<p>I'm an international student living in the part of the world where prestige is a sole factor when deciding which college to attend. I need a little help.</p>
<p>My so-called peers are driving me crazy since they are thinking that I'm making an unreversable faulty decision to apply to 'unknown' small colleges. My peers are thinking that to attend LAC except for Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, and Middlebury is such a waste of money and time! I was really sad when they told me 'Colby? Macalblah? Unknown tier2 LACs. Rather go to Berkeley or LA', and became even much sadder when they started to 'cure' my insanity. </p>
<p>I cannot revoke my college choices because I already applied to those colleges. I just want to know how those 'unknown tier2 LACs' are regarded in the US. Hope better than their reputations in here.</p>
<p>Don't worry. Schools like Colby, Bates and Macalester are well known in the US. No, they aren't "instantly recognizable" names like Harvard, but either are Swarthmore or Middlebury or Williams. They are definitely well respected and it's a known fact that students who attend schools like Colby and Mac are intelligent and motivated to succeed.</p>
<p>raelah/ Oh, hopefully!... Thank you for your detailed explanation.</p>
<p>Keilexandra/ Well, they definitely think that AWS, Midd, and Weselley are the only top-tier LACs. Below the 10th ranking are schools for loosers. Tired of their hubris. Maybe I should stop hanging out with them.</p>
<p>FYI I live in the US and when I talk about LACs such as Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore, no one knows what I'm talking about. A lot of people think they are community colleges.</p>
<p>What I am trying to say is that no LACs have name recognition. You have to want to go to these schools because of what they offer, not to brag about them to your friends.</p>
<p>However, most top 100 LACs are extremely well regarded by employers and graduate programs. Those are the people that matter and they will know about those schools. All of the ones you mentioned are very good schools that will provide you with the best education you can get. If that is what you want then next time your friends give you crap for the schools you're applying to, tell them with pride that these are some of the best colleges in the world and that just because they haven't heard of them doesn't mean anything.</p>
<p>SmallCollegesFTW/ I think I saw you on Grinnell board. Right? Anyway, hope you get into Grinnell, and thank you for your information. I really don't care about 'wow' factor, and that's why I applied to a bunch of LACs. But, at least, I don't want to listen to some 'advices' not to apply to 'nameless' LACs. </p>
<p>Although Berkeley and LA are not on top 10, those state schools are EXTREMELY well regarded in here. Before I chose to apply to the US colleges, I thought that UCLA is actually a cloth-making company, since a lot of people wore T-shirts on which big U.C.L.A. letters were written :)</p>
<p>LOL, nice story about thinking UCLA is a cloth making company. That is true about UCLA though...so many school sweatshirts...</p>
<p>I think you made a good choice applying to LACs. Obviously, you're applying for the right reasons. You like the schools, and value the liberal arts education and the opportunities it gives, and could care less about the "name." You should tell your prestige obsessed friends that they don't know what they're talking about. They'll all wish they made their decision for reasons besides prestige when they end up miserable or transferring because they hate where they ended up.</p>
<p>Your issue is how will they be regarded when you go back to your country? Only a small fraction of internationals get to stay in the US, they tend to be engineers, and that's probably about to decline even further.</p>
<p>The reason most internationals haven't heard of LACs is because they specialize in undergraduate education. No graduate schools therefore no graduate students. Until quite recently, international undergraduates were relatively rare, so all the buzz came from graduate students and was related to graduate schools and graduate programs. As a result, most international students (and their parents, and the employers in their countries) don't know much about LACs-and don't realize what a great environment it can be for a foreign student who is far from home and coping with another culture. Foreign students at LACs benefit even more than the typical US undergrads from the small classes, close relationships with faculty and familiar faces at school. They are often the top students at these schools as well (which is why they get full rides), so they get noticed. </p>
<p>Bottom line: Your friends will all be jealous when you tell them about the kind of social and educational experiences you are having vs. the kind of experiences they are having at much larger schools. Colby, Macalester and Bates (don't know Trinity) are all great schools and you'll have a blast so ignore your peers. </p>
<p>As for the impact on your employment prospects at home, most international LAC students go on to get graduate degrees from those brand name schools that employers in their countries recognize. Those brand name schools all know the LACs so you won't be disadvantaged applying from one of them, and your graduate school is what will count with employers, not your undergraduate school.</p>
<p>Small liberal arts colleges are great! All of the schools you've listed are more highly ranked than my alma mater, Spelman College, which is in the top 100 but is hovering somewhere around 70-80 right now. I loved my experience at my SLAC and I'm currently earning my Ph.D at Columbia. My graduate degree will matter tons more than where I earned my BA.</p>
<p>SLACs are great places to attend undergrad -- they're small, undergraduate-focused and often have well integrated alumni networks and more tight-knit connections than some larger schools. I got research experience as a sophomore with a professor (instead of getting it as a junior through a graduate research assistant, like the policy is at Columbia); none of my classes were ever larger than 40 people (and most were 20 or less); professors were easily accessible and it came to make me have an easy rapport with professors now when I interact with them.</p>
<p>Your peers are the ones who need to broaden their horizons and learn about schools beyond the ones that top the buzz.</p>
<p>An important issue is whether you want to have a career in the US or overseas.
In the US, the smaller colleges would have strong alumni networks. If you want to go to graduate school in the US, the elite schools would know the elite small colleges.
For a terminal BA or BS from Haverford or Bowdoin, I can't imagine this would help you in Taiwan or Nigeria, except by chance.
I'm talking about associations and connections here. Of course you would be liable to get an excellent education at Haverford, Bowdoin or any number of small schools. That could be the overriding factor.</p>