Reply to Is there a huge difference in prestige between Williams and Bowdoin?

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Reply to "Is there a huge difference in prestige between Williams and Bowdoin?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How do people have such fine-grained and confident opinions about stuff like this? I taught at Bowdoin for two years at the beginning of my career, and I've taught at two other LACs mentioned in this thread. I haven't taught at Williams, but my kid is now making a down-to-the-wire decision whether to go there (which is why I clicked on this thread). I've chaired grad admissions committees with quite a few applicants from both schools over the years. But I have no idea -- couldn't begin to tell you -- whether Williams or Bowdoin is generally better. Given my kid's interests, Bowdoin looks less good -- for him. So he didn't even apply there. Is Williams therefore the better school? In my own academic field, Bowdoin is better than Williams.  You'd think I'd have a more general opinion, but I have no idea which school is 'more prestigious.'

If, by contrast, the question is about the attitudes of people who know little about the schools apart from rumor and branding impressions, why care about that?[/quote]

There is no way for anybody to have a fine grained opinion about these schools. There are basically 15 of so LACs with virtually identical student bodies. They overlap with probably 20/25 Universities with the same virtually identical student bodies.

Why people keep thinking that one is better than another or that they can be stack ranked is frankly stupid. Yet here we go again year after year.[/quote]

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