Reply to where would top SLACs fall in an overall college ranking list?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]hear all this banter about WASP schools being comparable to ivies, but are they really? where should Williams, Amherst, and Pomona fall on an overall list - somewhere in the mid 20s after Georgetown, UVA, USC, Lehigh, etc?[/quote]

Generic rankings don't mean that much since an internationally known R1 university has many different resources to offer than a small liberal arts college. A SLAC is more comparable to a top notch boarding school but they are not as well known outside the US.

I worked in London for many years and while everyone in Europe has heard of Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, etc. Almost no one had heard of Pomona, Carleton or Swarthmore or Amherst. But those SLACs are extremely relevant in certain regions of the US.

There are many flavors to rankings, and if small class size was ranked as the most meaningful category, SLACs would dominate the national rankings. They are a non-factor internationally. But honestly, each kid has their own criteria which is why rankings like USNWR, Forbes, etc. are not useful since we all don't care about or value the same criteria.

If reputation is important to you, the larger universities with global reputations will always dominate the SLACs. In terms of international reputation, SLACs would be below Ivies in terms of name recognition. But the value they provide is in great teaching, small classes, less overwhelming atmosphere. Carleton College has been lauded for its excellence in undergraduate teaching and if teaching quality was something that could be easily measured, who knows it may be ranked #1. But the reality is that it's much easier to measure the stuff USNWR etc likes to look at instead.

So go by what your student values, not name cache and national rankings.[/quote]

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