Which colleges are as good as HYPMS…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP wants schools as good as HYPSM without the brand name or recognition. All the suggestions like Mudd or Brown have recognized names. Surely DCUM can do better and give OP a great unrecognized school.

Sure…because unrecognized schools somehow have great networks and career outcomes even though almost nobody has heard of it.

What OP is after doesn’t exist. Harvey Mudd is probably the closest (but would imagine you do need to play the REA/ED game).

A school like Rose Hulman has good career outcomes and not super selective…but it doesn’t have a huge network and won’t provide the career optionality of the usual suspects.

Exactly, this whole thread is nonsense.

I made the Mudd suggestion back on page 1. OP's question does make sense. Here's how I interpreted it.

DCUM loves to stress acceptance rates, but there are schools like Mudd that have higher acceptance rates because the applicant pool is self-selecting. That cuts both ways, of course: greater chance of getting in, but also stiffer competition. But here's the thing: Mudd's results are approximately the same as CalTech's, at the undergraduate level, despite a -- what? 12-percentage-point difference in their acceptance rates? (isn't Mudd mid-teens and CalTech low single-digits? I'm not going to look them up because precision is not the point). CalTech gets far more applications because everyone's heard of it.

My kid got into Mudd last spring (RD, not ED), and it was amusing to see the looks on normie's faces (neighbors, teachers, classmates, coaches) when he told them he was thinking of going there: I think it was pity, actually, because literally no one had heard of the school and its name makes it sound like a stripmall cosmetology operation or maybe a religious cult. The kid was disoriented -- his parents tell him the school's great, but everyone else treats him as an object of pity for considering going there! (He decided against it, in the end, but not for this reason.)

There are other schools like that: relatively high acceptance rates, because a self-selecting applicant pool. Another obvious example is Reed -- not as normie-unknown as Mudd, maybe because the name isn't as weird, but overlooked because of their rankings boycott. Isn't Oberlin a lot better than their acceptance rate would indicate, maybe through a combination of unattractive state or town and bad press from that lawsuit a decade ago? And then there are publics with high acceptance rates and low general 'prestige' but some extremely strong departments and programs -- CU Boulder and UMinnesota come to mind. CU is nearly on a par with some very elite schools (ranked alonside some of HYPSM at the graduate level) in my kid's projected field of study, but even its OOS acceptance rate is wildly high -- unlike Mudd, et al., not through self-selection but through the school's 'qualitative diversity' (to put it diplomatically).

It's a good question what schools should be on this list, and why. The thread is nonsense only if you make it so.

Applicants of Almost every T20 universities or lacs, except a few, are self- selected. They still routinely reject 1600/4.0 applicants. I understand that you are a proud Mudd parent or alum, it’s a good school, but don’t overblown it.

Disagree with this. Mudd is known as a very geeky stem school with a huge workload. Applicant pool is much more self selecting than T20. Many kids will shotgun T20 apps but kids only apply to Mudd if they are high-performing stem nerds.

One would think this but a girl at my kid’s NYC private is attending this Fall and we nearly fell off our chairs. High stats but not a STEM bone in her body and all she talks about are the LA clubs she is planning to visit.

Just completely out of left field such that one parent asked like three times if she was really talking about Harvey Mudd and not maybe another Claremont school.

I guess we will see how it works out.

Being a girl is a hook for Mudd. But if they accepted her, she is smart enough to do well. She's going to have to give up the idea of spending time partying in LA though lol.

Plenty of high stats kids drop out of STEM because they don’t actually like it and actually don’t have a knack for it. Hard to brute force your way through it in college vs HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

Okay, at least that's an empirical objection, rather than a complete misunderstanding of the point. But now we're back to the earlier issue: the OP obviously wasn't asking about schools so obscure that no one could possibly learn about them! It's comparative: Mudd is more obscure-to-normies than other schools that are not significantly better. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I haven't actually done a survey in Walmart. For all I know, the average Walmart shopper regularly consults the USNWR LAC rankings. More to the point, don't forget that many kids apply to college without even knowing what a 'liberal arts college' is (most of my kid's peers are in that category), so they'd never think to consult that list, even if they consulted USNWR. (Also, I think Mudd's acceptance rate is closer to 15%.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

Insufferable. Colleges' clients are high school kids. There are tons of discussions on any school including mudd on reddit. No one cares if a Walmart employee knows about it. To an average GenZ high school student today, there is nothing obscure about this school, or any school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

Okay, at least that's an empirical objection, rather than a complete misunderstanding of the point. But now we're back to the earlier issue: the OP obviously wasn't asking about schools so obscure that no one could possibly learn about them! It's comparative: Mudd is more obscure-to-normies than other schools that are not significantly better. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I haven't actually done a survey in Walmart. For all I know, the average Walmart shopper regularly consults the USNWR LAC rankings. More to the point, don't forget that many kids apply to college without even knowing what a 'liberal arts college' is (most of my kid's peers are in that category), so they'd never think to consult that list, even if they consulted USNWR. (Also, I think Mudd's acceptance rate is closer to 15%.)

