<p>I actually think Colgate is very well-known. (much better known than AWS)</p>
<p>I hadn't even heard of Holy Cross until I started visiting this website, and I attended a top LAC in Massachusetts. I'd also wager that most students at Holy Cross haven't heard of the LAC that I attended either.</p>
<p>" I actually think Colgate is very well-known. (much better known than AWS)"</p>
<p>Maybe because of the toothpaste?</p>
<p>Many educated people think that Colgate is an Ivy...</p>
<p>i love having d1 athletics at bucknell... but it didnt mean a thing in terms of recognition until the basketball team started making national news. a few big wins over top teams (including two in the ncaa tournament) and suddenly 18 year old males are stopping me on the street whenever im wearing a bucknell sweatshirt.</p>
<p>as such, bucknell would probably do pretty well in a name-recognition contest right now (especially among males)... and it has little to do with academics. i only say 'little' because academics were always mentioned in the espn articles; otherwise it would be 'nothing.'</p>
<p>We live only about an hour from Philadelphia. Even though we're that close, I'm sure more people have not heard of Swarthmore than those who have, even less for Haverford. Amherst is known a little but Williams is unknown. LAC's have very little name recognition in the general public at least in this area.</p>
<p>Lehigh, Colgate, Bucknell, Lafayette are all well known. Maybe because of sports or because they're larger.</p>
<p>i'm going to bowdoin next year (#6 in us news and world reports) and not many people in my school have heard of it. oh well. i know its good and thats all that counts :)</p>
<p>I live in Vermont, so essentially everyone knows Middlebury. Other than that, the schools that anyone consistently recognizes are slim--I'd say maybe Amherst is the only one that a lot know. At school, other seniors know Amherst, Williams, Colby, Brandeis, Bowdoin, Pomona, Claremont-McKenna, Macalester, Carleton, Oberlin, Skidmore, Wesleyan, Vassar, Smith, and some more I can't think of. However, I don't think anyone applied to Swarthmore, and if you say Kenyon, Davidson, Haverford, Dickinson, Bates, Colgate, Bucknell, Holy Cross, and many more, you'll get a "where is that?"</p>
<p>When we told people our daughter was going to Grinnell, about 40% of people said that they had never heard of it, another 40% thought we said "Cornell", and the remaining 10% that were familiar with the school spoke very highly of it. We live in the midwest and had never heard of Macalester, Grinnell, Carleton, or Williams until the promotional material came in the mail and we started looking at college guide books when she was in high school. Familiarity with colleges is generally due to 1) televised sports, 2) acquaintance with someone who attended the school, 3) college-affiliation of researchers or other experts in mentions in the press ( according to research conducted by Professor XYZ at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, etc.), 4) famous person attended the school ( Kris Kristofferson - Pomona, Steve Jobs - Reed drop-out, Paul Newman - Kenyon, Dave Berry - Haverford ), or 5) some event happened at the school ( Iron Curtain speech by Winston Churchill at Westminister College or Kent State shooting. Many well educated people are unfamiliar with many LAC's because they don't know anyone who attended the schools ( because of small geographically dispersed students and alumni ) and the schools generally aren't mentioned in print or broadcast media.</p>
<p>Then they are poorly educated!</p>
<p>in general, it depends on where you live. most people in Texas have heard of the small texan schools like trinity, TCU, Southwestern, but have never heard of schools like Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, etc.</p>