Please give input on LAC choice based on YOUR experiences

Parents Forum
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<p>As someone in the Northeast whose hiring is primarily from top schools but who doesn’t study the USNWR rankings and only hires after graduate degrees, I tend to see Amherst/Williams as virtually identical followed by Swarthmore as the top tier of LACs and then a range of very good schools at some distanced below the top 3 – Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley, Carleton, and some of the Claremont System, though I would be hard pressed to know which are stronger (if pressed, I would have put Harvey Mudd on top). I’d put MHC, Smith and others at within that clump with schools like Bates – but I would have relatively little to go on. So, if I were a judge of a well-educated person who is not tracking school prestige, I wouldn’t have given as big a boost to Pomona as @nostalgicwisdom, although I can see from the information he presents and USNWR that Pomona is stronger in the rankings than the other schools. Maybe if I were on the West Coast I would know. </p>

<p>Is there any data on the quality of the grad schools and professional schools that the various colleges’ students are admitted to or attend? If Pomona’s students got into much higher ranked grad/professional schools on average, then I might be swayed. If not, I’d save the money in a heartbeat.</p>

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<p>@calmom- those specific statistics were comparing the institutions (in general), not this particular case.
@shawbridge- There was a point in which SAW were the top of the top tier LACs. Pomona has always been a top 10 LAC, but schools like Haverford, Bowdoin, and Wellesley were considered higher than it around 10-30 years ago.</p>

<p>However, at this point and time, thanks to it being the only LAC of its type on the West Coast, Pomona has faced a <em>rapid</em> rise to the elite in comparison to schools like SAW. At this point and time, Pomona continues to attract more applications than Swarthmore and Williams, has a lower acceptance rate than all of the other three, has the highest SAT average, is tied for the most students in the top decile, has a higher percentage of international students, is similarly as diverse as Swarthmore and Amherst (approximately 45-48% students of color), and attracts a similarly socioeconomically diverse class. Pomona is in fact recognized as being one of the most generous financial aid schools by Kiplinger and Princeton Review; a distinction it shares with SAW. According to the Higher Chronicle, after Amherst, Pomona was the most affordable elite school in the country for low income students, and it has been recognized for both attracting a large number of Pell grant recipients and for providing generous financial aid packages. It is one of the few LACs which has the no-loan, all need met, no merit aid financial aid package (Williams is not); not even all of the Ivy’s can guarantee that. According to Parchment cross institutional admit battles, Pomona was the most desirable LAC tied with Harvey Mudd. The yields for all the schools was around 40-45%. </p>

<p>Here are graduate and retention rates for SPWA:</p>

<p>4 year: Swarthmore 88%, Pomona 92.8%, Williams 89%, Amherst 89.6%
6 year: 93%, 96%, 95%, 96%
Retention: 96%, 97%, 96%, 98%</p>

<p>And endowment per student:
Pomona- 1.2 million
Swarthmore- 1.05 million
Amherst- 1.02 million
Williams- 970K</p>

<p>What about percentage of classes with under 20?
A- 70.2%
S- 72%
P- 72.6%
W- 75.7%</p>

<p>Larger than 50?
A- 3.6%
S- 2.1%
P- 1.5%
W- 3.4%</p>

<p>Faculty ratios? Besides William’s 7:1, Amherst/Pomona/Swarthmore are tied for 8:1</p>

<p>What about fellowships?
Fulbrights- Pomona earned more. The acceptance rate was higher than AW- <a href=“http://us.fulbrightonline.org/uploads/files/top_producing/2012-13/bachelors2012.pdf”>http://us.fulbrightonline.org/uploads/files/top_producing/2012-13/bachelors2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Goldwaters- three at Pomona, three at Williams, 1 at Amherst, 0 at Swarthmore
Trumans- Most at Swarthmore, similar amounts at Williams, Pomona, and Amherst
Churchills in the last 10 years- 4 at Amherst, 4 at Pomona, 0 at Swarthmore, 1 at Williams
Rhodes (total)- 34 at Williams, 12 at Pomona, 28 at Swarthmore, 20 at Amherst [again, keep in mind that a few years ago Pomona was not at these schools level]
NSF 2014 Awards- 8 at Pomona, 4 at Williams, 11 at Swarthmore, 4 at Amherst</p>

