“it’s wishful thinking that more students would apply to LACs instead of research universities … if only they knew more about the LACs”
This has to reconciled with the fact that, even currently, you can count through fifteen LACs, by SAT score, before getting to the first public CC Top University. Perhaps the number of applicants is less, but the proportional outcome is impressive.
My opinion about this is based mostly anecdotally–my kids went to a magnet high school with a lot of kids applying to very selective schools. Most of those focused either on LACs or research universities–not many applied to both. My son applied only to larger schools. My daughter applied to both kinds of school, but had a strong preference for a research university, especially after visiting. I’m sure there is overlap between the groups of students who apply to these kinds of schools.
I also think demand for LACs may be affected by the growing STEM-obsession among highly able students.
Now here I’d agree with you. I guess my test for whether or not a school should be considered “niche” is whether when a student here says “I’d like to find another school like X” the list people can provide is 30 schools long or 3.
On the "Who does you college think its peers are graphic Middlebury had 39 colleges call it a peer of their school, Gallaudet had 2.
Middlebury: Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, Hamilton, Grinnell, Connecticut College, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Colgate, Haverford, Swarthmore, Carleton, Pomona, Vassar, Washington and Lee, Colorado College, Davidson, Kenyon, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, St. Lawrence, Union…
Gallaudet- Niagara, Tiffin
http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/
If someone told you they attended Gallaudet you’d immediately assume they were deaf or interested in deaf studies. Pratt? Obviously interested in art & design. Mention Colby and someone would have to ask what you wanted to study or why you’d chosen that school.
“I also think demand … may be affected by the growing STEM-obsession”
I honestly appreciate your personal perspective, but I wonder if some of these decisions are being driven by stereotypes. For example, by percentage of math majors:
Williams: 13%
Caltech: 13%
Hamilton: 10%
U of Chicago: 8%
MIT: 6%
Kids at MIT don’t need to major in math in order to fulfill what is at many other colleges, an effective math major.
My kid had a lot of friends majoring in the social sciences, urban planning, etc. at MIT, many of whom joked that “but for” the senior thesis, they had already completed a math major. Linguistics, Political Science… many of MIT’s non-engineering majors are essentially an applied math curriculum (with some programming thrown in for manipulating large data-sets) with a bunch of content-related classes which still require heavy duty statistical analysis.
Stats are nice but you need to interpret them.
@blossom #592: Does this mean that Indiana University Bloomington, with no engineering or agriculture programs, has opted to become a niche school? It sounds like you’re saying so.
Also, since when are there non-overlapping markets for R1s and LACs? My children are almost certain to very happily apply to both types, knowing that they’d get different experiences at each type, but ultimately equally worthwhile ones.
@merc81, I’m not sure what’s hard to reconcile. You’re talking about average SAT scores. Due to mission and size, large state schools will be taking in all sorts of different students, so of course their average SAT scores would be lower. But if you are talking about what’s appealing to any group of students (say, those kids who score 32 or better on the ACT/1450 or better on the SAT M+CR), it’s hard to argue that, say, Williams is more appealing than, say, UMich to those kids when UMich enrolls about 5 times more of those high-stats kids than Williams does.
Yes, the proportional achievment at some LACs may be impressive. That doesn’t mean they’re not niche.
Not sure if I follow the discussions about niches. What if you were to replace the word niche with specialty? What is Wharton niche or specialty if not for excellence in the liberal arts? Why is there a pejorative overtone if the niche turns out to yield marketable skills that are valued by employers and academic achievement valued by graduate schools?
As an example, the 5C in Claremont is a perfect example of how “niches” can be fully developed. How bad has Harvey Mudd fared if one considers its peer is Caltech (another niche institution) and how has the political angle and hippie culture worked for Pitzer? If you have doubts, just check the number of applications that the 5C is generating!
LACs come in various shapes and forms, and not all of them are able to be living in the century.
“This has to reconciled with the fact that, even currently, you can count through fifteen LACs, by SAT score, before getting to the first public CC Top University. Perhaps the number of applicants is less, but the proportional outcome is impressive.”
No one is saying that LACs are inferior to universities (says the mother of twins with one at each). No one.
They are niche in appeal. That’s all. Juilliard is a niche school too.
Well, even if we put aside the question of what is a “niche,” I think it’s still worth thinking about whether the demand for different kinds of college is growing or shrinking. Surely nobody would dispute that the demand for single-sex colleges has declined significantly. For co-ed LACs, I’m not so sure, but I expect there is a contraction in demand, particularly for those that are less prestigious than, but still as expensive as, the most selective ones.
OMG. This niche discussion is brain dead. Every single college in existence is unique and therefore occupies a niche of one. Every school has its own combination of traits – size, location, programs of study, available ECs, cost, weather, etc. etc. etc. Michigan, for example, is the only school in the country located in Ann Arbor with maize and blue school colors. But it does compete somewhat in the midwest blue and yellow niche with Marquette and Notre Dame.
