Who is WASP (Williams, Amherst, Swat, Pomona) for?
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Anonymous
Usually referred to as WWASP because it includes Wellesley. |
Anonymous
This is your own invention. Wellesley has its own place amongst the HWCs, but it's not ever associated in WASP |
Anonymous
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I like Pomona more than Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and WashU.
National universities are more widely known but that doesn't always mean they have a better reputation. For example, there is a recent thread arguing about whether Vanderbilt is prestigious or not. Think about that. Once you realize you might be overestimating the "prestige" of some national universities, schools like WASP start to look very attractive. |
Anonymous
Only of your kid wants a very small environment and no meaningful athletics. |
Anonymous
That includes a lot of people, so It's not really a bad thing. FWIW, Pomona is the size of 8000 students, bordering 9000-10,000 in the upcoming years, due to the consortium. If they can't handle that small of an environment, they probably won't be able to handle most of the ivies either. |
Anonymous
25-40% of the students at these schools are athletes. If you are not into having massive athlete cliques on campus (especially Amherst and Williams), go to a university with its 5% athletes… |
Anonymous
There are no meangful spectator sports at any of these schools. |
Anonymous
What? It’s less than 8000 for the entire consortium and Pomona itself is quite small. Why go to a consortium when you can just go to a top school with 5000 to 10000 students? They are called unicorn schools for a reason. Pomona is great if you want a slac. Most kids don’t. |
Anonymous
The current consortium sits at 8000. You need to look at updated numbers. Pomona is trying to expand and so is CMC and potentially Harvey Mudd. The colleges are practically a university, unless you're a University purist and don't believe having classes filled with people of different colleges "counts." There's very few differences to a university, since...well the consortium is modeled after Oxford University |
Anonymous
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The issue with these schools is that unless you are easily full pay or will receive significant money in aid, it feels like there are better values. For example, our child could go full pay to Swarthmore (assuming they got in....they did not apply) or go to Bryn Mawr and get $35,000 in merit aid, which they got. Is Swarthmore the more highly ranked school? Yes. But is it $35,000 a year better a school? Not sure. Especially when there is a program with Bryn Mawr where you can get a graduate degree in 5 years with UPenn.
For us, it felt like these very good SLACs were not GOOD enough to justify the total cost, since we were not getting any scholarship money unless it was merit aid. I also wonder if it creates an odd sort of culture where you have two groups of students--those wealthy enough that parents were easily able to send them to these schools and those who are most definitely NOT from wealthy families. Maybe I'm wrong and there is a middle ground, but we are probably in the top 2-3% of earners in the country, and we did not feel great about spending that much money unless there was the cachet of the big name. And our child had very good grades and quite good SAT scores, but we didn't feel she was probably quite competitive enough for an Ivy league and did not even apply. |
Anonymous
tremendous post - no one chooses Williams over an ivy, even cornell. The pretentiousness at Williams is overwhelming- big big chip on everyone’s shoulder about how it’s just as good as ivy. DC made it halfway thru tour, and we left. Wound up at Vandy and luving life - |
Anonymous
I can comment on this one as a Pomona grad-no it doesn't. People don't even really know others class status, and there are a ton of middle class people (the college is on a Middle Class Campaign currently). Students don't have to segregate by class-that's more an ivy thing, because they promote it with eating clubs, etc. Sure you have the wealthy international students with BANK, but they are sweet and are pretty open. |
Anonymous
But many many people do chose top LACs over ivies? Definitely more representative by percentage of pop than Vandy lmao. |
Anonymous
Many, many? That isn’t even possible given how few kids actually attend the four lacs under discussion. |
Anonymous
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My DS chose Pomona over Dartmouth, Penn, Swarthmore, and a couple traditional Ivy+ universities among others. He really liked all of these schools, but ultimately was drawn to Pomona because of (a) its reputation for happy, satisfied students, (b) its combination of a tight LAC community and broader 5C social opportunities (whereas Swarthmore felt pretty small), and (c) its warm, West Coast location. He and I both feel like all these schools will roughly offer the same post-graduate opportunities.
Why WASP generally? (1) The financial aid at all of the WASP schools is outstanding and really only matched by HYPSM. Ditto for per-student endowment. (2) The LAC model--smaller classes, undergraduate-focus, tighter community, ample research opportunities, etc. (3) Incredible academics. In terms of rigor and the breadth and depth of the actual education, WASP is hard to beat. It's the reason why so many professors send their children to such LACs. Differentiating the WASP schools? Honestly, they're much more alike than different. In terms of endowment, they are all basically the same--sometimes Pomona has the biggest per-student endowment, sometimes Williams, etc. I think they all offer equivalent students, faculty, resources, and opportunities, although particular colleges may accel in particular areas more than others--e.g., Williams and art history. All are well rounded. So, for example, while Amherst is arguably the most preprofessional leaning of the four, its students have no problem getting into the best PhD programs if that's what they want. Similarly, while Swarthmore is arguably the most intellectual, its students have little problem getting jobs on Wall Street or at FANG companies. It's more of a question of school vibe than opportunity. IMO, there are plenty of reasons for a particular student to choose one WASP school over the others, but prestige or academic quality shouldn't be one of them. Anyhow, with that said, here are the reputational differences as I see them. Williams: It's been ranked #1 for the last two decades and is the oldest, crustiest of the WASP schools. It does everything well and is particularly known for math, art history, and strong placement on Wall Street. Williams tutorials look extremely cool. It has a large portion of student-athletes and is the most immediately outdoorsy of the WASP schools. I personally liked Williams location and isolation, but many are immediately turned off by it. Williamstown is cute but tiny. Amherst: Amherst is a lot like Williams but less isolated, has a decent town, and offers a consortium with UMass, Smith, etc., although I don't think Amherst students regularly take advantage of it. It's the only WASP school to offer an open curriculum. Amherst has always struck me as the most preprofessional of the WASP schools, but, again, it has students of all types. Like Williams, it has a lot of student-athletes. Swarthmore: Swat is reputed to be the most intellectual of the WASP schools, and the term "academic intensity" is always mentioned. That said, I don't think Swat students necessarily study harder than Williams or Pomona students, but there does seem to be at least some stress culture there. That said, my DS thought most Swatties were fairly normal kids who like to have fun based on his Swatstuck experience. It has a consortium with Bryn Mawr and Haverford as well as opportunities at Penn, but it doesn't seem like many Swatties take advantage of such opportunities, at least regularly. The town of Swarthmore itself is the smallest, most limited of the WASP immediate towns. On the other hand, Swat has the easiest access to a major city via the on-campus train station. Swat is the only WASP school to offer engineering and probably has the best CS department (given Pomona's enrollment issues). Pomona: Pomona has the best generalized reputation for quality of life and happy students. It's reputed to have an equivalent workload to Swat but without as much stress. The things that separate Pomona from AWS are its West Coast location and the best consortium in the U.S., which offers the advantages of both a small, tightknit LAC and a mid-sized university (total undergrad population of about 6,000). There have been recent issues with CS enrollment at Pomona, but its otherwise strong across the board. It's probably the most non-profit/public service oriented school in WASP. The town of Claremont is an upscale enclave, although its charms are probably more appealing to parents than teenagers. The cool parts of LA are fairly accessible from Pomona but not accessible enough for regular midweek excursions. Last, if you care about such things, it's arguably the most coveted WASP based on selectivity, cross-admits, and yield. |