<p>Although I'm not zealous about the "college rankings," the three LAC's always seem to rank the top 3. What creates this unbreakable barrier between the Little 3 and other schools? Smarter kids? Better professors? Affluency? Name value?</p>
<p>My guess would be "all of the above"...</p>
<p>Everything you've mentioned and more, all of which is directly traceable to "per student endowment".</p>
<p>The things that make Swarthmore special are, in part, unique to Swarthmore. But, without the financial resources, many of these things would not be possible. The same is true of the things that make Williams uniquely special and Amherst uniquely special. Pomona and Wellesley are the two other LACs with massive per student endowments.</p>
<p>Swarthmore has an endowment of $985,000 per student.</p>
<p>Swarthmore spends $78,427 per year **per student<a href="not%20including%20financial%20aid">/b</a>.</p>
<p>The average Swarthmore student only pays $30,417 in tuition, room, and board (after financial aid).</p>
<p>The endowment income contributes $33,297 per student. An additional $9,000 per student comes from the annual fund and various private grants.</p>
<p>Thus, the endowment and other sources allows each student to get $78,000 worth of stuff for only $30,000. This extra $48,000 worth of stuff includes a highly motivated faculty, a stunning campus, and the student-centered support services that go a long way towards making Swarthmore special.</p>
<p>I don't want to disagree at all, but in terms of endowment I would add Grinnell to this list. I have ever been to the campus, but bethie's posts have convinced me that the money is very well spent there, too.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what makes Williams special to my S is related to endowment, though it may be in ways I don't understand The entry system has given him a very supportive and active social base, and his opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities is, well, amazing. (Trite word -- I am agonizing over it, but it is late.)</p>
<p>D is at Barnard without an impressive endowment (partly accounts for somewhat lowly USNWR status.) Being in NYC and tied to Columbia have given her wonderful opportunities as well as a very personal relationship to her teachers. She hasn't found it as easy to participate as S has, but she has heard a procession of speakers in her classes, famous and not, who would not all make it up to Williamstown.</p>
<p>So I think there is no short cut here. You have to do research.</p>
<p>And to support above post, I totally agree that Swarthmore is an incredible school both in beauty of campus and what it provides to its students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Swarthmore has an endowment of $985,000 per student.
[/quote]
i'm sorry, what's an endowment?</p>
<p>It's the money a college has to spend.</p>
<p>Oops. How could I forget Grinnell! Thanks.</p>
<p>Narcissa:</p>
<p>The endowment is a college's "savings account". It is money permanently invested that generates investment returns. A portion of the investment returns are spent each year by the college. The endowments start with gifts. The older colleges have the benefit of investing those gifts for a very long time.</p>
<p>The vast majority of colleges and universities have negligible endowments and rely on student fees (tuition, etc.) to cover their operating expenses. The very well known private colleges and universities have large endowments. I haven't looked at this year's final list, but Swarthmore is typically right at the top ten of all universities and colleges in the country in per student endowment. Pomoma a bit higher still. Williams and Amherst, just behind.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. In effect, Swarthmore gives each student a $1 million trust fund for the four years they are in college. The earnings from the trust fund pay for more than half of the cost of the professors, the fancy campus, the science facilities, the deans, the health center, the debate team parties, and everything else the student does for four years.</p>
<p>Endowment is also related to admissions selectivity. College customers aren't stupid. If you could buy a $78,000 Mercedes for $30,000, people would be lined up around the block. Same thing with colleges. The long line of eager customers allows the well-endowed colleges to get the best students, which in turn increases the demand.</p>
<p>We all know this is gonna be fun.</p>
<p>1) Am I wrong to notice that the question asked seems to already invite a particular answer despite the qualifiers used? It’s unintentional but I think it needs to be pointed out to the initial poster. </p>
<p>2) Doesn’t anyone want to challenge why some individuals are so fixated on "3”? Does this trinity have to do with religion? Are there really gold/silver and bronze medals awarded? Is this a baseball game where you only have 3 strikes? Don’t we have 10 fingers to count on? Given that there are probably over 2000 colleges, it could very well be asked “Why are the top 10 always the same?” or, if we use our toes, “Why on earth are the top 20 always the same?” Seriously, focusing on 3 (or even 10) has more to do with a lack of perspective than increased granularity. It’s also an artificial construct. </p>
<p>3) Now… for the “endowment”. Yes, more endowment is better but several things need to be said. We should ask ourselves what is the purpose of college? Is it to get a phenomenal education or is it to have lavish dorm spaces, gardens, and resort like amenities? I think we’ve lost sight of what’s most important with college. </p>
<p>All colleges *1st * spend on academics and if they have $ left over, it then goes to less important “luxury” items and the farther we move from academic support, the less “bang for the buck”. As such, the academic opportunities between schools are much more similar than endowment differences would make you believe. </p>
<p>I think it’s too easy and misleading to assume that just because a school has more $ that it automatically offers a better education across the board or proportionally more so. Look at the sciences for example… despite Haverford having ½ the endowment of some other schools, it is the only LAC to have a National Academy of Science member on its faculty, (additionally) 2 NIH funded professors while other LACs have none, 2 MDs teach in the biology department (don’t think other LACs have this), a lab where human stem cells are researched (1st for LACs), and a science curriculum so cutting edge that it is only 1 of 2 LACs to receive maximum funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute over 2 funding cycles (Williams being the other), ect… </p>
<p>In addition, the US News measures schools individually… it doesn’t consider that some schools benefit from synergies while others do not. As I wrote in “Cons” some schools with smaller endowments can provide more generous resources than wealthier peers because of consortium relationships.</p>
