Ivy League Undergrad Quality without the elitism

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Name schools that give a student a very high quality liberal arts undergraduate education which rivals the Ivies but without the attendant hype and elitism. Ie, more in the way of hidden gems that people don't talk about as much.</p>

<p>Here are some people should consider, some more obvious than others; Prepare to defend and discuss:</p>

<p>Grinnell---probably the ultimate Midwest Ivy in the middle of an Iowa cornfield
Kenyon---everything I have heard, read and learned about this school is impressive
Carleton and
Macalester----Minnesota knows how to do education, public or private
Rhodes College in Memphis----very impressive school in a city not known for education.
Earlham College in Richmond IN---another hidden gem in Indiana, home of many fine schools
Hendrix College in Conway ARK---very hidden gem near the Ozarks, seems to attract a high caliber of student
Denison---another fine Ohio liberal arts school strong in English </p>

<p>These colleges seem true to the original Ivy ideal, where undergrad teaching is the emphasis by full time professors committed to the school who are not just there to do research, write a book or let the TAs teach the class.</p>

2

<p>Pomona, Reed, Wellesley (??), Franklin W. Olin (for engineers), Mount Holyoke, Williams (??), Middlebury, Whitman, Hamilton, Sarah Lawrence, Marlboro, Wesleyan, Richmond, Bowdoin, Emerson</p>

<p>?? = is there elitism at these schools? I dunno since I’ve never really looked into LAC colleges.</p>

3

<p>OP, you seem to be giving a lot of attention to the midwest - which is great - but you missed perhaps the brightest gem of midwest collegiate education: Oberlin.</p>

4

<p>Schools like most of those mentioned in the posts above are far more elite if measured by the wealth of the student bodies. They simply don’t have the endowments to be the meritocracies ivy league schools are today.</p>

5

<p>Rice 10letters</p>

6

<p>

Percentage of students receiving an institutional grant:</p>

<p>Hendrix 100%
Denison 96%
Grinnell 84%
Rhodes 82%
Oberlin 77%
Earlham 76%
Macalester 71%
Carleton 59%
Princeton 56%
Harvard 53%
Columbia 48%
Dartmouth 48%
Kenyon 48%
Yale 45%
Brown 43%
Cornell 41%
Penn 37%</p>

<p>Percentage of students reciving a Pell Grant:</p>

<p>Hendrix 20%
Earlham 16%
Dartmouth 14%
Grinnell 14%
Macalester 14%
Harvard 13%
Brown 12%
Columbia 12%
Cornell 12%
Oberlin 12%
Denison 11%
Yale 11%
Carleton 10%
Penn 10%
Princeton 9%
Rhodes 9%
Kenyon 7%</p>

7

<p>Re #6, some of those schools provide "College-sponsored’ National Merit scholarships,or equivalent, as inducement for high-scoring students to attend, in competition with each other and the eastern LACs. The amount of these merit awards are usually nominal, more a symbolic honor than a highly material aid in funding one’s education. Hence this statistic may not track relative wealth very accurately for such schools.</p>

<p>One-fifth of Cornell’s students receive reduced tuition as residents of New York state attending its contract colleges. This highly substantial “institutional grant” equivalent is not reflected in your numbers, but materially impacts the demographics there.</p>

8

<p>You really think you’re going to get an Ivy League-caliber education at Macalester?</p>

<p>Look, I’m less a fan of Macalester than many on here, and I recognize that. But I think University of Minnesota is closer to an Ivy League-caliber education than Macalester. And as someone who very strongly considered the U of M over Yale, I’d say neither U of M or Macalester are reasonably close.</p>

<p>There also isn’t a whole lot of elitism at many of the schools anymore, where 60% of most students are on Financial Aid. Then again, its tough to make that case with JohnAdams running around.</p>

<p>I always see elitism as a product of a person rather than as a product of the University. Just as people are going to be elitist about their Ivy League education to non-Ivy League-educated people, I’ve seen people who go to the “second-tier” out of state schools be elitist to people who go to our local state school, I’ve seen those at our big state school be elitist to the smaller state schools, the smaller state school people be elitist to the Community College people, and I’d imagine that those who go to Community College are at least a bit elitist towards those with no college experience at all–although I can’t back that specific one up with personal anecdotes.</p>

9

<p>^that’s been a question for years. How do liberal arts colleges compared to more reputable research universities?</p>

<p>I’ll definitely say that there is less elitism at public universities</p>

10

<p>Shanka, I think you can include public elite to your list; schools like Cal, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Michigan, Texas-Austin, UCLA, UNC, UVa, William and Mary and Wisconsin-Madison.</p>

11

<p>

It is true that some of the less selective colleges offer need-based merit scholarships, which are a slightly different sort of beast. Such scholarships are almost always sponsored by an outside family or foundation, however, and are not included in my institutional figures.</p>

<p>I was careful to compare the average institutional grant figures as well, furthermore, and relative to cost they compared quite favorably to the Ivies.</p>

<p>It seems that Ivies have a higher percentage of extremely wealthy students, as indicated by the percentages of students applying for and/or receiving financial aid. They also have more lower middle class students, I’m willing to wager, due to their generous “no loan” policies. Some of these other colleges seem to have more middle class students, as indicated by the percentage of students applying for and/or receiving financial (not merit) aid. Both seem to have a roughly equivalent amount of low income students, as indicated by the Pell numbers.</p>

