Top 25 liberal arts colleges

College Search & Selection
41

<p>I’d say:</p>

<p>Group 1:
Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Pomona, Bowdoin</p>

<p>Group 2:
Wesleyan, Tufts, Haverford, Carleton, Davidson</p>

<p>Group 3:
Colby, Bates, Hamilton, Grinnell, CMC, Macalester, Oberlin, Vassar, Colgate, Washington & Lee</p>

<p>Group 4:
Trinity (CT), Conn College, Kenyon, Reed</p>

<p>Group 5:
Union, Skidmore, Dennison</p>

42

<p>While everyone engages in this great debate, an issue came out of another thread comparing Georgetown and Amherst. That issue is whether it makes any economic, career or personal development sense to go a top liberal arts college at all in the era of universal AP? </p>

<p>The way the world works today, if you go a major university such as Harvard, Penn or Georgetown, you obtain credit for your AP work and can take advantage of the whole smorgassboard of academic oppotunities from graduate level work at the larger university once your AP credits are in hand. Why would you not want to begin high level work that you are prepared for sooner and save time and money? I think, actually, that in the era of AP, for top students, the basic bachelor’s degree should come after 3 years with relevant 4 or 5 scored AP exams making the difference.</p>

43

<p>You can get credit for AP work at a lot of LACs too, toast eater. Also, more importantly, A lot of LACs listed above are more likely to have no requirements or loose distribution requirements than a core like many universities have.</p>

<p>–</p>

<p>Anyway, I agree with most of the variations of the lists above. It’s certainly an interesting discussion.</p>

44

<ol>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
</ol>

<p>Rutgers89, I hereby acknowledge that I totally copied you. My list just matched my personal criteria a bit closer.</p>

<p>=]</p>

<p>(Swarthmore’s got nothin’ on us)</p>

<p>(…just saying)</p>

45

<p>Its not the issue of credtis so much, although that is the issue at Amherst where no credit is given at all, but what advanced level work will be available for you in that final year.</p>

46

<p>I have to wonder why a lot of people are excluding the women’s colleges… haha.</p>

47

<p>

</p>

<p>Pomona gives two credits for AP courses. Yale (a few years ago) only gave credit for foreign language if you had a 4 or 5. Cal Tech doesn’t accept AP math courses – not sure about other subjects.</p>

48

<p>Yeah, but Obama was not a very good high school student, as his book makes pretty clear. No wonder Swat turned him down.</p>

49

<p>

Prestige by association still doesn’t work for Cornell.</p>

50

<p>Davidson gives credit for a 4 or 5 on most AP’s amd a 3 or better on a few science ones,
I believe. You can leap over a bunch of requirements as a freshman if you have a batch
of strong AP scores.</p>

51

<p>“Prestige by association still doesn’t work for Cornell.”
Cornell holds its own quite nicely, on anyone’s list. If you mean that it’s more socially democratic and more what-you-know as distinct from whom-you-know than places like Princeton or Yale (and even Princeton has been trying in recent years to live down its old reputation as the northernmost southern drinking school), then fine.</p>

52

<p>

</p>

<p>Oh and I guess you do…Give me solid reasons why my list is wrong? Based on academic indicators, one could rank Pomona on the very top of LAC Academia (look at WSJ listings of where Pomona is ranked 13th, Amherst and Swarthmore are marginally ahead). A direct quote from the article even says </p>

<p>“Then there’s tiny Pomona College in California, which sent a higher proportion of its kids to Harvard Law this fall than Columbia or Duke. No. 13 on our list, it’s created a separate office to handle grad-school admissions and fellowships, including its own full-time director.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf[/url]”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;

<p>[The</a> Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition](<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights)</p>

<p>Pomona is also ranked first by Kiplinger’s best value colleges, and until the economic downturn had the highest student endowment ratio in the country (they still might have, but not sure).</p>

<p>It’s crazy to put Pomona in front of CMC? Not only does U.S News (not saying I think U.S News is the final authority on this matter) but it makes sense- Pomona has a lower acceptance rate (last year the lowest out of any LAC, I think this year Amherst is slightly lower) than Pomona, and a higher average SAT (Pomona has the fifth highest average SAT score in the nation).</p>

<p>[College</a> Rankings - Home](<a href=“The resource cannot be found.”>http://www.ordoludus.com/)</p>

<p>Furthermore in my opinion, the Claremont Colleges are the only true college consortium, unlike Amherst’s and Swarthmore’s, Pomona’s excellent peer institutions are literally walking distance away. And because this is a personal ranking, which I based not only on academics (which Pomona is neck and neck with Amherst, Williams, CMC & Swarthmore), but also on quality of life, I believe Pomona separates itself from the pack. Pomona students in the past we ranked number 1 for happiest students, top 20 for best food and for best dorms. Plus who can compete with SoCal weather?</p>

<p>Again, you can make arguments to put Amherst on top, Swarthmore on top and several other colleges- this is just my take. You can disagree with me but to say that I am totally unfounded is inane.</p>

53

<p>No way does U Richmond belong in the top 25. It’s a gorgeous school, and it’s got some superachieving students who won full scholarships, but its average SATs aren’t that great and it just doesn’t have the same intellectual feel that some of these other schools do. Washington and Lee has a similar scholarship program to Richmond’s, but I would rate it much higher.</p>

54

<p>

</p>

<p>I remember reading an article somewhere that said that Pomona didn’t lose much.</p>

55

<p>It’s endowment actually did lose quite a bit, i’ve read 1.8 billion to 1.3 billion, but these cuts aren’t affecting things as of yet.</p>

56

<p>Oh, you’re right. I had read something entirely different:</p>

<p>[Fitch</a> Rates Pomona College’s (California) $68MM Revs ‘AAA’; Outlook Stable](<a href=“http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090227005811&newsLang=en]Fitch”>http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090227005811&newsLang=en)</p>

57

<p>

</p>

<p>What are you talking about? You think a 5 on the Calc BC exam deems you capable of doing graduate level mathematics? That a 5 on the English Literature exam means that you are actually capable of thinking and writing about what you read?</p>

<p>A number of schools don’t give credit for placement exams, but allow their students to place into higher level courses in accordance with their skill as determined by their scores on such standardized exams. If one were really as intellectually hungry and passionate as you suppose, one would still be able to take as many advanced and specialized courses as one wanted to, and graduate.</p>

<p>Credits? You’re ragging on LACs for credits?</p>

58

<p>

</p>

<p>That seems ridiculous to me. I don’t know any other Middlebury grads claiming that Middlebury is regarded as two levels above Colgate, Hamilton, Colby. SAT median of Middlebury, Hamilton, Colgate, Colby are all within 15 points of each other (with D-I sports bringing down Colgate’s avg), while Midd is on average 65 points below WASP.</p>

59

<p>I would even argue, unlike the other poster, that this is a moral issue in that no university should bar the best and brightest from advancing to graduate work that could serve mankind. Why should society be denied the services of a life saving physician for a year or two just to feed the bursar? Yes, I agree that we should rag on the LACs that deny credit because those schools are ragging on their students and society at large IMHO.</p>

60

<p>A person who adheres to the life mission which you describe, to blaze through the pre-med curriculum and graduate with a bachelor’s degree in two years or three years to move on to medical school, should not be looking at or applying to liberal arts colleges due to a lack of understanding of, or disregard for, the nature and purposes of such institutions.</p>