What is the 3rd best LAC?

College Search & Selection
61

<p>What's your second h? Haverford?</p>

62

<p>A few thoughts:</p>

<p>a) Since USNEWS began its rankings in the 1980s, Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst have swapped the top spot pretty much equally -- shifting back and forth as USNEWS changes its ranking system every few years, bookkeeping changes, not relative changes at the three schools. Swat and Amherst traded the #1 spot back and forth (or shared it) from 1997 thru 2003. It is Williams' turn.</p>

<p>b) There is no grade "deflation" at Swarthmore. The average GPA is a B+ or so (3.24 as of a few years ago). Swarthmore is academically challenging; the administration, faculty, and students all take pride in high level of academic engagement. It's the third highest per student producer of future PhDs in the country, behind CalTech and Harvey Mudd. Swarthmore's academic reputation has been built on its unique Honors Program, begun in the 1920s. Honors students take special double-credit seminars and senior thesis projects and sit for written and oral exams given by panels of visiting professors from other schools. So you have 80 years of professors from all over the country spending a week on campus with Swarthmore's best students (130 visiting professors for oral exams last year). Word travels.</p>

<p>c) Midwest and West Coast schools get screwed in the USNEWS rankings. There's a regional bias in the peer assessment scores. I view Pomona as the equal of Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. I view Harvey Mudd as the most selective undergrad college, but it's not a liberal arts college. It's a pure tech school like CalTech or MIT and belongs in a different category.</p>

<p>d) The five highest per student endowments, all huge, are (in order): Grinnell, Pomona, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams. The ability to spend a fortune per student is why these schools came to be so highly regarded. Swarthmore and Williams are both spending nearly $70,000 per student per year. Wellesley is even a little higher. I'm sure Amherst and Pomona are in the same range.</p>

63

<p>harvey mudd</p>

64

<p>Interresteddad said:</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The top three or four USNWR colleges do spend an awful lot of money. But much less of it than one might think goes to purely academic matters. A lot of it goes to expensive dining services, air travel subsidies, state of the art gymnasiums, administration (why get rid of deadwood when you can assign them to the deans office) and some very dubious building projects. For example, Amherst just spent $100,000,00 demolishing a pair of dormitories only to erect a replica of the exact same buildings in the exact same location; Williams just spent about $40,000,000 demolishing a beloved campus landmark so they could erect a modern monstrosity serving pretty much the same function as the old one did -- and on the same patch of ground. Williams will repeat the same process beginning this year when it demolishes a 30 year old library in order to build another one less than 50 yards away from where the old one stood. It wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that tuition seems to go up in tandem with each tick of endowment return. What gives?</p>

65

<p>Well, JohnWesley, after recently paying a visit to Wesleyan, I think the school could learn a few lessons from the campus planning committees of Amherst and Williams. For all Wes' prestige and money, its physical appearance is atrocious.</p>

66

<p>swarthmore</p>

67

<br>


<br>

<p>You obviously don't like the collegiate eclectic look. I often wonder how people find their way around campuses where all the buildings look alike.</p>

68

<p>johnwesley:</p>

<p>The cost of capital building projects is not included in the per student operating budgets.</p>

<p>You are correct that the per student operating budgets include many things that are not, strictly speaking, academic. However, more than half of the operating budgets at these schools goes to faculty and staff salaries and benefits. Some of that is academic. Some of that is support -- like 24/7 health care facilities and the deans you speak of, which are all focused on student life at a small undergrad college.</p>

69

<p>Interesteddad said:</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>To which I might add library, and research support. Everything I've ever seen regarding operating expenditures and proposed budgets (at Haverford, Swarthmore, and Wesleyan) suggests that there isn't much daylight between any of the top ten schools when it comes to these items, the core of the academic mission.</p>

70

<p>
[quote]
For all Wes' prestige and money, its physical appearance is atrocious.

[/quote]

That's completely a matter of opinion. I think Wes is one of the prettiest colleges I've seen (and thought so since the beginning, long before I realized it would be my top choice school). </p>

<p>However, back on topic, I would agree with the general concensious that Pomona and/or Swat comes after (or equal to) Amherst and Williams.</p>

71

<p>I personally thought that Wesleyan had a fairly unattractive campus, but I can also see how many people would like it. I really enjoyed my time there when I visited, and I have a friend who is a sophomore there who loves it</p>

72

<p>i spent a week at wesleyan this summer, thought it was pretty gross...the dorms i stayed in were particularly small and depressing</p>

73

<p>
[quote]
i spent a week at wesleyan this summer, thought it was pretty gross...the dorms i stayed in were particularly small and depressing

[/quote]

Really? Which dorm did you stay in? (I only ask because I found this suprising. Clark and Fauver, while the rooms are small, are new/just renevated, and I've found that the older dorms tend to have bigger rooms...)</p>

74

<p>idk the name of it...i was there for a soccer camp, so the only two buildings i ever went into were the dorms and the cafeteria (which was pretty good)...it was a good 10 minute walk from the cafeteria though</p>

75

<p>Wesleyan doesn't have the endowment that some of the others do. Endowment per student, based on NACUBO June 30, 2006 figures:</p>

<p>Pomona $951,183
Swarthmore $845,979
Amherst $823,880
Williams $736,961
Wellesley $637,369
Wesleyan $225,368</p>

76

<p>zspot9 wrote:</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>It was probably the Butterfield dorms. Not my favorite either; the rooms are a tad smaller and they're heavy on the privacy/security side of things. I can understand how someone might find them depressing when school is out and no one's around.</p>

77

<p>danas wrote:</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Granted. But, let's talk about some of the things Wesleyan has spent it's endowment on that the others on that list may not have:</p>

<p>1) doctoral programs in all the basic natural sciences and Math, enabling it to run state-of-the art labs all year round (not just during summer breaks); Wesleyan was able to qualify for one of the first state funded stem-cell research grants largely because of the quality of the science faculty it is able to attract.</p>

<p>2) What many in the industry consider the best film studies program in the country.</p>

<p>3) its own scholarly press</p>

<p>4) a full complement of "helmet sport" teams including, football, wrestling, hockey, soccer and lacross, in one of the most competitive small college athletic leagues in the country.</p>

<p>Talking about endowment size is a distraction from real issues (like, what does a college offer?)</p>

78

<p>Middlebury!!!!!</p>

79

<p>In post #64 I stated that Amherst spent $100,000,000 to demolish and rebuild a pair of dormitories. The figure was closer to $16.5 million but, does not include the cost of demolishing the previous two occupants of the land:
<a href="http://chronicle.com/stats/architecture/architecture_detail.php?building_id=10423%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/stats/architecture/architecture_detail.php?building_id=10423&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

80

<p>Geez, it's hard to imagine someone thinking the Wesleyan campus isn't lovely and classic New England (except for the Berlin-like Center for the Arts) but to each his own.</p>

<p>Meantime, it's true Wesleyan doesn't have the endowment size of some of its peers but the figures cited by danas aren't correct, according to the Nacubo 2006 list. Looking at a larger list of LACs, with the correct numbers, is instructive, I think:</p>

<p>Grinnell $1.47 billion
Williams $1.46 b
Pomona $1.45 b
Wellesley $1.41 b
Amherst $1.33 b
Swarthmore $1.24 b
Smith $1.15 b
Lehigh $939 million
Middlebury $782 m
Vassar $741 m
Oberlin $694 m
Bowdoin $673 m
Lafayette $648 m
Wesleyan $619 m
Hamilton $587 m
W & L $586 m
Carleton $571 m
Colgate $557 m
Colby $482 m
Haverford $452
Davidson $421</p>