Top Notch National Universities Vs Liberal Arts Colleges

College Search & Selection
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<p>I am not aware of any rankings that combine both National Unis and LACs, other than the Revealed Preference study. Here is the link: [SSRN-A</a> Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities by Christopher Avery, Mark Glickman, Caroline Hoxby, Andrew Metrick](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105#PaperDownload]SSRN-A”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105#PaperDownload)</p>

<p>It is important to clearly identify the “to WHOM” when asking a question about prestige or the utility of a degree in the workforce, academe, or life. The most well educated members of our society will be well familiar with Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst… Colgate… Reed, etc. To these, Willams vs. Penn will generally be a point of indifference. So keep in mind your audience when you are trying to evaluate the importance of the prestige of your degree.</p>

<p>The Preferences listed below are from High School seniors applying to college. I suggest that if the preferences were taken of college seniors, the LAC representation in the below lists would likely be higher in both number and rank, and if taken of recruiting executives or Adcoms to graduate schools, higher still.</p>

<p>In the following list for “Overall”, 5 of 25 are LACs. In “STEM”, 7 are LACs, and in “Humanities”, 11 of 25 are LACs.</p>

<p>On page 44 (Table 7), the following three tables are found in the Revealed Preference paper:</p>

<pre><code>STEM
</code></pre>

<p>1 Harvard
2 Caltech
3 Yale
4 MIT
5 Stanford
6 Princeton
7 Wellesley
8 Williams
9 Dartmouth
10 Notre Dame
11 Amherst
12 Brown
13 Columbia
14 Swarthmore
15 Cornell
16 Penn
17 Duke
18 Rice
19 Cooper Union
20 Colgate
21 Chicago
22 Harvey Mudd
23 Georgia Tech
24 Northwestern
25 UVA</p>

<pre><code>Humanities
</code></pre>

<p>1 Yale
2 Stanford
3 Harvard
4 Princeton
5 Brown
6 Columbia
7 Notre Dame
8 Amherst
9 Penn
10 Dartmouth
11 Swarthmore
12 Georgetown
13 Wellesley
14 Pomona
15 Duke
16 St. John’s
17 Kalamazoo
18 Middlebury
19 U of the South
20 Claremont McK
21 Rice
22 Cornell
23 Carleton
24 Wesleyan
25 Northwestern</p>

<pre><code>Overall
</code></pre>

<p>1 Harvard
2 Caltech
3 Yale
4 MIT
5 Stanford
6 Princeton
7 Brown
8 Columbia
9 Amherst
10 Dartmouth
11 Wellesley
12 Penn
13 Notre Dame
14 Swarthmore
15 Cornell
16 Georgetown
17 Rice
18 Williams
19 Duke
20 UVA
21 BYU
22 Wesleyan
23 Northwestern
24 Pomona
25 Georgia Tech</p>

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<p>Reed was ranked among the top ten national LACs when USNWR’s list first appeared. The year Reed first refused to submit data the magazine assigned Reed to the lowest tier in its category. Reed clearly gained notoriety over this, with a huge increase in applications resulting, and therefore also selectiveness.</p>

<p>Curiously, informative posted this late last year:

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11737310-post204.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11737310-post204.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>And where they are geographically. The prestige of certain schools that are favorites here on CC really withers away in other parts of the country. Which doesn’t make them not excellent schools. “Excellent” and “recognized by others” are two completely different things.</p>

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<p>Reed is probably best known for this feature of the results of a Reed education, which make Reed attractive to those who value this kind of result, which in turn makes Reedies quite self-selective:</p>

<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>

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<p>so vossron, thanks for pointing out that the “RESULT” of a Reed education is that, relative to many schools, a big percentage of Reed College students eventually end up received a “PhD”…</p>

<p>gee, that is a very convincing argument proving that Reed is a much more “Intellectual” college than HYP, particularly because the relative margin, 13.8 to 10.3 is so significant.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and, of course, a PhD proves that you are an intellectual, no matter where you received the PhD from eh?</p>

<p>then there is the matter of “intellectuals” that decide to get an MD, MBA and Law Degree from the top graduate schools in the country- would they be less intellectual than the ones that receive the PhD’s from podunk U?</p>

<p>and how about those Math wizzes that, are truly intellectual, but decide to practice their intelligence on Wall Street instead of obtaining a PhD - are they any less intellectual than the Reed College students that receive their PhD from podunk U?</p>

<p>thanks for the info</p>

66

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<p>Gee, you’re like a dog with a bone. Here, this is where Reed grads obtain their postgraduate degrees:</p>

<p>GRADUATE SCHOOLS MOST FREQUENTLY ATTENDED
BY REED ALUMNI</p>

<p>MBAs</p>

<p>U. of Chicago
Portland State U.
U. of Pennsylvania
U. of Washington
Columbia U.
Stanford U.
New York U.
U. of Oregon
U.C., Berkeley
U.C., Los Angeles
Yale U.
Pepperdine U.
U. of Portland
Georgetown U.</p>

<p>JDs</p>

<p>Lewis & Clark Law School
U.C., Berkeley
U. of Oregon
U. of Washington
New York U.
Yale U.
U. of Chicago
Cornell U.
Harvard U.
Willamette U.
U.C., Los Angeles
Hastings College of Law
Northwestern U.
Columbia U.
Stanford U.</p>

<p>PhDs</p>

<p>U.C., Berkeley
U. of Washington
U. of Chicago
Stanford U.
U. of Oregon
Harvard U.
Cornell U.
U.C., Los Angeles
U. of Wisconsin (Madison)
Columbia U.
Yale U.
Johns Hopkins U.
Princeton U.
U.C., San Diego
U. of Michigan</p>

