<p>Williams and Amherst are well known for vying for US News #1 Liberal Arts title. "Williams, Amherst" is a synonym for "Top LAC's" in colloquial talk. Swarthmore is consistently right behind them. </p>
<p>What part of US News's methodology has consistently recognized Williams and Amherst as better than Swarthmore?</p>
<p>Then, what makes Forbes put Swarthmore multiple spaces above Williams and Amherst?</p>
<p>In my experience, people haven't ever claimed that Amherst or Williams are better than Swarthmore. For good reason, too. But Amherst and Williams are more popularly emphasized as the best LAC's. Is US News really that powerful in shaping popular opinion?</p>
<p>The Forbes and USNWR criteria are almost completely different, so it is not surprising the results are a little different. Unlike USNWR, Forbes ranks national universities and LACs in a single list. If you remove universities from the Forbes ranking, S-W-A come out at positions 2-4-5. That’s very similar to the US News outcome, really. Forbes ranks the US Military Academy higher than USNWR does (3rd among LACs v. 17th). That isn’t surprising, considering the Forbes emphasis on career outcomes. That change in the Army ranking, and the presence of universities, are the only reasons Forbes separates Swarthmore by “multiple” spaces.</p>
<p>Actually, if you look at a long term range of ranking, the three of them are interchangeable. That’s why the accronym SWA was created. Not that at the moment of accronym creation, Swartmore was first. But, REALLY, it doesn’t matter. Those rankings should be read as groupings: top 5, top 10, top 25, top 35, top 50, etc. within each group, the colleges are similar in quality and selectivity, although they may vary in vibe and focus. Exact numbers are so meaningless even the creator of the rankings acknowledges it. Note that this year they tried to create groupings (with the “ties”) so that people stop foolishly thinking being ranked 11 or 13 means something.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as the “best” LAC. What does that even mean? One can point out a number of criteria and assign in whatever way they may choose to. If the priority was on peer assessment and general prestige, Williams would do very well. If the focus was on small classes, Haverford and Claremont McKenna would do better than Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst. If it were on admissions selectivity, Amherst, Mudd, and Pomona would be on the top. </p>
<p>Rankings like US News and Forbes are inherently flawed. Why does Williams do slightly better? Because of the peer assessment scores- a highly contested and subjective criteria. Why did Pomona do better on Forbes? Because of a higher score according to RateMyProfessors- also highly disputed. Instead of mindlessly accepting rankings, one should be careful to understand the methodology and evaluate its strengths and flaws.</p>
<p>Going about it in the “1 vs 2 vs 3” perspective is the wrong way to do it. As pointed out, the best way to compare is with tiers. Just like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are in their own tier, so are Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst. Just like Stanford is the undisputed West Coast version of that tier, so is Pomona. Middlebury and Bowdoin and Carleton and Haverford and Wellesley and the other LACs may be slightly less selective or endowed, but they offer a truly incredible experience- for the right person, better than any other LAC. And that’s what really matters, not tiny nitpicking over which is better than the other.</p>
<p>The thing about the rankings is they are just a tool - and when you insert the student in the equation, which school is “best” completely changes. </p>
<p>As an example, my D applied ED1 to a Top 5 LAC and was deferred. Yes, we’re disappointed, especially considering who they actually did pick from her school, but was it really the best school for her? It would be a very good school, but it was not the absolute best, if I am completely honest about it. The “best” school, using a number of factors, is actually another LAC, this one in the Top 20. Maybe it wouldn’t be the “best” for most students, but it really would be for her, which is why she’ll try again ED2.</p>
<p>The absolute best thing about the lists is that they lead us to the schools in the first place. Here in the Midwest, these schools are obscure, and we never would have found them otherwise. Once you find one, you can use the list to find similar schools in quality, and really zero in on it. If she gets in her “best” school, I’m not really concerned that there are a few schools ranked above hers, because those had flaws according to her specific criterion, the main one being, they weren’t going to let her in, but even if they did, if they aren’t a good fit, ranking means little if you hate the place.</p>
<p>The smallness of LACs also means that individual fit (academic and social) tends to be a bigger factor in which school is better for a given student.</p>
<p>Using the USNews annual ranking in order to choose between the tippy-toppiest colleges in the poll is a little like choosing a car based on which one guzzles the most gas. It’s a proxy for how much the school spends per student. Last May, Amherst announced that it was walking away from a $19 million investment in its new science center because of cost overruns, but, using USNews’ logic, that actually counts as a good thing. </p>
<p>Furthermore, Amherst’s applications fell last year (and, they will probably fall again this year) because of continuing allegations that a “rape culture” exists on the campus despite well publicized efforts to diversify the student body. Yet, its USNews Peer Assessment, which is supposed to measure things like reputation, never budged and is not likely to budge next year either. If a school can suffer through a truly annus_horribilis like Amherst’s without moving the dial on its USNews ranking, then what good is the ranking?</p>
