<p>We couldn't agree more with Forbes! Proud to be a Williams parent. </p>
<p>Well I don’t know who this “Forbes” person is, but clearly they have made a mistake! I’m sure they were referring to the other school down the road that has purple as their color as well! :)</p>
<p>well deserved, well deserved.</p>
<p>yay, go us!</p>
<p>Wow!! I know rankings are supposed to be silly, but even so, this list makes me very happy. :)</p>
<p>well congratulations then</p>
<p>The list is a valuable contribution to all the different rankings out there as it (correctly) acknowledges that top LAC’s afford the best possible undergraduate education. Bully for Princeton and Stanford to have even made the top ten.</p>
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<p>Don’t be jealous. ;)</p>
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<p>Come on, now, is there any need for such sweeping statements?</p>
<p>Then please speculate as to why Swarthmore produces more per capita PhD’s and nobel prize winners than any of the ivies, and Williams is in the WSJ top 5 feeder schools to top professionsal (medical/law/business) schools? Pretty simple: super students getting amazing educations and a profound recognition of this fact by graduate and professional school admissions offices.</p>
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<p>You indicated yourself that all you are doing is speculation.</p>
<p>This is an argument that appears every so often without any conclusion what-so-ever. I work closely with med students from three different universities and know several PHDs (husband is a professor). All of them comment how well prepared graduates are from small LACs such as Williams, Davidson, Amherst and Swarthmore. I think the med students are a bit surprised as many of them had preconceived notions that going to a prestigous university was the way to get into med/graduate school. Graduate school professors are thrilled to have students from selective LACs. Ivy students may be just as well prepared and I’m sure, just as coveted. I don’t know as I never asked. D was interested in LACs and I was getting surveys of how well students from such schools fared in graduate and professional schools. I know nothing about law and business and my sample is regional. But I will speculate that a school such as Williams prepares students to succeed in graduate and professional schools and that those students are at least on par with students from prestigous universities. Unproven speculation of course but one that I suspect admissions personnel from graduate and professional school would support.</p>
<p>GTAlum: you are correct. UC Berkeley at one point normalized all other undergraduate grading systems relative to Swarthmore’s “A”.</p>
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<p>Uh, because a higher percentage of Swarthmore students are interested in pursuing PhD’s? It’d take a big leap in (bad) logic to attribute Swarthmore’s higher per capita PhD production to a “better” undergraduate education. The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology has higher per capita PhD production than Williams. [nsf.gov</a> - SRS Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/]nsf.gov”>Archive Goodbye | NCSES | NSF) Does the former offer a superior undergraduate education than the latter?</p>
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<p>So what? Again, all this shows is that a relatively high percentage of Williams students apply to professional schools. According to the WSJ feeder school survey, “our focus was on enrollment into the top schools, not how many students applied.” <a href=“http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/college/feederschools.htm[/url]”>http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/college/feederschools.htm</a> Unless we know the acceptance rates of Williams students to these so-called “top 15” professional schools, its #5 ranking lacks context. Not only that, but also the WSJ survey is inherently biased towards smaller schools. Given that professional schools prefer diversity of undergraduate institutions, it is easier for a medical/law/business school to accept a certain percentage of students from, say, a LAC than a state flagship. This is why top publics such as UC Berkeley and U of Michigan fare so poorly in these types of rankings. </p>
<p>That said, Williams stlll ranked behind HYPS. So are you going to concede that HYPS offers a much superior undergraduate education than Williams et al., especially given that size is a mitigating factor? If Stanford business and law schools (which are perennial top 2 or 3 institutions) were included in the survey, the distance between Stanford and Williams would be even greater. Also, Duke finished #6 in the survey. Are you willing to say that Duke provides a better undergraduate experience than every single LAC in the country (save Williams)? Because I’m not.</p>
<p>@objobs: I feel that you are more or less overreacting. Hardly any posters here made the claim that top LACs are superior to the national universities. What people are emphasizing is the competitiveness of these small LACs in comparison with the NUs. Only YOU are so obsessed with which ones are the better. I have traced a few of your posts ans it seems that you are rather biased toward the NUs and have the tendency to defame the top small LACs - and this is subjective. In my opinion, you, as a critical thinker, do make several good arguments which are unfortunately tainted by your slanted subjectivity. What can be concluded from these rankings is not the superiority of one institution over another but the fact that LACs deserve a fair recognition alongside with their well-known NU counterparts.</p>
<p>“So what? Again, all this shows is that a relatively high percentage of Williams students apply to professional schools” - How may you conclude this when you also agree that there is no available data on the number of applications? How high is high compared to other NUs? It also cannot be told. While I agree with you that the WSJ survey lacks the necessary context, Williams, employing its small class size and promoting personal attention to students, deserve its credit to send a good proportion of its student population to top grad schools. I believe we are all mature and critical enough to not conclude that Williams is better than any other lower-ranked institutions. What we may conclude from these surveys is that Williams, together with other LACs, is no inferior to the NUs. How good they may be varies with your own judgements.</p>
<p>Very good post, DuncanLV.</p>
<p>Fortunate to have so many good education options in this country. Our D is focussing on LACs for the undergrad yrs. NUs will be there for grad/professional school yrs.</p>