<p>I recently heard something very interesting from an extremely informed college counselor, who has been in this business an excess of 30 years. He said that with the exception of possibly Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton, Pomona and Williams are the two preeminent liberal arts colleges in the nations and every bit as good as the other Ivies/ top universities. I always knew that these schools were regarded very highly, I just never realized how much. Also I thought it was very interesting that he considered Pomona as a top LAC over a school like Amherst or Swarthmore. I am just curious what you guys think-- (how these schools stack up)</p>
<p>Williams and Amherst are at Dartmouth level. I dunno about HPYS though.</p>
<p>Tell me something I don't know...</p>
<p>I also heard great things about Swarthmore.</p>
<p>What do you want to study there?</p>
<p>From a statistical POV, Pomona has passed the other top LAC's in terms of selectivity and median SAT score. </p>
<p>Make of that what you will.</p>
<p>If you take away the point that a small LAC can offer a tremendous educational environment, then you've learned something. I would argue with the particular examples, though. What about Amherst or Bowdoin? And Harvard as good undergrad as Brown or Dartmouth? I don't know about that!</p>
<p>Williams and Pomona are definitely Ivy comparables, as are Amherst and Swarthmore. And why do people think that undergrad life at Harvard suffers from its grad schools? It has 6500 undergrads who have direct access to all the star faculty, virtually all live on campus in residential colleges with faculty house masters who host weekly dinner chats - why would it be any less rich an experience than at Dartmouth or Brown?</p>
<p>The knock on Harvard for undergrad is that there is (supposedly) little focus on undergraduate students, and very little individual attention from the 'star faculty'--as opposed to a more undergrad-focused school like Princeton, Dartmouth, and obviously any LAC.</p>
<p>Just from considering the people I know who go to ivies and those to Williams and Pomona, I want to say, "duh."</p>
<p>I think that picking apart schools on such a microscopic level (Amherst over Swat? Pomona over Swat?) is ultimately dumb and unproductive. And better in what way? I think you'll either dig the vibes of one school over another or you'll be compelled to choose one school over another based on factors like a faculty member you like in your area of interest, layout of campus, availability of things catered to your interests, etc.</p>
<p>Honestly, you can go to a lot of different schools and get just as good an education as someone at an Ivy could get.</p>
<p>You couldn't possibly differentiate between the academic quality of Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams.</p>
<p>lol, why do you feel the need to put hyps on a pedestal? At the undergraduate level there are schools that certainly stack up and even surpass these four. prestige and education are two very different things.</p>
<p>I'd say the top 15 LACs compare to the top 20 Unis. There is no significant difference between the schools overall.</p>
<p>"Just as good as the Ivies" for what purpose?</p>
<p>As a reflection of the level of teaching for advanced grad school preparation, consider this top 100 list. Mentioned schools in bold. The data was collected to show that LACs are just as "good" (whatever that means) as big U's.</p>
<p>Percentage of graduates receiving a doctorate degree
Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law </p>
<p>1 35.8% California Institute of Technology<br>
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
3 21.1% Swarthmore College<br>
4 19.9% Reed College<br>
5 18.3% Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
6 16.8% Carleton College<br>
7 15.8% Bryn Mawr College<br>
8 15.7% Oberlin College
9 15.3% University of Chicago<br>
10 14.5% Yale University
11 14.3% Princeton University<br>
12 14.3% Harvard University<br>
13 14.1% Grinnell College<br>
14 13.8% Haverford College<br>
15 13.8% Pomona College<br>
16 13.1% Rice University
17 12.7% Williams College<br>
18 12.4% Amherst College
19 11.4% Stanford University
20 11.3% Kalamazoo College<br>
21 11.0% Wesleyan University
22 10.6% St John's College (both campus)
23 10.6% Brown University<br>
24 10.4% Wellesley College<br>
25 10.0% Earlham College
26 9.6% Beloit College<br>
27 9.5% Lawrence University
28 9.3% Macalester College<br>
29 9.0% Cornell University, All Campuses<br>
30 9.0% Bowdoin College
31 8.9% Mount Holyoke College<br>
32 8.9% Smith College<br>
33 8.8% Vassar College<br>
34 8.7% Case Western Reserve University
35 8.7% Johns Hopkins University<br>
36 8.7% St Olaf College
37 8.7% Hendrix College
38 8.6% Hampshire College<br>
