<p>Hello all:
I have been wondering for a while if I should apply to Ivy League Universities like Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth or whether I should focus on top LACs (liberal arts colleges) such as Amherst, Pomona, Williams, Swarthmore, CMC, Vassar, or Bowdoin. I have been told that I have little chance of getting into Ivies because I have not done anything extraordinary on a national level but that I have a chance at getting into a smaller yet still prestigious college. Yet others have told me that I have as good a chance as most top students.
I want to eventually get a PhD in Political Science and/or a law degree and eventually go into politics. I have heard that LACs may provide a better undergraduate experience and more chances to interact and do research with professors, but I also know that Ivies have tremendous resources, amazing professors, and name-brand value that could be useful when applying to graduate school or running for political office. What do you think? Where would I get the best undergraduate experience and education? Which would benefit me more in the long run? I would like any opinions, but I am particularly interested in the stories of others who chose a liberal arts college over an Ivy or vice-versa.
I intend to double-major in Political Science/Government and History. My academic information is as follows:
I go to a large public school and rank somewhere in the top 4%.
Cumulative GPA: 3.95
I have taken 2 AP classes (European History & AP English Language & Composition) as the school I attended in 9th & 10th grade did not offer honors or AP classes, but I will take 5 more this year (AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Environmental Science, AP English Literature & Composition).
I have also taken 3 college courses (British History (taken at UW-Madison), Calculus and Analytic Geometry (taken at a local community college), National Intelligence and Security (taken at American University)) and I will take two more this year at UW-Madison under my school district's dual-enrollment program (Intro to African History & Wars and Religion).
US History SAT II: 800; Literature SAT II: 740
AP US History (4) (Self-studied, taken in 9th grade), AP European History (5), AP English Language & Composition (5)
ACT 32 (English, 35; Math, 30; Reading 36; Science 27) (I plan on retaking it in October)
I will take the SAT in October.
I have good, but not outstanding extracurriculars except for my independent research of history and volunteering with a political campaign and I have about 500 volunteer hours.
Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>The Ivy League Universities are not the same, and the top liberal arts colleges are not the same.</p>
<p>If I were a high school senior today, I would choose certain little-known colleges like Grinnell, Kenyon, and Centre over any Ivy and most if not all top LACs. </p>
<p>Pay more attention to the experiences of those who have attended the schools in question than to the vapid generalities and one-upmanship of university and LAC partisans.</p>
<p>First, you need to lose the fixation on “top” colleges, or you might end up without any options. You are a good student but there are literally thousands of kids applying to the same prestigious schools with stronger resumes. Spend your time now focusing on match schools and a safety or two. If you want to go into a PhD program, you will need good grades in college and good GRE scores. The name brand of your school will mean very little. Many, many LACs do an excellent job of preparing kids for graduate school–in the midwest (assuming that’s where you are) there’s Beloit, St. Olaf, Lawrence, Kalamazoo, Earlham and many others. And many state flagships and other private universities offer the same “tremendous resources” you are ascribing to the Ivies alone.</p>
<p>Two other things to keep in mind: if you are going on to grad school, it’s the terminal degree that counts. So if prestige is so important to you, aim for the best possible PhD program you can get into. And remember too that even at “regular” (yet still very good) colleges and universities, faculty come from all kinds of backgrounds. So as an undergrad you could end up with a faculty mentor or advisor who got his or her own PhD from one of the elite programs you have your eye on–and that person could end up recommending you. </p>
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<p>These are not contradictory statements. Most top students by HS GPA, rank, and SAT/ACT scores do not have the high level achievements or awards that make them more likely admits to the super-selective schools, so they have a low chance of admission at such schools.</p>
<p>I would choose a LAC, and encouraged my daughter to do so. I began my college career at a LAC (Colgate) but ended up graduating from what is essentially a small LAC within a large Uni (CCS at UCSantaBarbara) so I had experience with both. </p>
<p>I vastly prefer the way that LACs (those that are really dedicated to the true liberal arts experience) encourage intellectual and personal growth IN ADDITION to career preparedness. Also, here is an anecdote from my daughter’s first week at her LAC. I doubt this would have happened at a large university: She had been reading about the professors and was really excited about one particular Bio professor who seemed to have a very similar passion for bio -from a naturalist/evolutionary/field observation viewpoint- as herself. She hoped to one day be able to take a class with him. She was thrilled when she got into his Bio 101 class. Then she found out he was also her freshman academic advisor. The first day of class, they hung out for a while after class discussing the evolution of Trilliums and her passion and theories about specific insects. They have already been talking about internships for the summer in her field. He gave her the keys to the locked biology lab rooms where the upperclassmen do their entomology research. She spends a lot of her free time in there, looking at slides of insects prepared by students in the 1800’s. Looking back on my own college experience, this just seems so wonderful and lucky. She has immediately connected with a professor who shares her passion, is more than willing to spend time with her, and is already helping her pursue her career path. WOW.</p>
<p>@sally305‌:
“First, you need to lose the fixation on “top” colleges, or you might end up without any options. You are a good student but there are literally thousands of kids applying to the same prestigious schools with stronger resumes. Spend your time now focusing on match schools and a safety or two.”
