<p>First of all there is nothing wrong with LACs. The point of this thread children is to figure out which do you choose Pomona, Amherst or Harvard. That said, thanks for the info on the study. It makes my point exactly. Harvard is the obvious choice.</p>
<p>^^^ Children? "Napoleonic? “smarts” ? Now its time to be condescending too? Sheesh. </p>
<p>I would recommend you read the article more closely. What it does is compare choices that students make when offered to choose between two schools-- what percent chose what school. I imagine it helps schools calculate their yield a little better. It does not tell student which school to pick. So not sure it “proves” anyones point. </p>
<p>As for LACs vs U’s, many students sleep through or simply don’t bother to go to class at many big U’s and still graduate without “buying” their degree, as you imply. Harder to skip class in a smaller school where your absence in class will be noticed.</p>
<p>As for tenured faculty vs grad students, the fulltime Ph.D. faculty were far, far superior in experience, teaching skills, etc than a grad student still plugging through school being paid a small stipend as a TA. Some TA’s are good, some are awful. Fortunately when I was in grad school I didn’t have to be a TA, but some of my colleagues were, and some were not cut out for it at all. They didn’t want to teach, and frankly, I didn’t think some of them were very good at it. The LACs have the best opportunity, IMO, b/c you get the opportunity to discuss the information with a senior professor, not get lectured to in a large lecture hall, then having to go to smaller breakout discussion groups with the grad students. </p>
<p>UCLA, You seem to like to qualify your statements with “sometimes”, but in my experience, the seasoned faculty were wonderful, bright, brilliant folks who stayed on the cutting edge of research (the grad students learn it from these mentors) and who relished inthe pooprtunity to bvrainstorm with the students. Classes were discussions, not lectures. It is those giant lectures that <em>sometimes</em> causes students to snooze. The faculty were bright, enjoyed their students, and not in the least bit “complacent”. Not even “sometimes”, in my experience.</p>
<p>Hey guys. I won’t be coming to this thread anymore. I’ve made my decision.</p>
<p>Our 2 democratic presidential candidates are products of LACs(Wellesley, and Occidental).</p>
<p>Best of luck to you Grim Shogun. Go forth and learn!</p>
<p>Why is it our business? Certain posters have taken over this thread to make sweeping generalizations and personal attacks. It has become a pretty ugly thread; OP is smart to not want to get involved, or further fuel the fire.</p>
<p>Best wishes. Enjoy Pomona.</p>
<p>Actually I rather enjoyed the hearty discussion, but when you do something publicly and expect people to respond to you it becomes everyone’s business. If you don’t want it to be, then don’t start a thread. Anyway, it is not like we have any idea who any of these people are. “unregistered”</p>
<p>NSM-
Don’t know what the OP chose. I think the “enjoy Pomona” was a sarcastic comment. I think the OP has handled herself with the upmost dignity in the face of digressions. I wish her the best.</p>
<p>She’ll be successful wherever she goes.</p>
<p>I strongly suggest you reject Harvard, as I find it amusing when their yield goes down. That is all.</p>
<p>“NSM-
Don’t know what the OP chose. I think the “enjoy Pomona” was a sarcastic comment. I think the OP has handled herself with the upmost dignity in the face of digressions. I wish her the best.”</p>
<p>I’m not being sarcastic. Given what she has posted about her career aspirations and about her leanings toward Pomona, I’m assuming she picked Pomona. I don’t know why she didn’t bother posting this, which would have seemed polite since so many people had offered advice that she had requested. However, it is up to her about whether to post her decision. It would, however, have been gracious of her to have offered appreciation before leaving the thread.</p>
<p>as an incoming pomona freshmen, i’m quite impressed at the accomplishments i’ve seen of fellow freshmen (in this thread, and the other one). as a slacker kid from the city, i hope i can keep up in the fall. see you around…</p>
<p>Noooo NSM!!!
My comment was not directed to you!! It was in response to a snarky post that now seems to be gone! It (the deleted post) alluded to the OP being childish and immature and such, and ended, I believe, by saying “good luck at Pomona.” I took your follow-up post to be congratulating the OP’s college selection when in fact she hadn’t shared here which college she selected, so I tried to clarify that the original (now gone) post was a backhand slap at the OP, and that I thought she still handled herself graciously in the face of those derogatory, inflammatory comments. Sorry for the confusion!</p>
<p>coureur, you’re free to call this thin skin if you like.</p>
<p>I said something that should have been said a long time ago. It’s hypocritical for people to accuse of uninformed biases against big Us and then turn around and perpetuate stereotypes against the LAC. That is all. You think that’s being thin skinned? For the record, I’m not insecure about being a Pomona student, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I said if she goes to Harvard, that’s great, I applaud. If she goes to Pomona, I’m very happy too. What I was targeting was hypocrisy. You construe something that was typed with a passion to be a reactionary stab - that’s your view. I’m not going to question it. Read my post, it contains some flowery imagery - that’s how I always like to post, but I have tried to be as factual as I can be.</p>
<p>BTW, in fairness to UCLA PhD, though I do not agree with his views, he has not posted with vitriol or unfounded claims (at least most of the time). There is some sense in his argument - just like there is some sense in everybody else’s. He tried to bring in evidence, and at least exhibits some understanding of what an LAC is like, and compares some essential features of it to Harvard and Brown. He has different value judgements of what should constitute as a criterion for choosing one school after another, and for the sake of debate, that should be ok. IMHO.</p>
<p>Alright, I’m done. Grim, good luck wherever you are =)</p>
<p>She enrolled at Pomona…</p>
<p>ucla phd was so funny lol
it was entertaining</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Funny that Columbiastudent wouldn’t know that Obama transferred from Occidental and graduated from Columbia.</p>
<p>As for Pomona vs Harvard, I’m always happy to see students make reasoned decisions about college choices rather than letting USNWR make the decision for them. Pomona offers a terrific college experience.</p>
<p>^I do know that. In fact I mentioned this many times. But he started at Occidental before transfer to Columbia. And yes you don’t need to go to Columbia nor Berkeley to know this fact. All you have to do is read the weekly newspapers and stop being a snob?</p>
<p>I think Columbia student’s point was that LACs are also capable of educating “potential” future world leaders. </p>
<p>If you know he started at Oxy, I think that indicates a certain knowledge of the path he took, versus the many people who probably think he went straight through 4 years at Columbia.</p>