My DD wants to avoid applying to most competitive top 25 "usual suspects" colleges - which LACs considered part of T'25?
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Anonymous
I respect the motivation, but this seems to be reductionist. Instead of what she doesn’t want, what does she want? For example, USC and NYU are difficult admits, but aren’t considered grinder schools. Conversely, UW-Seattle is an easier admit, but known for being academically rigorous. What does she want from her college experience? I’d consider giving that a lot of consideration, too. |
Anonymous
same 
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Anonymous
I would rather not give the specifics of my undergraduate major and graduate degree — but I doubled majored at Swarthmore in the humanities, and my MA from Hopkins was also a humanities degree. I may have a little more insight into the undergrad experience at JHU due to the nature of my coursework — I took a few classes that were open to both undergrads and graduate students, and served as a TA in my department. Actually, at 22, I taught the class to which I was assigned — everything from choosing the texts, assigning and gr |
Anonymous
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Sorry, I’m pp but sent too soon…anyway, I assigned and graded everything and made my own exams. I had just graduated college and, though I put everything into preparing for and teaching my class well, I sometimes wondered what my students’ parents thought about lowly me, teaching their kids.
I received a good education at both Swarthmore and Hopkins, but the intellectual experience of studying at Swarthmore was, to me, incomparable to what I found at Hopkins. At Swarthmore, my professors were not only incredibly accomplished, but were excellent teachers. They knew my name. The students were engaged and passionate but in general seemed driven much more by their own high expectations of themselves rather than any competitiveness with each other. I don’t think I realized quite how excellent my undergraduate education was until I had something to which to compare it. |
Anonymous
| I wouldn’t trade the undergrad classroom experience I had at my SLAC for anything and am a huge fan of LAC’s. However, it’s not for everyone and there’s a lot to be said for people who navigate their way academically in bigger university environments and take full advantage of the opportunities there. There’s no one “right” undergrad academic experience. |
Anonymous
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Wait -- the military academies aren't LACs, are they?
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Anonymous
My DD is a senior at Swat, and this has been her experience. She's an engineering major, and she has received an amazing amount of support and mentoring from her professors. She had a research opportunity that culminated in her name being added to a published paper, and her professor invited her and a classmate to Belgium to present at a conference. |
Anonymous
They are their own kind of animal, but they fit in better with LACs for the purpose of rankings because they focus on undergraduate education. |
Anonymous
So do many nat’l unis. The military academies fit in with national univ rankings because they also have double the students of a SLAC. |
Anonymous
1)cite 2) any selectivity ranking not factoring ED rounds, which lower admit rates, is complete crap. Are you being paid by wallet hub? I notice those posts usually come at a certain point of night. |
Anonymous
Well, USNWR put them where they put them. I'd imagine that students who are interested in them don't find the rankings particularly useful. |
Anonymous
I think that’s the point: the rankings have jumped the shark and are not particularly useful. SLACs in a separate list have the impact of marginalization; the unwary consumer is left thinking that the top SLACs are easier admits than they are — and will end up in the rejection pile. |
Anonymous
Naval Academy #75 + UC Davis #40 = crap Pomona #25 + NYU #26 = LOL IYKYK |
Anonymous
| DS transferred out of Berkeley (Haas) to a SLAC. The difference in the quality of undergrad teaching and the student experience is vast. National universities may be great for grad school but they leave a lot to be desired for undergrad. Those research dollars go to grad students, not lowly undergrads. Class sizes, particularly for the first two years, are huge, and taught almost exclusively by TAs. Don’t get me started on club culture. In my experience, SLACs are mid-size schools are the only way to go. Save the big schools for graduate studies. |
Anonymous
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I'm a tenured professor at an R1, who attended a PAWS college, then completed a PhD at HYP in the social sciences. It is absurd to compare SLACs to "National Universities" (a UWNWR silly category) based upon percentage of applicants admitted.
No one on this thread seems to factor in that the seniors who apply to top SLACs are already a highly filtered group, for better or for worse. Chances are that applicants already come from a well-educated family and/or attend a high school with superior college counseling. Everyone has heard of HYP; you don't need a selective graduate degree to know that these schools have reputations. This is a major reason why H, in particular, has such low admit rates; everyone applies to H, even when it's a crap shoot. OP, your child needs to figure out what environment she'll need to thrive. It can be small or large, urban or rural, Greek or not, etc., etc. I truly do not think that your child understands what "competitiveness" actually entails. So much of her happiness in college will be in finding a supportive friend group, and she can find this, or not, wherever she ends up. |