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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is an interesting thread for me to read. My kids are middle school aged not high school so I am sure I have a lot to learn, but I went to high school in the northeast and many of the colleges named on this thread had a different reputation back in my day - part of that of course is that reputations change, but I do believe that part of that is that in this area some of the SLACs are not as well regarded as they are in the northeast. For example, you would never name F&M, Colgate, Bucknell and Tulane, on the one hand, with U of Miami, Northeastern or even Boston U, on the other. And Lehigh/Lafayette would be lumped with the first group, but no better than them. OP, there are a lot of SLACs in the northeast that could fit the bill for how you describe your son - Boston College, Fairfield, Tufts, Holy Cross - he should check out UMass and Clark, too. [/quote]

You're absolutely correct - when your children become old enough to start looking at schools you will quickly learn that things are vastly different now then they were back in the day. Trust me, when my DD started looking at schools I realized that I had to re-organize my thinking. I was dismissing certain schools that didn't have high rankings back when I was going to school in favor of ones I thought were good. Turns out I was wrong in many cases - the school I thought was great was actually ranked much lower than the ones that I dismissed. And the schools that were not considered great when I was looking at college are now significantly better, more selective and much harder to get into (both Northeastern and Boston Univ. come to mind for me). Schools change over time - both positively and negatively. All of the schools you listed above are actually good schools and rather competitive to get into. The ones on your list that I would say don't belong are Fairfield, Clark and UMass. Not to say they are not good schools, but they are ranked lower or in the regional category (Fairfield) and have acceptance rates in the 60-70% range - not schools I would put with Boston College or Tufts.

Bottom line…getting our kids into college is a different ballgame for all of us now. (Paying for college is also a different ballgame altogether, but that's for another thread!)[/quote]

Of course, as the article below indicates, one must take these changes in ranking with a very large grain of salt. Moving up in the rankings, attracting more applicants, even becoming "more selective" may be all about better marketing and increasing the "brand" value and not at all about a better educational experience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/education/edlife/how-to-raise-a-universitys-profile-pricing-and-packaging.html?_r=0

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