@klingon97: Your content comports with @OHMomof2’s.
Thanks for getting me merci81. But you might have used too many big words there, for some.
Technically, it is, by 8, though that wasn’t my point.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-pennsylvania-3378
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/williams-college-2229
US News doesn’t rank national universities and LAC’s against each other so your two links are for totally different lists.
Really? I didn’t know. :))
USN doesn’t rank Wharton separately either.
But since @citivas mentions it,
@OHMomof2 Wharton isn’t ranked because it is a division of the University of Pennsylvania. And you cannot compare LACS, research universities etc.
I’d also urge caution going by what Forbes, USNWR and others report. They have various methodologies. However, in the case of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, Williams doesn’t rank in the list of the most interns.
@klingon97 It seems my earlier comment in post #18 is still hovering over your head.
This thread is turning into a prime example of the pernicious effects of the ranking system. It makes us look at this as a zero sum game where we not only defend College A but feel compelled to attack College B. The original question was why is the acceptance rate at Williams lower than at some of its peers? Several good answers were given. But now it’s veering off into a ranking argument.
“But now it’s veering off into a ranking argument.” (#28)
Should there be more hovering, I’ll suspect the presence of halos.
- Wharton is a graduate school. We are talking undergrads. 2. We are talking about quants- "math". 3. Williams has the highest ranked mathematics program by academic peers. 4. It is well known in the street that investment banks pick primarily from Harvard, Yale and Princeton and to a lesser degree other Ivies. They will go through recruiting for good relations but don't take many beyond HYP. Williams does better than most because of the math angle and one of the major Wall Street firms was founded by a Williams alum which helps. 5. Williams is a top 5 feeder to elite MBA, law and med programs behind (HYPS). 6. You need to read carefully. I didn't say Penn was inferior, although Forbes would.
Wharton is also an undergrad school @hangemhigh
@HangemHigh It’s pretty widely accepted that Wharton and Harvard are the two most recruited schools on Wall Street. The fact you didn’t realize Wharton has an undergrad component fully undermines your argument, but just to correct some more fallacies, you cite investment banks like Williams because it’s “quant.” Being quant plays little if any role in getting into investment banking. GS, JPM, MS and all the EBBs don’t care about your math ability. That’s a completely different aspect of finance.
However, specifically in regards to quant, Penn sends a number undergrads directly to Jane Street, DE Shaw, AQR and many more top shops every year. Maybe Williams has some representation there, but it’s not nearly as significant.
^approx. 25% of Penn’s undergraduates belong to Wharton.
The answer is actually fairly simple. Amherst, Pomona, and Swarthmore are the top schools in their respective consortia (the Five Colleges, the Claremont Colleges, and the Tri Colleges).
Consequently, they are the reach schools for applicants within their consortia. Further, a student visiting Smith or U Mass Amherst, for example, may never have heard of Amherst prior to a visit and becomes aware of the school upon a campus tour. In the age of the common app and wild applications to reach schools, application numbers balloon.
This works for students who might be looking upstream and downstream as students applying to Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton might be looking for a backup, and students applying to Cornell or Georgetown might be looking for a reach school. (No judgement on these schools - just an honest observation from my years on a LAC campus)
Logically then, Amherst, Pomona and Swarthmore end up with lower acceptance rates but the academic quality of the matriculated student body does not exceed that of the Williams student body.
Further, Pomona’s sports teams combine with Pitzer’s (the Sagehans), so that is also going to likely inflate cross-applications between the schools (one will of course have to study the data for cross-applications). It will allow Pomona to pick some athletes and rest assured that the less academic ones enroll at Pitzer.
An applicant with brains will realize that elite college admissions can be a lottery and will do well to file applications at schools that are not part of a consortium to increase his or her chances of being admitted to a quality institution.
To further elucidate, an applicant might visit Mount Holyoke as a backup to Yale or Dartmouth, and then apply to Amherst upon becoming aware of it and dropping in for a visit. The other way round, an applicant may visit U Mass Amherst, realize Amherst is a great school, stop on campus, and then throw a Hail Mary pass.
Williams will not be on a lot of campus tours, so students who apply to the school will either have consulted rankings, know a student or graduate, or be referred to by an acquaintance. The applicant is likely going to self-select himself or herself and be within the school’s statistical academic range.
@newyorker01 that probably accounts for some of it, but it doesn’t explain why places like Bowdoin or Colorado have a lower acceptance rates or Middlebury and Wesleyan get more applications.
The real reason is probably a complex mixture of a number of factors already outlined: rural location, less marketing, less visits to the college by prospective students, other LACs having small student bodies and desirable factors like sunny weather, etc.
You also imply by your last sentence in your first post that Williams is easier to get into than comparable elite institutions. By admit rates, it may seem that way, but I’d echo that students who apply to Williams tend to self-select and thus might be a stronger admit pool than that at other top schools. According to collegedata, which tracks the self-reported scores of students interested in a school:
Williams: 3.86 UW/4.3W, 709/683 M/ERW, 32 ACT
Pomona: 3.81/4.19, 669/669, 32
Both schools have comparable admitted/enrolled student profiles, so even if it’d seem Pomona is 58% harder to get into via admit rate, the difference for a qualified student in getting in is probably not much between the two schools.
The real reason that Bowdoin/Middlebury/Wesleyan etc get more applicants and thus have lower acceptance rates are that those schools make it easier to apply.
Bowdoin and Wesleyan are both test optional, meaning that tons of people with mediocre/bad scores apply there because they think they have a better shot than at other schools of equal selectivity. Furthermore, you don’t need to worry if you have taken enough Sat subject tests or anything like that.
Middlebury and Wesleyan both have no supplemental essay, so anyone who is remotely interested can just add them to their commons app last minute and apply in <5 minutes. At a place like Williams, you need to spend a significant amount of time on the supplement if you want to have any shot at admission, so that definitely deters some people who aren’t super interested in the school.
Look at a place like Colby. They are definitely less selective than somewhere like Williams, but, by the numbers, they appear to be similar. They have no supplement, are test ‘flexible’ (easier to meet testing requirements), and they don’t even have an application fee, meaning that it is totally easy to apply at the last second with no repercussions whatsoever. The policy has worked; they went from an admission rate of 26% for the class of '17 to a rate of 17% for the class of '20.
Some great insights on this thread. Test optional strategy, supplement/no supplement location, other schools’ marketing that leads to more apps all seem to be at play.
Personally I am glad about that 19% acceptance rate – S #2 will interview there this summer!
I agree with Newyorker01’s take on this quite a bit. We basically took 5 college trips. Live south of Boston, MA.
Western Mass- Mount Holyoke, Smith, Amherst, U-Mass ( One day )
New York - Yale, Conn College, Hofstra, Sarah Lawrence ( One day )
Vermont - Middlebury, Saint Michael’s ( Accepted ), Drove by UVM ( One day )
Maine - Colby (Deffered ED) , Bates, Bowdoin ( 2 days )
Upstate New York - Hamilton, Skidmore ( 2 days )
We would not have walked around Amherst if we were not driving by.
We only walked around Yale since we were driving by.
Saint Michael’s became her safety school. ( Accepted )
We probably would not have visited Bowdoin if not on the way home from Bates.
We added Skidmore because it was somewhat on the way home from Hamilton.
Now, Smith and Skidmore seem like real possibilities, and we never went by Williams. Since it would be a reach, we did not go out of our way to visit. Her SAT score is close to the range for most of these (1450) but needs financial aid.