2026 USNWR LACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona are the top 5 LACs that are co-ed and full-service subjects. Nothing has really changed with this ranking.

boom there it is!

[Anonymous]

I haven’t read the whole thread, but wow, Oberlin dropped a lot. Now ranked at 58. It has been in the high 30s the few years, which was already a drop. It’s solidly ranked lower than Denison and Kenyon. I got accepted to Denison and rejected from Oberlin back in the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t read the whole thread, but wow, Oberlin dropped a lot. Now ranked at 58. It has been in the high 30s the few years, which was already a drop. It’s solidly ranked lower than Denison and Kenyon. I got accepted to Denison and rejected from Oberlin back in the day.

Oberlin has become a left wing, woke, LGBTQ nightmare. Prospective students know this, and interest has dropped off accordingly among normal people. The college's epic mishandling of the Gibson Bakery fiasco was just another nail in the coffin. FAFO.

[Anonymous]

I think the student experience at Swat these days is not great. I dont know how that's captured in ratings, but Bowdoin and Pomona (and Williams and Amherst) all seem to have happier kids.

Swat does have a great dining system

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t trade my time at my freezing cold NESCAC for an LAC in California. Different strokes for different folks.

But most DDs or DSs do not agree.

Looking at application numbers most kids do agree. Pretty strong level of agreement actually.

Yield. Think yield. Pomona wins.

because it has 2 ED pools and takes 50% of its class ED. Take that away and it's not a significant difference.

RD yields:
Bowdoin- 35%
Pomona- 33%
Williams- 29%
Swarthmore- 27%
Amherst- 26%

I get 33% for Bowdoin because you need to count the waitlist as 1:1. Haven’t checked the others. But at the very least, it should clearly be WASP-B!

[Anonymous]

Oberlin is what makes me not put much stock in USNWR's rankings. Their endowment is 1.27B. Compared to the schools listed alongside them at #58- Gettysburg's is $314M, St. Lawrence's is $378M. Oberlin has had 4 Nobel laureates and has a world-renowned conservatory. I was hoping they would pop back up into the top 50, but to bump them even further down the list is ridiculous. You're just not going to convince me that my kid will get a better education at Berea College in Kentucky or Soka University (a dang cult) than at Oberlin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that the tippy top LAC will always be Williams.

But the top 3 LACs that compete with the top 20 will only be WAS - not WASP or SWAB or whatever 4th LAC folks are trying to shoehorn in there.

Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore are strongest and then a big drop and then Bowdoin and perhaps Wellesley and then another drop and then the next group (Pomona, Carleton, etc.)

If you look at the raw numbers according to the CDS, then no, such a "big" drop really does not manifest in any way. Graduation rates, student selectivity, financial aid, retention rate, etc. tell me what you think makes Williams leagues ahead compared to any of the others.

US News is a historical ranking and peer assessment heavily plays a role. The top schools always remain the top schools, just shuffled around. Williams and Amherst have ranked top 2 for eternity so it's not surprising they're here again.

It's like the national university ranking- Princeton might rank #1 but many of the others in the top 10 have similar selectivity and resources. #4 Stanford largely wins cross-admits over Princeton. You're delusional for thinking there's a huge gap between any of the top 10, even 20 schools.

Bingo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oberlin is what makes me not put much stock in USNWR's rankings. Their endowment is 1.27B. Compared to the schools listed alongside them at #58- Gettysburg's is $314M, St. Lawrence's is $378M. Oberlin has had 4 Nobel laureates and has a world-renowned conservatory. I was hoping they would pop back up into the top 50, but to bump them even further down the list is ridiculous. You're just not going to convince me that my kid will get a better education at Berea College in Kentucky or Soka University (a dang cult) than at Oberlin.

51%- 51%!- of Oberlin students identified as LGBTQ in 2022 (link below). It was one of only 3 campuses (the others being women's colleges- Smith and Wellesley I think) where a clear majority of the students claimed not to be heteronormative. No matter how big Oberlin's endowment is, if it chooses to fill the niche of "the gayest college in America", applicants will lose interest, viewpoint diversity on campus will suffer, and eventually Oberlin will lose sponsorship from the wealthy/UMC families who are the lifeblood of liberal arts colleges.

