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Anonymous wrote:It fully depends on what you do as a major. I don't think a Pomona Physics major is much different from a Brown Physics major, but a Brown math major will do more work than a Pomona linguistics major.

A Pomona math major will do more work than a Brown math major, I can assure you.

This is so not true. Brown’s undergraduate applied math is generally ranked #2 or 3 and pure math 5 or 6. Pomona has one math program and it isn’t even in the top 25. Brown placed 8th in the Putnam Math Competition last year. Pomona was not even the top 25. A quick perusal of the respective course catalogs shows Brown undergraduate courses > 8x that of Pomona. Roughly 1/2 of the pure math concentrators at Brown go on to top 5 Ph.D pure math programs. You are so wildly off base about this it’s laughable.

A department’s mathematical rigor isn’t based off of Putnam- that would mean Princeton would be much worse than basically all the programs where IMO winners prefer going (aka MIT). Pomona per capita sends more students to PhD programs. I’d love to see a stat on the top 5 PhD pure math thing- it also doesn’t say how many pure math concentrators there are. Typically brown is known for applied math as you stated first.

I don’t even agree with the Other poster, But this is nonsense

Princeton actually is much worse than other schools for STEM and particularly for math. Putnam Competition is starting to reflect that. Retaining TO has really hurt their ability to attract the best STEM students. Talk to Princeton professors. Like Harvard, Princeton now offers remedial math. Its heritage as a destination for the best mathematicians and physicists has declined quite a bit, too. Princeton is much more preprofessional than say MIT, Caltech, Cornell, Brown and Columbia. Princeton has a lot of recruited lacrosse types who dabble in a few low level math courses vs. the others cited above which have a higher quotient of truly brilliant folks who go on to get PhDs. Talk to faculty.

Princeton really bad for math is very funny.

PP must not have A Beautiful Mind.

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Anonymous wrote:Is that correct? Pomona only accepts about 13% ED and Bowdoin 14%.

Yeah, which are good boosts compared to regular.

Sigh. Stop comparing apples and oranges. Normalize admit data for Bowdoin’s high athlete percentage. Surprise, surprise: Pomona is more selective.

Where do you find the data on high athlete percentage, am I missing something in the Common Data Set? Wouldn't this show up in the ED admit rate?
- parent of '27 student trying to make sense of all of this.

We visited Bowdoin this spring and the tour guide told us ~50% athletes. Then there’s a big chunk of non athlete FGLI kids there. The impression we took away was that there were very few spots available for kids not filling an institutional need.

It is not 50% athlete. Your tour guide might have been talking about his/her friends, but my son isn’t an athlete, and would attest that the number is closer to 30-35%.

Battle of the useless anecdotes!

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Anonymous wrote:I have a sophomore at Dartmouth. It's tricky because their quarters are 10 weeks, basically 8.5 to 9 weeks once the exam week, etc. are factored in.
In one of these time blocks they will cover the same material that a semester school covers in 16 weeks so it's particularly rigorous for things like chemistry, physics etc. where a standardized amount of material needs to be taught.

If you have a yearlong course, say intro economics, organic chemistry, first year physics,
wouldn’t it just be broken up into 3 quarters, not 2 semesters? So the amount of time spent overall is the same, you just get 3 grades on your transcript, not 2. I can see how quarter system could
be more rushed for classes that are normally 1 semester though.

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Anonymous wrote:Is that correct? Pomona only accepts about 13% ED and Bowdoin 14%.

Yeah, which are good boosts compared to regular.

Sigh. Stop comparing apples and oranges. Normalize admit data for Bowdoin’s high athlete percentage. Surprise, surprise: Pomona is more selective.

Where do you find the data on high athlete percentage, am I missing something in the Common Data Set? Wouldn't this show up in the ED admit rate?
- parent of '27 student trying to make sense of all of this.

We visited Bowdoin this spring and the tour guide told us ~50% athletes. Then there’s a big chunk of non athlete FGLI kids there. The impression we took away was that there were very few spots available for kids not filling an institutional need.

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Anonymous wrote:The reality are all the Ivy's ae much easier once you get there than even flagship state schools.

Less classes, less expectation, no real grading, lots of fluff classes.

Ivy students take 10 less classes than students are flagship universities add in some APs and they are taking 15 less classes.

You can graduate a state school in three years with AP credit, but not an Ivy

Yes. They don’t take any high school credits.

You need 4 years of college courses.

Also- credits are misleading at Ivies. I questioned the 4 courses my kid was signed up for- but 3 had additional 1 hour or 2 hour required seminars as part of the course (class time)—so there’s way more built into a course credit.

+1 my kid’s private HS had a ridiculous amount of reading. Our attic is filled to the brim with the books both my kids had to read in high school…

At the Ivy- he says the required reading for one week is insane even compared to that very rigorous environment he came from.

I see it ver much like good public vs good private HS—even in the best school districts it’s just not comparable. No re-takes, no standard based learning, accountability, required AP exams, essays written in class, a huge amount of reading…it’s different. You would not see it unless you have had kids in both.

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Anonymous wrote:Easier to get into? No. Easier work once you’re there? Quite possibly.

+1

Can't speak to Dartmouth, but our friends' sons went to Williams and Brown.

Both are truly brilliant kids. As in off-the-charts brilliant, not just in terms of the GPA/scores, but also their intellectual curiosity, drive, and work ethic. (Our friends are both professors, and the apples didn't fall far from the trees. Exceptional people!)

