<p>I wouldn’t go by the US News rankings. US News presents some useful data on things like, e.g., student-faculty ratio, entering class stats, etc. that you might want to consider, but you’ve got to break down the data and consider the stats that interest you, and not go with the overall US News ranking which is based on a particular way of aggregating the data, parts of which are based on questionable premises, IMO. Frankly, all these colleges are going to be relatively little-known to the broader public, Oberlin and Grinnell perhaps a bit better known, but not so much that there’s going to be a big “Wow!” factor when you present that credential to, e.g., employers. But they’re all quite good schools and you can get a good college education at any of them.</p>
<p>With LACs I think it’s important to consider how strong the school is in your intended major and other majors that might be of interest to you. They’ll all offer a few languages, and they’ll all offer some anthro. But anthro is a relatively obscure and smallish field, and it’s not uncommon for some LACs to have only 1 or 2 anthro professors. Beloit has a reputation for being very strong in that field; check out their faculty, how many there are, where they got their Ph.D.s, what kind of research they’re doing (does it interest you?), and the course offerings—not just what’s in the course catalog because that could include courses that are not taught every year, but the actual course listings for, e.g., the Fall of 2011 and the Spring of 2012. Then compare all that to comparable data from others in this group. I frankly don’t know whether any of the others on your list can match Beloit in anthro. So that might be a factor in your decision, certainly more important than the US News ranking. No point going to a highly ranked school that doesn’t offer much of what you want to study.</p>
<p>A word of caution, though: most undergrads change majors at least once. Are there other aspects of Beloit’s curriculum that appeal to you if anthro loses its luster after a course or two? Is some other school on this lsit comparable to or close to Beloit in anthro but stronger in other areas that might be of interest to you? Then a hedging strategy might be in order.</p>