<p>Average faculty compensation? <a href=“AAUP survey finds that average faculty salary increased by rate of inflation in last year”>AAUP survey finds that average faculty salary increased by rate of inflation in last year; Pomona is highest between SAW, though not the absolute highest</p>

<p>PhDs? Pomona and Swarthmore earn more graduate degrees than Williams and Amherst. Representation at top grad schools? The only thing we have is a 2003 study in which Pomona was not far behind Swarthmore (<a href=“http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf”>InPathWays - Discover latest hot new trending topic, insights, analysis), but again- Pomona is rapidly becoming a more global and elite school, so the difference is likely to be less. </p>

<p>Other rankings? Pomona ranks higher than most of the others (Forbes, Kiplinger, Princeton Review, Washington Post, etc.)</p>

<p>So what causes Pomona to struggle so much relative to these schools?
A) PayScale rankings- Pomona alumni do not make as much as W/A/S alumni (though the gap becomes smaller and smaller each year)
B) Annual giving rate- pales in comparison to AWS- again, the institution has changed greatly, so past alumni are going to be disgruntled. </p>

<p>For the current student and for the current employer, there should be no distinction between Pomona and the other three. Pomona is on the same level and scale, and unlike the other three, is only getting higher and higher in reputation. The analogy is very similar to Stanford and its comparison to HYP. </p>

<p>Sorry I went so out in this, but it frustrates me that limitations of rankings (like US News, in which Pomona is severely penalized in peer assessment) come to shape institutional differences, when in all honesty the difference is extremely slight. I want to say this not just for Pomona, but for rapidly accelerating schools like the other Claremont Colleges which have to deal with the precedent that old rankings have set. </p>

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<p>OP, please ignore the above post! I hope your daughter has made a well-informed decision. Like most I would recommend MHC because I do not think that Pomona (or any school for that matter) is worth that much extra. Please let us know what decision you make. Institutions may vary in quality, but individuals who have been accepted to both places and make the most of both are likely to end up the same place regardless of where they go. More important is it to find an atmosphere where you really can thrive, and how much that is worth at one school over another. If MHC is that place, then you’ve struck a win-win situation.</p>

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<p>LOL… what’s the point of your “above” post then? </p>

<p>@nostalgicwisdom – I know that you are a freshman at Pomona and are proud of your school, and obviously very proud of yourself for being accepted to it. But your posts do not convey the message that you intend. I assume that you want people to think that Pomona is an exceptional school with exceptional students. But instead, I get the sense that Pomona must be filled with snobbish and unimaginative students. I am not saying that I believe that - I am saying that is the impression I get when you simply regurgitate a lot of facts and data taken that looks like it comes from college marketing material.</p>

<p>I think that you are trying to debate a post that I made on April 20th when I wrote, “I don’t think think that any undergraduate is going to find tangible differences in the quality of education when they are comparing any of the colleges that US News puts in the “most selective” category.” A bunch of data points don’t change that – “quality of education” refers to the individual’s overall classroom experience, the ability of the faculty to teach their subjects, the overall course rigor and expectations, etc. You posted a lot of facts and figures, but not even one example of something that an individual student at Pomona would experience that is significantly different than what might be experienced at dozens of other LAC’s. That is, what will the student learn in a literature or history class at Pomona that she can’t get at Mount Holyoke? </p>

<p>Sometimes I think that the smartest students who are the ones who work up from the bottom of the US News list, to find the sweet point where there is a good intersection between school quality and likelihood of generous merit aid. That is, the ones who look for their own best value schools. </p>

<p>I think that OP’s daughter has been very successful in her end result in that respect, even if it she didn’t start with that intent. </p>

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<p>calmom, I was replying to the statement provided by shawbridge. Please read the thread. Thank you. </p>

<p>Because the comment had nothing really to do with the original poster’s question, I said ignore it because it’s not useful in this particular conversation.</p>

<p>I frankly don’t care what assumption you get about Pomona- I’m not representative, or typical of the college. Pomona is an exceedingly complex institution; most don’t care about rankings. Your judgmental nature reflects more on you than it does on me. I listed statistics that call into question that AWS were better schools than Pomona (which was posted above), because I do not believe that’s true, and I asserted my reasonings why. You know nothing about who I am, my life story, you know nothing about me from one or two posts that I use to give another perspective on Pomona. I for one do care about rankings because in the low income perspective that I come from the rankings do matter in sharing my school with others. Will you call that into question? </p>

