Schools on the rise

College Search & Selection
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<p>Let's discuss school's whose reputation, prestige, quality, etc. has been or will be on the rise in the coming years. (Feel free to also discuss schools on the fall) I'll start:</p>

<p>Rise:
Pomona College
Rice University
Harvey Mudd College</p>

<p>Will be falling:
Emory (lack of school spirit, many negative student experiences)
WashU (questionable admission policies)
Berkeley and UCLA (California budget cuts)</p>

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<p>Hmmm… I’m intrigued, what are the questionable admission policies you speak of at WashU?
I think the schools on the rise you listed are interesting, because I am having major application regret about not applying to both Pomona and Rice!! Basically everywhere I applied is cold-ish, and I’ve lived in Canada my entire life and am now wishing I applied warmer places to escape the cold. I have the “Guidebook to Pomona” at my breakfast table and I look over it every day. I NEED to get over it! haha.
Sorry, this was more a personal post than anything. But I’d still like to know what went down at WashU.</p>

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<p>Rise: Agnes Scott College (one of the Colleges That Change Lives, awesome location, gets more selective every year)</p>

<p>Fall: Notre Dame (kids - even true-blue Catholic kids - just don’t put up with homophobia like they used to)</p>

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<p>

Pomona and Mudd have reputations about as good as they’re going to get. People on CC fall over themselves recommending both – you’d think Mudd was the only LAC to offer any of the sciences.</p>

<p>Rice’s reputation is similarly stagnant. Its admit rates and test scores have stayed almost exactly the same for well over 10 years, in stark contrast to almost any other top university. The rapidly rising cost of attendance is removing Rice’s biggest advantage over its peers.</p>

<p>I’ve always found claims of WUStL’s “questionable” admissions policies vastly overstated. Its test scores are higher than all but a half dozen schools (including virtually all Ivies except HYP), so clearly it’s not waitlisting “overqualified” applicants. Furthermore, its yield would be much higher than its current 28-30% if it did practice yield protection. Instead, its yield is almost exactly where one would predict it to be. </p>

<p>“Many” negative student experiences at Emory? You are acquainted with a considerable chunk of the student population there? 95% of freshmen return for their sophomore year; they could transfer elsewhere should they so choose.</p>

<p>USC is perhaps the fastest rising star. Only five years ago when I was in high school, it worked extremely hard to attract high scoring applicants by encouraging students to apply during their junior year and matriculate during their senior year (simultaneously finishing high school). Back then, USC was a safe match for someone considering the Ivies or other elites. In those five years, it has seen a tremendous boom in selectivity and popularity.</p>

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<p>link to a threat about washu : <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/855977-what-exactly-did-wustl-do-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/855977-what-exactly-did-wustl-do-rankings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>(btw if anyone could tell me how to just link the thread title instead of url that would be greatly appreciated)</p>

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<p>It’s automatic :slight_smile: and thanks.</p>

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<p>Although the schools I named are undoubtedly good schools, there is always room to grow. Somebody has to knock off hyps sometime, right?</p>

<p>for example: rice could easily be considered regional school</p>

<p>also, on this board i have seen numerous people assert williams/amherst as better schools although pomona has higher sat scores and the most fulbright (in addition to having a top engineering and govt/polisci school to take advantage of)</p>

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<p>lol highroller is so off</p>

<p>Emory is actually on the rise because it is starting to get significant notice from the International community … and yes 95 +% of the emory freshman return so I would not say that there are “many” negative experiences.</p>

<p>I have heard UGA in on a rise</p>

<p>Fall:</p>

<p>Top LACs because they seem to be bit more unattractive with the economic crisis.</p>

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<p>Has the University of Chicago been mentioned yet as being on the rise in terms of lay prestige? I believe it deserves mention.</p>

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<p>^I second that. As well, the University of Pittsburgh is a ‘school on the rise,’ while I would have to say that many top LACs and Brown are on the decline.</p>

<p>Also, that is not true of Wash U at all…<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/865140-washus-not-hahvud-but-its-hotter-than-some-ivy-leagues.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/865140-washus-not-hahvud-but-its-hotter-than-some-ivy-leagues.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I was just mentioning on another thread that I really thing the LAC’s from the midwest will be on the rise. Esp. Grinnell, Carelton, St. Olaf, & Macalester. </p>

<p>Great schools!</p>

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<p>Yeah, I think that definitely shows after the 42% (!) rise in apps this year to UChicago!
highroller - I’d probably venture to say that no schools are going to knock out HYP anytime soon. haha.</p>

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<p>UChicago is and always has been one of the best schools in the US.</p>

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<p>Not disputing that - just the prestige factor being upped and all.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Please note my wording of “lay prestige,” which is not always directly correlated with actual quality.</p>

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<p>NYU used to be a safety school. Now 90% of CCers want to go there.</p>

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<p>“Not disputing that - just the prestige factor being upped and all.”</p>

<p>I see. :)</p>

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<p>If you check out the “Schools on the Rise” ranking by USNWR, Rice and Emory are the only top 20 universities that both made the list.</p>

<p>@warblersrule: As a Rice student, I disagree with you. I would strongly consider that Rice is on the rise. Admission numbers are stagnant for the past 10 years? That’s not true. Rice had 12,000 applications this year; 3 years ago, only 9000. The reason why our admit rate is not dropping so much is because Rice is accepting more students as they expand the undergrad population to 3800 students. In the past, Rice’s admission marketing was quite poor, but they are improving that now. It is attracting a significantly larger number of out of state students than before (this year I think is the first year we had a majority of out-of-state students including 12% international). I strongly believe Rice’s reputation is going to rise within the next 5-10 years. In addition Rice is getting more notice nationally due to its residential college system, high race/class interaction, contributions to nanotechnology, its bioengineering and electrical engineering program, and high student satisfaction.</p>

<pre><code> Rice’s financial aid, especially merit aid, is very generous compared to its peer schools. It still has a great advantage over other schools. All schools are raising tuition, not just Rice. While some schools are cutting back on merit aid though, Rice has increased it. It now offers 30% of incoming freshman merit aid; no other top 20 university gives out that much merit aid. I partly chose Rice because it was only $3000 more/year than my state school, whereas the other peer institutions I was looking at (including Duke and WashU) were the full $50,000 fare/year (and I applied for financial aid at all the schools). There are plenty of other students I know who turned down UChicago, Dartmouth, Northwestern, WashU, Emory, Duke, and Penn because of the generous merit aid/financial aid at Rice. If Rice wasn’t a good value, then many of us would have probably been attracted to the prestige of other schools and gone there… so Rice still has a leg up on financial value in comparison to peer institutions.
</code></pre>

<p>In addition to Rice, I also second Pomona. I think Duke, Emory, Caltech, Vanderbilt, UChicago, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Claremont McKenna, and WashU should be considered on the list of “schools on the rise.” I have tremendous respect for all these schools and I believe their reputations will be equal to the Ivies within the next 10-20 years (UChicago and Duke are already close).</p>

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<p>I also agree that USC is “a school on the rise.”</p>

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<p>From the buzz my daughter shares with me:</p>

<p>Tufts
Elon
Emory
Vanderbilt
Tulane
Pomona
Barnard
Brandeis</p>

<p>Swarthmore, Haverford, Hamilton have always been seen as extremely tough (ie they only accept from top 10% and sometimes top 20%) of the graduating class</p>

<p>Rice is not even on the radar where we are</p>

<p>Caltech, Stanford, Johns Hopkins all seem to overlap with the ivy kids</p>