Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona: Often considered the most academically elite and selective LACs, with reputations closest to Ivies. Small but mighty, these schools consistently produce grads who end up at T14 law schools, top PhD programs, and elite employers.
Bowdoin, Middlebury, Carleton, Haverford: Still highly rigorous, well-regarded nationally, and with strong outcomes. Less universally known internationally, perhaps, but excellent academic profiles and alumni networks.
Wesleyan, Davidson, CMC, Mudd, Vassar, Colgate, Wellesley: Strong schools with notable strengths (e.g., Mudd for STEM, Wesleyan for film/the arts, CMC for government/policy), but variable in prestige depending on region and field. “Fit” becomes increasingly important here.

Global reputation is harder to gauge — perhaps Pomona, Amherst, and Williams stand out most internationally due to rankings and Fulbright/Rhodes/Marshall outputs, but none match Ivy or Oxbridge brand recognition abroad.

Anonymous wrote:LACs are not prestigious at all. Below the T30 universities for sure.

100+ except for WASP.

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Anonymous wrote:WASP is the best. The top 15 in general are very strong.

Top ten LACS are all rigorous and virtually indistinguishable. Separating out WASP from the rest is silly.

WASP + Bowdoin. Then a drop off.
Then you have your 10 schools - CMC, Mudd, Colby, Wellesley, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Carleton, Vassar, Midd, Haverford
Trajectories matter even amongst those 10, second tiers though: CMC and Mudd have rising stock, as does Wesleyan (after a downturn) and Carleton; Wellesley and Vassar are holding steady; and Midd, Haverford, Grinnell, and Colby are on a decline (especially Midd).

I am confident that 100% of what you wrote is incorrect.

But are you 100% confident?

I'm pretty solid that my views are grounded in fact while those expressed are based on nothing more than delusion and desire.

“Pretty solid” ain’t 100%. Have more self-confidence.

I consider it impolite to tell someone that they are 100% full of shit so I tend to give them a sliver of hope.

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Anonymous wrote:Obviously a troll post, as any serious analysis of this question would of course begin with Bucknell at the top of the prestige list.

Also, there is simply no way a couple with 4 Ivy League degrees between them would not have long since already formed strong opinions on this matter.

Fee, fi, fo, fum I smell the blood of state school strivers on D-C-U-M!

DP.

My wife and I are also double barreled Ivy and the while we have friends that went to SLACs, we know very little about them.
We are both the children of immigrants if you wanted a reason for our ignorance.
Neither of us have noticed an perceivable advantage of one over SLAC over the other and when it comes to global recognition... quantity has a quality all its own.
Places like Cornell have outsized international reputation because they have so many graduates that have convinced the rest of the world that Cornell is the "STEM Ivy"
Harvard law has a much better reputation than either Yale or Stanford because there are once again, so many graduates around the world telling everyone how good it is.

OK, but do you think America cares what the rest of the world thinks? It has the luxury of not having to. Do you think UK citizens care what the rest of the world thinks about its unis? Any deviation from what they think is characterized as ignorance.

Do you realize that Yale is considered the top law school by those in the know? True prestige, for better or worse, is what people from that country think is the most prestigious. The rest is ignorance.

Yes, I think highly qualified americans care about international reputation these days.
I think brits care about their international reputation of their schools. The brits have always cared about their international footprint.
For example a lot of people, including many people on this board have been thinking about sending their high stat kids to oxbridge, it's a thing now.

I am well aware of yale's reputation and frankly it's not what it used to be. I don't think picking yale over harvard is as automatic as you might think.

Well, since this is a liberal arts thread, no, highly educated Americans know where top SLACs stand, and have no concern whatsoever about the inflated ranking of the Manchesters of the world.

As for Brits, we have seen it many times on this site: they tell us St. Andrew’s is not comparable to Oxbridge, and on and on. Prestige does not come from outsiders, but from insiders.

But go Cornell!

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Anonymous wrote:everyone commenting seems to have connectivity to one of the schools they are blindly touting - honestly I never heard of Pomona before DCUM, and I’m a long time MD at an IB that recruits at top schools- and now read this forum because I have a kid going through athletic recruiting. I agree the only schools I’ve ever really thought were comparable to ivies were Amherst and Williams. Don’t know Bowdoin Pomona Carleton from a hole in the wall- and I’m one of the guys making personnel decisions when we evaluate talent

I hope my DH isn't your boss. You should know these schools if you're involved in any way in the hiring process.

In fairness to the top Pomona kids, they have other California fish to fry than worrying about finance in “Old New York/was once New Amsterdam.”
The CMC kids, on the other hand…

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Anonymous wrote:WASP is the best. The top 15 in general are very strong.

Top ten LACS are all rigorous and virtually indistinguishable. Separating out WASP from the rest is silly.

WASP + Bowdoin. Then a drop off.
Then you have your 10 schools - CMC, Mudd, Colby, Wellesley, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Carleton, Vassar, Midd, Haverford
Trajectories matter even amongst those 10, second tiers though: CMC and Mudd have rising stock, as does Wesleyan (after a downturn) and Carleton; Wellesley and Vassar are holding steady; and Midd, Haverford, Grinnell, and Colby are on a decline (especially Midd).

I am confident that 100% of what you wrote is incorrect.

But are you 100% confident?

I'm pretty solid that my views are grounded in fact while those expressed are based on nothing more than delusion and desire.

“Pretty solid” ain’t 100%. Have more self-confidence.