<p>I do not know why you’re trying to start an argument when there isn’t one to begin with. There’s little we disagree about. I have provided statistics, numbers, and so forth that suggest on paper Pomona is a better LAC than MHC. I acknowledge that situations vary, and if you read through my posts thoroughly I do acknowledge that their subjective differences (such as their quality of their history classes) are likely to be minimal. The big thing that I disagree with you about is in your belief that Pomona is not objectively the better school, when the numbers do speak of the contrary. For a parent, the fact that Pomona ranks 13th for top graduate schools, whereas MHC does not even rank in the top 50, does mean something. Objective rankings and numbers are important in getting a complete picture of institutions. I’m glad that you and I both agree about fit, and about both of these institutions being top tier, but they are not the same and Pomona’s objective strengths should not be undermined in the consideration, which you keep doing. Nonetheless, you and I both think MHC is the better value. Why do you think that I don’t think so? </p>

<p>I personally feel that my points about this particular comparison reflect a balanced consideration of the two schools and their objective and subjective differences. I don’t think yours are because you lose a big picture. In posts that are not meaningful to the conversation, such as the one above, which I have clearly outlined as another topic altogether, you cherry pick on them as if I’m affirming Pomona as a superior institution in this particular case.</p>

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<p>I’m not interested in arguing with you. I’ve made my point. </p>

<p>Why do you suppose that Pomona chooses not to participate in the NSSE survey? </p>

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<p>What does that have to do with anything? None of the Ivy’s participated in it. Nor did Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Duke, Bowdoin, and a bunch of other places. </p>

<p>If you wanted surveys, Pomona participates in them. The senior survey (<a href=“http://www.pomona.edu/administration/institutional-research/surveys/senior.aspx”>http://www.pomona.edu/administration/institutional-research/surveys/senior.aspx&lt;/a&gt;) gives multiple academic criteria and compares Pomona to four groups- co-ed colleges, women colleges, Ivies, and research universities. These are large sample sizes- Pomona has 331 student responses, and the Ivies have nearly 4000 responses. Pomona generally performs higher than average on virtually every criteria-</p>

<p>Satisfaction- higher than average of all the other groups
Quality of instruction- 2nd after Women’s Colleges group
Major advising- higher than the others
Faculty availability- higher than the others
Opportunities for research- much higher than the others
Academic support and assistance- higher than the others
Course availability- higher than the others </p>

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<p>This is my last post on this matter- what an utter waste of time! You can remain ignorant all you want to my post, but you have not made one point refuting that objective difference between these schools- nor can you, by the nature of what it is. Again, best wishes with your decision, OP.</p>

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<p>That would tend to support an inference that the OP’s daughter would be wise to choose Mount Holyoke. I’d tend to view quality of instruction as a top priority concern in choosing a college.</p>

<p>As would the NSSE results (at least as reported in past year) – <a href=“Women's College Coalition | Directory of Women's Colleges & Degrees”>http://www.womenscolleges.org/perspective/nsse-study&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@nostalgicwisdom, you ARE a pretty strenuous booster for Pomona – I haven’t seen a thread where it was mentioned in the past year where you weren’t out pitching it as the greatest college ever. And I like Pomona a lot – but every college has its pros and cons, and Pomona is no exception. It just feels a little too much like cheerleading. There are forums out here where the school students and grads (and parents) won’t stand for the slightest criticism of their school, no matter how well deserved. I don’t think in the long run it helps a school’s reputation when posters act like that. Just something to think about.</p>

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<p>I think that once you’re considering schools as similar stats-wise as Pomona, Amherst, Williams, MHC, etc., the differences in statistics are not nearly as important as the differences in atmosphere and school culture. This depends on the student’s personal goals and preferences. Maybe the average class size at Pomona is 14 students, but the average at MHC is 17. That might not matter very much if the MHC student is planning to major in a small department where nearly all the classes are <10 students. Or maybe a Williams student prefers the lovely bucolic setting and four seasons of Massachusetts. Or maybe a Barnard student loves the hustle and bustle of NYC and the cross-registration options with Columbia. Or maybe a Bard or Swarthmore student likes the progressive political atmosphere at their schools.</p>

<p>There are many reasons that a student could legitimately choose another school over Pomona because it is better for THEM. Tossing stats around doesn’t help in particular cases.</p>

