This, and yeah, it’s weird, but it’s also what Reed wants: a certain rakish charm, an anti-establishment cachet, and an ability to say “we’re the best and the rankings can’t dispute that because we’re not playing by their rules.” And in the immortal words of Lisa Simpson, who doesn’t love “a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules”?
Really? When’s the last time Williams wasn’t #1 in USNR? For 25 years or so it’s almost always been 1. W 2. A 3. S, and I can’t remember a year in which W wasn’t #1.
on edit: if anyone knows where to find historical data for USNR LAC rankings, I’d love to see it!
I see the new thread–thanks for sharing that link!
The rankings have been extremely consistent. A few relevant deets:
- Williams has been #1 every year since 2004 (tied with Amherst in 2009)
- Amherst has been #2 every year since 2004 (except tied for #1 with Williams in 2009)
- Swarthmore has been #3 every year since 2004 (except tied for #2 with Amherst in 2005)
- Wellesley has been #4 every year since 1993 (!) except 1998 (tied with Williams for #3) and 2012-14 (#8, 6, 7)
(Here’s the data, btw)
According to the link, in fact, no LAC has ever been #1 in USNR except Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore, and only Wellesley, Pomona, Middlebury, and Carleton have ever been #4.
I just want to say…I don’t think US News is a very good source to determine what the “best” LAC is. There are huge problems with it. The most weighted factor is a peer assessment, which continues to enable Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore to be at the top 3, whereas similar schools like Pomona and Bowdoin never get quite as high.
There are other things too- the faculty resources heavily penalizes west coast schools because it accounts for quality of life/cost of living by state metrics, there is a quality adjusted score which boosts the rankings for schools that have a higher graduation rate than is predicted, and the academic weight comes from how small the classes are.
Let’s take Pomona for instance (I go here, so I’ve looked up on this), which should be peers with Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore by any metric. It’s the most selective LAC, the most endowed per capita after Soka University, has the highest mean SAT scores after Mudd, has one of the highest retention and graduation rates, ranks in top 3 for average faculty salaries among LACs, is among the most diverse- ethnically and socioeconomically. Why has it never cracked the top 3?
1- Because its peer assessment is always below those three- 4.3 vs 4.6-4.8 for the others. The cycle self-perpetuates.
2- It’s on the West Coast, so despite having high faculty salaries, it’s penalized
3- It has the highest retention rate/graduation rate, so there’s very little way for it to gain “overperformance” points
4- The size of classes metric is not a perfect marker. Take for instance CMC, which does really well in this metric with over 81% of courses under 20 students. Pomona is pretty far behind with only 68% of courses under 20 students. But the average class size is 15 at Pomona and 16 at CMC (just search it).
5- It doesn’t do as well on things like alumni donation. Again, the cycle self-perpetuates, favoring schools with historic strength compared to risers like Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges.
Also, I realize how statistically driven that sounds, and I know that statistics aren’t necessarily what make a school. And maybe there is something to be said about the historical reputation asset. The alums from WAS seem more distinguished than P, which may be important for those seeking alum connections.
Different rankings exist and I think it’s important to contextualize against them instead of focusing on one. US News is more about student strength and financial resources, Forbes is more about post-grad success and outcomes. Here are the top 10 from both, excluding Military academies:
US News-
- Williams
- Amherst
- Swarthmore
- Wellesley
- Bowdoin
- Pomona
- Middlebury
- Carleton
- Claremont McKenna
- Haverford
Forbes- (Claremont McKenna was not ranked)
- Williams
- Swarthmore
- Pomona
- Amherst
- Haverford
- Bowdoin
- Wesleyan [15 on US]
- Carleton
- Davidson [11 on US]
- Vassar [11 on US]
There’s also this fun one based on student surveys about their colleges on Niche.