Of course! I totally agree with you that there are many great colleges that aren’t “prestigious,” and I have already chosen a few matches and two safeties that I would be thrilled to go to. I was asking, however, about reach schools I really love, and how to maximize my chances of getting into one of those.
I do have first hand experience with state universities, as I have been taking history classes at UW-Madison, having exhausted my school’s offerings in that subject. While UW-Madison is a great school and I would be honored to go there, I do yearn for something \ different. The classes I have taken are lecture courses of about 300 students, with a discussion group of about 30 students led by a TA. Office hours are limited, and professors are absorbed in their research. Also, most of the students at my high school go on to the UW, so it would feel a little bit like “13th grade”.
Thanks for responding, you definitely gave me something to think about. </p>
<p>@staceyneil‌:Thanks for sharing your daughter’s experience! That sounds wonderful and exactly like what I am looking for!</p>
<p>You’re welcome. It’s pretty terrific, I agree. I wish I’d had a similar experience my first week of college! Are you male or female? If female, I highly encourage you to keep an open mind about women’s colleges, like Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke (which is where my D is.)</p>
<p>There is truth in all of the above responses: your college experience will be what you make of it, and your terminal degree will be what counts (n.b., you see v v politicians with PhDs: it’s a very different mindset).</p>
<p>You have a better chance of getting into (top-name) grad school by finishing at the upper end of your class in a lower-profile school than you do finishing in the lower end of the pack at (Ivy). </p>
<p>You will also find that your stats put you in the middle of the pack of applicants for the LACs you list. </p>
<p>Sally305s point about the calibre of the faculty is worth repeating: look at the bios of the profs in your subject area at various colleges- you will find some pretty high-falutin’ credentials there. Exodius’s point about going for the student experience that will suit you is also incredibly important. </p>
<p>Finally- and this really is the ne plus ultra of relevant points- you have not mentioned finances. If your family can pay 100% of your college & graduate school w/out any issue- go for whatever you want. BUT…if you will need any external support for ug or grad school re-consider your choices all over again. The two best things that you can do for your career are 1) to make the most of whatever the opportunities are at the college you attend and 2) graduate with the minimal possible debt. There are a lot of colleges that will help make that possible, and where you will be a star. Honors colleges within state universities and smaller (esp mid-west) colleges will throw money at you. </p>
<p>Do NOT take on massive debt just for the name value of an undergraduate degree. You can get into the top grad schools from pretty much any college- I know a man who went to a seriously no-name C level college- b/c it was what he could afford while saving money for grad school. He went on to Penn for med school and is now on any list you see of top 10 pediatric orthopedic surgeons nationally. </p>
<p>“reach schools I really love, and how to maximize my chances of getting into one of those.”</p>
<p>Aside from the name, what do you love? The ivies are all VERY different from one another. That’s like saying that you wanna go to a PAC- 12 school. It doesn’t matter how different USC and Oregon are. You just want to go for the sake of saying you went to a PAC-12 school. Makes no sense. Do some research and avoid the USWNR rankings. Because if you use only that, you will find yourself in a very unhappy situation where you only have your safety or low match schools as an option for you.</p>
<p>@sally305:
Faculty everywhere come from almost everywhere. Lots of grads of elites, other privates, LACs, and state flagships. Not many grads from the directionals.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats‌: I am not applying to every Ivy and top 25 LAC. While the colleges on my list are different, I have reasons for wanting to go to them that have nothing to do with rankings. For instance, I like Columbia for its intimate core classes that are taught by renowned professors, Yale for its wonderful History Department, residential colleges, and “Grand Strategy” course, Dartmouth for its undergraduate teaching, small-college feel and Government Department, and Harvard for its Institute of Politics and house system.
