<p>FFS, by sheer serendipity, I found it while searching for something else in the archives tonight. Thinking back, I think the discussion in the ensuing thread resulted in the "CC's Top Liberal Arts Colleges" Forum coming into existence. </p>
<p>Sidenote: it was a strange feeling browing through the archives, at times like going through dusty corridors and rooms long abandoned. At other times, it was like the scene at the end of "Titanic," where "old Rose" dies and joins the ghosts of all the people who died and have been waiting for her: MassDad before he was new, AParent before any numbers, Twinkle, Sunshine, Pistolpete, Canadian Idol, Ecomium, Rowan, Chasgoose, Quarky, Incognito, Calquest, Hautbois, Clipper and many more.... Anyway, here 'tis. It's from January '04 and the post counts are preposterously low by current standards. When I joined CC, they were about to pass 50K posts in aggregate...the rocks had cooled but the ferns were still new and lungfish but were a dream.</p>
<p>Berurah, other than it being a friendly needle at MHC, Smith in fact has a number of advantages over Amherst and I haven't noted that you know much about either.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>In another thread, there has been quite a bit of discussion about changing the admissions systems to be more realistic in light of the overwhelming number of applicants. I conclude that "the problem" doesn't really doesn't effect that many schools or, in the scheme of things, that many students, just mainly the most visible students with the most vocal parents.</p>
<p>I went into the Individual Schools forum and browsed through the three sub-folders, noting those schools which have <em>20</em> or more posts. Following is the ranking of the schools as measured by CC posts on the individual school; the assumption is that number of posts reflects both breadth and intensity of interest in the school and hence application numbers. I note that numbers can be skewed by a few intense posters (at the low end) or than relative rank can be skewed by the intensity of discussions about, say, EA (Yale for instance) or by a large number of applicants (Cornell, UC Santa Barbara). However, I dub this CC's Quick-and-Dirty Guide to the Popular Colleges For Over-Anxious High-Achieving Students and Their Parents (CCQDGPCFOAHASTP for short). There are so many other flawed rankings systems, what's one more?</p>
<p>There are only 73 colleges that meet such a modest criterion as 20 posts. [Survey taken between 7:00pm and 7:30pm EST, 1/22/04. Numbers reflect combined threads in multiple sections, e.g., USC has posts both under "S" for "Southern California" and "U" for USC.]</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale
Cornell
Harvard
Stanford
Princeton
MIT
Penn
Columbia
Brown</li>
<li>Rice
NYU
Northwestern
U Chicago</li>
</ol>
<p>1000 post dividing line</p>
<p>U California--Berkeley
Georgetown
Dartmouth
Duke
UCLA
U Michigan
20. Johns Hopkins</p>
<p>500 post dividing line</p>
<p>Notre Dame
Wash U. St. Louis
Emory
U Virginia
Air Force Academy
George Washington
U North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Cal Tech
Carnegie Mellon
30. U Southern California (USC)
Tufts
Naval Academy
Vanderbilt</p>
<p>100 post dividing line</p>
<p>Boston College
Williams
Wellesley
Swarthmore
U California--Santa Barbara
U Illinois--Champagne-Urbana
40. Fordham
Smith
Sarah Lawrence
Tulane
Santa Clara
Vassar
Pomona</p>
<p>50 post dividing line</p>
<p>U Wisconsin--Madison
Wake Forest
U California--San Diego
50. Grinnell
50. U Texas--Austin
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
U of San Diego
Haverford
Barnard
Olin</p>
<p>30 post dividing line</p>
<p>Carleton
Bowdoin
Penn State U.
60. Wheaton (IL)
Ohio U.
U California--Santa Cruz
Skidmore
Bryn Mawr
McGill
Pace
Reed
Case Westerm
Boston U.
70. U Miami
College of William and Mary
Bates
Colgate</p>
<h1>#</h1>