How many colleges are "better" than Williams?

[Anonymous]

Amherst has very good placement at the top graduarwvand professional schools. I think better than Williams and Pomona, probably Swarthmore also.
That's basically anecdotal, but an educated anecdotal from going to these schools, having friends at each of them, attending a top graduate school and reviewing a lot of resumes. I've hired several Amherst grads (based on their post-college education and experience) but no one from any of the other LACs,I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the culturally/intellectually elite set, Williams--and Amherst and Swarthmore, also certain highly selective women's colleges--has more cache than HYP. This is often because it is simply assumed that one will go onto graduate school at a top university, whether it be HYP, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, etc. Any Joe Schmoe would be impressed by HY, but only those who have fairly privileged backgrounds would know to apply to AWS

It's cachet.

[Anonymous]

How many colleges are better than Williams?

The answer, of course, is 42.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many colleges are better than Williams?

The answer, of course, is 42.

Heh. You are old and so am I.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has very good placement at the top graduarwvand professional schools. I think better than Williams and Pomona, probably Swarthmore also.
That's basically anecdotal, but an educated anecdotal from going to these schools, having friends at each of them, attending a top graduate school and reviewing a lot of resumes. I've hired several Amherst grads (based on their post-college education and experience) but no one from any of the other LACs,I think.

Thanks for your broad perspective and solid data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has very good placement at the top graduarwvand professional schools. I think better than Williams and Pomona, probably Swarthmore also.
That's basically anecdotal, but an educated anecdotal from going to these schools, having friends at each of them, attending a top graduate school and reviewing a lot of resumes. I've hired several Amherst grads (based on their post-college education and experience) but no one from any of the other LACs,I think.

if you're looking at feeders into top graduate programs, the leader is Swarthmore (by a lot). But that probably has more to do with the fact that Swarthmore produces an astonishing number of PhDs. See http://beyondcollegerankings.com/?page_id=170 to start

[Anonymous]

So many. Start with the US News Top 25 universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many colleges are better than Williams?

The answer, of course, is 42.

Heh. You are old and so am I.

I must be even older. I think the answer is 57.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has very good placement at the top graduarwvand professional schools. I think better than Williams and Pomona, probably Swarthmore also.
That's basically anecdotal, but an educated anecdotal from going to these schools, having friends at each of them, attending a top graduate school and reviewing a lot of resumes. I've hired several Amherst grads (based on their post-college education and experience) but no one from any of the other LACs,I think.

Swarthmore produces the most PhDs per capita, followed by Pomona, Williams, and Amherst. Williams and Amherst aren't known for drawing students interested in academia like Swarthmore and Pomona are. But they do send more students over to finance and consulting.

If you're referring to the 2003 Feeder rankings, Williams was the highest, followed by Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona. However, it is a bit unfair to Pomona as many Pomona students stick to the West Coast, while the majority of the feeder schools were on the East Coast. And 2003 is old now, these schools have rapidly changed in the last few years (endowments doubling, acceptance rates being halved, etc.)

There are College Transitions lists (https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/category/infographics/) that analyzes alumni on LinkedIn or government data to see which schools send the most to top law, med, grad, etc. schools. The schools aren't usually ranked, but it puts the top 20 LACs and universities. Here are where the four place.

PHD (based on current NSF data): Swarthmore (2), Pomona (4), Williams (8), Amherst (9)
MBA: Amherst, Pomona, Williams
Med School: All four place
Law School: Amherst, Pomona

For all intents and purposes, they're comparable institutions, and trying to suggest one is that much better than the other is silly.

[Anonymous]

Williams gets mega respect from anyone in the know. Flyover trash and rubes are the only morons who don't know Williams is one of the finest schools in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd go to any ivy first. Also MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, U Chicago, Johns Hopkins, and probably Berkeley.

Agree with the schools in bold. I'd put Williams and Amherst at the #10/11 spots on USNWR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Williams gets mega respect from anyone in the know. Flyover trash and rubes are the only morons who don't know Williams is one of the finest schools in the world.

Very, very few human beings have heard of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams is around Dartmouth/Penn/Brown level. My Ivy pecking order goes H>Princeton>Y>Columbia>Penn>D>B>Cornell

There are only three other LACs that I'd call equal, not better or worse, and that's Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona. Pomona in particular is a rising star in the same way Stanford is overtaking Harvard in many aspects. They were the most selective LAC by acceptance rate, had a 55% yield for their recent class (much higher than Swarthmore's 40% or Williams 45%), they enrolled the most diverse student body of any top LAC in their recent class, and their endowment per student is the largest of the four, fifth only to HYPS. With the Forbes rankings I think they'll only get more selective. The 5 Claremont Colleges are also selective, with 4 of the 5 representing the lowest acceptance rate among top 50, non-military LACs, and Scripps the second most selective women's college after Barnard.

Williams is definitely more prestigious and has a richer history of successful alum than Pomona, however.

Bowdoin, Carleton, and Middlebury aren't far behind (comparable to places like Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt in rank), though they're poorer on an endowment per capita basis and not as selective.

You're over-analyzing this.

What an odd comment. I appreciate the thoughtful post PP!

NP here -- "Williams is definitely more prestigious" is thoughtful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams gets mega respect from anyone in the know. Flyover trash and rubes are the only morons who don't know Williams is one of the finest schools in the world.

Very, very few human beings have heard of it.

The humans I care to associate and converse with know about Williams. I don't care what middle management, flyover, poor schmucks think of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams gets mega respect from anyone in the know. Flyover trash and rubes are the only morons who don't know Williams is one of the finest schools in the world.

Very, very few human beings have heard of it.

The humans I care to associate and converse with know about Williams. I don't care what middle management, flyover, poor schmucks think of it.

See PP about the intellectual/cultural elite. Graduates from AWS tend to run in small 1%ish circles.