<p>it’s also kind of misleading to imply that the average university student is going to toggle back and forth between chemical engineering, nursing, and finance before choosing a “major”; it doesn’t happen. If you have any doubts about career plans or are still in the “exploring” mode, your best bet is always going to be the liberal arts and sciences and on that level, I’d say the small colleges and big universities cover pretty much the same territory.</p>
<p>“If you are trying to close a deal with a client, it is going to score you cool points if you went to Stanford or Duke, whereas they are not going to have a clue about Amherst or Whitman.”</p>
<p>Having closed thousands of such deals, I can assure you that nothing makes you less “cool” than college name-dropping.</p>
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<p>Funnily enough, Mount Holyoke is 26th on the list I suspect you are referring to, and offers the same quality of education as its counterparts in the National University rankings, UVa, Tufts and Wake Forest–and in some cases does even better, as MH students are allowed to take regular classes and participate in extracurricular activities at four other colleges, including Amherst, and to spend up to one year at one of 11 other colleges, including Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin and Vassar.</p>
<p>Even more amusingly, Mount Holyoke shares its ranking with Barnard College, which is technically part of Columbia University and offers its students access to Columbia’s faculty and facilities. So to say that “the quality of education really drops after the top 25” is to claim that Barnard, which is just outside of the top 25, cannot offer the same level of education as either the top LACs or the top universities–which is clearly false, as it is coincidentally part of Columbia.</p>
<p>Not to mention Reed College, the 54th best liberal arts college in the nation according to the US News & World Report (but their petty vendetta against Reed is a story for another time).</p>
<p>“If you’re a genuine intellectual, live the life of the mind, and want to learn for the sake of learning, the place most likely to empower you is not Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, or Stanford. It is the most intellectual college in the country—Reed in Portland, Oregon.”</p>
<p>Thus spoke Loren Pope, former education editor for The New York Times. In the opinion of this man, who has spent his life studying the intricacies of higher education, at Reed you can receive an education that surpasses the standards set by the top-ranked universities in the nation. You are, of course, free to disagree with him, but to claim that no liberal arts college ranked lower than 25 on some list is worth going to is ridiculous and clearly untrue.</p>
<p>Reed? Never heard of it.</p>
<p>A. academic quality
B. reputation
C. academic opportunity
D. good … education</p>
<p>One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.</p>
<p>Why don’t we cut the crap and talk straight about what you really care about?</p>
<p>^Job prospects should be added.</p>
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I’ve always loved this quote. It really makes me proud of my college. :)</p>
<p>LACs focus on undergraduate education (since most LACs do not offer any sort of graduate program); top LACs will provide an undergraduate education that is at least on par with many top universities. As Ghostt mentioned, many LACs offer the option the option to take courses at other colleges (i.e. WASP; Amherst, MH, UMass Amherst, Smith, Hampshire; etc.), which means you can not always judge the quality of the education at the LAC alone.</p>
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<p>You’re basing this statement on what? (I’m suspicious because it’s being made by one who’s never heard of Reed College.)</p>
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<p>For the GENUINE INTELLECTUAL who wants to learn for the sake of learning, I will take a Harvard, Yale and Princeton undergraudate education over Reed any time of the day, week, month and year.</p>
<p>That’s where you and I differ, then. (Which is not to say that I don’t think these universities are able to offer a great education to the intellectually inclined student–they obviously are. I think, however, that Reed can give its students things that Harvard, Yale and Princeton don’t have, by virtue of having a different ethos. Not all colleges offer the same things, which is why ranking them is pointless. Harvard is not a good fit for every type of person, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I wish people would stop with this one-size-fits-all nonsense.)</p>
<p>Ghostt, I would imagine that the 22% of entering Reed College freshmen that fail to graduate from Reed within 6 years pretty much agree with you eh?</p>
<p>I cannot assume any such thing.</p>
<p>Ghostt, first lets figure out how “intellectual” the incoming students that attend Reed College are compared to HYP students:</p>