If Oberlin wants to reverse its fall in the rankings, it will have to start with a radical reordering of priorities in its admissions and financial aid offices. I don't see that happening, so a long slow embarrassing decline it is for Oberlin.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/almost-40-percent-of-students-identify-as-lgbtq-at-liberal-arts-colleges-survey/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oberlin is what makes me not put much stock in USNWR's rankings. Their endowment is 1.27B. Compared to the schools listed alongside them at #58- Gettysburg's is $314M, St. Lawrence's is $378M. Oberlin has had 4 Nobel laureates and has a world-renowned conservatory. I was hoping they would pop back up into the top 50, but to bump them even further down the list is ridiculous. You're just not going to convince me that my kid will get a better education at Berea College in Kentucky or Soka University (a dang cult) than at Oberlin.

51%- 51%!- of Oberlin students identified as LGBTQ in 2022 (link below). It was one of only 3 campuses (the others being women's colleges- Smith and Wellesley I think) where a clear majority of the students claimed not to be heteronormative. No matter how big Oberlin's endowment is, if it chooses to fill the niche of "the gayest college in America", applicants will lose interest, viewpoint diversity on campus will suffer, and eventually Oberlin will lose sponsorship from the wealthy/UMC families who are the lifeblood of liberal arts colleges.

If Oberlin wants to reverse its fall in the rankings, it will have to start with a radical reordering of priorities in its admissions and financial aid offices. I don't see that happening, so a long slow embarrassing decline it is for Oberlin.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/almost-40-percent-of-students-identify-as-lgbtq-at-liberal-arts-colleges-survey/

Then why is Wellesley still ranked so highly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oberlin is what makes me not put much stock in USNWR's rankings. Their endowment is 1.27B. Compared to the schools listed alongside them at #58- Gettysburg's is $314M, St. Lawrence's is $378M. Oberlin has had 4 Nobel laureates and has a world-renowned conservatory. I was hoping they would pop back up into the top 50, but to bump them even further down the list is ridiculous. You're just not going to convince me that my kid will get a better education at Berea College in Kentucky or Soka University (a dang cult) than at Oberlin.

+1 For STEM, Carleton then Oberlin were DC's choices after WASP. He was very impressed with the STEM tour, and liked the campus. He wasn't sure he would feel comfortable socially/politically but Oberlin had a kind, laid-back vibe that he liked. Apparently they've had minimal issues with campus protests because of the culture of civil discourse. Along with generous merit, very appealing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Then why is Wellesley still ranked so highly?

Wellesley is also playing with fire. I know many Wellesley women as family and friends, and none of them- *none*- are interested in sending their daughters there. I'd expect Wellesley's ability to place students into top-tier jobs and graduate schools to degrade significantly over the next 30 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is slipping on every ranking. CMC is the new number 1 in the Claremont system

this ranking methodology is flawed. but even so, they are tied. can't you read? pomona is a full-service east-coast style liberal arts college. cmc is a directed curriculum (govt, econ) that doesn't have a full-service science dept. it's great for what it does, but it doesn't do it all. it doesn't have strong languages, music, or many other majors.

it doesn't matter that pomona is comprehensive, what matters is the outcomes and trajectory and on that regard cmc is leagues ahead

cmc is higher ranked on forbes, niche, wsj, linkedin, and wallethub this year. this was not the case in previous years. it's the first year ever that the two schools are tied on usnews. pomona is only ahead because of its reputation score- the moment cmc is perceived as the same league by the survey takers, it'll be ahead of pomona.

pomona is a great school and attracts top faculty/students, but it largely coasts on its historic reputation. it hasn't really done anything to improve. cmc is making enormous strides to expand, develop science/AI/data facilties, and faciliate a strong alumni network. all pomona gets attention for these days is being attracting obnoxiously pc students who disrupt the classroom and inhibit free speech. meanwhile, its next door neighbor actually cares about bringing the benefits of a LAC experience to the new era.

it's nice to be in a consortium setting with 3 top ten LACs and 2 top 40 LACs all within close proximity, but there's no real point to attend pomona. a pomona tier student could feasibly get into williams or cmc or a top 20 university, and all of them offer much better value today. sorry but it's the harsh truth.

Flat out wrong. Pomona has improved greatly on fellowship attainment and is in the process of building out a massive center for global engagement which will have visiting international scholars, allow for the expansion of Pomona’s politics department and public policy analysis reach, and currently funds are allowing students to travel internationally with faculty-led coursework.

