<p>Second-highest LAC SAT scores behind HMC.
Ranked #1 Lowest Acceptance Rate (of any traditional LAC-USMA and USNA ranked higher, now listed under LAC category)</p>
<p>Ranked #16 lowest acceptance rate of any school, LAC or University
Ranked #20 most students living on-campus of any school
Ranked #8 LAC for Least Student Debt
Ranked #4 LAC for Best Value</p>
<p>Why do you think that Pomona is ranked behind Carleton, Middlebury given that most of Pomona's numbers are better than those two. And why is Wellesley perennially ranked right after AWS?</p>
<p>it's got the best numbers of any LAC. if us news was based in california, it would probably be first. but higher education just happens northeast-centric.</p>
<p>"it's got the best numbers of any LAC. if us news was based in california, it would probably be first. but higher education just happens northeast-centric."</p>
<p>Pomona is always screwed in the US News Rankings. From a objective, numbers perspective, it is on par or better than Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore. Why are Middlebury, Wellesley and Carleton ranked above it? All three are less less selective, and Middlebury in particular is less academically rigorous. Also, it annoys me that Pomona fares so poorly in the Peer-Review survey.</p>
<p>i don't necessarily think pomona would be first if us news was based in california...but i do think it deserves to be at least #5 (us news seems to love putting wellesley at #4). i agree that pomona is on par with AWS on most levels, and is probably even more selective than them.</p>
<p>do you happen to know any of the specific numbers for swarthmore, middlebury, wellesley, and carleton so that it is easier to compare from a numbers perspective?</p>
<p>Pomona being more selective than other LAC is simply because it is in California. Look at the selectivity of other LACs in California, they just have similarly good numbers. </p>
<p>Pomona is really good, and I am considering to apply there, but I think you guys are just too obssessed with the rankings. Carleton, Wellesley, Pomona, are all as good as AWS in terms of educational quality(and I do think Middlebury is not as good in the sciences and math), but they are not the same in terms of school type/ location/ reputation on the east coast(afterall, east coast is the centre of high level education/research, there are so many good universities there while mid west has only two, namely Chicago and NWU, and the west has only UCB,UCLA,Stanford, Caltech) etc, therefore they are ranked lower than AWS. Why care if Pomona is ranked fifth or sixth or seventh? Arent they just the same? and you cant just look at the statistics and say oh it is the most selective LAC so even you dont rank it as high as AWS it ought to outrank Carleton Midd Wellesley. Come on. selectivity is really related to the location. and Midd, being less good in Sciences and Math, is another type of school (one of the best in language/econs/IR), and is getting more and more popular these years. as long as the applicants are well informed that Midd is good in these fields and "bad" in the other fields(with the large amount of funding that Midd has, it is catching up really fast.), why must it be as good in science and math as Pomona before it can ranked higher than Pomona? it just has different focus. it is like Harvey Mudd. If a school ought to be all rounded, Harvey Mudd should be ranked 100th.</p>
<p>POMONA
"Up nine percent from last year, the number of applicants totaled 5,907 with an acceptance rate of 15.8 percent (933), once again placing Pomona among the most selective colleges in the nation."</p>
<p>Pomona is more selective than AWS mostly because it gets almost as many applications as AWS but is smaller so it accepts less. For your California argument (that Pomona is more selective because it is in California, the most populous state in the US) to be true, Pomona should have gotten a lot more apps than AWS. Seeing that it doesn't, I think selectivity (no. accepted/no. applied) depends more on the quality of education offered than the location. Your argument would only work for big state schools. (I actually didn't need to do all this to make this point; just think: MA is a small state and it has ****ty weather, yet Harvard gets more apps than any uni in America, so why make statements like "selectivity is really related to the location"?)</p>
<p>The best solution would be to have a huge tie for first place. The differences between these colleges are minute, and to have a ranking is just splitting hairs. Don't think USNews will go for this idea, though.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pomona is always screwed in the US News Rankings.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Boo-hoo. Stop whining. Pomona is ranked where it is because that's how the numbers shake out according to USNews' formula. In fact, I would expect Pomona's numbers (SATs, top 10%, etc.) to be even higher than they are, considering it's the only top LAC in that part of the country. It has significantly more Asian students than many comparable LACs (which tends to raise SAT scores), and it shares sports teams with Pizer (which means it doesn't need to "tip" athletes with lower scores like Williams, Amherst, and Middlebury do). It's also much more of a regional school that the top Eastern LACs. What percentage of Pomona students are from California? For instance, more then 75% of Middlebury students come from outside New England.</p>
<p>I don't see what all the fuss is about. Who cares if it gets "screwed" (though #7 isn't too bad) by the USNWR? That's like getting upset about a bad horoscope. The rankings mean very little. You know how good your school is, and the USNWR rankings shouldn't change that. Being from the northeast is an advantage in the USNWR because of the peer-assessment score, not because of the admissions criteria.</p>
<p>You can say "who cares" all you want. Many people care. And the power the rankings carry is real. It influences high school students whether it should or not, and it influences college administrators and professors and so on. Maybe people care for all the wrong reasons or shouldn't care, but the same can be said about most things in life.</p>
<p>In a way it matters because it's not right, but at the same time it really doesn't at all. It weeds out a lot of the kids who are only looking for rankings to select "the best" college and who really wants them at Pomona anyway? </p>
<p>That's what I loved about Pomona in the first place-- people just love to be there. And you know that everyone truly wats to be there since so many kids have to fight their parents to go to a school with a "lesser ranking" than other schools they may have gotten into.</p>
<p>So sure, the ranking may not be accurate of the college-- but it (in some way) is what helps keep the good character of Pomona.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In a way it matters because it's not right, but at the same time it really doesn't at all. It weeds out a lot of the kids who are only looking for rankings to select "the best" college and who really wants them at Pomona anyway?</p>
<p>That's what I loved about Pomona in the first place-- people just love to be there. And you know that everyone truly wats to be there since so many kids have to fight their parents to go to a school with a "lesser ranking" than other schools they may have gotten into.</p>
<p>So sure, the ranking may not be accurate of the college-- but it (in some way) is what helps keep the good character of Pomona.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is kind of irrelevant. "Who wants them there anway?" Maybe you do. Maybe they would be great additions to the student population. What is a 16-17 year old who is looking at colleges supposed to know about them? Where is he supposed to get his information? Suppose he doesn't have the means to go visit every LAC in which he is interested? One place he's going to start is with the USN&WR rankings. And so are his parents. If you think people who aren't interested in rankings aren't at Pomona, you're kidding yourself. They're there now, and there will be a whole new crop of them next year.</p>
<p>Some 16-17 year olds start with rankings, but definitely not all. I started looking at colleges by reading the Fiske guide book and trying to figure out which schools would be good fits for me academically, socially and otherwise. That was when I started narrowing down the list, looking at school websites, taking tours, etc. Rankings came much much later in the game and mostly as an afterthought. I never decided which schools to apply to and attend to based on USNWR numbers. I know a variety of other students who did the same thing. Part of what appealed to me about Pomona from accounts of students, books, and other sources is that the Pomona student body is not terribly concerned with numbers and competition with other peers, but more in pushing oneself to succeed academically. Obviously in the competitive nature of today's society, it is impossible to avoid number-obsessed students, but I think the wise students take USNWR with a certain grain of salt.</p>