Who is WASP (Williams, Amherst, Swat, Pomona) for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is the weirdest thread ever. someone on here hates the most competitive, single digit admit SLACs and is rage-baiting these responses, it's bizarre.

Agreed. I'll never understand why some people here hold such crazy strong opinions about any particular college or kind of college (LAC, public, Ivy, etc.). Williams, Vandy, Cornell, Cal, etc.? They're all supremely fantastic schools.

100%. And the truth is most people are going to know and love people from all these kinds of schools, and should be trying to find the best fit for their kid/s without denigrating others' choices. The rabid insults flying around are so mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is the weirdest thread ever. someone on here hates the most competitive, single digit admit SLACs and is rage-baiting these responses, it's bizarre.

I wouldn’t take it so personally.
The SLACs are as corporate-minded as Harvard, Yale, USC, etc. They are run like mini corporations. Are they good places to get a strong college education? Of course. Are they the saintly intellectual bastions of enlightenment that some folks here would have you believe - not a chance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is the weirdest thread ever. someone on here hates the most competitive, single digit admit SLACs and is rage-baiting these responses, it's bizarre.

I wouldn’t take it so personally.
The SLACs are as corporate-minded as Harvard, Yale, USC, etc. They are run like mini corporations. Are they good places to get a strong college education? Of course. Are they the saintly intellectual bastions of enlightenment that some folks here would have you believe - not a chance

DP. Sure that’s a great critique of Higher Ed, but does it really need to be said? We’d have to give that disclaimer to every thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona has academic/course offering/scheduling issues that are starting to negatively creep into its rigor.

Can you be a bit more precise?

There is a poster or two who just hates Pomona. Pomona has had to limit CS course enrollment but there is no overall issue or impact on rigor.


If you are elite institution that hires professors to publish you will get strong publication. If you are an elite institution that hires to teach you will get strong teaching.

[Anonymous]

My kid chose a WASP school because they had attended large public schools for high school, middle school etc and wanted the experience of small classes and involved teachers. This has proven to be the case. My kid could thrive in most any environment but knew themselves and chose not based on prestige alone but the experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread derailed, so I'll answer OP.
Students who really want to learn a lot in college academically. Students who aren't naturally competitive. Students who have interest in higher education.

maybe at wesleyan or bowdoin - this isn’t true for Swat or Williams

Williams is just the right kind of competitive. We ephs know how to be the best and we perform accordingly so!

[Anonymous]

“WASP” has never been heard of. What is that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safety schools for Ivy students. I don't understand the purpose of the liberal arts colleges, other than this purpose-ivy league rejects, who need a separate system to show off how intelligent they are, while signaling an embarrassing, crippling self-esteem issue.

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 -

But many many people do chose top LACs over ivies? Definitely more representative by percentage of pop than Vandy lmao.

Many, many? That isn’t even possible given how few kids actually attend the four lacs under discussion.

Many for their populations, sure. Do you need a certain quota for it to be significant enough for you or what? It just seems really weird to pose that top LACs are ivy reject schools to then bring up and boost an alternative ivy reject school. DP.

let me put it a different way - no one on earth has every uttered the following phrase “I turned down Williams for *** ivy” - and do you know why? because kids who actually choose to attend ivies never see Williams as an alternative, and never struggled with that decision. Same can’t be said for 90%+ Williams undergrads. Every athlete - which makes up between 35%-40% of the population at Williams - would have attended an ivy if they were good enough and recruited by and offered a spot by an ivy coach - that’s just a fact

But it’s literally not a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WASPs.

All of these colleges are significantly less white and wealthy than many other t20s. Not really the vibe. Pomona had a recent class that is less than 25% white.

And it's not like Pomona is 75 percent Asian either.

Pomona is very particular in how they want their demographics to be. And it's such a tiny school. I really wouldn't bother applying if you're white or Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WASPs.

All of these colleges are significantly less white and wealthy than many other t20s. Not really the vibe. Pomona had a recent class that is less than 25% white.

And it's not like Pomona is 75 percent Asian either.

Pomona is very particular in how they want their demographics to be. And it's such a tiny school. I really wouldn't bother applying if you're white or Asian.

Not applying because you are asian is pretty silly. The most represented demographic on campus, and you have the asian community in California, which is much more robust than the rest of the nation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the distinct differences between the 4, and why do students chose these over ivies or other t20s sometimes?

Smart kids who want a small college environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the distinct differences between the 4, and why do students chose these over ivies or other t20s sometimes?

Each WASP school (as well as Bowdoin, Wellesley, etc.) has something special about it that may make it especially appealing to certain students:

(1) Williams: Bucolic setting, Oxford tutorials, Winter Study, historic white-shoe pedigree

(2) Amherst: Open curriculum, Williams's pedigree without Williams's isolation

(3) Swarthmore: Honors program, PhD production, easy access to Philadelphia

(4) Pomona: West coast, easy access to LA, part of an integrated consortium

Similarities: Selectivity, size, rigor, endowment, grad school placement, etc.

Why choose WASP over an Ivy/Top 20?
-Financial aid
-Prefer undergraduate-focused education
-Prefer a smaller school
-Prefer a college with students who are less devoted to prestige or brand-recognition
-Prefer broad academic/intellectual exploration over subject-specific focus
-Professional and graduate school placement
-Able to play D3 sports

[Anonymous]

These schools are impossible to get into, so what's the point of this discussion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These schools are impossible to get into, so what's the point of this discussion?

People do get into them. People also apply to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread derailed, so I'll answer OP.
Students who really want to learn a lot in college academically. Students who aren't naturally competitive. Students who have interest in higher education.

maybe at wesleyan or bowdoin - this isn’t true for Swat or Williams

Williams is just the right kind of competitive. We ephs know how to be the best and we perform accordingly so!

Go Ephs! I loved my time there.