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[quote=Anonymous][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]

Endowment per capita is another fairly unimportant stat that gets reported and thrown around a lot. Endowment isn't ever used by a university on any per student basis except to a degree in some types of aid. A lot of endowment $$ also can't even easily be accessed or used for more than a few specific things.

Princeton is a USNWR darling but isn't in Harvard's league as an overall university and doesn't fully want to be (unlike Yale). Harvard does more across disciplines and does most of it better at the grad school level than Princeton, as does Stanford. Princeton and Dartmouth are an odd middle because the grad programs are not as strong across the board and you still have the PhD students doing a lot of the best research work available for students (unlike at an Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Williams). You get a little more focus on undergrad education but the profs are still dragging their feel having to teach some of the classes.

PP, you may have liked Princeton's town and accessibility to a place like Philly. That environment might very well appeal to you over, say, New Haven. Swarthmore is in a quaint suburban town as I recall and has a train station right on campus to get into the city. Williams on the other hand is in a small NE town with pretty much nothing around. Amherst has a little more in the nice town but Springfield, MA isn't exactly Philadelphia. Likewise, Cambridge might have a tougher winter and be bit more grey than Princeton, which is true of Swarthmore versus Amherst and Williams too. In these situations where you are picking between 1AB&C, other preferences students have matter. For perspective, USNWR has only ever ranked those 3 SLACs #1 for multiple years since starting their rankings and the lowest Amherst and Swarthmore have ever been ranked is 4 while Williams has never even been below 3). Pomona is also great and has never been ranked below 7 by USNWR since 2000. When choosing between these types of schools if you want an amazing small college out west or with warm weather or with a bigger group of cooperative colleges, you could 100% choose Pomona over any other school.

I know people who picked Pomona over Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth and Stanford for several of those reasons. Another picked Pomona over Stanford because of the strong academics and ability to play college tennis. There is no "wrong" choice when you are only looking at great schools.[/quote]

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