- Bowdoin
- Pomona
- Williams
- Carleton
- Wesleyan
- Amherst
- Middlebury
- Washington and Lee
- Claremont McKenna
- Wesleyan
And how about PhD production? Excluding Harvey Mudd
- Reed
- Swarthmore
- Carleton
- Grinnell
- Bryn Mawr
- Oberlin
- Haverford
- Pomona
- Williams
- Amherst
@EndOfTheWorld you make some good points but what you fail to point out are the ties. The group of top 20 or 25 is much tighter than most people observe, or want to observe.
Also, while Tufts is not ranked in LAC’s it would certainly be in the Top 20 and then nine NESCAC schools would be in the Top 20, which is why conferences are so important. As it stands now, eight are in the top 20. The only other conference with the same penetration is the Ivy League.
When the next round of rankings come out you will see even more NESCAC dominance.
This should be an important point to students because when a graduate of one NESCAC school comes into contact with another, like a job interviewer, there is immediate chemistry.
Yeah, I think it’s sort of silly to try to objectify these complex schools and rank them. The case with Pomona was to really highlight more that US News is a flawed measure of ranking. More importantly is how many excellent institutions there are all over the country. I had a great conversation with someone whom was deciding between Pomona and Grinnell and ultimately chose Grinnell with very well articulated reasons- a better creative writing program, a more down to earth and nurturing student body, and being closer to family. It’s about the school which fits you the best- minute distinctions such as 50 points in SAT or 5% more classes with 20 students or more don’t really affect the undergraduate experiences that drastically.
Also, has anyone seen how rapidly selective universities are becoming in comparison to liberal art colleges? Vanderbilt had a testing profile for admitted students higher than any school in the nation; Northwestern is becoming more and more selective by the year; Tufts is rising in selectivity. Whereas the average SATs/ACTs have remained fairly consistent for the LACs, along with acceptance rates, save for Pitzer College.
Not surprising, considering that smaller LACs have to create a holistic class using much smaller numbers. The number of athletes on a football team or musicians in an orchestra remains the same, regardless of the size of the student body. Small colleges need to look beyond numbers to create a class that covers all the bases. Once Northwestern fills those spots, they may pay more attention to SAT scores and other objective factors that influence admissions.
@marvin100 Bowdoin has also been ranked #4
http://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/2013/09/10/us-news-announces-the-2014-best-colleges
Almost five years ago The Huffington Post compiled a list of the ten “most intellectual colleges.” Eight were LACs ( in alphabetical order Carleton, Grinnell, Haverford, Macalester, Pomona, Reed, Swarthmore, Wesleyan), while only two were full-scale universities (Brown and Chicago). I suspect that they considered Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Wellesley as predominantly pre-professional.
2019Parent, you make a very good point about the NESCAC schools. We really do stick together. As a graduate of a NESCAC for undergrad and an Ivy for Grad school, I can tell you that the NESCACs bond more closely with each other than the Ivies.
The list below identifies what appear to be the 10 most selective LACs, based on 2013-14 CDS numbers.
I’ve also shown the national research universities that appear to be at least as selective as those 10 LACs (so we can compare the LACs against Ivies and other top research universities). LACs are in bold. State universities are in italics.
In calculating selectivity, I’ve used the weights USNWR currently assigns to SAT scores (65%), percent of students in their HS top 10% (25%), and admission rate (10%). The SAT score is the sum of the mid-points between the 25th and 75th percentile SAT M and SAT CR scores. I rank the schools separately for each of the 3 factors, then rank by the weighted average of the 3 separate ranks. Example: Caltech is #1 for SAT, #4 for T10%, and #13 for admit rate; so its weighted average rank is .65 + 1 + 1.3 = 2.95, which is rounded to 3.
UChicago & Columbia are excluded (because they do not publish Common Data Sets).
Many caveats apply. For example: It’s fairly laborious to compile these numbers … so it’s possible I’ve made transcription or other errors. And of course, if you depart from the US News weights, or use numbers from a different reference year, you’ll get different results. Oh, and I’ve only calculated selectivity for the USNWR T50 national universities and T50 LACs, plus a few others. So, it’s possible a few colleges that aren’t on those lists would fall among the schools below (examples: Olin, Cooper Union).
