Top Liberal arts colleges vs ivys

<p>Are top liberal arts colleges more selective than ivys? What are the basic differences in admission criterion of these two groups of colleges?
I heard that top liberal arts colleges are harder to get into because the class sizes are so small compared to that of the ivys.</p>

<p>Do they hate students who have extraordinary talent in one field? I mean, I have international award in Mathematics. But others are not so stellar. I have, National level awards, and I am an organizer at local/regional level. So these are not so extraordinary as my math awards.</p>

<p>I would appreciate your comment. Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>My stats: HYPS</a>, MIT, Caltech, Colgate (international)</p>

<p>The College Board web site will give you acceted percentages for every school. Here’s a start:</p>

<p>[Applications</a> to Selective Colleges Rise as Admission Rates Fall - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/applications/]Applications”>Applications to Selective Colleges Rise as Admission Rates Fall - The New York Times)</p>

<p>The three most selective LACs are not quite as selective as the three most selective Ivies. The 5-10 most selective LACs are about as selective as the other Ivies. </p>

<p>That is for domestic applicants. I think that international students will have a greater competitive advantage at the LACs, just because LACs are less well known overseas. The percentage of enrolled international students who receive aid, and the average aid amounts, are both quite high at some of the top 20 or 30 LACs (although the absolute numbers may only be a couple dozen entering students per school.)</p>

<p>I think many LACs would be interested in someone with your interests and background. The only sure way to know the outcome is to apply and hope for the best.</p>

<p>Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota is a good LAC known for enrolling relatively many international students. One negative: Minnesota winters are very cold.</p>

<p>In terms of prestige, and job oppurtunites with salary, Ivy’s win in every prospect. In terms of individual attention and academic attention, LAC’s win (not in every prospect, because academically, Ivy’s rule, but just not the individual attention as LAC’s give)</p>

<p>Top LAC’s aren’t as selective as the Ivy’s. But they are sure as well darn expensive.</p>

<p>Tk’s analysis is not correct. You have to go down below the top 6 ivies to Cornell and Penn before any LAC has a lower admit rate. I do agree that internationals have a better shot at LACs than ivies, simply because they are less known and get fewer applicants from most pools.</p>

<p>Admission rate does not tell you the true story, believe me, in general, AWS are harder to get in than Brown, Penn and Cornell , they are looking for their specific needs and talents to fill their small class size.</p>

<p>^ Right, I think Redroses and I are talking about two slightly different things: selectivity and admit rate. Two schools with the same admit rate should not be considered equally selective if their applicant pools are unequal in measurable, relevant characteristics. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You don’t have to accept the US News selectivity formula. If you want to keep the comparison simple, sure, just go by admit rate.</p>

<p>Are top liberal arts colleges more selective than Ivy League shools?</p>

<p>This list (assuming it can be verified with official data) should shed some light for the upcoming class. In general terms, highly selective schools continue to report lower and lower admission numbers. The list of school with an admission rate at or below 20% has been expanding with the recent additions of Duke, Chicago, Cornell, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown.</p>

<p>LACs are shown in bold.</p>

<p>Harvard (Mass.) 7%
Stanford (Calif.) 7%
Yale (Conn.) 7%
Princeton (N.J.) 8%
Brown (R.I.) 9%
Columbia (N.Y.) 9%
M.I.T. (Mass.) 10%
Dartmouth (N.H.) 12%
Caltech. 13%
Penn 14%
Amherst (Mass.) 15%
Pomona (Calif.) 15%

Duke (N.C.) 16%
Swarthmore (Pa.) 16%
Claremont McKenna 17%
Middlebury (Vt.) 17%

Cornell (N.Y.) 18%
Vanderbilt (Tenn.) 18%
U. of Chicago 19%
Washington & Lee 19%
Williams (Mass.) 19%
Bowdoin (Me.) 20%

Georgetown (D.C.) 20%</p>

<p>For the class of 2014, Pomona was ranked 9th overall for lowest acceptance rate at 14.48%, making it the toughest LAC to get into. The above list is somewhat outdated. In reality, besides HYP, the rest of the ivys and top LAC’s (WASP schools) are around equivalents. In fact, one could argue it is harder to get into top LAC’s because LAC’s are more self selecting than Ivy league schools, with many students applying to Ivy’s because of their name. With LAC’s, most applicants are within the competitive range of admission than Ivy’s because Ivy’s have a lot of “might as well go for the big name” type of applicants.</p>