Demand for different kinds of education is certainly changing. Demand for humanities is declining; demand for business and STEM is rising.
Any niche can be successful so long as there is more demand for that combination of characteristics than there is supply. The studies, though, tell us that the primary drivers of school choice are cost and academic reputation. If you had to pick the niche characteristics that your school would be selling, the single best one is academic reputation.
We seem to be running the gamut in terms of definitions. For some, the word “niche” is nothing more than a synonym for the words, “category” and “preference”. But, it also carries the connotation of being hidden, aloof and lacking in relevance. I guess, it all depends on the context in which it is being used.
“We seem to be running the gamut of in terms of definitions”
I think that’s the problem, and to define this particular word only in relative terms is a mistake. Not only do words have particular definitions, they must. Niche always requires the aspect of being narrow in a notably absolute sense. To use the term niche college to mean, "the very broad and numerous group of schools that are not remarkably comprehensive, " as some have done, is, simply, an incorrect usage of the term.
Instead of “niche,” I would opt for “identity.” What do prospective students think of a college? Every university or college has an identity. For large universities, that identity is often determined by sports.
For Sweet Briar, that identity would have been, all-women, rural setting, equestrian, southern, very feminine (pink & green, etc.) This identity did not appeal to enough modern high school seniors to support the school’s finances.
I do not think the alumnae will be able to save the college. The college’s development people were bringing in grants, which says to me that they did know the most likely sources of immense grants to keep it going. The only thing which could keep it open would be a billionaire willing to increase the size of the endowment to equal the endowments of other, fiscally sound, all-women’s colleges.
The “Starbucks issue” is a factor in the college’s decline. Young adults in the US are not moving to rural areas in search of opportunity. They are moving away from rural areas. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303325204579463761632103386
@merc81, how are LACs not narrow?
Pretty much no LAC I know of tries to be all things to all people (which a decent number of universities try to be).
For instance, UMich:
They try to be among the best in all sorts of disciplines, from engineering to the humanities to business to the arts, etc.
They offer big time athletics.
They offer a giant university but try to offer a small college atmosphere with residential colleges.
They appeal to kids who did well in HS. They give chances to kids who didn’t do so how in HS but got serious in college/CC by taking a good number of transfers.
They’re not niche because they try to offer everything to everyone.
No LAC I know is like that (or tries to be).
The idea that any college without big time sports is somehow lacking in breadth is ridiculous.
“I think it’s wishful thinking that more students would apply to the LACs instead of research universities of comparable quality if only they knew more about the LACs. I think there is just a smaller–and different–market for smaller institutions, and in particular those that are in remote locations.”
Agreed. Look at yield. Of the elite LACs, Williams has the highest yield, and it’s below 50% despite filling half the class through ED. HYSM and even Georgetown and Chicago have higher yields without binding any of their early admits. I think we can agree that people who apply to Williams know about Williams.
I don’t know internal data for anyone but Harvard. The students who turn Harvard down overwhelmingly choose other research universities. My guess is that the +50% of admits turning Williams down are split between LACs and universities, and the lower yields are not just a matter of LACs cannibalizing one another’s admits. In other words, I believe that LACs, as a group, are not holding on to their own admits as well as universities are. If anyone has this data for an elite LAC, let me know.
To reiterate: popularity is not quality. All of the above is consistent with the possibility that LACs do a better job than universities in some objective sense. But they are not as popular, even among students who know about them and are interested enough to apply.
It just depends on how many search fields you put into your query.
Here’s how Michigan is totally a niche school: big time sports PLUS extra large size PLUS very high (top 5 public ivy) academics PLUS extremely large out-of-state enrollment PLUS a very high out-of-state tuition price tag PLUS midwest location. It is the only school in existence that means that definition. As you reduce the number of search terms, more schools will satisfy the query. It is incorrect to say that UM is trying to be everything to everyone – they are actually quite differentiated. Any UM grad would howl, for example, if you suggested that UM was the same as, say, MSU.
You could also argue that all of these LACs are fungible – Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Bates.
If you want to stay in business, the best brand/niche/characterisic/identity for a college to have is high academics. Customers overall are willing to pay for that more than just about anything else.
“Stats are nice but you need to interpret them.”
@blossom:
a. I know that.
b. What you offered was more anecdote then analysis.
I’m sure many LAC math majors feel they graduate with the equivalent of an English degree. Or many LAC physics majors feel they graduate with the equivalent of a math degree.
Extrapolating much, @circuitrider? A college without big time sports may have pretty broad appeal, but they’re likely not going to have as broad an appeal as a school that offers everything they offer as well as big time sports.