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<p>It’s crazy to evaluate LAC’s in terms of “stats” in any case – students choose LAC’s precisely because of the small size and focus on undergrad education. I think it is unfortunate that the US News list seems to have supplanted more long-standing and time tested sources of information like the Fiske Guide or Barron’s. Years ago when my son was looking for LAC’s, the US News list was free and presented in a table format that could easily be re-ordered by column – so we completely ignored the rank order and instead used it to find colleges that met specific criteria in terms of size, faculty-student ratio, and availability of small classes. That information was useful, and my son’s college list came out looking more like the mix at Princeton Review’s “Best Classroom Experience” list at <a href=“Best Colleges for Classroom Experience | The Princeton Review”>Best Colleges for Classroom Experience | The Princeton Review; (absent the women’s colleges of course – which was a shame for him – we went to a presentation with 4 of the 5 Claremont colleges and it was pretty clear at the time that my son liked Scripps the best)</p>

<p>For my son, issues like class size and intense, focused academics were most important – his top choice ended up being Reed, though unfortunately they did not offer adequate financial aid and he had to turn them down. He did consider Pomona, but it was way down his list, below even Pitzer. At the time the US News rankings of Reed were abysmal, and US News still puts Reed below #70 on its list-- even though Reed often is a top choice among those looking for strong academics. But US News was punishing Reed for not dancing to its tune – hence the low ranking.</p>

<p>Another college that was high on my son’s LAC list was Sarah Lawrence, then listed among the US News top 50 and recognized that year by another news magazine for the strength of its writing program. Since then, US News has consigned SLC to oblivion – banished from the US news ranking list for the audacity of its decision to forego consideration of SAT scores altogether. </p>

<p>Over the years I’ve seen a lot of movement in the US News lists but I doubt very seriously that this reflects significant qualitative changes in the educational experience or overall quality of school offerings or environment. </p>

<p>I did personally find the Princeton Review books and ratings much more helpful when my kids were looking for colleges. I think it is a fallacy to think that colleges can be ranked in linear fashion, from best to worst, as if each was an identical commodity. I can’t even do that when buying computers – something I did yesterday: did I want to pay $100 more for the computer with the larger screen and keyboard, more powerful CPU, larger hard drive - or did I want the smaller netbook-sized computer with solid state hard drive and better pre-loaded software? How do you even begin to answer that question? It depends on individual priorities and goals – all of those fit factors. </p>

<p>When my daughter was college shopping years later, she wanted an academically rigorous environment with a strong Russian language department in an urban center, preferably a mid to large size school. Hence her final choice was made among Barnard, Chicago, NYU and Berkeley. </p>

<p>Chicago is another school that’s done an interesting US News dance over the years, primarily because of a rapidly declining admission rate, from 40% ten years ago to less than 10% today. Has Chicago changed? Probably not – but it did change its admission practices to allow submission of the common app – so now it is more appealing to all the students who are looking for an easy way to apply to 20+ colleges at once.</p>

<p>Unfortunately I think that many parents and students make the mistake of confusing the concepts of rankings, prestige,and reputation --which are not always interchangeable – and they also make the mistake of assuming that a college’s prestige confers a benefit to all of its students and alums. I think that a student who does well and graduates with honors certainly does benefit from the prestige the school offers – but I am not so sure that it works for students who are unable to distinguish themselves at a top school. Would Sonia Sotomayer be a Supreme Court Justice if she had graduated near the bottom or even the middle of her Princeton class, rather than at the very top? Somehow I doubt it. </p>

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<p>@nostalgicwisdom‌ </p>

<p>"*Diversity of the student body (Pomona has more international students and students of color than MHC does.)"</p>

<p>Please do not make claims without doing your research. Mount Holyoke is one of the most international colleges in the United States. It spends about $15m on international student financial aid every year, and has over 400 international students on aid (that’s before factoring in full pay internationals). Compare that to Pomona - about 40 internationals on aid? $1-2m aid budget? Hell, compare that to how much Stanford spends on international students: $6m. Pomona may have a huge endowment, but it certainly does not spend enough to bring in as much international socioeconomic diversity that Mount Holyoke does. This applies to the general Claremont consortium, too: there isn’t nearly as much international socioeconomic diversity as at the 5C area. Amherst, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire all spend a lot of money to create an internationally diverse atmosphere.</p>