Not 15, it's 12%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

Insufferable. Colleges' clients are high school kids. There are tons of discussions on any school including mudd on reddit. No one cares if a Walmart employee knows about it. To an average GenZ high school student today, there is nothing obscure about this school, or any school.

Exactly! Mudd is very well-known amongst HS STEM kids, as are other STEM schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvey Mudd? Insiders know it's great, but normies have never heard of it and the name sounds sus to them. A true stealth school: zero branding with a silly name, so undetected by normie radar.

Normies also don't know that it ranks #12 nationally in liberal arts colleges according to the obscure USNWR, and that they only admit about one out of ten applicants because no one knows about it. Hard to find this stuff out.

Insufferable. Colleges' clients are high school kids. There are tons of discussions on any school including mudd on reddit. No one cares if a Walmart employee knows about it. To an average GenZ high school student today, there is nothing obscure about this school, or any school.

Call me 'insufferable' if you like (I assume you were replying to my reply to what you quoted, not to your own earlier post), but if this is what you think, then we simply live in different worlds. My kid just graduated from a large public school alongside kids from many Walmart-shopping families. I can tell you with great confidence that no more than a dozen kids in his graduating class of 500 came anywhere close to learning what Harvey Mudd College is (or, again, one of the other more obscure schools; the point isn't only about this one). In fact -- I swear -- the college guidance counsellor at his high school seemed never to have heard of HMC when my kid turned in his list of schools last fall.

In your world, that may not be true and may even seem impossible. But if we're talking about US college admissions generally, I don't see how it could be true that "there is nothing obscure about... any school." Are you imagining that most college-bound HS seniors across the country are discussing rankings, ROI, and chances of eventual PhD placement on Reddit or social media? The vast majority of my kid's peers applied to a couple of schools in-state and gave it little further thought, though some high-stats kids in this category threw in applications to high-profile 'reaches' like Harvard, MIT or (yes) Caltech, just because 'Why not?' No one but my kid threw in a 'reach' application to Mudd, Reed, or Oberlin -- because, again, those schools were not on this peer-group's radar.

Yes, I'm generalizing from those facts on the ground where I live, and I can't be sure that the generalization is true. But I suspect that my sense of what an 'average GenZ high school student today' is like -- across the entire country, not merely in the world of the well-advised and plugged-in -- is closer to the truth than yours is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there’s an unsung benefit to the next tier down: rich and connected peer group.

I have a kid at HYP and it’s great but his besties at a level down (like midd, etc) are surrounded by a peer group w a lot more money. Those schools juts have less aid to give.

You want a roommate w a mom or dad who can get you an internship? Thats not also HYPSM

Those schools aren't a level down, they're just different than yours. They focus on different things and often attract different kids.

lol I have a kid at middlebury and have no issue saying it’s a level down from Harvard. Beyond languages and humanities, good for finance if anyone cares.

lol, I have a kid at Middlebury as well. One who turned down MIT and was recruited by multiple Ivies. If she considered Midd a step down she probably would have taken a different offer. But, she is smarter than you and most of the prestige whores running around this board and chose what fit her the best rather than Ethan paying attention to the blithering nonsense of people such as yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 LACs are not equal to T25 colleges. Pomona/Wellesley are the same level as Georgetown/Emory.

You are nonsensical and stupid…..enough said

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

lol, I have a kid at Middlebury as well. One who turned down MIT and was recruited by multiple Ivies.

I turned down Harvard, Princeton for Colby. My kid was recruited by Ivies and Stanford but chose Vassar. We don't care for prestige, only untruths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

lol, I have a kid at Middlebury as well. One who turned down MIT and was recruited by multiple Ivies.

I turned down Harvard, Princeton for Colby. My kid was recruited by Ivies and Stanford but chose Vassar. We don't care for prestige, only untruths.

Did your kid get into the “Ivies and Stanford”? Such an odd narrative. Sounds like you found the “untruth” you were looking for.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP wants schools as good as HYPSM without the brand name or recognition. All the suggestions like Mudd or Brown have recognized names. Surely DCUM can do better and give OP a great unrecognized school.

Say it aloud : this is just an IQ problem. You can always go to Wharton and feel better, even though era ( 1980- 2020) of free wheeling High finance - and public bailouts when met with spectacular failure- is drawing to a close and with it Wharton’s raison detre…
Sure…because unrecognized schools somehow have great networks and career outcomes even though almost nobody has heard of it.

What OP is after doesn’t exist. Harvey Mudd is probably the closest (but would imagine you do need to play the REA/ED game).