With that context, our friends were clear that the workload and academic peer pressure were much higher at Williams than at Brown. Even though the son at Brown created a very rigorous, lab-based, multi-disciplined major for himself. (He did really well and landed a great job after graduation.)

Overall, both kids loved the school they chose, and both thrived in their own way. But they had very different academic experieces.

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Anonymous wrote:going back to the question, look at your naviance

Brown and Swat love our HS. As long as you have a 3.85, you're good. ED is better at Brown.

Dartmouth takes zero kids unless an athletic recruit We've had multiple get into HYPSM and rejected from Dartmouth over the last 5 years. I think they favor high schools over others more than any other college (except for many Chicago).

Williams takes just the top. ED not a help

Pomona took no one, then they took a couple, now they take plenty. According to college counselor at the high school: they didnt know us or how to read our transcript, and now they do.

Amherst not too hard, but they like a story

In our ENTIRE county last year, public schools only got 1 kid in at Brown, 1 Dartmouth, 0 Princeton, 4 Harvard (athletes), 1 Yale, 2 Penn, 7 Cornell, 3 MIT, 2 Duke, 1 Caltech, 3 Hopkins, 4 Chicago, 2 NW, 1 Stanford.

Think about that, close to 2,000 Seniors.

It's why the arguments on this Board are so insane. Your kid is not getting in, so putting down these schools and the kids that do is completely ludicrous.

💯

Sweetie, not all participants on this board are public school parents in your county.

My kids are at a private school where the top 25% get admitted to Ivies and super SLACs like Williams, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, and Amherst. Top 26-50% go to schools like Vandy, Tufts, Davidson, Boston, and UVA.

Your anecdotal reasoning shows a lack of nuanced critical thinking, which your kids probably share. This is why we shell out $60,000 a year per kid for private.

The state of public education in most districts is depressingly dismal. This is what happens when society as a whole fails to value education and entrusts its governance to localities that put morons who know nothing about education — including book-burning religious fanatics — on school boards.

I graduated from a top public high school, and my kids’ private education matches what I received in humanities but is sadly weaker in STEM. Compared to our local public high school, however, their private teaches rocket science.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is that correct? Pomona only accepts about 13% ED and Bowdoin 14%.

Yeah, which are good boosts compared to regular.

Sigh. Stop comparing apples and oranges. Normalize admit data for Bowdoin’s high athlete percentage. Surprise, surprise: Pomona is more selective.

Where do you find the data on high athlete percentage, am I missing something in the Common Data Set? Wouldn't this show up in the ED admit rate?
- parent of '27 student trying to make sense of all of this.

We visited Bowdoin this spring and the tour guide told us ~50% athletes. Then there’s a big chunk of non athlete FGLI kids there. The impression we took away was that there were very few spots available for kids not filling an institutional need.

It is not 50% athlete. Your tour guide might have been talking about his/her friends, but my son isn’t an athlete, and would attest that the number is closer to 30-35%.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:going back to the question, look at your naviance

Brown and Swat love our HS. As long as you have a 3.85, you're good. ED is better at Brown.

Dartmouth takes zero kids unless an athletic recruit We've had multiple get into HYPSM and rejected from Dartmouth over the last 5 years. I think they favor high schools over others more than any other college (except for many Chicago).

Williams takes just the top. ED not a help

Pomona took no one, then they took a couple, now they take plenty. According to college counselor at the high school: they didnt know us or how to read our transcript, and now they do.

Amherst not too hard, but they like a story

In our ENTIRE county last year, public schools only got 1 kid in at Brown, 1 Dartmouth, 0 Princeton, 4 Harvard (athletes), 1 Yale, 2 Penn, 7 Cornell, 3 MIT, 2 Duke, 1 Caltech, 3 Hopkins, 4 Chicago, 2 NW, 1 Stanford.

Think about that, close to 2,000 Seniors.

It's why the arguments on this Board are so insane. Your kid is not getting in, so putting down these schools and the kids that do is completely ludicrous.

💯

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:going back to the question, look at your naviance

Brown and Swat love our HS. As long as you have a 3.85, you're good. ED is better at Brown.

Dartmouth takes zero kids unless an athletic recruit We've had multiple get into HYPSM and rejected from Dartmouth over the last 5 years. I think they favor high schools over others more than any other college (except for many Chicago).

Williams takes just the top. ED not a help

Pomona took no one, then they took a couple, now they take plenty. According to college counselor at the high school: they didnt know us or how to read our transcript, and now they do.

Amherst not too hard, but they like a story

In our ENTIRE county last year, public schools only got 1 kid in at Brown, 1 Dartmouth, 0 Princeton, 4 Harvard (athletes), 1 Yale, 2 Penn, 7 Cornell, 3 MIT, 2 Duke, 1 Caltech, 3 Hopkins, 4 Chicago, 2 NW, 1 Stanford.

Think about that, close to 2,000 Seniors.

It's why the arguments on this Board are so insane. Your kid is not getting in, so putting down these schools and the kids that do is completely ludicrous.

💯

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My kid is in the thick of applications right now. Bowdoin was slightly more selective this past year. However, Pomona and Bowdoin have the highest yield among the liberal arts colleges. I think Pomona's weather is far more appealing.

SoCal more appealing than Maine? To each their own!

There’s so much to explore in SoCal. Maine is great, but there’s not the same level of biodiversity.