<p>Just google Amherst and/or Williams or other LAC’s and read their rankings in wiki…there are mutiple rankings I believe. The reason you don’t see LACs ranking next to top universities is because there is a different system of ranking for those colleges that only educated four years vs those you can get masters and PhD.</p>
<p>One major difference between liberals and top universities is that “liberals” helps you develop your major. If you’re undecided, they are the place for you. If you love, lets say physics, then you should look into science universities.</p>
<p>It combined LACs and research unis and my recollection is that LACs compose about a third of the top twenty-five most popular American institutions of higher education among a randomly selected group of h/s seniors who scored highest on the SATs. What’s remarkable about the result vis a vis LACS vs. research unis, is that LACs are outnumbered by research unis by 10:1 in real life.</p>
<p>I disagree with the idea that a liberal arts college is not the right place for a student seriously interested in science. My son will be a first year student at Swarthmore in the fall. He plans to major in Math or Physics and is definately planning to continue on and pursue a PhD. He had no interest in going to a _IT sort of school, he wanted a liberal arts education. Our mission with his college search was to find a LAC that also offered a very strong Physics and Math program. He wants to be able to take philosophy and history courses. More importantly, for all that he is a Math geek kind of kid (and I mean that in the most positive way) he is interested in spending time with other kids with a wide range of interests. Students graduating from Swarthmore and pursing graduate degrees in science and engineering do very well. Swarthmore was rated number six for percentage of students who complete a Phd in science or engineering within 5 years of graduating (I am sorry but I do not remember the source for this statistic). This was out of all undergraduate institutions not just LAC.</p>
<p>I think bluepurple is repeating a stereotype that, by definition, a geek is not terribly interested in being around people with lots of different interests and would probably excel at a place of relative anonymity where they would not have to compete socially and could focus on a narrow field of interest. That isn’t to say, there aren’t tons of exceptions for whom LACs would offer the right balance between academic specialization and social integration within a wider community. But, I’m thinking of the 14 y/o math prodigy (again, a stereotype.) Would they be better off at a place like Cornell or a place like Swarthmore where the odds of meeting someone else like them would be zero to none?</p>
<p>“One major difference between liberals and top universities is that “liberals” helps you develop your major. If you’re undecided, they are the place for you.”</p>
<p>To be clear, as far as I’m aware the undergraduate physics departments of most top universities are housed in their Arts & Sciences colleges, which offer programs of study, distribution requirements, etc that are entirely similar to the offerings of stand-alone liberal arts colleges, typically. Many students who are undecided, or want to take philosophy and history courses in addition to Physics, and receive a liberal arts education, choose to matriculate at such colleges. One can reasonably prefer one environment over another to receive this liberal arts education, but that’s a different issue. Arts & Science colleges at most major universities are not “tech schools” either.</p>
<p>nursekay: your son sounds like my son, a Swat grad. He was a physics major, history minor & had enough courses to also have a poli sci minor (but the dept doesn’t do honors minors). He is now in a PhD physics program. As an undergrad, he wanted to go to a school that had a balanced male/female ratio, so that eliminated alot of science-oriented universities. His friends at Swat were not the other physics majors, but people he met in his dorms.<br>
Good luck to your son. It sounds like he made the right choice for him.</p>
<p>As we have seemed to have crossed the Rubicon of moderating a discussion worth preserving, one finally asks oneself: How much snot can we tolerate? Is it endless? Does one have no shame? Are intellectuals allowed the privy of their privacy without doubt and calumny?</p>
<p>This discussion is pointless and irredeemable. </p>
<p>Hence: there are no intellectuals at Swarthmore. Just students grinding their way to graduation. If you want that intellectual powder in your coffee, then find an apothecary willing to displace your momentary lapse with the soothing drink that stimulates your system. </p>
<p>Otherwise, bug off!</p>
<p>Your endless neurotic needs merely test our patience to your incessant demands.</p>
<p>That study didn’t attempt to measure popularity, which is why LACs did well.
Most applicants with stats suitable for LAC admission have a negative “revealed preference” for LAC’s, expressed by not applying. That unpopularity is, perversely, rewarded by the Revealed Preference method: a school that gets additional applications (without extra matriculations) will have its ranking lowered. The RP ranking favors self-selection and efficiency of applicant-to-college matching, which inflated the results of specialized schools (Caltech, BYU) and colleges favored by the well counseled private school set (women’s colleges, LACs).</p>
<p>^^good point. If I were to edit my original post, I would substitute the phrase “match rate” for popularity. Popular would more accurately describe the LAC receivng the most applications.</p>