Which Liberal Arts College Should I Attend?

Parents Forum
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<p>I'm currently a junior and interested to applying to a liberal arts college with a good economics program. I'm curious where I can get into because I don't have a clue right now.</p>

<p>So anyways, here are the statistics:
- GPA: 3.8-3.9 Unweighted, 4.0-4.1 Weighted
- SAT I: 1500; SAT ii's: 750s on 2
- Cycling Team (7 hrs/week/every week of the year)
- Speech and Debate Team (5 hrs/week/35 weeks)
- Around 500 hours of community service, helping day workers and using Spanish skills to translate what they're saying (I'm not from Mexico though)
- Advanced Percussion (3 hrs/week/every week of the year)
- Started an organization (internationally recognized) which helps needy children in my homeland of India. The organization's helped ~50-100 needy kids with college scholarships. Currently, the organization is moving to also provide clothing, medicine, general funds for disadvantaged youth. Started the non-profit organization by myself. It takes up about 20-25 hours/week and occassional trips to the country since there's about 10 part-time employees in the organization - This is pretty much my biggest EC and 'hook' for the colleges, in my opinion.</p>

<p>Any comments would be appreciated. If you could tell me which colleges are good in economics and of them, which I have a great chance, I'd be greatful. Thanks in advance!</p>

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<p>Tell us more about your likes and dislikes . Urban, or rural? Merit or need only? Liberal or wrong?</p>

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<p>Hope that helps. I'm just seeing which liberal arts colleges (with well-known economics programs) that I can gain admissions to.</p>

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<p>There are many fine LAC's, each with a somewhat different ambience.</p>

<p>When I look at your list (urban over rural, liberal, good econ department, strong community service background, and comfortable for Indian students), I would have to suggest that you put Swarthmore College on your list.</p>

<p>It is located in an old neighborhood near Philadelphia, with its own train station on campus that gets you to downtown Phila in 30 minutes. The campus is stunningly beautiful. The college has one of the largest per student endowments of any school in the country and all of the income from the endowment goes to undergrad education.</p>

<p>It has a large international and ethnic student body, with a particularly large number of Asian-Americans (including the Indian subcontinent).</p>

<p>It is best known for being the most academically challenging/intellectual liberal arts college and perhaps one of the two most academically difficult schools in the country (along with the U of Chicago).</p>

<p>It is part of the mission statement of the college that students not only learn, but learn to use their education to give something back to the world. You see this in the activities of Swarthmore alumni. Your community service work would be a very good fit.</p>

<p>The student body is quite small (1500). The campus has an exceptionally close-knit community, including students, faculty, and staff. It was one of the few liberal arts colleges that was co-ed from the beginning -- most were all-male until the 1970s. </p>

<p>It has a long tradition of being quite liberal politically/socially. It's founders were very active in the abolishion of slavery in the United States. Swarthmore women played key roles in the women's rights movement, including the campaign to get voting rights, writing the original Equal Rights Amendment, and founding the National Organization of Women. In the 1950s, Swarthmore was very active in fighting McCarthyism. More recently, the college was leader in actively using its endowment investments to force companies to divest South African apartheid holdings.</p>

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<p>BTW, I generally agree that most students should select a college based on the big picture, rather than the strength of an individual department.</p>

<p>However, if you want to consider Economics at the various LACs, one measure would be the number of grads from each school that go on to earn a Ph.D. in Economics. Here is the top ten from the LAC list (from 1986 - 1995):</p>

<p>1 Swarthmore Coll (PA) 54
2 Williams Coll (MA) 37
3 Oberlin Coll (OH) 28
4 Wellesley Coll (MA) 22
5 Carleton Coll (MN) 21
6 Wesleyan U (CT) 18
7 Pomona Coll (CA) 16
7 Vassar Coll (NY) 16
9 Colgate U (NY) 15
10 Smith Coll (MA) 14</p>

<p>The number after each college is the total number of Econ. Ph.Ds. during that period.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that these schools vary quite a bit in size. For example, of the top three schools, Swarthmore has 1500 undergrads, Williams has 2000, and Oberlin has 2750. Probably the best comparison would be to divide the number of PhDs by the size of the undergrad enrollment at each school -- known as "weighted rank". I can point you to some websites with this calculation already done for some fields, but I don't see it broken out for Econ, so you would have to do the math yourself.</p>

<p>You can look the raw number rankings for virtually every department and every LAC in this (large) PDF where I got the listing above:</p>

<p><a href="http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/CollegeRelations/BacOrigins/BacOrg98.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/CollegeRelations/BacOrigins/BacOrg98.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I would second Swarthmore as a great choice! (though I'm not sure it would be because of Ph.d. productivity, since a far larger proportion of economics undergraduate go for MBAs or to law school or, in the non-profit sector, to various social work progarms.)</p>

<p>But it really has everything you are looking for. Another good urban choice (with an even stronger international bent) would be Macalester. Pomona/CMC might be okay, and would give you greater chance to continue to use your Spanish community skills, thought better than either of those two for that purpose would be Occidental, with heavy emphasis on applied community service in their academic program, and much of it in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood.</p>