<p>4) Interested Dad… your numbers are always accurate but I’m troubled with your interpretation of them as I find it usually incomplete. As above, I think you are leaving out important considerations when using numbers and ranks to proxy for complicated outcomes like “education” and “quality” and I see a pattern elsewhere as well… and since I’m in the neighborhood, I might as well digress to finish my tangent…</p>
<p>a) A “24 hour” health center (“Cons”). The # of hours may have been right but your assumption about what that “24 hours” means was way off as evidenced by the replies you got. Your use of this to compare with other colleges was misleading as well. Actually, Swat is trying and may (?) soon have an accredited health center <em>like Haverford’s</em> once it makes some much needed renovations… BTW, I don’t believe serving “chicken soup” is an accrediting benchmark. :D</p>
<p>b) PhD rankings. These were intended by the original investigator to say that, as a <em>category</em>, LACs are as productive as large universities in terms of research if we use PhD production as a rough proxy for this. Thom Cech would be appalled if he knew people were using these PhD tables to suggest that the difference in a few “ranks” merits a commentary on some difference between schools. It shows similarities… it doesn’t have the power to show differences. </p>
<p>I know I go overboard with these responses but I always remember Mencken’s quote… 'There is always an easy solution to every problem—-neat, plausible, and wrong” and I try to be thorough. If you want to compare colleges, if you want to use ranks and numbers to do so, if you want to discuss things as complex as “quality” and “education”, it’s important to search out the entire story and see it from both sides.</p>
<p>awsph = hypsm</p>
<p>
[quote]
BTW, I don’t believe serving “chicken soup” is an accrediting benchmark.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is to a parent who is 400 miles away with a kid who is sick as a dog and needs to spend a couple of nights in a quiet comfortable place with somebody around who gives a damn when the only thing they can keep down is chicken soup and ginger ale.</p>
<p>BTW, the specific question asked was not "what other LACs offer an education as good as AWS?". The question was, "what makes AWS special?" I believe that the most honest and comprehensive answer to that question is per student endowment.</p>
<p>^^Hear, hear. Congressional hearings, that is. Who knows where this endowment "arms race" might have ended if someone hadn't stepped in and asked, "What exactly are you guys doing with all of that money?" The answer, tuition relief for middle class families. And not a moment too soon, if you ask me.</p>
<p>
<p>It would have been more fun if you had made a decent argument. But, you didn't. Anyway, back to the OP...</p>
<p> [quote=impsuit] Although I'm not zealous about the "college rankings," the three LAC's always seem to rank the top 3. What creates this unbreakable barrier between the Little 3 and other schools? Smarter kids? Better professors? Affluency? Name value?
</p>
<p>It's basically that last thing you mentioned. That, and it has almost become a tradition at this point for the top three spots on the US News & World Report's rankings of liberal arts colleges to be the same three schools, leading to their supposed specialness being more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else. If you want to talk about numbers, like interesteddad apparently wants to, then you have to acknowledge that Pomona's numbers make it a contender, what with a higher SAT, a larger endownment, and so on.</p>
<p>But apparently chicken soup trumps all of this. More the worse for Pomona being in a climate that doesn't see freezing weather for 4-5 months out of the year and, as such, doesn't have people contracting the cold as much or wanting chicken soup to warm them up.</p>
<p>The little three are in the top three, thus people (like yourself) are more likely to apply to them. Thus they have a larger applicant pool and can afford to be significantly more selective, which, one would imagine, leads to a stronger student body.</p>
<p>That said, I'm also sure that Swat turns away people who would do perfectly well here. And there are a hell of a lot more than 1,400 smart high school seniors out there.</p>
<p>But overtime prestige probably helps with attracting professors, grant monies, etc., so small benefits accrue.</p>
<p>Just my .02.</p>
<p>Well, less competition is the West makes Pomona more selective.</p>
<p>Nothing really separates these three schools from the next three or the next three.</p>
<p>And my S attends Williams. I don't think things would be much different if he were at Carleton, Haverford, Wesleyan, Pomona. You get my drift.</p>
<p>Someone has to be the top three; history, tradition, whatever puts these three there. (Peer score is certainly involved.)</p>
<p>And top for what? I still think the much derided fit is important. D at Barnard would not be happy at any of these campuses. She looked for the one liberal arts college in NYC.</p>
<p>Little 3: Isn't Wesleyan (better known in yrs past as The Wesleyan) the third along w/ Wms and Amherst?</p>
<p>That's what I always thought?</p>
<p>Yes. The little three is an athletic conference consisting of Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan, all previous men's colleges.</p>
<p>The thread refers to the top three ranked schools in USN&WR. There seems to be some confusion.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Someone has to be the top three; history, tradition, whatever puts these three there. (Peer score is certainly involved.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The academic reputations of the three schools were established in the period from 1920 through 1960 when they existed in a closed loop system (Andover/Exeter/Westchester County to Amherst/Williams, Quaker preps/mid-Atlantic to Swarthmore) with funding from Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc. There really wasn't a corresponding closed-loop system of private hoity-toit prep schools to private hoity-toit colleges in other regions of the country. The money, at the time, was in the northeast corridor.</p>
<p>Swarthmore rode two things to its unique academic reputation: its Honors Program started in the 1920s and the fact that it was co-ed.</p>
<p>Several other LACs were included in the tippy top tier, but made decisions (usually signficant and/or ill-timed expansion) that diluted their per student endowments. And, of course, the superb Seven Sisters took a hit when the male colleges and universities decided to stop discriminating against women in the 60s and 70s.</p>
<p>^I think if Wesleyan had the luxury of choosing between having the highest endowment per student in the country OTOH and maintaining the present size and scope of its student body OTO -- it would choose the latter.</p>