@Twoin18 : Especially interesting because Edward B. Fiske’s wife, Helen F. Ladd, earned a masters degree in Economics from LSE (the London School of Economics).
I agree with @Hapworth . What do these academic ratings mean on the ground? How is a three pen school’s’ academic experience exactly different from a five pen school’s? Could a strong student get a five pen academic experience at a three pen school?
In the last week, I’ve been looking at Elon (3) as a safer option for D21 whose list includes schools like Bates (4.5), Wake Forest (4), and Davidson (4.5). What would going to Elon mean for her academic experience versus these other schools? Are the professors less engaged? Are her fellow students less serious? Are the facilities lesser? How much does it matter?
Rankings like these are reasons that kids try to go to the highest ranked school they can because higher academically ranked schools supposedly deliver more of everything. Could D have a very similar experience at Elon that our S is having at Bowdoin? I wish I knew. If she could and likes a school like Elon when we visit, then her search would be a lot less stressful than if she keeps on trying to get a higher ACT score to be competitive for schools with more pens!
@homerdog: Perhaps a look at each school’s “overlaps” might help frame things in a better light.
Overlaps = Fiske asked each school to “give us the names of the colleges or universities that they consider to be their closest peer institutions and those with which they share the most common applications…”.
Elon overlaps = Bucknell, Coll. of Wm. & Mary, Furman, Villanova, Univ. of Richmond, Lehigh, UNC, & Clemson.
Bates overlaps = Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colby, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Haverford, & Swarthmore College.
WFU overlaps = UNC, Virginia, NC State, Coll. of Wm. & Mary, Univ. of Richmond, Boston College, Univ. of Georgia, & Emory.
Davidson College overlaps = Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wash & Lee, UNC, & Duke.
P.S.
Bowdoin College overlaps = Amherst, Brown, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, Wesleyan, Yale, & Harvard.
anyone have the 3.5 pens or 3 pens lists?
92% acceptance rate college equal to the 9.6% acceptance rate college academically. What’s not to like!
Trust the experts at Fiske.
I do recommend the Fiske Guide to people frequently. It’s a great resource. I do recommend that one BUY it on Amazon for less than $8 or you can BORROW it most likely from your local library. Read the descriptions and put these ratings into context.
Is anyone else a little surprised by Vanderbilt’s 4 pens?
@bloomfield88 lol. What two schools are those?
Thanks so much for typing this out. Emory and Carnegie Mellon, and possibly Case Western, seem to be a category lower than their reputation would put them. If I may ask, where does their other peer, Rochester, fall?
“Is anyone else a little surprised by Vanderbilt’s 4 pens?”
Hmm, let me put on my Sherlock hat.
Let’s consider some of the great southern universities:
5 pens - Duke
4.5 pens - skip
4 pens - UNC Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Emory, Vanderbilt. SERIOUSLY!
To make Chapel Hill feel really good, let’s give UNC-Asheville 4 pens too.
No bias there whatsoever. Fiske family are academic gurus.
Mrs. Fiske teaches at Duke.
@RayManta Rochester was given 4 pens. Overlaps are Cornell, Carnegie Mellon. Brown, Tufts, U Chicago, Boston College, Northeastern and Wash U.
This is how the ‘pens’ are described/differentiated in The GuidedPath
In general, an academics rating of three pens suggests that the institution is a solid one that easily meets the criteria for inclusion in a guide devoted to the top 10 percent of colleges and universities in the nation. An academics rating of four pens suggests that the institution is above average even by these standards and that it has some particularly distinguishing academic feature, such as especially rich course offerings or an especially serious academic atmosphere. A rating of five pens for academics indicates that the college or university is among the handful of top institutions of its type in the nation on a broad variety of criteria.
University of Rochester:
4 Pens for Academics
3 Telephones for Social
3 Stars for Quality of Life
Rochester’s Take Five program offers a tuition-free fifth year that allows students to explore interests outside their major.
Overlaps: Cornell, CMU, Brown, Tufts, Chicago, Boston College, Northeastern, & WashUStL.
Quote: “Rochester…is a quality private university in the orbit of CMU, Case Western Reserve, Johns Hopkins, and Washington University in St. Louis. The university has a scientific bent and a strong reputation for churning out premeds. Music is another strength. Has half as many undergraduates as neighboring RIT.”
@RayManta: Thank you for the kind words.
The academic pen rating is explained in my post #20 above.
Ugh. I don’t know why it’s bothering me but now I’m sour on the schools that are just 3.5 academic pens. Lol. We haven’t visited any of them yet so I’ll have to dig deeper on that when we do.
I do feel like we were able to fess out how strong academics were at schools we visited with S19. I hope our visits with D21 will be just as enlightening.
In my back of the woods, Elon is known for rich (party-loving) kids, I have never heard of this school until four years ago and I would never have believed that it overlaps (academically) with W&M, UNC, or even Richmond. Perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of “overlap”, does it mean the students often apply to the overlapping schools?
When I think of Elon University, Eckerd College comes to mind.
Coincidentally, both Elon & Eckerd receive 5 Stars for Quality of Life.
“Overlap” = explained in my post #42 above.
@hardy8635: There is no list of schools by academic pen rating; I just went through the Fiske guide To Colleges 2020 edition page by page in order to compile the listings of 5 Pen, 4.5 Pen & 4 Pen schools. (The half pen schools were originally lower, but increase due to comments received from readers by the authors & editors.)
Since my copy of the Wall Street Journal was not in the driveway this morning, I will try to assemble lists of 3 & 3.5 Pen schools for you.
For example:
Arizona State University & the Univ. of Arkansas & the College of Charleston are 3 Pen rated, while the Univ. of Arizona & UC-Riverside each received 3.5 Pens for Academics.
Somewhat surprisingly, Auburn University is a 2 Pen school for Academics. Surprising because this engineering & business & education & biology/health professions school is a favorite of many upper middle class, highly educated Atlanta area professionals. Univ. of Cincinnati is also a 2 Pen School.
@homerdog “@bloomfield88 lol. What two schools are those”
Vanderbilt was 9.6% acceptance last year.
I don’t want to single out the 92%, but you will find several in that ballpark with 4 pens.
@Publisher " (The half pen schools were originally lower, but increase due to comments received from readers by the authors & editors.)"
Wait a second. Are you insinuating the 4.5 pens were originally 4 pens and Fiske moved them up due to readers lobbying for a higher ranking? You are joking, right?