12

<p>you are definitely not going to get close to an “Ivy League” quality UNDERGRAD education at a huge public research university, most of whose resources are directed at graduate level research. There are a handful of top flight state schools with a liberal arts emphasis for undergrad, but lets not be silly here----sitting in a lecture hall with 300 students taught mostly by a TA vs a 20-30 person class taught by a full professor? Are you kidding me? The experiences aren’t even remotely close. At which school are you going to learn to write and debate critically in more effectively? Which schools will you get more feedback and have more give and take with professors? Its not even close.</p>

13

<p>The schools listed above are simply schools that must give grants, otherwise known as discounts, to get a full class. How many are lined up to pay full price at Hendrix? The better the student, the bigger the discount. Ivies don’t do this nor do top LACs and Us. The key number to look at is average grant.</p>

<p>As for ivies having a higher number of the very wealthy, sure. Gene pool, best schools, best enrichment programs and money in it’s various uses will land many at a top shool.</p>

14

<p>Shanka, just as you were wrong about the Notre Dame faculty not wanting to join the Big 10 (almost unanemously) and about Chicago not being an active participant in Big 10 academics, you are also wrong here. Only 15% of classes at those public elites I listed above have more than 50 students. Less than half of those have more than 100 students. Classes with 300 students are very rare (fewer than 5% of all classes), almost always introductory in nature and virtually always taught by full professors. You won’t see any 200, 300 or 400 level classes with more than 100 students.</p>

<p>TAs “teach” only 1%-3% of classes at those public elites. The rest of their participation is as discussion group leaders, where the actual lectures are taught by full professors.</p>

<p>Of course, that is not to say that public universities offer the same sort of setting as LACs. But then again, not do most Ivy League universities, and this thread is about universities that deliver “Ivy League” quality.</p>

15

<p>Chicago is not an active member of the Big Ten in reference to what was being discussed (ie joining the Big Ten because of sports). So you are misrepresenting what I said. Regarding the faculty vote, I did later acknowledge I was in error about that, I was thinking of the trustee vote. </p>

<p>I don’t know where you are getting those stats from, but I find those hard to believe in most cases. The point is, the experience at these small liberal arts schools bear little if any relation to what an undergrad at a 30,000 student university will experience.</p>

16

<p>“Chicago is not an active member of the Big Ten in reference”</p>

<p>Chicago is an active member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which is the academics side of the Big 10…</p>

<p>[CIC</a> Member Universities](<a href=“http://www.cic.net/Home/AboutCIC/CICUniversities.aspx]CIC”>http://www.cic.net/Home/AboutCIC/CICUniversities.aspx)</p>

<p>

</p>

17

<p>thanks for purposely cutting out the rest of my sentence, thus missing the whole point. And we already discussed this ad nauseum in another thread, so you are a day late and many dollars short.</p>

18

<p>“Chicago is not an active member of the Big Ten in reference to what was being discussed (ie joining the Big Ten because of sports). So you are misrepresenting what I said.”</p>

<p>I am not misrepresenting anything. You are still wrong here. The CIC is the Big 10 as far as faculties are concerned and Chicago is one of the most active CIC members. </p>

<p>“Regarding the faculty vote, I did later acknowledge I was in error about that, I was thinking of the trustee vote.”</p>

<p>I did not deny that you admitted your error, but that does not change the fact that you were certain that the opposite was true until you took the time to check.</p>

<p>“I don’t know where you are getting those stats from, but I find those hard to believe in most cases.”</p>

<p>This information is availlable on the universities’ Common Data Set pages. For example:</p>

<p>Michigan
<a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;

<p>Cal
<a href=“http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2009-10.pdf[/url]”>http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2009-10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If scroll down to section I, you will find much the information I discussed above. One thing you will notice immediately is how those two universities include graduate students in their student to faculty ratios, something private universities never do. Schools like Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Penn, Stanford etc… claim to have ratios of 6:1 or 7:1. If they calculated the ratios as the public universities did, their ratios would be 10:1 or higher. </p>

<p>“The point is, the experience at these small liberal arts schools bear little if any relation to what an undergrad at a 30,000 student university will experience.”</p>

<p>Shanka, here, I completely agree with you. But by that reckoning, how do Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and Penn, with their 20,000-25,000 (most of which at the graduate level) students and research-driven faculties bear any resemblance to LACs? LACs have 1,000-2,000, almost entirely undergraduate students. Research universities almost always have more 10,000 students. And isn’t your thread about universities that compare with the Ivy League in the first place?</p>

19

<p>“And isn’t your thread about universities that compare with the Ivy League in the first place?”</p>

<p>You missed the whole point of the thread. Its about what people perceive to be the much sought after “Ivy League” education, always in quotes, without that kind of elitism. And I am clearly talking about undergraduate education, which is how the Ivies got started in the first place. The thread is to reveal the myth of Ivy superiority, not to confirm it. You need to read more carefully and critically. And you are still misrepresenting the Chicago/Big Ten discussion that occurred in a completely different thread for some reason.</p>

20

<p>I hate it when a simple question on CC turns into a heated argument about complex stuff that normal people can’t understand and a whole bunch of numbers etc…</p>