Of course the fact that even after appealing Smith’s financial aid package, Skidmore’s financial aid was still significantly more played no role in the decision to attend Skidmore versus Smith 
Enough said. 
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please stick to the original question about the two schools.
@MiddleburyDad2 This past year, Skidmore’s acceptance rate was 28%. I heard this first hand from Mary Lou Bates.
“Someone mentioned that Skidmore’ tuition is really high. Yes, it kind-of is. I have sticker shock and I have just finished paying 4 years at Vanderbilt.”
Skidmore’s tuition is in-line with any top 50 LAC. As compared to Vandy, a much bigger school, $44.7 (Vandy) vs. $47.4 (Skid) has given you sticker shock?
Some free advice: don’t come to Seattle house shopping. 
Ahem (or whatever noise one makes when clearing one’s throat).
If a woman majors in Econ at Wellesley and takes a tough econometric sequence at MIT (using the nice cross registration program) I’m going to bet that her program is more rigorous than someone majoring in Sociology at Skidmore.
Unless you are comparing apples to apples in terms of academic program, so much of this discussion (while fascinating) has no bearing on reality. There are hard majors at Smith. There are hard majors at Skidmore. And there are also majors at both schools (and many hundreds of other colleges) which are not rigorous in the way that most of you are describing. They may be a lot of work- I know someone who just completed a Master’s in education from a non-name directional, and she described it as mind-boggling how much work was involved (weekly papers, exams, quizzes, projects with frequent reports, multimedia presentations) but ridiculously low in rigor-- reading a textbook on “Techniques in Physical Education” and developing a two day workshop on how to communicate the importance of exercise to parents.
Yawn. Time consuming and lots of work- yes. “hard” or rigorous or involving analytical skills or processing skills beyond that of a typical 8th grader- No.
However- I’ll put one point on the board for the argument that a stronger student body (as measured by entering stats) is OFTEN although not always correlated with more rigor. It takes a truly outstanding professor to conduct a rigorous discussion on Tolstoy in a classroom of kids who don’t know what serfs are or who the Czar was. It takes a truly outstanding professor to conduct a rigorous discussion on modernization in Brazil vs. India vs. China in a room full of kids who have never heard of Mao. It is hard to conduct a rigorous chem lab with kids with weak math skills, and even harder to teach macro economics to kids who can’t read a graph.
A kid can have a high GPA and test scores (of course) while still being somewhat ignorant about history, etc. But the higher the scores the more likely that the kid reads, followed a college prep curriculum, etc.
"If a woman majors in Econ at Wellesley and takes a tough econometric sequence at MIT (using the nice cross registration program) I’m going to bet that her program is more rigorous than someone majoring in Sociology at Skidmore.
Unless you are comparing apples to apples in terms of academic program, so much of this discussion (while fascinating) has no bearing on reality."
Yes. This was my very point. Thank you.
“However- I’ll put one point on the board for the argument that a stronger student body (as measured by entering stats) is OFTEN although not always correlated with more rigor.”
Yes. This was my other very point. Thank you.
There’s a great difference in student campus cultures between them.
Massmom’s post about her child feeling Skidmore’s “too preppy” concurs with my HS classmate’s experience as a scholarship student at Skidmore in the mid-late '90s.
A student who would fit at Smith would fit more closely at a school like Oberlin than she would at Skidmore or schools with similar reputed student cultures like GW(referencing handbag thread and associated conspicuous consumption) or NYU based on accounts from him and Skidmore alums from his era.
If kids are making 240K academic and intellectual decisions on the basis of someone’s handbag, god help their parents.
I don’t think the differences in culture at Skidmore vs. Smith can be boiled down to who is wearing what. And if it is- again, god help.
All those chemicals that create empathy only work when you are in a room together. Gloria Steinem
Please stick to the OP’s topic. It was a interesting question and, while I have daughter attending Smith this Fall, I have another who might like Skidmore later. This thread does not need to be hijacked.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: My warning in post #81 seems to have been blown off, so I am closing the thread.