even–Middlebury has more of a reputation for humanities and arts and might be a little bit lower on social sciences, although the one guy I know there is first rate–Williams has advantage of first rate math department that has a couple of serious statistics courses that would be definately an advantage at any first rate poli sci grad program–APSR and other top PS journals are heavily quantitative these days, so the more of that stuff you can get the better</p>
<p>not about grad schools, but mentions williams as one of the best poli sci depts.
[Conservatism</a> and the University Curriculum - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124484718091311321.html]Conservatism”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124484718091311321.html)</p>