2026 USNWR LACs

[Anonymous]

Williams, Amherst, and Bowdoin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Williams, Amherst, and Bowdoin.

Bowdoin does not fit in that group. It’s a tier below.

[Anonymous]

^Splitting hairs they clearly do belong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

Going from 4 -> 7 in a two year period is really concerning. It shows that peers don’t think it’s a quality college.

excluding the military academies it's virtually the same position, but ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Among high brow NESCACs clear delineation. WAB reign supreme. Hamilton and Midd are second tier than in 3rd place Colby and Bates. By this years rankings Patriot schools Colgate and Holy Cross are in same tier as Colby and Bates. Lots of self promotion recently of Colby vs Midd that didn’t occur but might next year.

Wishful thinking. The only measurable differences between Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, and Middlebury is the size of their endowments and ironically the rankings directly track the size of the endowments. There is no measurable difference in their student population. The same likely holds true for Colby as well but given their reluctance to release data.

The ranking of the NESCAC schools is a great example of the influence of endowment on the USNWR rankings.

I have no idea what that last sentence is supposed to mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Or maybe they're saying that the differences in the scores are a distinction without a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Splitting hairs they clearly do belong.

Not at all, Bowdoin has not consistently been ranked at the top like Williams and Amherst. It has worse student quality and ED2. It’s a good school, just not at the level of AWS

[Anonymous]

Bowdoin is a great school 4-6 range. Wil it beat Williams probably not but still a strong school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

So much pearl-clutching about Pomona dropping one rank below Bowdoin on one biased methodology. Pomona is doing just fine on all fronts - including financially when they raised $82 million, a record in their history - just last month from student/alumni donations:

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2025/08/25-support-pomona-college-reaches-historic-828-million-mark

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

So much pearl-clutching about Pomona dropping one rank below Bowdoin on one biased methodology. Pomona is doing just fine on all fronts - including financially when they raised $82 million, a record in their history - just last month from student/alumni donations:

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2025/08/25-support-pomona-college-reaches-historic-828-million-mark

But now they’re tied with CMC who achieved a billion dollar campaign. I’d give up on Pomona and start looking at cmc if I was a student,

[Anonymous]

Williams = little Yale
Amherst = little Princeton
Swarthmore = little U Chicago

Bowdoin = little Dartmouth
Pomona = little Brown

Wellesley = Wellesley, no cheap imitation: "I am inimitable; I am an original. I'm not falling behind or running late. I'm not standing still: I am lying in wait.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

So much pearl-clutching about Pomona dropping one rank below Bowdoin on one biased methodology. Pomona is doing just fine on all fronts - including financially when they raised $82 million, a record in their history - just last month from student/alumni donations:

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2025/08/25-support-pomona-college-reaches-historic-828-million-mark

But now they’re tied with CMC who achieved a billion dollar campaign. I’d give up on Pomona and start looking at cmc if I was a student,

Claremont Colleges: a raising tide lifts all boats. 3 top 10!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

So much pearl-clutching about Pomona dropping one rank below Bowdoin on one biased methodology. Pomona is doing just fine on all fronts - including financially when they raised $82 million, a record in their history - just last month from student/alumni donations:

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2025/08/25-support-pomona-college-reaches-historic-828-million-mark

But now they’re tied with CMC who achieved a billion dollar campaign. I’d give up on Pomona and start looking at cmc if I was a student,

Claremont Colleges: a raising tide lifts all boats. 3 top 10!

Not at all, they’re completely different. Colleges with different focuses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Williams = little Yale
Amherst = little Princeton
Swarthmore = little U Chicago

Bowdoin = little Dartmouth
Pomona = little Brown

Wellesley = Wellesley, no cheap imitation: "I am inimitable; I am an original. I'm not falling behind or running late. I'm not standing still: I am lying in wait.”

This is really embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona is still 7th. I’m not seeing the drop. Carleton is 10.

So much pearl-clutching about Pomona dropping one rank below Bowdoin on one biased methodology. Pomona is doing just fine on all fronts - including financially when they raised $82 million, a record in their history - just last month from student/alumni donations:

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2025/08/25-support-pomona-college-reaches-historic-828-million-mark

But now they’re tied with CMC who achieved a billion dollar campaign. I’d give up on Pomona and start looking at cmc if I was a student,

Pomona will always be the flagship college that the other 5Cs supplement. Why would someone "give up" on Pomona to go to a different college just because they're tied? Wouldn't it make sense to look at a college ranked higher and not tied? Besides, Pomona has more to offer most students than CMC unless they're narrowly focused on gov or econ. CMC has some rocky days ahead, is looking for a new president, had a weird launch of their new experimental science dept, lost a great teacher due to a freedom of speech debacle, and not long ago had a scandal for falsifying SAT scores to go up the rankings so not sure I trust the data they put out anyway.