Most of these colleges are ranked as the most rigorous in the country, as well as having an extremely small student to faculty ratio, and an insane amount of students being admitted to the most prestigious grad schools in the nation.
Why not go here for your undergrad, set an extremely intellectual foundation, and then move onto what will look great on your resume?
I’m going to apply to some of these schools, and you should too.
I agree okon. Many great and unique schools on that list. It should be looked at seriously.
CTCL group is frequently mentioned here.
There are LOTS of threads running for many years on ‘Colleges That Change Lives’ if u do a search in the forum
Because initially it was an author’s idea of which schools the author likes. Most are small liberal art colleges that are not as competitive to gain entry to. Some are very rigorous and some are simply not. They are simply less well known and often good schools for B students (although some are harder to get into). I suspect this is a way to market schools that have had difficulty filling their seats with full payers.
Yeah, CTCL schools are mentioned very often here - or at least some of them. There are several on the list that are mentioned less frequently (like Antioch, Hiram, Emory & Henry, Millsaps, Marlboro, and Southwestern).
But…@lostaccount is right. The organization is based upon a book Loren Pope wrote in 1996, and the list he gave in the book is different from the member organizations of the foundation today. The CTCL were deliberately selected as a group of colleges that provided excellent educations but were not very selective (note that selectivity and rigor are not the same thing). For example, Franklin & Marshall, Bard, and Grinnell all used to be on the list but were removed because they got too selective.
More importantly, though, the only thing that holds the schools on the list together is that they’re all small liberal arts colleges that are generally less-selective - generally - than some of the tippy top schools, but they vary greatly in quality. You’ve got places like Reed and Whitman, which are relatively selective and whose students have high grades and test scores. You’ve got great weird little places like Lawrence and Kalamazoo, both of which have acceptance rates of 70% or above but whose students have high average SAT scores and GPAs. There are a few colleges on the list that are less impressive in terms of the quality of their student body. It does seem, though, that the bulk of the list are colleges that are not competitive to get into - admitting probably somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of their applicants - but still manage to have mostly above-average student bodies and have an educational model centered around individualized student learning.
The one thing I WOULD be cautious about with CTCL (and any small colleges) are that many small liberal arts colleges are tuition-dependent colleges with small endowments. That means that they rely on continuing enrollment and maintaining the size of their student body in order to keep functioning - literally keep the lights on and pay the teachers. Earlier this year saw the Sweet Briar episode, and Antioch College - which is actually on the CTCL list - is a well-regarded SLAC that closed for 3 years because of a long history of financial struggles, and it’s not yet accredited again, although it should be by the end of 2016.
CTCL is mentioned here a lot. Silly.
@juillet. “There are a few colleges on the list that are less impressive in terms of the quality of their student body.”
And you mean what exactly…
@okon2122 I’m sure these schools do a great job but after visiting a few eastern schools in that organization, you walk away flat and unimpressed. There are other B/B+ student schools that offer a lot more in terms of college experience, facilities, housing, food, school spirit, alumni functions, etc.
I am one of those who mentions CTCL but I don’t always suggest it. If the student is interested in a large university, engineering, finance, business, big time sports, someone who wants top 25, I don’t mention CTCL. The schools are great for B, B+ students who want a small LAC. Even then, CTCL is more a jumping of point. If you read the book, you can develop an entire list of schools without mentioning one on their list.
It’s December.
There were lots and lots of threads that mentioned CTCL earlier in the year. By now, many of the kids on this site have already decided where to apply-- and/or have applied and started getting acceptances.
Yup, mentioned frequently, and a great starting point for thinking creatively about schools. I wouldn’t take membership in CTCL as an automatic badge of quality for a given kid, because they occupy QUITE a range of selectivity and quality, but they’re worth investigating, and if there’s a session near you, it’s well worth attending, as much for the perspectives offered as for the schools themselves.
My kid visited four CTCL schools, has applied with great enthusiasm to one of them (another runner-up didn’t make the final cut and two fell off quickly), and has applied to several other more far-flung ones sight unseen after learning more at their info session, along with some further follow-up.
One of my colleagues has a daughter who is just starting apps. (Or this where dad thinks she is in the process). No elites he says. I mentioned the CTCL site. She loves evergreen. So they are going to look through the rest!
@okon2122 I’m not sure where “most rigorous in the country” is coming from. They can be excellent schools for the right kid (and, as noted, occupy quite a range of selectivity and rigor), but the only one that seems to me to fit into the “MOST rigorous” group would be Reed, which has become significantly more selective in recent years, and is a bit of a ringer in this crowd. Others may have other thoughts in this regard, but that’s my impression.
I agree with porcupine98 that Reed is the most rigorous of the CTCL schools, however its unique nature will appeal to a very particular sort of student, thus it has an acceptance rate that isn’t most selective, applicants are already doing self selecting.
Whitman also offers rigorous academics, has high achieving applicants and has the latest acceptance rate of 42%, it is often overlooked because of it’s location. Walla Walla is a very charming town and the area offers many outdoor opportunities and eagerly supports the campus with internships and many opportunities for student involvement. Loren Pope states in the revised edition of CTCL that it would have been removed from the CTCL list because of it’s steadily growing selectivity, but still battles the perception that it’s in the middle of nowhere and deserves to get more attention.
BTW HRSMom, Whitman’s former president, George Bridges, left Whitman this summer after 10 years of amazingly competent leadership to take the helm at Evergreen College. To do so he took a huge pay cut, but he is a man dedicated to education and I can see him being intrigued by that unique public liberal arts college, and wanting to help it live up to its potential. I think the future at Evergreen is going to be very bright.
I really got a lot out of Loren Pope’s other book, “Looking Beyond the Ivy League”. It made a very good case for putting a student’s “fit” at a potential school as the most important criteria for attendance. I recommend it as a very thought provoking read.
And fit (academic and otherwise) to any given student. The differences between small schools may be more noticeable than the differences between big schools with respect to fit to any given student.
I agree about rigor – these would pretty much all have been low matches or safeties for my kids. But for students with a little lower stats or seeking an LAC with good merit opportunities, they can be a great fit. And CTCL is often mentioned out here.
Actually, I looked at CTCL schools because they were NOT amongst the most selective with sub 30% acceptance rates. In fact, I thought one criterion was that the schools have acceptance rates around 45-50% or higher. As Juillet pointed out, schools have fallen off the CTCL list because they became more selective. A key point of CTCL was that your B/B+ child can get a good education outside schools with acceptance rates less than 35%.
My two cents:
Yup. CTCL is an excellent conversation-starter but not the whole picture.