<p>I know LACs and universities are different, which is why they're ranked on separate lists. But if you had to place the top 10 LACs USWN somewhere in the universities ranking (US World & News Report), where would you place them? </p>
<p>Right now the top 10 are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Amherst</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Wellesley</li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>Bowdoin</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Davidson</li>
<li>Haverford</li>
</ol>
<p>Because random strangers opinions will really convey that the difference between number one and number ten is going to be that huge??</p>
<p>Bumpp… anyone interested in giving a random opinion?</p>
<p>Check out this list of Top Colleges and Universities from Forbes that combines LACs and universities. </p>
<p>[America’s</a> Best Colleges - Forbes.com](<a href=“Forbes List Directory”>Forbes List Directory)</p>
<p>Here is a portion of their methodology behind their rankings: </p>
<p>"To our way of thinking, a good college is one that meets student needs. While some college rankings are based partly on school reputation as evaluated by college administrators and on the amount of money spent, we focus on things which directly concern incoming students: Will my courses be interesting and rewarding? Will I get a good job after I graduate? Is it likely I will graduate in four years? Will I incur a ton of debt getting my degree? </p>
<p>To answer these questions, the staff at CCAP gathered data from a variety of sources. They based 25% of the rankings on 4 million student evaluations of courses and instructors, as recorded on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com. Another 25% is based on post-graduate success, equally determined by enrollment-adjusted entries in Who’s Who in America, and by a new metric, the average salaries of graduates reported by Payscale.com. An additional 20% is based on the estimated average student debt after four years. One-sixth of the rankings are based on four-year college graduation rates–half of that is the actual graduation rate, the other half the gap between the average rate and a predicted rate based on characteristics of the school. The last component is based on the number of students or faculty, adjusted for enrollment, who have won nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships or Nobel Prizes."</p>
<p>Here are the top 25 (the link puts the list out to 100 places I believe)</p>
<p>Rank Name State Cost Freshman Class Size
1 United States Military Academy NY 0 1,263<br>
2 Princeton University NJ 49,830 1,243<br>
3 California Institute of Technology CA 48,990 236<br>
4 Williams College MA 49,530 540<br>
5 Harvard University MA 50,250 1,666<br>
6 Wellesley College MA 50,026 596<br>
7 United States Air Force Academy CO 0 1,286<br>
8 Amherst College MA 50,230 439<br>
9 Yale University CT 51,400 1,318<br>
10 Stanford University CA 51,760 1,703<br>
11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MA 50,100 1,048<br>
12 Swarthmore College PA 50,381 372<br>
13 Columbia University NY 51,406 1,356<br>
14 Centre College KY 39,200 336<br>
15 Haverford College PA 51,637 327<br>
16 Boston College MA 52,060 2,167<br>
17 Northwestern University IL 52,120 2,078<br>
18 Bowdoin College ME 50,570 488<br>
19 Vassar College NY 51,370 638<br>
20 Whitman College WA 46,212 401<br>
21 University of Chicago IL 53,310 1,306<br>
22 Kenyon College OH 49,260 456<br>
23 Carleton College MN 50,000 489<br>
24 Colby College ME 50,120 482<br>
25 Middlebury College VT 52,460 576</p>
<p>here you go:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html</a></p>
<p>AWS in the top 10.
Pomona somewhere between 10-15.
Carleton, Bowdoin, and Middlebury somewhere between 15-20.
Wellesley and Haverford 20-25.
Davidson somewhere lower.</p>
<p>so you are saying that the LAC’s would have 9 colleges in the top 25 of the combined rankings with the major research universities?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>following on Drought’s thoughts and putting the LAC at the bottom of the ranges would yield the following for USNWR:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>CalTech</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>U of Penn</li>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Amherst</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Darmouth</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>WashUStL</li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>Bowdoin</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Wellesley</li>
<li>Haverford</li>
</ol>
<p>Major Research Universities left out of top 25 USNWR from before:
17. Rice
17. Vanderbilt
17. Emory
20. Notre Dame
21. UC Berkeley
22. Carnegie Mellon
23. Georgetown
24. UCLA
24. Virginia</p>
<p>Why did Drought put Wellesley below the other top 10 LACs? </p>
<p>I was also wondering about the legitimacy of the website MyChances which has the cross-admit comparisons between these schools. Would that be an indicator of where schools would be placed?</p>
<p>@JohnAdams: yeah, maybe I overestimated the power of the LAC a little bit. I agree with Virginia, UCLA. Notre Dame, Vandy, and maybe Berkeley being left out of the top 25, but not the others. I wasn’t really talking about a combined ranking, though: I was kind of saying that AWS are on par with the top ten schools, Pomona’s on par with the 10-15 schools, etc.</p>
<p>bumppppppp</p>