<p>“Financial resources per student” counts for 10% of the US News ranking. Expenditure per student is not a factor. There may be a strong correlation between the rank order and expenditures per student, but I doubt it would be stronger than the correlation between the rank order and every actual ranking factor (test scores in particular).</p>
<p>The US News rankings does seem to correlate rather strongly with endowment size per student ([College</a> Rankings - Home](<a href=“http://www.ordoludus.com/quality.php?sort=ES&dir=down#data]College”>http://www.ordoludus.com/quality.php?sort=ES&dir=down#data)). Whether it correlates more strongly with expenditures, I don’t know. It’s pretty clear, though, that highly ranked colleges tend to be rich colleges. Rich colleges do spend a lot of money on lots of things (including research, facilities, salaries, and scholarships.) No doubt, some of those expenditures turn out to be bad investments.</p>
<p>For example, tiny Amherst College spends more than $40M/year on institutional financial aid (scholarships/grants). Neighboring UMass-Amherst, with ~12x as many undergraduates, only spends about $10M more on institutional financial aid. Would you say that Amherst College is a financial aid “gas guzzler”? Surely, some of its financial aid “investments” don’t pan out. A few scholarship students don’t graduate. Some turn out to be stingy with alumni contributions. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, on average, rich colleges seem to do better than poorer colleges in terms of the outcomes that some rankings measure (graduation rates, major awards, etc.) This may simply be because they are cherry-picking the best students. Another way to look at it: they are targeting their heavy spending on the students they believe are most likely to benefit from it.</p>
<p>I’ll say, this: You couldn’t have picked a better example of the veritable Ponzi scheme private colleges with super high tuitions like Amherst and Williams engage in every year with their financial aid budgets. Of course, Amherst’s institutional aid budget is going to be bigger than UMass’ - its tuition is twice as high. The higher the tuition the more discounts the college has to give out in order to convince middle-class families to apply. You want an example of “financial aid gas guzzling”? How about awarding financial aid to families making $200,000 a year because at those tuition levels even the upper-middle class eventually qualifies for some kind of aid.</p>
<p>The average need-based scholarship/grant award at Amherst is over $43K. Awards that large generally are not going to upper middle class families.</p>
<p>^Maybe not numerically, but it is a sobering thought that many such families are included among those receiving financial aid at Amherst and Williams.</p>
<p>Of course, only about 55% of Amherst students receive financial aid…</p>
<p>Amherst’s net price calculator indicates that a family of 3 with 1 in college and income of about $100,000 will get about $43,000 in grants. $100,000 seems like a rather “upper middle class” level of income.</p>
<p>A $100k family income still puts one in the middle 50% of incomes in the U.S. (It’s just over 70th percentile for 2012.)</p>
<p>Most need-based FA ends at about $150k, unless you have multiple kids in college. If you have 3, you might get to a family income of about $225k. Still, affording a $55k annual college bill is tough for families earning between $125kk and $250k, when you take everything into account, like mortgages, taxes, retirement accounts, and no FA package.</p>
<p>The differences in rankings in the top 10 LACs are so minor as to be noise. You could shift the weights of the various inputs and make any of theme come out on top. Rankings are useful tools to get a rough idea or relative standing. That is, they are useful if you are comparing a school ranked #4 with a school ranked #44. But small differences are noise.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the rankings leave out the MOST important factor on whether a particular school is “best”… it leaves out you, the applicant.</p>
<p>So for the love of [insert favorite deity here], ignore small differences in rankings and ignore the trolls who come in here so sure that school X ranked 1 spot above school Y is most assuredly better.</p>
<p>And, you will find a lot of overlap among the students at those top 5 liberal arts colleges. For example, there will be students at Bowdoin who chose to go there over Midd or Amherst because they liked the coastal location more than the mountains of VT or western MA, and visa versa.</p>
<p>I’m a Williams alum, and if you think W or amH are better than Swat you aren’t really paying enough attention. Same tier, same category, differences are matters of taste & fit only. Swat is a superb school. Love it.</p>
<p>Dead wrong. Here’s how US News defines “financial resources per student” in their explanation of their college ranking methodology:</p>
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<p>In short, “financial resources per student” is just a euphemism for expenditures per student. It is, roughly speaking, a measure of which producers have the highest cost-per-unit of production, which in most human endeavors would be regarded as a measure of inefficiency. It’s a metric that encourages colleges to spend lavishly–and to raise tuition if necessary to pay for it, since there’s no penalty in the US News rankings for charging a higher tuition.</p>
<p>Also note that the US News methodology double-counts faculty compensation which is one of the largest components of expenditures per student (= “financial resources per student” in US News-speak), but is also separately counted as one of the principal components (35%) of “faculty resources,” the latter category counting for 20% of the overall US News ranking. So a college that inflates faculty salaries will be doubly rewarded, insofar as faculty compensation alone counts for 7% (35% of 20%) of the overall US News ranking, but will also boost “financial resources per student” (= expenditures per student). One of the smartest things a US News-conscious college president could do would be to jack up tuition and use the proceeds to inflate faculty salaries.</p>