Here are the two posts - note that they deal with the years 2002-2003:</p>
<p>I began this inquiry because I was simply trying to find a way to quantify the experience of my daughter. She visited a number of small liberal arts colleges and, despite similarities in academic programs and resources, admissions policies (at least on paper), and even perceptions of URMs on campus, she felt huge differences in campus “feel”, not all of which were easily attributable to school policies or locations (except as they impacted who attended.) </p>
<p>It was simpler for me to see the difference. Having attended Williams back in the Paleozoic Era, but coming from a far lower economic bracket than the overwhelming majority of students, I remember the differences in the way many students perceived the world, (what I think of as their inner sense of “Entitlement”), and their actual experience of it: the kinds of cars they drove (and whether they had cars at all), the clothes they wore, the discretionary income they had on campus, the sports they participated in, where they went for winter and spring break, the kinds of summer jobs they had (and whether they carried an on-campus job at all), how well traveled they were, whether they were fluent in other languages, whether they assumed they could afford expensive professional schools after college. There were also differences in alcohol and drug use (theirs tended to be higher, but no fixed rule), and academic preparation (theirs tended to be better, but no fixed rule.) As we visited campuses, I was still able to perceive these differences (and better able to describe them than I could then.) I received a GREAT education at Williams, for which I remain thankful to this day, but I can’t make believe that I didn’t feel those differences while I was there.</p>
<p>So I wondered whether these differences could be quantified or indexed. And they can, of course. The first difference is whether students attended private schools. Now of course there are many kinds of private schools: elite boarding schools, religious day schools, private academies (especially in the South, many of them initially set up to avoid integration, but having long outlived that purpose, and offering excellent educations). But what they all have in common is that (for the vast majority of students) families pay for them. It is a big commitment.</p>
<p>The second difference is whether students received any need-based assistance (grants or loans) from the institution. Today, there is often a vast difference in experience between a student coming from a family that can afford $168k for four years of college education, and a student coming from the average American family, income $43k, with total assets of around $55k (plus house, if they have one.) To imagine that this wouldn’t find expression in student attitudes would be strange. Students are not to blame for them (hey, there’s nothing necessarily worth blaming!) – all I am trying to do is find a way to quantify experience.)</p>
<p>So, for what it’s worth:</p>
<p>ENTITLEMENT INDEX AMONG 50 “TOP” (according to USNWR) LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES</p>
<p>The first number represents the percentage of students who were admitted from private schools. The second number represents the percentage of students who do not receive need-based financial aid from the institution. The final number is the “Entitlement” (“preppy”) Index score. Numbers are taken from the most recent Princeton Review.</p>
<ol>
<li>Davidson 52/67 119</li>
<li>Washington and Lee 40/73 113</li>
<li>Trinity 57/53 119</li>
<li>Bates 48/60 108</li>
<li>Middlebury 45/60 105</li>
<li>Kenyon 46/59 105</li>
<li>Williams 46/58 104</li>
<li>Univ. of the South 48/55 103</li>
<li>Connecticut 48/54 102</li>
<li>Colby 40/60 100</li>
<li>Skidmore 40/58 98</li>
<li>Bowdoin 43/55 98</li>
<li>Furman 39/57 96</li>
<li>Haverford 39/57 96</li>
<li>Amherst 44/52 96</li>
<li>Wesleyan 44/52 96</li>
<li>Barnard 47/48 95</li>
<li>Swarthmore 40/51 91</li>
<li>Pomona 40/49 89</li>
<li>Whitman 30/58 88</li>
<li>Scripps 37/51 88</li>
