Thoughts on Bates or Colby and Bates v. Colby?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a big difference in the financial strength of the two schools. Colby FY 2012 endowment: $599,557,000, Bates: $216,156,000. Colby annual fund raising 2012: $20,299,115, Bates: $11,903,757.


http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2012NCSEPublicTablesEndowmentMarketValuesRevisedFebruary42013.pdf

http://www.cae.org/content/pdf/Top_Twenty_and_By_State_2012.pdf

I didn't go to either school, but I can tell you that the Colby alums I know are among the most fanatically loyal to their college anywhere.

[Anonymous]

DC is at Colby now. Loves it. Great professors, great friends and even Waterville is looking better these days. Impressive grad school placement and the Career Center is really hustling to help recent grads find jobs. As a PP noted, they have a very loyal and active alum network.

Bates seems like a great school too, but DC was sold on Colby and it's turned out to be a great fit.

[Anonymous]

Which has better name recognition?

[Anonymous]

I'd say they are about the same. Colby is #18 (tied with Colgate and Smith) US News Liberal Arts Colleges, Bates is #22. For comparison - Williams #1, Pomona #4, Vassar #10, Wesleyan #17, Oberlin #26, Bucknell and Kenyon tied for #32, Sewanee #36, Dickinson, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall tied for #46, Denison #49.

Not that I think these rankings are the end-all and be-all, but they give you an idea of how the schools are regarded by businesses and grad school (since there are a fair number in this area that don't seem to know much about liberal arts colleges).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say they are about the same. Colby is #18 (tied with Colgate and Smith) US News Liberal Arts Colleges, Bates is #22. For comparison - Williams #1, Pomona #4, Vassar #10, Wesleyan #17, Oberlin #26, Bucknell and Kenyon tied for #32, Sewanee #36, Dickinson, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall tied for #46, Denison #49.

Not that I think these rankings are the end-all and be-all, but they give you an idea of how the schools are regarded by businesses and grad school (since there are a fair number in this area that don't seem to know much about liberal arts colleges).[/quote

Sorry, the "fair number" I was referring to above is a fair number of people NOT a fair number of graduate schools.

[Anonymous]

A word of note about SLAC's.....my sister went to Swarthmore, interviewed at Microsoft...and one of her interviewers at Redmond asked her if it was a high-school.

And that's one of the top 3 lac's in the country and a top-10 feeder to elite grad programs as well as school that has the best GMAT scores by average score (740).

And I remember her telling me the team she interviewed at MS was ultra smart and MS was a top experience. So if geeks don't know a school ranked that high with that much history...LAC's do have some huge branding/visibility concerns.

[Anonymous]

Do kids that go to Bates or Colby have a chip on their shoulder about Bowdoin? Like how AU and GW students might about Georgetown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A word of note about SLAC's.....my sister went to Swarthmore, interviewed at Microsoft...and one of her interviewers at Redmond asked her if it was a high-school.

And that's one of the top 3 lac's in the country and a top-10 feeder to elite grad programs as well as school that has the best GMAT scores by average score (740).

And I remember her telling me the team she interviewed at MS was ultra smart and MS was a top experience. So if geeks don't know a school ranked that high with that much history...LAC's do have some huge branding/visibility concerns.

So one tech geek doesn't know schools other than Cal or MIT. Not a biggie. Some tech geeks don't even need to finish college to get hired. It's a sub-culture.

[Anonymous]

^^^ meant Cal Tech not Cal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do kids that go to Bates or Colby have a chip on their shoulder about Bowdoin? Like how AU and GW students might about Georgetown?

It seems that it's a bigger deal to Bowdoin kids than it is to Bates or Colby kids. I could be wrong though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do kids that go to Bates or Colby have a chip on their shoulder about Bowdoin? Like how AU and GW students might about Georgetown?

Colby and Bates are top 20 - 25 schools, AU and GW aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A word of note about SLAC's.....my sister went to Swarthmore, interviewed at Microsoft...and one of her interviewers at Redmond asked her if it was a high-school.

And that's one of the top 3 lac's in the country and a top-10 feeder to elite grad programs as well as school that has the best GMAT scores by average score (740).

And I remember her telling me the team she interviewed at MS was ultra smart and MS was a top experience. So if geeks don't know a school ranked that high with that much history...LAC's do have some huge branding/visibility concerns.

It would have been great if she then asked if MSFT was an high technology innovator or a siloed, bulked-up, slow-moving copycat of innovators: in other words, the Zune of tech companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say they are about the same. Colby is #18 (tied with Colgate and Smith) US News Liberal Arts Colleges, Bates is #22. For comparison - Williams #1, Pomona #4, Vassar #10, Wesleyan #17, Oberlin #26, Bucknell and Kenyon tied for #32, Sewanee #36, Dickinson, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall tied for #46, Denison #49.

Not that I think these rankings are the end-all and be-all, but they give you an idea of how the schools are regarded by businesses and grad school (since there are a fair number in this area that don't seem to know much about liberal arts colleges).

It's shocking when you consider for a moment that an also-ran, number 3-position weekly news magazine that used to be known as "Useless News & World Distort" (do they even publish anymore?) now exerts such influence over college adminstrators, applicants and parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say they are about the same. Colby is #18 (tied with Colgate and Smith) US News Liberal Arts Colleges, Bates is #22. For comparison - Williams #1, Pomona #4, Vassar #10, Wesleyan #17, Oberlin #26, Bucknell and Kenyon tied for #32, Sewanee #36, Dickinson, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall tied for #46, Denison #49.

Not that I think these rankings are the end-all and be-all, but they give you an idea of how the schools are regarded by businesses and grad school (since there are a fair number in this area that don't seem to know much about liberal arts colleges).

It's shocking when you consider for a moment that an also-ran, number 3-position weekly news magazine that used to be known as "Useless News & World Distort" (do they even publish anymore?) now exerts such influence over college adminstrators, applicants and parents.

See bold above. It's a guideline. Other rankings are quite similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say they are about the same. Colby is #18 (tied with Colgate and Smith) US News Liberal Arts Colleges, Bates is #22. For comparison - Williams #1, Pomona #4, Vassar #10, Wesleyan #17, Oberlin #26, Bucknell and Kenyon tied for #32, Sewanee #36, Dickinson, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall tied for #46, Denison #49.

Not that I think these rankings are the end-all and be-all, but they give you an idea of how the schools are regarded by businesses and grad school (since there are a fair number in this area that don't seem to know much about liberal arts colleges).

It's shocking when you consider for a moment that an also-ran, number 3-position weekly news magazine that used to be known as "Useless News & World Distort" (do they even publish anymore?) now exerts such influence over college adminstrators, applicants and parents.

See bold above. It's a guideline. Other rankings are quite similar.

US News is the best known, but it and other surveys are not simply a guideline. Colleges and universities have become obsessed with them, because they seem to drive application numbers, yield, faculty recruiting, even donations. I know someone who insisted that his kid go to a school that was ranked #14 LAC over one that was #16, even though the latter was the kid's preference! It's come out that some schools have flat-out fabricated their reported stats to goose their rankings, and that may just be the tip of the iceberg. Even universities that claim not to care about the US News rankings, do. You can bet that Princeton and Harvard would be pretty upset if they fell below #1 or #2. It's gone beyond crazy.