WSJ/College Pulse 2026 Best Colleges in America published today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

I think LUMD gives out good merit aid.

Some of those Cal State numbers are skewed though because being in CA, the pay there is very high, but so is the col. It's too bad they can't adjust the income by col to get a more accurate picture.

Even so, Cal State schools do a great job of bringing up 1st gen and lower income students. I was one of them.

You might be correct...however, it's not like the SUNY schools are ranked super highly (best is Binghamton at 120) and some of those are in high COL areas. Baruch I guess is the best proxy, but that's the only NY public school in the top 100.

More than likely, it's because most at colleges like Pomona, SLO, SJSU go into CS/engineering, which is higher paying. I don't k now that much about SUNY schools and what the are known for, but I do know that those three CSU graduate a lot of CS/eng majors. While NYC certainly has a lot of tech, IMO, SV has more.

I'll also add, that I would never pay oos for those CSU schools, and I went to one. Nor would anyone choose SJSU over some place like UC Davis unless it was due to finances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

[Anonymous]

Yay for Claremont McKenna.
USNWR #7 LAC
WSJ #6
Niche #2 LAC
Forbes #26
FIRE/Free Speech #1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stanford, Babson, Yale are top-3. Rest is paywalled.

At a maximum acceptance rate of 17%, most applicants will not gain admission to these schools. For this reason, it may be immaterial how the WSJ arrived at its choices.

Ever hear of ED?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

Don’t engage with the anti-CMC buffoon. Everyone knows the Claremont colleges are on the upswing — and the old northeastern, interchangeable SLACs are becoming passe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

Don’t engage with the anti-CMC buffoon. Everyone knows the Claremont colleges are on the upswing — and the old northeastern, interchangeable SLACs are becoming passe.

CMC is clearly at its lowest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

Doubling the campus when it’s absolutely tiny isn’t exactly impressive- cmc is 69 acres, Amherst is 1000 acres. Williams spends more than CMC on athletics year over year.

Recruiting 30+ faculty doesn’t mean as much when you abandoned an entire science department and replaced it with a science major- it’s essentially just restructuring, because they need faculty for their new experiment.

Literally the only thing interesting about what you said is the $1bil campaign- which is 100% impressive, but it doesn’t support your claim that it’s one of the only LACs improving the student experience or that it’s the only lac improving the school itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

I don’t believe that 30 faculty is the largest amongst lacs if you total faculty in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Neuro, and Geology. I also wonder how you got to 30- according to CMC’s faculty page: there’s 18 faculty members, 2 directors/admin roles, and 1 visiting faculty member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

Don’t engage with the anti-CMC buffoon. Everyone knows the Claremont colleges are on the upswing — and the old northeastern, interchangeable SLACs are becoming passe.

CMC is clearly at its lowest

I wish CMC the best but their launch of their integrated science gamble has been very rocky to say the least. I've heard students are not happy with the initial classes they are made to take. This year's class is no longer able to take anything at Keck or other 5C science class, they need to fulfill the core requirements exclusively through the new integrated science center which is kind of a mess. sort of like forced biology hybrid with python and not what they want to take. I think in a few more years they could work out the kinks but the next 3-4 yrs may be frustrating for anyone with interest in science study there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claremont McKenna is a great school

Debatable. Very big on clout chasing over improving the school.

Literally not even true, they’re one of the only lacs going all out with improving the school and student experience

Use a concrete list of examples.

https://www.cmc.edu/giving/investing-in-future-leaders

Priorities on the bottom page

So they’re building things and giving financial aid and grants like every other LAC? This is not a concrete list of anything special.

You think doubling the campus, building a huge integrated science center and recruiting 30+ faculty for it (one of the largest of any LACs), investing the most of any LAC I know outside of Colby in athletics, and raising 1 billion dollars in one fundraising campaign (the most of any LAC ever) to fund internships and scholarships is insignificant?

Ok.

Don’t engage with the anti-CMC buffoon. Everyone knows the Claremont colleges are on the upswing — and the old northeastern, interchangeable SLACs are becoming passe.

CMC is clearly at its lowest

I wish CMC the best but their launch of their integrated science gamble has been very rocky to say the least. I've heard students are not happy with the initial classes they are made to take. This year's class is no longer able to take anything at Keck or other 5C science class, they need to fulfill the core requirements exclusively through the new integrated science center which is kind of a mess. sort of like forced biology hybrid with python and not what they want to take. I think in a few more years they could work out the kinks but the next 3-4 yrs may be frustrating for anyone with interest in science study there.

The concept doesn’t make sense. You can’t shove bio chem and physics into one course without severely watering down content. If CMC is that invested in placing students into biotech, they could’ve just started a computer science program and made a computational science track for the bio/chem interested students. There’s no sane reason to choose integrated sciences at the moment, unless you want a watered down degree with no utility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford, Babson, Yale are top-3. Rest is paywalled.

Babson?

Is this some sort of joke list ??