<p>I've been noticing, but many counselors don't mention LACs, and not that many people are interested in them. How much prestige do they have? How much recognition and such?</p>
<p>I just started looking at them and I'm talking about these tops ones:
Bowdoin
Swarthmore
Middlebury
Williams
Amherst</p>
<p>from what i know, they are regarded with respect in academia, so if it's prestige you're concerned about, you shouldn't worry about those schools. however, i have come to realize that LACs are really for people who actually "want" what LACs have to offer.</p>
<p>i've had friends who went to amherst, williams, and swarthmore, and most of them did not even apply to universities in the first place. i'm sure most kids love it, but one of my friends went to williams because it was the "highest ranking" of all the schools he was accepted to (Penn, Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, etc.), and he hated it.</p>
<p>so it seems to me, prestige isn't a big factor for kids who decide to apply to LACs to begin with.</p>
<p>I want a small school. That's why I'm looking at Dartmouth, but these come to mind as well.</p>
<p>people haven't heard of lac's...i got accepted to 3 of those and got blank stares and "where is that?" from people most of the time.</p>
<p>people also haven't heard of many universities which are reputable. i remember trying to describe bowdoin to friends from high school. true, these were not top of the class folk, but "people" is a broad category and, in my experience, analogies to anything short of harvard or yale would draw equally blank stares. they didn't know dartmouth. or really many of the ivies at all save harvard, yale, and cornell. they just wanted to know why i didn't go to uva. so...ask yourself what you want out of prestige before committing to a LAC. they have prestige certainly among people who make it a point to know good education. but they have little to no street cred. so, after you graduate, are you looking to go back to your hometown and impress folks with your LAC degree? or are you looking to go to professional school, or go into a career in a larger city? if it's the former (and you're not from a larger city), i'd think twice about LACs. if it's the latter, then they're great places, so long as you want something intimate.</p>
<p>Thanks, pb2002. That was an insightful post and a very moving one. I'm looking to do a political science or history and a pre-med/engineering sciences double major, the science/math-based major has to fulfill pre-med requirements. Then, I'd like to get into a good medical school where they offer an MD-PhD program, so that I can become a scientist-physician. All I'm concerned about is that people like medical school adcoms and other people like company employers will know about the LACs, right? It's not like somebody that high up will look down at a degree from one of the top LACs? (Much of this applies to Dartmouth as well because it seems like it's one of the forgotten Ivies, so I'm basically killing two birds with one stone.)</p>
<p>I have to disagree. LAC's do have prestige especially in their respective areas and many people who have done college research/are well educated do recognize alot of the LAC's. But outside of those types of people, Wellesley, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Williams are the 4 LAC's that are known along with the National Universities.</p>
<p>^^^false. few have heard of swarthmore and amherst, and if they have, they don't think they're good schools. williams is a stretch. when i got into swarthmore and told people, they thought i was an idiot.</p>
<p>tux,
i think any of the schools on your list will help prepare you for a med school program, be it the MD or the MD/PHD. one of my close friends from school is studying at columbia med, and another at harvard. i don't think you'll have trouble. but i also think you should consider top universities as well with smaller undergraduate programs. not all universities are large state flagship institutions. still, i don't think, given your goals, you will be discriminated against for going to any of those LACs. none of my friends were. </p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>I've picked some universities that interest me. Tufts and a couple of others.</p>
<p>I have heard those schools called "mini" ivy leagues before. I don't know if that helps you, though.</p>
<p>At this point, with two kids in college and one teeing up for apps this fall, I've researched the snot out of colleges and I've heard of lots of places. But a scant 10 years ago some friends of ours told us (with pride) that their son was going to Williams. "Williams?" I thought. "Is that like.... William and Mary?" No joke. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. (Of course, I'm from California.)</p>
<p>But graduate school adcoms certainly know better. And who cares what neighbor Joe thinks?</p>
<p>tux, I'm the parent of a Williams grad and I am an alumna of the University of Michigan so I can give you a comparison in prestige. I live overseas and travel extensively. Everywhere I go (if the topic of college comes up) people know Michigan and give me the mental thumbs up. For my "poor" son at Williams, what I get from the average man/woman-on-the-street is at best a blank stare and at worst a pitying look. :)</p>
<p>Having said that I can tell you that the quality of education that my son received at Williams is as good as and in fact even better than any other institution in the world. Some people like the mountain village environment (my son loved it); some don't. All colleges, especially LACs, have distinctive personalities, so fit is individual.</p>
<p>As far as prestige and the LAC's you mention? It really depends whose opinions matter to you. The average Joe/Jane won't have heard of them, less so once you get out of the Northeast. </p>
<p>BUT, for graduate and profesional school admissions, for careers in many fields, these schools are VERY well known and VERY well respected. They also have tight knit alumni groups who take care of their own. If you graduate from one of these schools you'll have no problem ending up healthy, wealthy and wise.</p>
<p>i can almost guarantee you: if they don' know amherst, williams, swarthmore, there is no way they will no tufts unless they're from Boston.</p>
<p>^ I would say more people know about Tufts than Swatty. I am from South Florida too, so there's no bias towards either.</p>
<p>FROM COLLEGENEWS.ORG:</p>
<p>Though small in number when compared to America’s large public universities, liberal arts college graduates are represented disproportionately among leaders in the arts, education, science and medicine, public service and business. A 1998 study found that even though only 3 percent of American college graduates were educated at a residential liberal arts college, alumni of these colleges accounted for:</p>
<p>8 percent of Forbes magazine’s listing of the nation’s wealthiest CEOs in 1998
8 percent of former Peace Corps volunteers
19 percent of U.S. presidents
23 percent of Pulitzer Prize winners in drama, 19 percent of the winners in history, 18 percent in poetry, 8 percent in biography, and 6 percent in fiction from 1960 to 1998
9 percent of all Fulbright scholarship recipients and 24 percent of all Mellon fellowships in the humanities
20 percent of Phi Beta Kappa inductions made between 1995 and 1997
On a per capita basis, liberal arts colleges produce nearly twice as many students who earn a Ph.D. in science as other institutions. Liberal arts graduates also are disproportionately represented in the leadership of the nation’s scientific community. In a recent two-year period, nearly 20 percent of the scientists elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences received their undergraduate education at a liberal arts college.</p>
<p>tux08902:</p>
<p>With your interest in engineering and with the enormous Texas Medical Center across the street, you may also want to consider non-LAC Rice (about 3,000 UGs, smallish though growing).</p>
<p>People who go to LACs obviously aren't in it for the prestige, its more about the education (in that they seek profs who have dedicated themselves to teaching)</p>