WAR* … COLLEGE …… (SAT,T10%,ADMISSION RATE)
*WAR= Weighted Average Rank (for SAT, T10%, and admit rates)
3 Cal Tech ( 1545 , 99% , 10.60% )
5 Harvard ( 1505 , 95% , 5.80% )
5 Yale ( 1505 , 95% , 6.90% )
6 MIT ( 1500 , 99% , 8.20% )
7 Princeton ( 1505 , 95% , 7.40% )
10 Stanford ( 1475 , 96% , 5.70% )
11 Washington U ( 1485 , 95% , 15.60% )
13 ** Harvey Mudd /b
14 Vanderbilt ( 1490 , 88% , 12.70% )
16 ** Pomona /b
17 Northwestern ( 1470 , 91% , 14% )
17 Dartmouth ( 1460 , 90% , 10.40% )
18 Penn ( 1450 , 94% , 12.20% )
20 Duke ( 1455 , 90% , 12.40% )
20 Brown ( 1435 , 94% , 9.20% )
21 Rice ( 1460 , 87% , 16.70% )
22 Tufts ( 1445 , 91% , 18.90% )
23 ** Swarthmore /b
24 ** Amherst /b
25 ** Williams /b
26 ** Bowdoin /b
28 Georgetown ( 1410 , 92% , 17.10% )
28 Notre Dame ( 1430 , 90% , 22.30% )
29 ** Haverford /b
29 JHU ( 1430 , 84% , 17.10% )
30 Carnegie Mellon ( 1435 , 80% , 25.50% )
30 Cornell ( 1420 , 87% , 15.60% )
33 ** Carleton /b
33 * UC Berkeley /i
35 ** Wellesley /b
35 ** Claremont McK /b
Tk217… you’ve got to get over your obsession with selectivity.
@EndOfTheWorld I completely agree with you. There’s a huge geographic bias towards Swat, Amherst, and Williams. Those schools are undoubtedly superb, but the fact that they have ranked that high on such a consistent level for literally decades is suspect. There are other schools that might not be as well known - say Pomona which I believe is the former three’s equal - are discriminated against in rankings largely due to peer rankings. Of course people who do peer rankings will know more about WAS and less about Pomona due to reputation.
And yes, alumni donation rank (http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2014/12/30/10-schools-where-the-most-alumni-donate) for LACs would be:
- Williams
- Davison
- Carleton
- Bowdoin
- Bates
- Middlebury
- Amherst
This changes year by year (check out these links too: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/insideed/what_colleges_receive_the_most, https://www.alumnifactor.com/node/5854) and usually Williams isn’t always #1 for % of alumni giving back.
@urbanslaughter I completely agree with you. More selective does not equal better (Pitzer anybody?).
@alum88 - good catch!
I also agree with those of you who have said USNR doesn’t really mean much. Totally. The differences between top schools are trivial, qualitatively. Pomona is certainly not inferior to any LAC in the US, for example, no matter what USNR says.
If I have an obsession, it’s not so much with selectivity as it is with measurements.
What kind of objective evidence would back up a sweeping statement such as,
“the NESCACs bond more closely with each other than the Ivies”?
I do think selectivity is a fairly good indicator of college quality, to the extent it captures the market decisions of top students (who, after all, have relatively great freedom of choice in selecting colleges.)
I feel like I already answered that question in my post (and even qualified it as anecdotal) if you read my post, I clearly state that I’ve attended both the NESCACs and the Ivies.
Not trying to shoot you down. I apologize if it appeared that way (and I can see how it would have). I’ve enjoyed your contributions to CC. it has seemed, however, that you appear concerned, almost solely, with selectivity, which, to my mind, has as much to do with tastes and trends, as it does quality.
I have said before, but it bears repeating, ranking top schools is just like ranking super models. One is not necessarily better than another. They’re all beautiful. It just comes down to personal preferences. Is Christy Turlington better than Cindy Crawford? Who cares? We all win by having them in the world. Same can be said for Middlebury and Amherst, etc.