Thoughts on Bates or Colby and Bates v. Colby?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Good points, but when I said guideline I was referring to how the average student might use it. There's too much change from year to year to choose a #14 school from a #16 school to select a college on USNews rankings. Colby, for example, went from #22 in 2011 to #18 in 2012. It used to be tied with Bates at #22 if memory serves. Does that mean Colby is better than Bates? I don't think so. Are top 25 schools of a different caliber than the schools ranked around 40 and above though? I'd say that they are without a doubt. So that was what I meant by guideline.

[Anonymous]

8:30 here. Meant to say that "There's too much change from year to year to choose the #14 school over the #16 school based on USNews rankings."

[Anonymous]

If you're not from the NE, which one of these is most likely to have name recognition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're not from the NE, which one of these is most likely to have name recognition?

Colby

[Anonymous]

The statement that the USNWR rankings give any clue as to how graduate schools/programs regard different colleges is completely false. Why would a grad school need to look to USNWR? They have reams of their own data that provide all the information they could possibly need--years worth of data about how different students from different schools actually perform in their program.

[Anonymous]

From a graduate admissions perspective, the perception of which undergraduate education is better is likely to be field-specific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're not from the NE, which one of these is most likely to have name recognition?

Neither, really.

Bowdoin is known outside the NE, but Bates or Colby have virtually no name recognition in this area outside small circles.

[Anonymous]

Lol

I saw this thread in "Recent Topics" and thought for sure it was another name question.

[Anonymous]

Too COLD!!!

[Anonymous]

Is their a drug culture at either?

[Anonymous]

Colby and Bates are both #22 in the 2014 rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're not from the NE, which one of these is most likely to have name recognition?

Neither, really.

Bowdoin is known outside the NE, but Bates or Colby have virtually no name recognition in this area outside small circles.

Why do you think Bowdoin, rather than Bates or Colby has name recog outside of the NE?

[Anonymous]

Downton abbey has ruined the name "bates".

no matter the context, i always read it as 'BAAAAAAYYTES"

[Anonymous]

Which is preppier?

[Anonymous]

Are the student bodies more or less equivalent/interchangeable (i.e., drawing from the same pools)?