<p>Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore</p>
<p>Are they in the top 5? along with HYPS, Penn, Caltech?
Are they in the top 10? top 15? top 20?</p>
<p>There is a reason US News separates the schools into different categories.</p>
<p>If you have to ask this question, then you don't understand how the US News rankings work.</p>
<p>The single most important component of the ranking, accounting for 25% of the total, is the "Peer Assessment" (PA) score, which is obtained from a survey of college administrators. But the administrators of "national universities" and "liberal arts colleges" are polled separately. So there is no way to "move" any school back and forth between the two rankings, because you cannot assume that the important PA score would be identifical in both surveys.</p>
<p>Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore get very high PA scores in the LAC survey, presumably because of their reputations for teaching excellence. But it seems likely that university administrators see things differently, and put relatively higher weights on research reputation. If so, then WAS would probably get much lower PA scores from university administrators. It would work the same way in reverse: most universities would probably suffer if their PA scores were determined by LAC administrators.</p>
<p>Eight, behind HPYS MIT CalT, Dart. As good a guess as any.</p>
<p>but that is not how US News ranking is, icantfindaname.</p>
<p>I agree that this thread is silly.</p>
<p>take away the PA portion of the ranking since it's very subjective and controversial anyway, I'm wondering how they fit in?
A lot of people raised eyebrows when I told them I might go to a LAC. I need a point of reference in the national universities ranking.</p>
<p>In response to the OP and to post #3, Williams College's USNews' PA score is a 4.7 and would place it in a tie with CalTech at #5. Same with respect to Amherst College. Although I do agree that meshing LACs with National Universities is not a good idea, Swarthmore, Williams & Amherst are the Yale & Princeton of the LAC world (with, of course, some very substantial differences).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf</a> -- Williams is #5, Swarthmore and Amherst are both in the top 10. The ranking is fairly controversial and several years old, but probably the least controversial of the rankings that combine Universities with LACs. This ranking rates output (how successful are students upon graduating) rather than input (how good are the students coming in to the school).</p>
<p>Rankings aside, WAS are about as selective as the 5-12 (or so) range of National Universities...Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford are all more selective (ie: harder to get into). However, that said, there are strong arguments to be made that the actual quality of education that you get at WAS is, for the average student, superior to even that of HYPS. Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore, are sufficiently wealthy and prestigious to attract top researchers, and unlike the top Universities, those researchers are at WAS entirely to work with students. Sure, you'll get a few more famous scholars at HYPS, but you're trading the opportunity to research one on one with the second best statistician in the country (an opportunity typical at WAS) for the opportunity to sit in a 200 person class with the best statistician in the country (and opportunity typical of HYPS)...IMO, I'd take the 1-1 research.</p>
<p>My reason for asking is some dim-witted kid got into JHU and thinks he's superior to me. Pretends like he's never heard of WAS (I think)</p>
<p>Funny too that many people have never heard of Mt. Holyoke</p>
<p>Mt Holyoke = sexually frustrated girls : )</p>
<p>rl.hill, do you have any reasons to say so?</p>
<p>middsmith, not that attending a more selective or prestigious college has much to do with personal superiority, but you can point your JHU friend to the fact that the Williams avg SAT is ~ 60 points higher and their acceptance rate is ~ 10% lower than JHU. Not to mention the more enjoyable college experience once you are on campus, which over time becomes more important anyway.</p>
<p>gellino, JHU's middle 50% SAT is 2150 while Williams' is 2145. JHU's acceptance rate was 22% last round while Williams' was 19%. In other words, what are you talking about.</p>
<p>thanks ecco1mi, you make my day.</p>
<p>hey, on the other hand, such differences either way are completely negligible. there's no reason he should think he's superior. in fact, i find that a little confusing, as i would have thought williams would have more of a ring to it as the #1 ranked LAC. i'm just defending JHU from blatantly false remarks.</p>
<p>williams' acceptance rate this year was 16.3%</p>
<p>test scores...</p>
<p>Williams</p>
<p>Middle 50% of First-Year Students<br>
SAT Critical Reading: 670 - 760
SAT Math: 670 - 760<br>
SAT Writing: 660 - 760
ACT Composite: 29 - 33 </p>
<p>JHU</p>
<p>Middle 50% of First-Year Students
SAT Critical Reading: 630 - 730
SAT Math: 660 - 770
SAT Writing: 630 - 730
ACT Composite: 28 - 33</p>
<p>i got these from that college search thing on the collegeboard website</p>
<p>I got my info from Wikipedia, though the best source would clearly be the school's websites themselves. collegeboard isn't up to date.</p>
<p>WSA (in no particular order) are the HYP of LAC in terms of peer assessment and prestige factor for "those who know" (as opposed to the man in the street who might have only heard of HYP). All are great, none is going to be better for everybody. Frankly, however, it is splitting hairs to conclude that someone's education or success in life would in any way be compromised if they "had" to attend Stanford, U. Chicago, JHU or for that matter Pomona or Carlton.</p>
<p>Here is a rough approximation of what I believe are the top 15 or so where I believe WSA fit in. This is just a general idea, and most of these schools are very close to each other. I'm not trying to prove a point or attempt to make an objective ranking, just trying to provoke discussion based on my observations.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Amherst</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Wellesley</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>