Colby/Bates/Bowdoin/Middlebury

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently got into both Colby and Bowdoin. Where should I commit? Colby also chose me as a Pulver Scholar. Only 10 are selected and being a scholar guarantees one internship and one research opportunity. Bowdoin is much more closer to civilization though and more prestigious. Colby has a better campus though.

Obviously Bowdoin..

What tf is Colby? a low ranker LAC. Any LAC out of T15 USNews is useless, and not worth the value

+1

I would not say useless, thats a pretty harsh statement. But, yeah only Top TEN LACs are worth the value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently got into both Colby and Bowdoin. Where should I commit? Colby also chose me as a Pulver Scholar. Only 10 are selected and being a scholar guarantees one internship and one research opportunity. Bowdoin is much more closer to civilization though and more prestigious. Colby has a better campus though.

Bowdoin is more prestigious, but Colby is catching up. There are a handful of Bowdoin alum and parents on this site who try to equate Bowdoin with AWS, but it’s not there. Not yet at least. Great school, as is Colby. I’d go with whichever feels more like home.

[Anonymous]

Both are great schools -- my son is a Bowdoin 1st year and the school is a good fit for him. For him, the town was also part of the draw and easy access to Portland (bus or train) Go with the fit. I don't think you can go wrong....Good luck with your decision.

[Anonymous]

I'd pick Bowdoin - the kids I know who go there are very happy, and it is in a better location

Congratulations and good luck in college!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And make dullards envious.

How is that possible when no one has ever heard of these schools?

Lots of people have heard of these schools. It’s a social indicator that you haven’t.

This. Anyone who hasn’t heard of these schools is from flyover country. Or likely not college-educated, if they live on the East Coast.

The reality is people including the educated only know about research institutions. The only people who know about slacs is the people who went to slacs which is minuscule in comparison to the people going to normal universities.

Um, no. People who went to top ten universities like Yale and Princeton have definitely heard of places like Middlebury.

Perhaps not people who went to lower ranked state schools, but people from elite backgrounds have definitely heard of these small colleges.

If you have not hear of them, that shows that you are not from an elite background.

I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m just saying, people who go to top private schools and top universities on the east coast have all heard of these places.

+1. At my DC’s top private, the top third of the class goes to Ivies, the middle 3rd to schools like Middleburry, Bowdoin, Amherst etc. Bottom third goes to Michigan, UVA and other Top 20-50 universities and SLACs. Personally, I would take a top SLAC over a large public university.

[Anonymous]

Both DH and I went to similarly ranked and similarly regarded SLACs in the Northeast. We just did our taxes, and our combined income last year was $2.2mm. Finance jobs, mid 40s. Neither of us has a graduate degree by the way.
No baristas here

Good luck to OP’s child! These are amazing colleges with strong alum networks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is that very few people outside of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic upper middle class areas have heard of these schools. There are so many other options that people are interested in—higher ranked slacs and, of course, big state universities. It’s great that attendance at one of these places seems to have helped get some folks here where they wanted to be in life—wealthy or whatever. But it is what it is in terms of name recognition and prestige. Not much of either.

Higher ranked? Bowdoin is ranked #9, and 3 of the higher 8 are military academies, which your average kid is not applying to. It doesn’t get much higher than that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I went to similarly ranked and similarly regarded SLACs in the Northeast. We just did our taxes, and our combined income last year was $2.2mm. Finance jobs, mid 40s. Neither of us has a graduate degree by the way.
No baristas here

Good luck to OP’s child! These are amazing colleges with strong alum networks.

Insufferable. Hoping you didn’t reproduce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I went to similarly ranked and similarly regarded SLACs in the Northeast. We just did our taxes, and our combined income last year was $2.2mm. Finance jobs, mid 40s. Neither of us has a graduate degree by the way.
No baristas here

Good luck to OP’s child! These are amazing colleges with strong alum networks.

Insufferable. Hoping you didn’t reproduce.

Why? Because I am educated, smart, successful and wealthy enough to actually afford children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top LAC schools are generally seen as Williams Amherst Swarthmore Pomona, which kind of cheekily spells “WASP”. They have been seen as schools that offer incredible undergraduate opportunities, with many kids heading to graduate programs at ivies, or MBA programs after a few years in finance living in NYC. Kids will sometimes choose them over Cornell and Dartmouth, but not Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn etc. Basically, those 4 are a different level than other LACs. Swarthmore is the most academic, Pomona gives west coast beauty and a shared campus with 4 other schools. the other two are havens for east coast elites.

Bowdoin has moved up to be basically be next in line. Kids love the food, the dorms and the social, low stress atmosphere.

Middlebury is a step down unless your child is focused on languages. It’s beautiful but a bit more introverted

Bates and Colby are strong NESCAC schools, so if your child is an athlete, both are great because they will be part of the NESCAC networking cult. All the NESCAC schools are pretty good about laddering each other up.

I agree with most of this but personally turned down Dartmouth Penn and Brown for Midd and no regrets and that’s not that unusual at Midd. Didn’t get into Harvard, ah well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I went to similarly ranked and similarly regarded SLACs in the Northeast. We just did our taxes, and our combined income last year was $2.2mm. Finance jobs, mid 40s. Neither of us has a graduate degree by the way.
No baristas here

Good luck to OP’s child! These are amazing colleges with strong alum networks.

Insufferable. Hoping you didn’t reproduce.

Can they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I went to similarly ranked and similarly regarded SLACs in the Northeast. We just did our taxes, and our combined income last year was $2.2mm. Finance jobs, mid 40s. Neither of us has a graduate degree by the way.
No baristas here

Good luck to OP’s child! These are amazing colleges with strong alum networks.

That should be enough money for you & hubby to buy some class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently got into both Colby and Bowdoin. Where should I commit? Colby also chose me as a Pulver Scholar. Only 10 are selected and being a scholar guarantees one internship and one research opportunity. Bowdoin is much more closer to civilization though and more prestigious. Colby has a better campus though.

Obviously Bowdoin..

What tf is Colby? a low ranker LAC. Any LAC out of T15 USNews is useless, and not worth the value

+1

I would not say useless, thats a pretty harsh statement. But, yeah only Top TEN LACs are worth the value.

Rankings don’t tell the whole story about outcomes so I disagree with this arbitrary top ten LAC cut off. So dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Bates and Colby are strong NESCAC schools, so if your child is an athlete, both are great because they will be part of the NESCAC networking cult. All the NESCAC schools are pretty good about laddering each other up.

pls stop - there is no such thing as the “nescac networking cult”. Personally know 3 recent grads who played different sports at 3 different nescacs who struggled to find finance jobs post graduation. All three hustled and reached out for connections on Linkedin etc / a Colby lax grad has zero interest in helping a hamilton football player just because they were in the same conference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently got into both Colby and Bowdoin. Where should I commit? Colby also chose me as a Pulver Scholar. Only 10 are selected and being a scholar guarantees one internship and one research opportunity. Bowdoin is much more closer to civilization though and more prestigious. Colby has a better campus though.

Obviously Bowdoin..

What tf is Colby? a low ranker LAC. Any LAC out of T15 USNews is useless, and not worth the value

+1

I would not say useless, thats a pretty harsh statement. But, yeah only Top TEN LACs are worth the value.

Rankings don’t tell the whole story about outcomes so I disagree with this arbitrary top ten LAC cut off. So dumb.

Rankings are there for a reason, and ranking matters. How can you compare a 25th ranked college with any one in top15.

Colby & Bates are comparable, and so are Bowdoin and Middlebury.