<p>MDs</p>

<p>Oregon Health Sciences U.
U. of Washington (St. Louis)
Stanford U.
U. of Southern California
Case Western Reserve U.
Harvard U.
Yale U.
U. of Minnesota
U. of Chicago
Cornell U.
Johns Hopkins U.
New York U.
U. of Rochester
U.C., Los Angeles</p>

<p>Pay particular attention to the PhD column–apparently full of “Podunk U” type institutions, whatever that means.</p>

67

<p>^^ You’re welcome. Here is where Reed grads go (schools at the bottom):</p>

<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE LIFE AFTER REED](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/success.html]REED”>Life After Reed - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>

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<p>gee Ghosst, thanks for proving again that Reed is much more intellectual than HYP because during that last 40 years, Reed has managed to send a few students to receive PhD’s from such “intellectual” universities such as…yep…you guessed it…Harvard, Yale and Princeton…</p>

<p>say, that sure proves your point eh?</p>

69

<p>I don’t understand why you seem so threatened at the idea that top LACs offer educations that are on par with top universities. No one here said the students at one were any smarter than the students at another, other than you. In fact, I believe I even wrote:

Having no idea what I want to major in, a LAC would (and does) suit me better. However, for those who have an idea of what they want to do in life, and want both a good education and the prestige of an Ivy degree, obviously HYP would be a better choice.</p>

<p>Considering Reed has no graduate school, and HYP does offer a top notch education with Ivy prestige, obviously HYP would be an excellent choice.</p>

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<p>I don’t really know what point you are referring to, as the discussion we are having is supposed to be about the merits of national universities versus liberal arts colleges, which by definition offer no postgraduate degrees. Therefore we are talking about the defining features of an undergraduate education at a university as opposed to a LAC. I don’t know if this has occurred to you before, but there is a difference between a university’s college and its postgraduate schools.</p>

<p>Again, if you could state your point more clearly, I might consider rebuking it in detail. But I’ll just say this: Harvard’s undergraduates are different from its postgraduates. The <em>purpose</em> of its college is different from the purpose of its postgraduate schools. To say that the success of its postgraduate schools makes its undergraduates the most intellectual (which is here in this thread defined as thirsty for knowledge, I suppose) students in the country, the world, the galaxy, is almost as nonsensical as the argument that their SAT scores are indicative of some uncommon degree of intellectualism inherent to the Harvard student body.</p>

<p>Oh, and for the third time, nobody has called the Ivy League anti-intellectual. A nerdy school can exist without invalidating all others.</p>

71

<p>“I don’t understand why you seem so threatened at the idea that top LACs offer educations that are on par with top universities.”</p>

<p>I think some just don’t see how this is possible, equating the famous grad schools (clearly the best in the world, destinations for the LAC grads) with their undergrad schools (all excellent, but others are excellent, too).</p>

72

<p>Ghosst, well thanks for posting all those wonderful Medical, Business and Law Schools that Reed College graduates have gotten degrees from during the last 40 years. Lets take a further look into how many of these Reed College graduates, which you claim are more intellectual than HYP graduates, received degrees from the top top Med, Bus and Law schools:</p>

<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;

<p>oops, it seems not many, relative to Harvard, Yale and Princeton eh?</p>

<p>and to make matters worse, it is not by a 1.3x factor, as in the Reed/Princeton PhD’s - it is a 13x factor in this case for Harvard/Reed…</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard - 21.5%</li>
<li>Yale - 18.0%</li>
<li>Princeton - 15.8%</li>
<li>Stanford - 10.7%</li>
<li>Williams - 9.1%
.
.
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.
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.
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.
.
.</li>
<li>Reed College - 1.6%</li>
</ol>

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<p>National Universities vs Liberal Arts Colleges Selectivity:</p>

<p>1 Cal Tech
2 Yale
3 Harvard
4 MIT
5 Princeton
6 Columbia
7 WUSTL
8 Harvey Mudd
9 Penn
10 Swarthmore
11 Stanford
12 Dartmouth
13 Brown
14 Pomona
15 Duke
16 Williams
17 Amherst
18 Northwestern
19 Georgetown
20 Cornell
21 Notre Dame
22 Claremont McK
23 Rice
24 Haverford
25 Chicago </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;

74

<p>

Where, exactly, do any of us claim that? I’m genuinely asking, in case I missed it in the thread.</p>

<p>^What relevance is selectivity to the purpose of this thread? (Although, the thread has already taken the normal track of LAC vs. university.)</p>

75

<p>onecircuit is confusing professional endeavors with PhD endeavors.</p>

76

<p>It’s not an either/or, onecircuit. It’s an “and.” Reed being an excellent college doesn’t invalidate HYP being excellent colleges too. Why is it so threatening? Frankly, it’s both far more gracious and far more true to say that there are many excellent places to get an education, than to engage in the fiction that once you go beyond HYP, quality plummets.</p>

77

<p>Selectivity has nothing to do with this - because selectivity is directly related to a school’s breadth of appeal among 18 yo’s, which has nothing to do with how good the school is. 18 yo’s aren’t particularly good judges - they follow the crowd.</p>

78

<p>You said:</p>

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<p>I said:</p>

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<p>I… well, it seems I’m not expressing myself clearly enough. If that is the case, I apologize. Carry on.</p>

79

<p>

The OP asked: “how do you guys think that top notch national universities and liberal arts compare (academic quality, reputation, academic opportunity, etc).” Selectivity is an important metric, among many.</p>

80

<p>“Selectivity is an important metric, among many.”</p>

<p>Indeed it is, showing how difficult it is to gain entrance!</p>