39 8.5% Trinity University<br>
40 8.5% Knox College<br>
41 8.5% Duke University
42 8.4% Occidental College<br>
43 8.3% University of Rochester
44 8.3% College of Wooster<br>
45 8.3% Barnard College
46 8.2% Bennington College<br>
47 8.1% Columbia University in the City of New York
48 8.0% Whitman College
49 7.9% University of California-Berkeley<br>
50 7.9% College of William and Mary
51 7.8% Carnegie Mellon University<br>
52 7.8% New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology<br>
53 7.7% Brandeis University
54 7.6% Dartmouth College<br>
55 7.5% Wabash College<br>
56 7.5% Bates College<br>
57 7.5% Davidson College<br>
58 7.2% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>
59 7.2% Franklin and Marshall College<br>
60 7.1% Fisk University
61 7.1% Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)<br>
62 6.8% University of California-San Francisco<br>
63 6.8% Allegheny College<br>
64 6.6% Furman University<br>
65 6.5% University of Pennsylvania<br>
66 6.5% Washington University<br>
67 6.5% Bard College<br>
68 6.4% Northwestern Univ<br>
69 6.4% Rhodes College<br>
70 6.3% Agnes Scott College
71 6.3% Spelman College
72 6.2% Antioch University, All Campuses<br>
73 6.2% Kenyon College<br>
74 6.2% University of Dallas<br>
75 6.1% Ripon College<br>
76 6.1% Colorado College<br>
77 6.1% Bethel College (North Newton, KS)<br>
78 6.0% Hamilton College<br>
79 6.0% Goshen College<br>
80 6.0% Middlebury College<br>
81 6.0% Erskine College
82 5.9% University of the South
83 5.8% University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
84 5.8% Drew University
85 5.8% Wake Forest University<br>
86 5.8% Tougaloo College<br>
87 5.8% Goucher College
88 5.7% Chatham College
89 5.7% Cooper Union<br>
90 5.7% Alfred University, Main Campus<br>
91 5.7% Tufts University<br>
92 5.6% University of California-Santa Cruz
93 5.6% Colgate University<br>
94 5.5% Colby College<br>
95 5.4% Bucknell University
96 5.4% Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
97 5.4% Concordia Teachers College<br>
98 5.4% University of Virginia, Main Campus
99 5.3% Sarah Lawrence College<br>
100 5.3% Southwestern University</p>
<p>"You couldn't possibly differentiate between the academic quality of Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams."</p>
<p>I agree. And I'd toss in a bunch of the above-noted schools from post 15. When you consider schools like these, "best" is a personal definition, depending on what's "best" for you.</p>
<p>It's fairly easy to say that, say, Virginia Tech, UMass, U of Miami, and Creighton U. aren't in the top tier based on lots of statistics. But among the ones clearly in the top tier, trying to split hairs and rank accurately based on tiny differences in average SATs and average GPAs is just nonsense. It's about as "objective" as a beauty pageant at that point.</p>
<p>Pomona's location is both a blessing and a curse. The primary benefit is that Pomona attracts a large number of overachieving West Coast kids with outstanding SAT scores and high school ranks. It is, afterall, the clear choice for Californians (and other Westerners) who want to stay close to home and who crave the liberal arts experience. It's also one of the few top LACs that offers a mild climate year round. Furthermore, Pomona doesn't have the athletic tip issues that elite New England LACs (Williams, Amherst, Middlebury) have. Pomona shares sports teams with another school, and doesn't have to admit marginally less qualified candidates to fill teams. </p>
<p>Pomona's location also is a curse because of East Coast bias in terms of ranking. Although Pomona is certainly a top school, it simply does not match AWS in terms of prestige.</p>
<p>^^That is exactly one of the points of my post. I used to believe the same fact, that because of east coast bias Pomona could not stack up prestige wise with AWS, but what I am hearing is in fact the opposite. That Pomona along with the Williams are nationally considered (yes throw in A and S as well) as the top LACs in the nation. I would be very surprised to see that Pomona does significantly worse in job placement in the Northeast and in that same way I am confident that it does better in the west. I think for people who have to know, Pomona is considered just as highly. I am not so sure Bowdoin is that same level, just like Middlebury isn't. Feel free to disagree.</p>
<p>When does prestige matter? When the hiring manager places more value on whom you know than on what you know.</p>
<p>Pomona's location is also a curse because of air pollution. The LA basin's pollution generally blows from west to east, and Claremont is well on the east side of the basin. But during the school year the weather is otherwise gorgeous (though a bit hot in the summer).</p>