How many colleges are "better" than Williams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of the private schools listed are worth $66-$72K a year in after tax dollars. Go state. Then go private HYP for grad school.

These top colleges give incredible financial aid. Pomona, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Amherst, Haverford, Wellesley, and Davidson are among 14 schools total that are all need-blind, 100% need met with no loans. According to the most recent CDS, the average need-based grant award at these schools, where some 40-60% of students receive aid, ranged from 40000-52000. That's similar for other top LACs like Williams that don't have a no-packaged loan policy.

It was cheaper for my son to attend Pomona than it would have been to go to his state school.

Furthermore, grad school admissions is very elitist and selective. Beyond the competition of top international students, state school students have to compete with top grads from LACs who are easily comparable to students from the Ivies (some, like W/A/S/P, admit student bodies as strong as the Ivies). Studies looking into which schools send the most grads to top law, med, and MBA programs are dominated by top universities and LACs:

http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Top-Producers-MBAs-Infographic-e1462130481169.png
http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Top-Producers-Medical-Infographic-e1462457925739.png
http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Top-Producers-Lawyers-Infographic-e1459562437296.png

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Majors certainly matter in STEM fields and premed. You cannot go into Engineering or a Chem PhD without a core of required science classes. Overall, SLACs are relatively weaker in the Sciences than big state university. You just cannot justify large expensive equipment when you may have just 3 professors using it. Hard core science research requires a lot of money. Also, having grad students helps a lot as research is very time intensive.

This is blatantly wrong. Of the top 15 schools for STEM PhD production, 9 are LACs (http://www.swarthmore.edu/institutional-research/doctorates-awarded, second column). You can see more detailed information by discipline; the only area where there aren't many LACs represented is engineering. Not very surprising when maybe like 3 or 4 of them have an engineering program, total.

I know someone who went to Swarthmore for engineering and is now a Prof of EE in the ivy league. It happens.

Swarthmore is one of the few SLACs that offers an engineering major.

[Anonymous]

I'd say Williams is after Ivies and top elites but better than WashU, Vandy, Georgetown. In the low teens overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the private schools listed are worth $66-$72K a year in after tax dollars. Go state. Then go private HYP for grad school.

These top colleges give incredible financial aid. Pomona, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Amherst, Haverford, Wellesley, and Davidson are among 14 schools total that are all need-blind, 100% need met with no loans. According to the most recent CDS, the average need-based grant award at these schools, where some 40-60% of students receive aid, ranged from 40000-52000. That's similar for other top LACs like Williams that don't have a no-packaged loan policy.

It was cheaper for my son to attend Pomona than it would have been to go to his state school.

Furthermore, grad school admissions is very elitist and selective. Beyond the competition of top international students, state school students have to compete with top grads from LACs who are easily comparable to students from the Ivies (some, like W/A/S/P, admit student bodies as strong as the Ivies). Studies looking into which schools send the most grads to top law, med, and MBA programs are dominated by top universities and LACs:

http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Top-Producers-MBAs-Infographic-e1462130481169.png
http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Top-Producers-Medical-Infographic-e1462457925739.png
http://www.collegetransitions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Top-Producers-Lawyers-Infographic-e1459562437296.png

For those of us who are in the donut hole, and neither qualify for need based aid nor can pay full price, this is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

I disagree. There is a lot to be said for the top liberal arts colleges. I had the choice between HYP and a liberal arts college. I chose Wellesley because I wanted smaller classes and a liberal arts college environment. During my entire college career, I never had a TA teach a class. Many of my friends who attended HYP were taught almost entirely by Teacher Assistants. Also, grading seemed much easier at HYP. In the early 2000s, more than 90% of Harvard graduates finished cum laude. I am not sure if this has changed since then. Today, my liberal arts college friends are much more successful than my HYP friends.

Anonymous wrote:Not really. Anyone who thinks Williams is HYP level, or at some level much better than other top LACs doesn't really know what they're taking about. Simple.

[Anonymous]

Also, I would put MIT above HYP.

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. There is a lot to be said for the top liberal arts colleges. I had the choice between HYP and a liberal arts college. I chose Wellesley because I wanted smaller classes and a liberal arts college environment. During my entire college career, I never had a TA teach a class. Many of my friends who attended HYP were taught almost entirely by Teacher Assistants. Also, grading seemed much easier at HYP. In the early 2000s, more than 90% of Harvard graduates finished cum laude. I am not sure if this has changed since then. Today, my liberal arts college friends are much more successful than my HYP friends.

Anonymous wrote:Not really. Anyone who thinks Williams is HYP level, or at some level much better than other top LACs doesn't really know what they're taking about. Simple.