Also, there is financial impetus behind my wish to go to a “top” college. My family is solidly lower-middle class, and I used net price calculators to estimate the cost of all the colleges I have researched. The colleges with the lowest net prices happen to be Ivies and top-ranked LACs. For example, Earlham College, a “College that Changes Lives” that I liked had a net price of around $30,000 a year, whereas Vassar, for instance, has an estimated net price of about $10,000 per year, a relatively affordable price for my family.</p>
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<p>@PurpleTitan: That’s not what I was saying. Faculty can only get their PhDs from institutions that grant them (so, public or private research institutions). Even at little LACs people here have never heard of, you’ll find professors who received their terminal degrees from places they have. And where they got their PhDs matters a whole lot more than where they went for undergrad–just as it likely would for the OP here.</p>
<p>@staceyneil‌: I am a male, so Wellesley or Mount Holyoke wouldn’t work, unfortunately.</p>
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<p>I might have recommended Yale to a high school graduate two years ago. Yale will increase undergraduate enrollment in 2016, and I have little faith that the College will maintain its educational quality. (That said, students and alumni seem to love Yale: only a few liberal arts colleges, like the ones I mentioned in my last post, have similarly dazzling reports. The University’s bureaucrats might succeed once more.) </p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend Columbia over your alternatives for a few reasons, but I appreciate the Core.</p>
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<p>Look also at schools with much merit aid, like Hendrix, Kalamazoo, and the College of Wooster.</p>
<p>@Exodius‌: Thanks for responding! I will definitely check out Hendrix, Kalamazoo, and Wooster. May I ask why you wouldn’t recommend Columbia?</p>
<p>My stock answer is this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ivy League prestige is much greater than the prestige of the top LACs.</li>
<li>The quality of teaching is probably about equal.</li>
<li>Due to smaller class sizes, LAC students probably find it easier to spend time with professors.</li>
<li>Research availability is up in the air: at a LAC there are fewer opportunities but also fewer competing for those spots. </li>
</ul>
<p>My main variable is the quality of education. For undergrads, there probably isn’t much difference between Williams/Amherst/Swat and HYP. </p>
<p>Exodius:</p>
<p>“Yale will increase undergraduate enrollment in 2016, and I have little faith that the College will maintain its educational quality.”</p>
<p>Wut?</p>
<p>I suppose that the educational quality at both Harvard and Stanford must be shot as they both have about 7K undergrads.</p>
<p>You realize that the number of extremely qualified kids applying to a place like Yale is significantly higher now compared to even 10 years ago, don’t you? Or perhaps you’re not aware or sophisticated enough to know that.</p>
<p>To the OP, are you just using “Ivy League” as a lazy (and erroneous) short-hand for “elite private research university”? For instance UChicago has traditionally probably been the most intellectually-focused RU and has one of the highest rates of sending kids on to social science PhDs (and the highest rate among RUs) but is not an Ivy:
<a href=“The Colleges Where PhD's Get Their Start”>http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/</a></p>
<p>BTW, I have a hard time believing that a school as massive as UW-Wisconsin will feel like 13th grade.</p>
<p>Finally, if you want to enter politics, why are you considering a PhD?</p>
<p>“To the OP, are you just using “Ivy League” as a lazy (and erroneous) short-hand for “elite private research university”?” No, I am not. I was wondering about the merits of members of the Ivy League as compared with prestigious liberal arts colleges. And I already know about UChicago, have visited three times, and plan to apply.
As for UW-Madison, yes, it is huge and has a lot to offer. But the overall “vibe” is very much what I am accustomed to from high school, and I really want something different. </p>