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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are plenty of legitimate reasons like school culture, specific opportunities, or major why you might prefer one over the other. But when you ask a broad question like "better," it's hard not to go to the basic stats.

Wesleyan is much more selective (under 20%) than Lafayette (over 30%) and has a more high-performing applicant pool.

Use CDS to compare the number of students who submit scores to see how different the populations are:

Wesleyan enrolled first-year SATs (25th%-75th%) are: 1300-1500 with roughly 71% of them submitting scores.

Lafayette enrolled first-year SATs (25th%-75th%) are: 1350-1470 with roughly 45% of them submitting scores.

"Better" is really about fit and is very subjective. But reputationwise, selectivity, performance of applicants, Wesleyan is definitely a cut above Lafayette.[/quote]

In the grand scheme of things, and especially using the SAT score metric, these schools are about the same.

"This school is 1300-1500 and that school is 1350-1470, so obviously the former is definitely a cut above the latter."  :roll:  Puhleaze.[/quote]

My point was that though the scores look the similar, the difference in the number submitting is huge. I have no skin in the game but I work in academia and reputation of the students at each school is quite different and these stats back it up.[/quote] as an academic, how are the lacs viewed? Like is there differences in WASP versus Bowdoin/Middlebury/Hamilton versus these schools?[/quote]
DP. The differences are minimal. WASP students on average will have marginally better stats and marginally better outcomes, strong emphasis on "marginally." But the differences between these schools is very small. If you cloned the same high-achieving student and simultaneously sent him to one WASP school and one of the aforementioned schools, I'm pretty sure the kid would have the same life.

Incidentally, for all the talk of Wes being a rich kids' school, its financial aid is phenomenal and punches far above its weight. For us, Wes's FA was better than Yale, Dartmouth, Penn, and Bowdoin. My DS, however, chose a WASP school with an equivalent FA package lest people think I'm biased.[/quote]
So interesting! I don’t have a lot of exposure to lacs, so it’s kinda repeated on this forum that
Williams> amherst, swarthmore>>> Pomona. Interesting to see that it doesn’t even matter to “lower tier” lacs![/quote]
The idea that such a rigid hierarchy exists among such schools is ridiculous. This forum is devoted to USNWR rankings while also constantly complaining about it. If you consider selectivity, yield, and cross-admit selection, the ranking would be the inverse: Pomona, Swat, Amherst, Williams. Personally, I think each of those schools offers something special that makes it the right school for the right student. I'd probably add Wellesley and Bowdoin to the group, although it'd make for a clunky acronym. Anyhow, choosing one over another because of some unarticulated sense of prestige is a recipe for a potentially unhappy college experience. Thankfully, I think most of the kids who go to top LACs have eschewed the idea of pursuing maximal prestige because anyone who gets into a WASP-level school probably had a number of better-known T20 options.[/quote]

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