<p>Acceptance Rate
7% — Harvard
8% — Yale
9% — Princeton
43% – Reed</p>
<p>Enrollment Yield
76% — Harvard
67% — Yale
57% — Princeton
28% – Reed</p>
<p>Pecent in top 10% of Class
95% – Harvard
96% – Yale
99% – Princeton
63% – Reed</p>
<p>Percent with GPA of 3.75 and higher
na ---- Harvard
na ---- Yale
85% – Princeton
70% – Reed</p>
<p>SAT CR
690-800 – Harvard
700-800 – Yale
690-790 – Princeton
**670-750 **-- Reed</p>
<p>SAT Math
700-790 – Harvard
710-790 – Yale
710-790 – Princeton
640-710 – Reed</p>
<p>SAT Writing
710-800 – Harvard
710-800 – Yale
700-790 – Princeton
660-730 – Reed</p>
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<p>To the extent one can generalize at all, I would say the opposite tends to be true. Though there are great opportunities throughout the top 100 institutions, at least.</p>
<p>The LACs are rather consistent in what they offer. 30-something Kenyon, Trinity, or Whitman offers essentially the same educational product as a top 10 LAC like Carleton or Bowdoin. Same liberal arts curriculum, same small classes, same 100% focus on undergraduates, same ivy-covered traditional architecture, same national drawing power (up to a point). </p>
<p>The top 15 or 20 national universities offer similar qualities. For undergraduates, one reason they are good is that they are LAC-like. They offer other advantages as well, such as more courses or research opportunities. The most distinguished research faculty are more likely to be found at these universities than at a small LAC.</p>
<p>However, as you go farther down the USNWR pecking order for national universities, you tend to get larger classes, less access to distinguished faculty, greater reliance on TAs, less exclusive focus on arts & sciences, sprawling modern concrete campuses, and (for better or worse) more emphasis on sports and Greek life. Among the many public universities in the ranking, you’ll find much less geographic diversity (by design) and probably more bureaucracy. </p>
<p>So for many students, a good but not tippy-top LAC may be an attractive “match” alternative to either an Ivy League school or a less selective university. On the other hand, universities do teach a broader range of subjects. The best state universities, and honors colleges at many state flagships, offer some of the same advantages as the Ivies and LACs, with their own benefits as well.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between “exclusive” and “intellectual”.</p>
<p>People drop out of Reed because it’s hard.</p>
<p>thsfan, I am sorry, but what part of this is exclusive v. intellectual?</p>
<p>So are you saying that the Reed student body, in which 75% of its students are below the SAT Math 710 figure are more “intellectual” than the Princeton students in which 75% of its students are above the 710 figure?..Is this what you are saying?</p>
<p>Pecent in top 10% of Class
95% – Harvard
96% – Yale
99% – Princeton
63% – Reed</p>
<p>SAT CR
690-800 – Harvard
700-800 – Yale
690-790 – Princeton
670-750 – Reed</p>
<p>SAT Math
700-790 – Harvard
710-790 – Yale
710-790 – Princeton
640-710 – Reed</p>
<p>SAT Writing
710-800 – Harvard
710-800 – Yale
700-790 – Princeton
660-730 – Reed</p>
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<p>People drop out of Reed because they have no further interest in pursuing the Reed College rigorous academic attempts to teach at the high level of HYP and because they are at a lower level intellectually than the HYP students. Hence a 78% 6-year graduation record compared to a 96-98% rate for HYP</p>
<p>no more no less</p>
<p>I’ll join in on this awful and irrelevant digression.</p>
<p>The students who make up that 22 percent aren’t all dropouts. Some of them may make up the minority who have come to appreciate the sweet and glorious luxury that is “the life of the mind.”</p>
<p>If they should want to live that life for as long as they can, could you blame them?</p>
<p>Harvard is also notorious for grade inflation while Reed does its best to eliminate it. I’ve know a few people who have graduated from Reed, gone to HYP for grad school, and found it to actually be less of a challenge than their undergrad education. What a crazy world.</p>
<p>But again, different colleges attract different people for different reasons. I know a number of students here who scored 2400 on the SAT. One current student here had the highest IB scores in Bangladesh. We all have our preferences, and it not up to you, nor I, nor PR/USNWR, to decide which ultimately offers a better education.</p>
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<p>zchryevns, now, why would you lie?</p>
<p>do you really think that no one is going to notice your false and misleading statements here?</p>
<p>for instance, have you ever heard of something called “Princeton Grade Deflation” and Princeton University’s policy toward making sure that higher grades are limited at the school?</p>