Is cmc expanding greatly? Yes, but it also is a campus that’s summed up in 4 academic buildings and is uniquely homogenous in focus and thought. There’s many reasons to choose Pomona- it’s still the best consortium school for graduate admissions across the board, the environment is fun (it’s not uncommon to see a bunch of kids in suits at 1 pm in the blistering sun at CMC), and, for as much as people talk up CMC’s outcomes, Pomona produces consistently much more notable alumni.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is slipping on every ranking. CMC is the new number 1 in the Claremont system

this ranking methodology is flawed. but even so, they are tied. can't you read? pomona is a full-service east-coast style liberal arts college. cmc is a directed curriculum (govt, econ) that doesn't have a full-service science dept. it's great for what it does, but it doesn't do it all. it doesn't have strong languages, music, or many other majors.

it doesn't matter that pomona is comprehensive, what matters is the outcomes and trajectory and on that regard cmc is leagues ahead

cmc is higher ranked on forbes, niche, wsj, linkedin, and wallethub this year. this was not the case in previous years. it's the first year ever that the two schools are tied on usnews. pomona is only ahead because of its reputation score- the moment cmc is perceived as the same league by the survey takers, it'll be ahead of pomona.

pomona is a great school and attracts top faculty/students, but it largely coasts on its historic reputation. it hasn't really done anything to improve. cmc is making enormous strides to expand, develop science/AI/data facilties, and faciliate a strong alumni network. all pomona gets attention for these days is being attracting obnoxiously pc students who disrupt the classroom and inhibit free speech. meanwhile, its next door neighbor actually cares about bringing the benefits of a LAC experience to the new era.

it's nice to be in a consortium setting with 3 top ten LACs and 2 top 40 LACs all within close proximity, but there's no real point to attend pomona. a pomona tier student could feasibly get into williams or cmc or a top 20 university, and all of them offer much better value today. sorry but it's the harsh truth.

Flat out wrong. Pomona has improved greatly on fellowship attainment and is in the process of building out a massive center for global engagement which will have visiting international scholars, allow for the expansion of Pomona’s politics department and public policy analysis reach, and currently funds are allowing students to travel internationally with faculty-led coursework.

Is cmc expanding greatly? Yes, but it also is a campus that’s summed up in 4 academic buildings and is uniquely homogenous in focus and thought. There’s many reasons to choose Pomona- it’s still the best consortium school for graduate admissions across the board, the environment is fun (it’s not uncommon to see a bunch of kids in suits at 1 pm in the blistering sun at CMC), and, for as much as people talk up CMC’s outcomes, Pomona produces consistently much more notable alumni.

Massive change in leadership coming at Pomona. The president has addressed in email how much this ranking is a blow to the school, parents, and alumni. The BOT is doing a confidence vote tomorrow to see if the president will stay in power. This is a serious problem, and it’s shocking Pomona let itself slide this far down. Hoping for a brighter future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why they even bother with a numerical list at this point, they should just use decile buckets.

Good point. But human nature understands winners and losers, not deciles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Williams College
2. Amherst College
3. United States Naval Academy
4. Swarthmore College
5 (tie). Bowdoin College
5 (tie). United States Air Force Academy
7 (tie). Claremont McKenna College
7 (tie). Pomona College
7 (tie). Wellesley College
10 (tie). Carleton College
10 (tie). Harvey Mudd College
10 (tie). United States Military Academy at West Point
13 (tie). Barnard College
13 (tie). Davidson College
13 (tie). Grinnell College
13 (tie). Hamilton College
13 (tie). Middlebury College
13 (tie). Smith College
13 (tie). Vassar College
13 (tie). Wesleyan University
21. Washington and Lee University
23 (tie). Colgate University
23 (tie). University of Richmond
24 (tie). Bates College
24 (tie). Colby College
24 (tie). Haverford College
27. College of the Holy Cross
28. Macalester College
29. Mount Holyoke College
30 (tie). Bryn Mawr College
30 (tie). Bucknell University
30 (tie). Colorado College
30 (tie). Lafayette College
34. Denison University
35 (tie). Franklin & Marshall College
35 (tie). Occidental College
37 (tie). Pitzer College
37 (tie). Scripps College
37 (tie). Skidmore College
37 (tie). Soka University of America
37 (tie). Spelman College
37 (tie). Trinity College
37 (tie). Trinity University

The 8-way tie for #13 and the 7-way tie for #37 are just ridiculous. So this means one of the #13 schools, say Davidson for example, is ranked somewhere between #13 and #20. USNWR needs to come up with a way to break ties, at least where so many schools are tied.