I was admitted to both Lewis & Clark College and University of Puget Sound but I’m having a tough time deciding where I should enroll.
I do like Portland more than Tacoma but it seems as though Puget Sound is more reputable, is that the case? I am from California so my knowledge of both schools is limited to my own research.
For those in the Pacific Northwest which has a better reputation?
Is there any specific detail about one that makes the other less viable?
I’m planning on studying social sciences: either Sociology, Psychology, or Political Science. Both have around the same class sizes, acceptance rate, level of rigor from what I can tell.
To any alumni or current students from either of these schools, I would love to hear about your experiences at the school and upon graduating and your success in grad school or the labor market.
I don’t know why you would think Puget Sound was more reputable. I do know one Bio major in my D’s class from L&C went directly into the PhD program at UC Berkeley. My D loved her time there and gets back occasionally (we live in the midwest).
The current online USN&WR rankings for “National Liberal Arts Colleges” give similar scores to the two schools: 63 points to UPS vs 61 points to L&C. Note that 1 point is the smallest difference that USN&WR claims to discern. Even if you take the rankings seriously, a 2-point difference may not mean very much.
The difference appears to be greater if you only look at the relative ranking (#68 vs. #76). But that’s just because there are a lot of tied schools with similar scores.
I don’t have the current (2018) edition of the USN&WR rankings, so I don’t have access to the latest details. But I do have last year’s (2017) edition, and in that one L&C actually looks slightly better than UPS in most of the metrics that USN&WR uses (test scores, acceptance rate, assessment scores, etc). However, L&C appears to have lower graduation rates, and that may account for its lower overall score.
Maybe it has something to do with Portland, because Reed College (another LAC in Portland) is also considered to have relatively low graduation rates. Who knows, maybe if you are 20-something in Portland, it might seem like there are cooler things to do than stay in college.
Visited both with D18, she liked L&C quite a bit and applied EA. She didn’t like Puget enough to apply. Personally, I liked them both but can understand why she preferred L&C. She liked the feel of the L&C campus, loved the location, and just felt like L&C had a very welcoming community.
Have you visited either school? They are both great options but they are a bit different from each other. Enough so that if you have the option to visit I would highly recommend seeing for yourself. Congrats on getting into two great schools!