<li>Franklin & Marshall 34/53 87</li>
<li>Colgate 30/56 86</li>
<li>Colorado 30/55 85</li>
<li>Dickinson 38/47 85</li>
<li>Sarah Lawrence 31/51 82</li>
<li>Hamilton 40/42 82</li>
<li>Vassar 34/47 81</li>
<li>Wellesley 37/43 80</li>
<li>Denison 30/49 79</li>
<li>Lafayette 32/46 76</li>
<li>Oberlin 34/42 76</li>
<li>Bryn Mawr 38/38 76</li>
<li>Bucknell 26/49 75</li>
<li>Union 27/48 75</li>
<li>Gettysburg 30/44 74</li>
<li>Claremont-McKenna 27/44 71</li>
<li>Carleton 25/45 71</li>
<li>Smith 26/44 70</li>
<li>Occidental 30/39 69</li>
<li>Bard 30/38 68</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke 38/30 68</li>
<li>Agnes Scott 30/36 66</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd 20/45 65</li>
<li>Macalester 34/31 65</li>
<li>Depauw 17/42 59</li>
<li>Centre 21/36 57</li>
<li>Grinnell 13/40 53</li>
<li>Wabash 8/30 38</li>
</ol>
<p>Incomplete data from Holy Cross and Rhodes. Tie-breaker is percentage of students who do not received need-based aid.</p>
<p>If you’ve visited a lot of these campuses, you’d likely not find many surprises in this data. The only clear generalizations to be made are that, on the whole, midwestern schools do not seem attractive to private school students (or they simply aren’t accepted – which I find unlikely), and southern schools (with the exception of Agnes Scott) offer (or need to offer) significantly less than average in terms of need-based aid. One caveat that must be attached to the data is that some schools (some that I know of for sure are Bard, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Macalester) offer merit-based aid to significant portions of their entering class (as much as 10%) – some of those students, upon receiving the merit aid award, no longer qualify for need-based aid, and hence wouldn’t appear in this picture.</p>
<p>This data picture as always is incomplete. While it reflects “entitlement” on the campus as above, it does not reflect the impact on campus feel of low-income students. A school could offer lots of rather small “need-based” grants to attract students away from the competition, without really changing the make up or feel of the campus. (Macalester has a reputation for doing this – whether it is just or not, I have no idea.) One way to correct for that is to subtract the percentage of students on Pell Grants (with family incomes below 35% of the national average) from the total. All of a sudden, the extremes become more extreme, and the picture (I believe) more clear.</p>
<p>Numbers Represent the “Entitlement” Index minus Pell Grant Shares:</p>
<ol>
<li>Davidson 119-6 113</li>
<li>Washington and Lee 113-3 110</li>
<li>Trinity 119-13 106</li>
<li>Bates 108-9 99</li>
<li>Middlebury 105-8 97</li>
<li>Kenyon 105-8 97</li>
<li>Williams 104-9 95</li>
<li>Colby 100-7 93</li>
<li>Connecticut 102-11 91</li>
<li>Univ. of the South 103-13 90</li>
<li>Bowdoin 98-10 88</li>
<li>Furman 96-9 87</li>
<li>Skidmore 98-13 85</li>
<li>Haverford 96-13 83</li>
<li>Wesleyan 96-14 82</li>
<li>Amherst 96-16 80</li>
<li>Whitman 88-9 79</li>
<li>Swarthmore 91-13 78</li>
<li>Franklin & Marshall 87-9 78</li>
<li>Barnard 95-18 77</li>
<li>Pomona 89-12 77</li>
<li>Colgate 86-10 76</li>
<li>Scripps 88-14 74</li>
<li>Dickinson 85-12 73</li>
<li>Sarah Lawrence 82-12 70</li>
<li>Vassar 81-12 69</li>
<li>Colorado 85-17 68</li>
<li>Lafayette 76-8 68</li>
<li>Hamilton 82-15 67</li>
<li>Denison 79-12 67</li>
<li>Wellesley 80-16 64</li>
<li>Bucknell 75-12 63</li>
<li>Gettysburg 74-12 62</li>
<li>Bryn Mawr 76-15 61</li>
<li>Carleton 71-10 61</li>
<li>Union 75-15 60</li>
<li>Oberlin 76-17 59</li>
<li>Claremont-McKenna 71-15 56</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd 65-12 53</li>
<li>Macalester 65-15 50</li>
<li>Bard 68-20 48</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke 68-21 47</li>
<li>Depauw 59-13 46</li>
<li>Smith 70-24 46</li>
<li>Occidental 69-27 42</li>
<li>Agnes Scott 66-26 40</li>
<li>Grinnell 53-13 40</li>
<li>Centre 57-18 39</li>
<li>Wabash 38-19 19</li>
</ol>
<p>Make of the data what you will. It is just data. I may get around to the national universities later.