<p>A variant on Lucky Starchild’s ranking:</p>
<p>(Co-ed only)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst</p></li>
<li><p>Pomona, Carleton, Middlebury</p></li>
<li><p>Bowdoin, Haverford, Reed, Grinnell, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Davidson</p></li>
<li><p>Vassar, Oberlin, Wesleyan</p></li>
<li><p>Colgate, Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Macalaster, Kenyon</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I can’t believe I did this. I hate these ranking exercises!!</p>
<p>I might as well play too-</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Williams, Amherst</p></li>
<li><p>Pomona, Carleton, Middlebury, Wesleyan (heritage as a “little 3” school), Swarthmore</p></li>
<li><p>Bowdoin, Haverford, Reed, Wellesley, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Davidson</p></li>
<li><p>Vassar, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Colgate, Grinnell</p></li>
<li><p>Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Macalaster, Kenyon, Holy Cross</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>Guess you haven’t seen the U.S. News rankings for the past few years. Where’s Colgate ranked? How about the schools I mention in tier 1? There’s more to it than SAT averages…</p>
<p>It’s funny how everybody cries about these things… I mean you guys obviously are not as smart as Rutgers89, he obviously know what he is talking about. Everybody and thee mother know Swarthmore takes a huge poop on Pomona. I can almost smell it over here on the East Coast! Sniff! Sniff! EWWW</p>
<p>^I agree with HahaI’mback. At least right now, even in the NW Pomona is not viewed as highly as Swarthmore. This obviously may change in the future.</p>
<p>1.Amherst
2.Pomona
3.Swarthmore
4.Williams
5.Vassar
6.Bates
7.Claremont McKenna
8.Colgate
9.Bowdoin
10.Reed</p>
<p>Its all based on what I’ve seen on the net like videos,reviews,stuff on CC, etc</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAHA you are kidding right? You base your ratings off of CC. Hmm in that case UNC is Oxford and NYU-Stern is the London School of Economics. </p>
<p>LISTEN PEOPLE, POMONA BEING HIGHER THEN SWATHMORE IS A JOKE! Swarthmore is light years ahead of most LAC’s. It’s like comparing the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and Mets. The Yanks are Swarthmore, nobody can compare and probably ever will. The Red Sox symbolize Amherst, good team, but not the history and students of Swarthmore. The Phillies are Pomona, coming off strong recently but still nothing compared to thank Yanks. And the Mets are Williams, solid wins, but just not up there. That’s how it goes. Don’t look at this analogy through recent records of the teams but rather all time winning records till now.</p>
<p>Chelseamorning,
on behalf of Rutgers89 I would like to say</p>
<p>SWARTHMORE HAS A LOT ON CARLETON. I will go through the list…
SAT
INTELLECT
GRADS TO TOP Ph.D
BETTER PROFESSORS
BETTER CAMPUS
BETTER UNDERGRAD STUDENTS AS A WHOLE
RADIO
LOCATION</p>
<p>I can go on and on and on… but I would feel horrible doing so. Carleton is a great school. But not close to Swat. And I do not even attend Swat, I go to a state school… But I just know the best LAC, its Swat.</p>
<p>HAHHAA and viennaman has Swat at 7. </p>
<p>It just comes up as OBVIOUS that you guys have no clue about the best LAC in the country. You guys are probably the nicest people around but are not good at ranking schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s why I think USNWR should be used as only a rough guide at best. To make nebulous peer assessment and money be such a high percentage of the ranking as compared to the quality of the grads the schools are putting out seems off to me and wasn’t what I was concerned about when applying to schools.</p>
<p>toast eater - i think the AP credit issue is a wash, especially if your sole concern is the availability of graduate level courses “your final year”. That, to me anyway, is an indication that your baccalaureate probably isn’t going to be your terminal degree and, LACs more than hold their own in terms of graduate school placement.</p>
<p>With certain reasoning you could put Swarthmore over Pomona- but I could just as easily put Pomona over Swarthmore, you can’t win this argument. If you look at my previous post you can see why. This is not to mention that it seems as if a high percentage of Swarthmore grads didn’t enjoy their overall experience at the college (overstressed, too many hours of studying, etc).</p>
<p>Again- because my ranking was based on not only academics (which Pomona certainly contends for the top) but also a plethora of other factors, to say Swarthmore is blatantly better than Pomona is quite hilarious. The fact remains that this is highly debatable, and you cannot put Swarthmore > Pomona (or Pomona > Swarthmore) as fact.</p>
<p>Also “prestige” did not play a factor in my rankings, just because Swarthmore is more well known does not mean that it is better… at all. It’s like saying that the Yankees are better than the Mets, even though currently they are not.</p>
<p>Also consider LAC-type schools. Little larger, still undergrad focused but also have broader social and athletic amenities: Colgate, Rice, William & Mary, Wake Forest, Tufts, Dartmouth , Brown. I know its off topic, sorry.</p>
<p>Swathmore= George Washington
Pomona= FDR
That is put into perspective nicely, with Washington being the better of the two presidents. Just how it goes my friend, just how it goes… FDR is said to be one of the greatest but Washington is just the “man,” the overall best of the best.</p>
<p>^^your grasp of higher education is exceeded only by the reach of your metaphors.</p>
<p>HahahaI’mback and Rutgers, what makes you think that there is an absolute truth to this? Honestly, Amherst, Williams, Pomona and Swarthmore are not far part enough in terms of academics and excellence that it’s just a matter of preference. Swarthmore just has a different feeling than other schools, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has smarter kids or is better than the others.</p>
<h2>Rutgers89 wrote: “Swarthmore is just a different breed of students” then “I am not even a Swarthmore student”.</h2>
<p>Not a Swarthmore student? I would never have guessed. Have you looked at the syntax of the first sentence above?</p>
<p>What the heck is with Swarthmore students? lol. You’d think someone had just ranked Harvard as number 1 on WORST schools ever…???</p>
<p>These are just opinions geez. Showing so much defensiveness just shows your insecurity about your school. If that’s the case, maybe this is a deeper issue that has to do with your own issues with the school?</p>
<p>hope – are you responding to my post #77?</p>
<p>I’m responding to “HahahaI’mBack” who seems to be very insecure about his own school.</p>