Anonymous wrote:everyone commenting seems to have connectivity to one of the schools they are blindly touting - honestly I never heard of Pomona before DCUM, and I’m a long time MD at an IB that recruits at top schools- and now read this forum because I have a kid going through athletic recruiting. I agree the only schools I’ve ever really thought were comparable to ivies were Amherst and Williams. Don’t know Bowdoin Pomona Carleton from a hole in the wall- and I’m one of the guys making personnel decisions when we evaluate talent

I hope my DH isn't your boss. You should know these schools if you're involved in any way in the hiring process.

Anonymous wrote:Wait, Pomona also has a pipeline to the Street?

I don’t think the issue is pipeline or not, but that people of a certain ilk know Pomona. The IB personnel dude does not come from such ilk so does not know Pomona, regardless of his profession.

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from Pomona College. My personal experience has been that it's not a well-known school to most people, even from competitive graduate school backgrounds. The only ones who seem to be familiar are people who attended other liberal art colleges.

I have connections and friends from Amherst, Williams, and Wellesley and have heard those schools are consistently well-regarded, even from non-LAC grads.

I wouldn't trade my time at Pomona for any other undergraduate institution, but it tends to fly under the radar. If you want recognition, find another school.

Wondering what field you are in? I'm in tech, and it's rare I meet someone who hasn't heard of Pomona these days, unless they went to a state school.

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from Pomona College. My personal experience has been that it's not a well-known school to most people, even from competitive graduate school backgrounds. The only ones who seem to be familiar are people who attended other liberal art colleges.

I have connections and friends from Amherst, Williams, and Wellesley and have heard those schools are consistently well-regarded, even from non-LAC grads.

I wouldn't trade my time at Pomona for any other undergraduate institution, but it tends to fly under the radar. If you want recognition, find another school.

DD has had no issue with name recognition, but she lives in Seattle. No one around her knows what Williams or Amherst is. To be honest, you shouldn't be prestige chasing if you want to go to an LAC.

I graduated from Pomona College. My personal experience has been that it's not a well-known school to most people, even from competitive graduate school backgrounds. The only ones who seem to be familiar are people who attended other liberal art colleges.

I have connections and friends from Amherst, Williams, and Wellesley and have heard those schools are consistently well-regarded, even from non-LAC grads.

I wouldn't trade my time at Pomona for any other undergraduate institution, but it tends to fly under the radar. If you want recognition, find another school.

Anonymous wrote:everyone commenting seems to have connectivity to one of the schools they are blindly touting - honestly I never heard of Pomona before DCUM, and I’m a long time MD at an IB that recruits at top schools- and now read this forum because I have a kid going through athletic recruiting. I agree the only schools I’ve ever really thought were comparable to ivies were Amherst and Williams. Don’t know Bowdoin Pomona Carleton from a hole in the wall- and I’m one of the guys making personnel decisions when we evaluate talent

Are you sure about your role? Because your comment doesn't line up with current IB recruiting. I sort of understand the Carleton comment but if you are deep into IB recruiting you would know that the "Middlebury Mafia" is very real, understand that CMC places very well, especially on the West Coast, and also be aware that Bowdoin actually does pretty good in the IB world. Recently, both CMC and Middlebury have been doing better than Amherst and recruiting is on-site at all four schools (Amherst, CMC, Middlebury, Williams) making any of them a far better choice than most schools for someone who really wants to do IB.

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Anonymous wrote:everyone commenting seems to have connectivity to one of the schools they are blindly touting - honestly I never heard of Pomona before DCUM, and I’m a long time MD at an IB that recruits at top schools- and now read this forum because I have a kid going through athletic recruiting. I agree the only schools I’ve ever really thought were comparable to ivies were Amherst and Williams. Don’t know Bowdoin Pomona Carleton from a hole in the wall- and I’m one of the guys making personnel decisions when we evaluate talent

Cause Pomona isn’t a big IB school- you’re not in the industry where you’d see many Pomona alumni. Students go into med school, law school, grad school, tech, and they tend to be based in New York or the west coast.

If you haven’t heard of Claremont McKenna and you’re in IB, though, you’re probably just old lol.

Same goes for Middlebury. At GS, your CEO went to Hamilton and your president & COO went to Middlebury. Maybe you should brush up on leadership.

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Anonymous wrote:WASP is the best. The top 15 in general are very strong.

Top ten LACS are all rigorous and virtually indistinguishable. Separating out WASP from the rest is silly.

WASP + Bowdoin. Then a drop off.
Then you have your 10 schools - CMC, Mudd, Colby, Wellesley, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Carleton, Vassar, Midd, Haverford
Trajectories matter even amongst those 10, second tiers though: CMC and Mudd have rising stock, as does Wesleyan (after a downturn) and Carleton; Wellesley and Vassar are holding steady; and Midd, Haverford, Grinnell, and Colby are on a decline (especially Midd).

I am confident that 100% of what you wrote is incorrect.

But are you 100% confident?

I'm pretty solid that my views are grounded in fact while those expressed are based on nothing more than delusion and desire.

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Anonymous wrote:for me Williams and Pomona are tops. Amherst feels a little dusty.

Keep pushing that Pomona thing little girl. Maybe someday dreams will come true.

I think their "dream" has already come true as the most competitive LAC with one of the highest yields around...
I don't think most normal people see any real difference between Williams and Pomona, other than real academic distinguishes (tutorials and consortium).

+1.