<p>Acceptance history (2007 -2010) from a top public high school in MA:
“top applicants” : top 10 (not top 10%) in a class of about 500 with SAT 2300 or above
College top Applicants Admits
Brown: 14 7
Dartmouth: 10 6
Upenn: 7 2
Williams: 5 0
Bowdoin: 4 2
Amherst: 5 1
Top class rank, high SAT almost guarantee admission to Brown and Dartmouth, but not top LACs</p>

<p>In my experience as a college counselor at an elite HS where a majority of the student body applied to ivies and top LACs, what I saw greatly differs from the above. Our students were more easily admitted to AWSPMB than to any ivy other than Cornell.</p>

<p>Actually Middlebury’s acceptance rate should be lower. The acceptance rate posted above includes the February admits they accept. The US News Report doesn’t include those February admits. Middlebury’s acceptance rate that will be posted in the new ranking will probably be like 14 or less.</p>

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<p>I think I agree with this.</p>

<p>But none of us have really answered the OP’s question. For the OP:</p>

<p>I think that LAC admissions tend to be slightly more holistic. The schools are generally much smaller, so they want to see the contributions you’ll make to the close-knit campus community.</p>

<p>Rednoses,
Are you from west coast?
I don’t think it is quite accurate to say “Our students were more easily admitted to AWSPMB than to any ivy other than Cornell”, Amherst/Williams hardly takes more than 2 students (usually 0-1) each year from any high school unless your high school is an highly elite private or they are looking for recruited athletes or sort of.</p>

<p>“With LAC’s, most applicants are within the competitive range of admission than Ivy’s because Ivy’s have a lot of “might as well go for the big name” type of applicants.”</p>

<p>That seems to be the case at my son’s school, at least. Everyone and their brother apply to the Ivys (even though most don’t have a prayer). The kids I hear about looking at top LACs tend to be top academic performers.</p>

<p>“The kids I hear about looking at top LACs tend to be top academic performers.”</p>

<p>That seems to be the case at our school. D was the val with a 2370 SAT and only applied to LACs. The same with the val from 2 years ago. But, this was a large public school where top academic performers crave the individual attention they lacked in HS. If you want the LAC experience, there are so many options that will match a student’s statistical academic range that there is no reason to apply to WAS if you have lower than stellar stats. But, you might apply to an Ivy for the prestige. Also, Ivys have a marketing machine that encourages applicants to apply. Every Ivy sent literature to D and an invitation to apply (Harvard sent an application). She didn’t hear a thing from WAS. Good thing the guidance counselor knew what he was doing.</p>

<p>I worked at a very top private high school where most applied to LACs and ivies. For these kids, who grew up knowing about top colleges, the ivies were no more prestigeous than the top LACs. In their world, everyone knew AWS every bit as much as HYP. They knew all of these schools would yield the same jobs and speak equally to grad schools.</p>

<p>As the internet age spread the news of ivies to every corner of the planet and ivies set out on missions to reduce the number of kids from elite US prep schools, the LACs did not follow. They continue to this day to take large numbers of students from these high schools. My last year, two years ago, my school, with a graduating class of about 120, had over 20 acceptances at Williams. About 20%, and most without a hook. That would have been impossible at any ivy.</p>

<p>So I agree it’s different audiences and that the top LACs get a very elite group of kids. A better group academically? Certainly a concentration of kids who have attended top schools all of their lives and have had every advantage.</p>

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<p>What makes you think the list is somewhat outdated? </p>

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<p>And why would one exclude February admits?</p>

<p>The fact that Middlebury, a perennial manipulator, has been misleading USNews for years is not a reason to consider a lower admission rate. The admission rate is simply the total of applications and all admissions for freshmen in the application cycle. Taking the total applications and only using the Fall admits is ridiculous.</p>

<p>D was waitlisted at Williams and Swarthmore. She applied to two ivies: accepted at Dartmouth and rejected at Princeton. </p>

<p>In the case of highly qualified students, admissions at extremely selective school can still appear to be quite whimsical. It’s hard to know why you were accepted, waitlisted, or rejected. It’s just the way the adcom views an applicant.</p>

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<p>Not according to the common data set. Take it up with them…</p>