<p>In other respects, yes, Pomona does very well, and certainly does a lot better than MHC in many areas. But I’d like to point it out that MHC is extremely well respected in the east coast. I was really thrown off while visiting the general northeast area: people, especially those who were aware of LACs and worked at finance firms, non-profits, in addition to many college applicants, waxed poetic when I referred to Mt Holyoke, Smith etc (they compared them to Williams and Amherst). MHC’s alumni network is also strong in the northeast, and certainly Pomona’s strength in terms of objective strengths won’t help anybody go to grad school any more than will MHC. Perhaps there is more competition for research/summer funding at MHC. But that, in my opinion, is always better than getting things handed to you (that’s how things at Grinnell work, for instance. You just have to ask for summer funding to do something and you will get it. Is that good or bad? That’s not how the real world works, that’s for sure.)</p>

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<p>^ Good post. I’ll point out, though, that MHC just implemented a new program where EVERY student gets a funded summer internship. If they want more than one, they would need to figure financing out, but as of class of 2018, every student receives ONE through the college.</p>

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<p>Thanks to everyone who posted. This was an unbelievably difficult decision for my D and we did leave the decision up to her, trying to give her as much information as we could. She revisited both MHC and Pomona and the decision came down to the last minute as she tried hard to make her best long term choice. Both schools are excellent and were incredibly generous while my D worked out her options. I did make the initial post somewhat general since much of the point of this forum (in my opinion) is not only for specific advice but also to allow others to search for information relating to their own questions and experiences. </p>

<p>@calmom and @ucbalumnus You nailed it with your excellent mathematical and interpretative abilities – we do have 529 funds but they will require significant supplementing from our income. We were willing to do this; but, the level of the merit scholarship offered by MHC changed the conversation. (Although every college with merit aid that D applied to offered her the maximum level scholarship, MHC’s offer was completely unexpected.) Although we can make it work, our real question was whether Pomona was worth more than $150,000 over the 4 years than MHC. Can this money be better utilized in future and additional educational opportunities? </p>

<p>@nostalgicwisdom Yes, the Claremont consortium is a unique and amazing place, especially Pomona. D loves Pomona – she adored the student population there and felt that it was a perfect fit. She would definitely have chosen to attend Pomona if the extremely generous MHC scholarship had not been offered to her. I can only say that Pomona left me with incredibly positive feelings in every single contact we have had with them. Every person there was supportive and understanding. I completely understand why you are such a strong advocate for Pomona.</p>

<p>D has made the choice to attend MHC based on the fact that she also loves this campus and will graduate debt free. In addition, not spending the additional family funds on her undergraduate education allows them to be spent on her graduate years. Her undergraduate time is expected to be a time of exploration to refine her many passions and interests into a more concrete line of study. The financial freedom will also allow her to pursue those passions during her undergraduate summers. </p>

<p>I really appreciate the input from CC as well as the many others we talked to. We tried very hard to help D look at her options as fairly and honestly as possible, taking her long term needs and goals into account. </p>

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<p>Congratulation!!! (And happy Mothers Day :slight_smile: ) Perhaps we will see you on move-in day next August. Does your D know about the Class of 2018 FB page?</p>

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<p>Thanks for the update! I think your family has definitely made the right decision – $150K is nothing to sneeze at.
You never know what the future holds – there may come a time when your daughter is very glad that she went with the debt-free affordable option. </p>

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<p>OP, I am happy for you. I stayed out of this discussion, but I am an alumna of a women’s college in an otherwise co-ed consortium. I took one course on one of the other campuses. If I had it to do over, I would have been more aggressive about getting out to the other campuses for more coursework, and sooner in my career there. There was some resistance from the administration when I actually tried to cross-register, and I reminded them that this was one of the assets they touted when I was looking at the school. Most of my friends felt fulfilled with the course offerings and the experience that was available to them on our home campus, but I felt stifled. FYI, FWIW.</p>

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<p>Congratulations, OP! My older son attends Hampshire, one of the other consortium colleges, loves the area and has taken advantage of courses at the other schools. He says it’s very easy to get around via bus (which is free). Amherst is a wonderful town. Be sure to eat at Judie’s when you’re there - popover heaven!</p>

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<p>Upforfun, I have appreciated reading your story and seeing how it turned out. Congrats to your daughter on her acceptances, merit scholarships and most of all wishing her an amazing four years at Mount Holyoke.</p>