A school like Rose Hulman has good career outcomes and not super selective…but it doesn’t have a huge network and won’t provide the career optionality of the usual suspects.

Exactly, this whole thread is nonsense.

I made the Mudd suggestion back on page 1. OP's question does make sense. Here's how I interpreted it.

DCUM loves to stress acceptance rates, but there are schools like Mudd that have higher acceptance rates because the applicant pool is self-selecting. That cuts both ways, of course: greater chance of getting in, but also stiffer competition. But here's the thing: Mudd's results are approximately the same as CalTech's, at the undergraduate level, despite a -- what? 12-percentage-point difference in their acceptance rates? (isn't Mudd mid-teens and CalTech low single-digits? I'm not going to look them up because precision is not the point). CalTech gets far more applications because everyone's heard of it.

My kid got into Mudd last spring (RD, not ED), and it was amusing to see the looks on normie's faces (neighbors, teachers, classmates, coaches) when he told them he was thinking of going there: I think it was pity, actually, because literally no one had heard of the school and its name makes it sound like a stripmall cosmetology operation or maybe a religious cult. The kid was disoriented -- his parents tell him the school's great, but everyone else treats him as an object of pity for considering going there! (He decided against it, in the end, but not for this reason.)

There are other schools like that: relatively high acceptance rates, because a self-selecting applicant pool. Another obvious example is Reed -- not as normie-unknown as Mudd, maybe because the name isn't as weird, but overlooked because of their rankings boycott. Isn't Oberlin a lot better than their acceptance rate would indicate, maybe through a combination of unattractive state or town and bad press from that lawsuit a decade ago? And then there are publics with high acceptance rates and low general 'prestige' but some extremely strong departments and programs -- CU Boulder and UMinnesota come to mind. CU is nearly on a par with some very elite schools (ranked alonside some of HYPSM at the graduate level) in my kid's projected field of study, but even its OOS acceptance rate is wildly high -- unlike Mudd, et al., not through self-selection but through the school's 'qualitative diversity' (to put it diplomatically).

It's a good question what schools should be on this list, and why. The thread is nonsense only if you make it so.

Applicants of Almost every T20 universities or lacs, except a few, are self- selected. They still routinely reject 1600/4.0 applicants. I understand that you are a proud Mudd parent or alum, it’s a good school, but don’t overblown it.

Disagree with this. Mudd is known as a very geeky stem school with a huge workload. Applicant pool is much more self selecting than T20. Many kids will shotgun T20 apps but kids only apply to Mudd if they are high-performing stem nerds.

One would think this but a girl at my kid’s NYC private is attending this Fall and we nearly fell off our chairs. High stats but not a STEM bone in her body and all she talks about are the LA clubs she is planning to visit.

Just completely out of left field such that one parent asked like three times if she was really talking about Harvey Mudd and not maybe another Claremont school.

I guess we will see how it works out.

Being a girl is a hook for Mudd. But if they accepted her, she is smart enough to do well. She's going to have to give up the idea of spending time partying in LA though lol.

Plenty of high stats kids drop out of STEM because they don’t actually like it and actually don’t have a knack for it. Hard to brute force your way through it in college vs HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

lol, I have a kid at Middlebury as well. One who turned down MIT and was recruited by multiple Ivies.

I turned down Harvard, Princeton for Colby. My kid was recruited by Ivies and Stanford but chose Vassar. We don't care for prestige, only untruths.

What does “recruited” mean…for sports?

I literally have never heard of anyone truly recruited for sports at Stanford that ended up at Vassar.

The athletic talent needed for Stanford is just many levels above Vassar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 LACs are not equal to T25 colleges. Pomona/Wellesley are the same level as Georgetown/Emory.

You are nonsensical and stupid…..enough said

The PP is correct. Based on pre-TO data the SAT range for students at Gtown/Emory is around the same as Pomona/Wellesley. The top SAT lacs, WAS, are a little higher but not ivy/stanford/duke level. Lacs around top15 correlate to T30 unis. Only the top3 lacs are on par w T20 as far as peer group. A lot is because of the high percentage of athletes at WAS compared to ivies and the standards are lower. The non-recruited peers are about the same. However when 1/3 of the school is recruited athletes with lower scores it dilutes the average peer group and can slightly affect the classroom. Or it can be seen as an advantage for the non-recruits at williams: guaranteed bottom group on curved classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

lol, I have a kid at Middlebury as well. One who turned down MIT and was recruited by multiple Ivies.

I turned down Harvard, Princeton for Colby. My kid was recruited by Ivies and Stanford but chose Vassar. We don't care for prestige, only untruths.

What does “recruited” mean…for sports?

I literally have never heard of anyone truly recruited for sports at Stanford that ended up at Vassar.

The athletic talent needed for Stanford is just many levels above Vassar.

Agree. No way it is true