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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The big university comparison with those top few liberal arts colleges, just for comparing how the SLACs relate to each other, does kind of make sense and is interesting to think through for minute. Williams would be the Harvard OG; Amherst the Yale with great recognition and reputation but always comparing itself in relation to the rival OG; Swarthmore the Princeton that is maybe the best of the group now and farther south but without quite as much name recognition and history as a non-rival; and Pomona the up-and-coming western Stanford.[/quote]

Princeton grad here- sort of bristling at the comparison to Swat although Princeton is also pretty close to Philly. Curious though why one would assert that Swat is now the best of the group? (My beef with Swat is that it seems to have a rep of being painfully competitive and dull - a real grind)[/quote]

Swat is highly selective and has tended to win the head-to-head admissions "battles" against Amherst and Williams (pretty significantly on the imperfect Parchment site). I guess I'm probably off about Princeton being that way relative to Yale and Harvard though. Looking at Parchment, both are preferred to Princeton by a statistically significant margin. Swat might not like that comparison now other than the more southern location  :lol: . It was mostly that the primary names and rivalry in the Ivy League involve Harvard and Yale (and not Princeton), despite Princeton being a great school that many find at least on par with the other 2 for undergrads). It is like that for SLACs where Williams and Amherst have a huge rivalry (that carries on in sports today too) and many mention them if they only say two names and are asked about the best small schools.[/quote]

Hmmm.  I don't think Parchment is really accurate or scientific.  I've seen some really odd results there.  I don't know of anyone who did or would choose Swat over Williams/Amherst and can't imagine why you would (maybe because of science or engineering?)  Swat seems most often compared to Chicago-- very academic, intense, intellectual, maybe not so fun.  Princeton has ranked #1 on US News for decades.  I really don't think it lags H or Y in any sense and trounces them both in terms of the focus on undergraduate education and endowment per capita.  Certainly, different students will be drawn to different schools, and culturally they can be very different.  I think Princeton/Dartmouth are more like Williams (a little more traditional and up the middle and pre-corporate), while Amherst/Brown are more like Yale (artsty and lefty).  I don't know what Harvard is.  Prob closer to Amherst too.   [/quote]

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