where would top SLACs fall in an overall college ranking list?

[Anonymous]

I'd consider WASP top 20ish but not top 10

For instance, I think Pomona is slightly above UCLA/UC Berkeley for undergrad which are #15/#17 respectively but I do think U'Chicago and Columbia are higher which are #11/#13

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hear all this banter about WASP schools being comparable to ivies, but are they really? where should Williams, Amherst, and Pomona fall on an overall list - somewhere in the mid 20s after Georgetown, UVA, USC, Lehigh, etc?

Lehigh ?!? 🤣

Nice try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:be careful when reading these rankings unless you're prepare/able to look at methodology.

for example, for salaries on the WSJ ranking, they use two numbers. here they are. if you thought it was something to do with "salary", you'd be wrong.


Salary impact (67%): This measures the extent to which a college boosts its graduates’ salaries beyond what they would be expected to earn regardless of which college they attended. We used statistical modeling to estimate what we would expect the median earnings of a college’s graduates to be on the basis of the exam results of its students prior to attending the college and the cost of living in the state in which the college is based. We then scored the college on its performance against that estimate. These scores were then combined with scores for raw graduate salaries to factor in absolute performance alongside performance relative to our estimates. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank the Brookings Institution as a guide.

Years to pay off net price (33%): This measure combines two figures—the average net price of attending the college, and the value added to graduates’ median salary attributable to attending the college. The value added to graduates’ median salary by a college was estimated on the basis of the difference between the median earnings of the school’s graduates and the median earnings of high-school graduates in the state where the college is located and across the U.S. in proportion to the ratio of students who are in-state versus out-of-state. We then took the average annual net price of attending the college—including costs like tuition and fees, room and board, and books and supplies, taking into account any grants and scholarships, for students who received federal financial aid—and multiplied it by four to reflect an estimated cost of a four-year program. We then divided this overall net-price figure by the value added to a graduate’s salary, to provide an estimate of how quickly an education at the college pays for itself through the salary boost it provides. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank Third Way as a guide.

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this is really about the distance a college propels a student. so a immigrant kid from stuy who goes to MIT - who also has a low Net Price - that's a great outcome.

a rich kid who would have done just fine at Middlebury or Vandy? who paid full price for either? and would also have been just as rich and connected if they went to UVM? less a distance traveled story. lower salary number. even though kid 2 here might be making more (with those great connections!) than kid 1.

What about Questbridge students, for example, who attend the top (20ish) SLACs essentially for free? At many of those schools Questbridge students make up a large percentage of the class. And are we to assume that no students of privilege attend MIT? You are obviously one of the many on the board who don’t understand the value of a small liberal arts education. That’s fine, they are not for everyone. But please don’t base your “analysis” on lazy assumptions that reflect your biases. One of the many reasons why this entire exercise is a fool’s errand.

Are you connected to an LAC / SLAC ? If yes, your post is an embarrassment to LACs as you completely missed the point of the poster that you attacked. Zoom...right over your head. Embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What does that mean…Swat doesn’t really have engineering but you can do a 5 year program with Penn.

Like…what’s the point?

Swat does have engineering and is ABET accredited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:be careful when reading these rankings unless you're prepare/able to look at methodology.

for example, for salaries on the WSJ ranking, they use two numbers. here they are. if you thought it was something to do with "salary", you'd be wrong.


Salary impact (67%): This measures the extent to which a college boosts its graduates’ salaries beyond what they would be expected to earn regardless of which college they attended. We used statistical modeling to estimate what we would expect the median earnings of a college’s graduates to be on the basis of the exam results of its students prior to attending the college and the cost of living in the state in which the college is based. We then scored the college on its performance against that estimate. These scores were then combined with scores for raw graduate salaries to factor in absolute performance alongside performance relative to our estimates. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank the Brookings Institution as a guide.