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<p>Cash'd:</p>

<p>Since you are from California (SoCal?), you should definitely drive out and visit the Claremont Colleges. They are near Pomona in the Inland Empire. It is five small colleges that share adjoining corners of a larger suburban campus. Each has its own flavor and specialty. </p>

<p>The two that would probably be the most interesting to you would be Pomona -- the oldest and most prestigious. It is a classic "East Coast" liberal arts college, offering the full range of departments like Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, etc. It is generally considered to be on par with these three top East Coast schools, but, of course, is located in SoCal. The adjoining Claremont-McKenna College tends to emphasize political science, government, econ., etc. The only hesitation I would have in selecting a college with a specialty like that is that you don't REALLY know what you want to major in until you've been at college for a while. Most kids change their minds! That's why I favor paying the most attention to the overall quality of the school, more than the individual department (unless you are firmly committed to a specialized field).</p>

<p>Pomona and Swarthmore are very similar from a curriculum standpoint. They have an exchange program where Pomona students can spend a semester at Swarthmore and vice versa. I believe the exchange is more or less "automatic" assuming the two schools have equal numbers of kids who want to swap places.</p>

<p>You have a fundamental decison about whether you want East Coast, West Coast, or somewhere in between. You have to balance the benefit of being exposed to a different part of the country with the logistical drawbacks of going to school 3000 miles from home.</p>

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<p>you should go where you are most comfortable. Even if you go to the #1 school for you major in the US, if you don't like it, you won't perform as well as you would at a school you do enjoy, even it's 50th best for your major.<br>
In fact, even if you go to a school that's #1 for your intended major (which tends to change anyways), you're more likely to drop out of that program and switch your major... than if you were at a less-prestigious school that you were most comfortable.</p>

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<p>swarthmore is more of a safety. i think you should go for Wesleyan if you want liberal arts, and a great school. Oberlin, Vassar, Carleton, and Colgate are safeties for you. I know Swarthmore is beautiful and great. But if you want top notch liberal arts, go to Wesleyan.</p>

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<p>swarthmore a safety?????????????? what?!?!!? from what i've read and everything, swarthmore is one of the hardest schools in the country to get into, even harder than some of the lesser ivies..swarthmore is much, much more prestigious than weslyan..it's the biggest reach school i'm applying to..</p>

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<p>I don't know about prestige, but Swarthmore is not a "safety" for very many applicants. </p>

<p>USNEWS lists it as the hardest LAC in the country to get into and that's been the "conventional wisdom" at least as far back as the 1970s. </p>

<p>I wonder if "daspidey" is thinking of Skidmore?</p>

<p>[Note: I think "hard to get into" is a little simplistic; the actualy odds have a lot to do with individual "fit" and how effectively that is communicated on the application. For example, you could have two applicants with absolutely identical "stats. Swat could be "easy" to get into for one; impossible for the other...]</p>

<p>[Second note: I would be uncomfortable saying that schools like Oberlin, Vasser, Carleton, or Colgate are "safeties" for a student based on a very brief list of stats and ECs. That kind of determination requires some qualitative assessment of the student's high school and lots of other factors that go beyond a laundry list...]</p>

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<p>Hey, Lisa, I thought you were at the Discovery Weekend. Are you posting from there?</p>

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<p>Yeah sorry. Kind of detoxing right now. Skidmore is easy to get into. Swarthmore is great and beautiful</p>

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<p>achat - ahhhhhh!!! i was SO MAD!!! i got really really sick on thursday and couldnt go!!!!! i was really really upset but i called and they said not to worry about it...i still get upset when i think about it though :(</p>

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<p>You would have fit right in. The whole campus is sick this week.</p>

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<p>Wow - nearly 10 replies in just one day. Thanks to all of you for the help.</p>

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<p>Ditto a number of selections and comments above about LACs and top economic programs. Interesteddad's list is quite good. While Swarthmore is quite difficult (and is no one's safety ever), you might concentrate on the following, especially for economics: Williams, Carleton, Colgate, Davison, Grinnell, Haverford, Washington & Lee, Hamilton, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Oberlin and Trinity -- also, of the women's colleges, Wellesley and Smith.</p>

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<p>Yeah, half of the people in the dorm I stayed in had the beginnings of the sickness that turned into the full-scale thing that's going on at the Discovery Weekend.</p>

<p>I was miserable on the bus ride back home and the next day at school because I caught it. Even that couldn't stop me from saying that I had a FANTASTIC time at Swarthmore.</p>

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<p>Here are some additional suggestions for you: Northwestern, Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Haverford, Georgetown, Penn, Princeton, Middlebury, Stanford, Yale, Duke. For likelies, add: Vandy, Bates, CWRU, GWU, Kenyon, Bowdoin.</p>

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<p>awww..i should have gone! how awesome was it willywonka? maannnn i can't believe i missed it :(</p>