Years to pay off net price (33%): This measure combines two figures—the average net price of attending the college, and the value added to graduates’ median salary attributable to attending the college. The value added to graduates’ median salary by a college was estimated on the basis of the difference between the median earnings of the school’s graduates and the median earnings of high-school graduates in the state where the college is located and across the U.S. in proportion to the ratio of students who are in-state versus out-of-state. We then took the average annual net price of attending the college—including costs like tuition and fees, room and board, and books and supplies, taking into account any grants and scholarships, for students who received federal financial aid—and multiplied it by four to reflect an estimated cost of a four-year program. We then divided this overall net-price figure by the value added to a graduate’s salary, to provide an estimate of how quickly an education at the college pays for itself through the salary boost it provides. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank Third Way as a guide.

---

this is really about the distance a college propels a student. so a immigrant kid from stuy who goes to MIT - who also has a low Net Price - that's a great outcome.

a rich kid who would have done just fine at Middlebury or Vandy? who paid full price for either? and would also have been just as rich and connected if they went to UVM? less a distance traveled story. lower salary number. even though kid 2 here might be making more (with those great connections!) than kid 1.

What about Questbridge students, for example, who attend the top (20ish) SLACs essentially for free? At many of those schools Questbridge students make up a large percentage of the class. And are we to assume that no students of privilege attend MIT? You are obviously one of the many on the board who don’t understand the value of a small liberal arts education. That’s fine, they are not for everyone. But please don’t base your “analysis” on lazy assumptions that reflect your biases. One of the many reasons why this entire exercise is a fool’s errand.

Williams doesnt release questbridge numbers but say they've enrolled 500 since 2004, so 25 a year? I wouldnt call that a large percentage of the class. MIT enrolled 100 last year.

You're missing my point entirely since I was defending Williams, but just want to point this out. Williams is a far more privileged student body overall. That's just in the numbers.

Absolutely false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hear all this banter about WASP schools being comparable to ivies, but are they really? where should Williams, Amherst, and Pomona fall on an overall list - somewhere in the mid 20s after Georgetown, UVA, USC, Lehigh, etc?

Generic rankings don't mean that much since an internationally known R1 university has many different resources to offer than a small liberal arts college. A SLAC is more comparable to a top notch boarding school but they are not as well known outside the US.

I worked in London for many years and while everyone in Europe has heard of Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, etc. Almost no one had heard of Pomona, Carleton or Swarthmore or Amherst. But those SLACs are extremely relevant in certain regions of the US.

There are many flavors to rankings, and if small class size was ranked as the most meaningful category, SLACs would dominate the national rankings. They are a non-factor internationally. But honestly, each kid has their own criteria which is why rankings like USNWR, Forbes, etc. are not useful since we all don't care about or value the same criteria.

If reputation is important to you, the larger universities with global reputations will always dominate the SLACs. In terms of international reputation, SLACs would be below Ivies in terms of name recognition. But the value they provide is in great teaching, small classes, less overwhelming atmosphere. Carleton College has been lauded for its excellence in undergraduate teaching and if teaching quality was something that could be easily measured, who knows it may be ranked #1. But the reality is that it's much easier to measure the stuff USNWR etc likes to look at instead.

So go by what your student values, not name cache and national rankings.

[Anonymous]

Two highly respected publications--the Wall Street Journal and the Times Higher Education--used to rank LACs and National Universities together. The 2022 rankings were the last published joint rankings to the best of my knowledge.

The methodology used 15 factors to arrive at an outcomes based ranking. Based on this methodology, the top two LACs were #22 Amherst College and #23 Williams College, followed by #25 Pomona College, #29 Swarthmore College, #30 Wellesley College, and #35 Carleton College.

Haverford was ranked at #36, followed by #38 Bowdoin College, #39 Smith College, and #40 Middlebury College.

Based on my knowledge and experience, I agree with a poster who above who wrote:

"A[n] SLAC is more comparable to a top notch boarding school...."

FWIW Ours attended a Top 10 National University after 4 yard at a super elite boarding school. Our entire family--student & parents--would have been thrilled if the student spent 4 years at Middlebury College rather than at a Top 10 National University, however the education would have been a different and lesser academic experience than experienced at the Top 10 National University due to the breadth/variety, depth, and greater number of faculty & students in each of the three majors undertaken. Additionally, the academic facilities were far superior at the Top 10 National University than at any of the top ranked LACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes, because there are more kids of privilege at williams.

using older data from NYT, percentage of kids from top 1% (630k):
Williams College 18.1%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.7%

They clearly must enroll a very high number of kids from the bottom say 60% in order to get the average net price down to $26k if your stats are correct.

If say 30% are full pay at $90k then that means nearly 70% aren’t paying much of anything in order to arrive at a $27k average net price.

[Anonymous]

Nevertheless, the social experience offered by Middlebury College probably would have been superior to the Top 10 National University social experience due to the more intimate environment offered by Middlebury College and due to the proximity of great ski resorts in the area.

The social experience at the Top 10 National University was incredible according to the former elite prep boarding school student, but more intense.

[Anonymous]

about the questbridge guess at 25 a year.

I think this is about right.

2071 at Williams
1092 get any FA

can I imagine 10% of those are Questbridge?Sure. That's about 25 a year. I dont think it's more than 20%. It could be. But that's it.

questbridge numbers included in this bcs it's not an external provider (ie, colleges cover the costs)

[Anonymous]

Most of DC's classmates at Amherst (himself included) chose it over schools ranked in the high teens and low 20s, like Georgetown, Michigan, UCLA, USC, and Vanderbilt, so probably somewhat in that range.

The admissions office says that Amherst loses cross-admits to every Ivy except Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes, because there are more kids of privilege at williams.

using older data from NYT, percentage of kids from top 1% (630k):
Williams College 18.1%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.7%

They clearly must enroll a very high number of kids from the bottom say 60% in order to get the average net price down to $26k if your stats are correct.

If say 30% are full pay at $90k then that means nearly 70% aren’t paying much of anything in order to arrive at a $27k average net price.

At Williams? More like half are full pay.

It's almost like the WSJ numbers dont add up. Or any of these rankings when you look deeper into the numbers. Hmm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nevertheless, the social experience offered by Middlebury College probably would have been superior to the Top 10 National University social experience due to the more intimate environment offered by Middlebury College and due to the proximity of great ski resorts in the area.

The social experience at the Top 10 National University was incredible according to the former elite prep boarding school student, but more intense.

this is a leap, and I'm a Midd fan. It's a great environment, but there would be plenty of kids who prefer a big football culture and warmer weather. ski resorts are a niche attraction for much of the world.

but I do think it's a great school! just can't say one is "superior" to another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of DC's classmates at Amherst (himself included) chose it over schools ranked in the high teens and low 20s, like Georgetown, Michigan, UCLA, USC, and Vanderbilt, so probably somewhat in that range.

The admissions office says that Amherst loses cross-admits to every Ivy except Cornell.

Well, I know kids choosing Williams over multiple ivies, except for HYP. Williams tend to draw the top 1% kids in our school, and the majority matriculate there unless HYP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nevertheless, the social experience offered by Middlebury College probably would have been superior to the Top 10 National University social experience due to the more intimate environment offered by Middlebury College and due to the proximity of great ski resorts in the area.

The social experience at the Top 10 National University was incredible according to the former elite prep boarding school student, but more intense.

Middlebury College is a great size for a small school, larger than most LACs in terms of number of students so the Athlete/non-athlete (NARP) divide would have less of an impact on one's social life than at Amherst, Williams, or most other top ranked LACS.

And the athlete/non-athlete (NARP non-athlete regular person) divide is quite pronounced at most Top ranked LACs. This makes a small school even smaller and exclusionary. Important to be cognizant of this divide and its effect on a prospective student's social life if considering an LAC in a rural, isolated location.

Easier to adjust to an LAC during one's first year of higher education than to do so at a large university for most, but less suffocating/confining for students during the successive years at a college/university.

Also, small schools with just one main dining hall can get old and, in some cases, uncomfortable due to social cliques as well as to life experiences such as a romantic break-up.