I would check out US News + World Report instead of speculating. No one went to all of these schools so how do you think you know people?

Princeton is #! on US News and has been for several years now.

Honestly? This thread is very silly, especially since most of the posters are adults who are 10/15/20 years from college and should have the perspective that this stuff does.not.matter.

Do people honestly think would turn out differently if they had gone to a "higher ranked" Ivy vs. a "lower ranked" one?

Just look around in your life and see how people who went to all sorts of schools all ended up in the same place.

E.g. husband/wife couple-- both doctors. One is Yale undergrad and the other is Penn (gasp!). Ended up at the same med school.

Maybe a piece of the puzzle is that, if a student is actively looking for intellectual richness, then Princeton has more resources than Swarthmore. OTOH, a helluva a lot of Princeton undergrads aren't looking for an intense intellectual experience. And a very high percentage of Swarthmore students are.

Anonymous wrote:I went to Princeton and I'm a SLAC convert for my kids. When I've gone back I've been struck by how preprofessional the student body has become, how everyone seems to be gunning for a job in finance or business. That was not the case at all when I was there. And visiting SLACs when my DC was looking was an eye opener for me in terms of how much access students have to professors, how intellectually rich the classrooms and atmosphere were. It was a learning dream and I'm jealous. Which is to say, if it were me I would totally pick Swarthmore over Princeton. The only thing Princeton has over Swarthmore is prestige and thats just not important to me.

I've seen you post the same thing before here. FWIW, I graduated from Princeton years ago and, even at the time, there were numerous students trying to line up interviews with Goldman, Merrill, Lehman (LOL), etc. But I also had classmates who went on to become professors, journalists, authors, researchers, high school teachers, actors, musicians, public defenders and Supreme Court justices. Princeton helped them make that happen.

I really don't know whether you'd find the same range of outcomes at SLACs. I was very torn between going to Williams and Princeton, but the opportunity to study at a school with more resources and a greater breadth of programs to explore ultimately won out. I'm sure Williams would have been great in different ways. But I don't buy for a second the notion that a Williams or Swarthmore is more "intellectually rich" than Princeton (except, perhaps, in how their alumni like to portray themselves) or that everyone at Princeton or any other Ivy today is "gunning" for a finance job. You are giving the old-timers too much credit, and the current students too little.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the ivies are equally horrible for education. Go to a school like Reed, U Chicago, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona etc. to find people who are actually there to learn and not jumpstart their iBanking career.

How silly. These are good schools, but most of their students would be at an Ivy tomorrow if they could get in.

Lots of people chose University of Chicago over an Ivy and do. Not everyone shares DCUM's obsession with the Ivies.

I have personal experience with this because my son goes to UChicago. He has friends that chose UChicago over:

-Stanford
-Harvard
-Yale
-Brown
-Northwestern
-Duke

and that's just out of the people he knows in his house.

The schools in the Ivy League have name recognition, very loyal and helpful alumni and are very old American establishments. They are also top schools.

Yes, many schools are ranked higher than some schools in the Ivy league (MIT, Stanford come to mind over Cornell or Penn).

You say you graduated from Princeton at any point in your life and you will impress. Simply not the case with saying you graduated from Swarthmore. This is not a DCUM exclusive by any means. Even most Europeans have heard of Princeton and yet few heard of Swarthmore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the ivies are equally horrible for education. Go to a school like Reed, U Chicago, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona etc. to find people who are actually there to learn and not jumpstart their iBanking career.

How silly. These are good schools, but most of their students would be at an Ivy tomorrow if they could get in.

Lots of people chose University of Chicago over an Ivy and do. Not everyone shares DCUM's obsession with the Ivies.

I went to Princeton and I'm a SLAC convert for my kids. When I've gone back I've been struck by how preprofessional the student body has become, how everyone seems to be gunning for a job in finance or business. That was not the case at all when I was there. And visiting SLACs when my DC was looking was an eye opener for me in terms of how much access students have to professors, how intellectually rich the classrooms and atmosphere were. It was a learning dream and I'm jealous. Which is to say, if it were me I would totally pick Swarthmore over Princeton. The only thing Princeton has over Swarthmore is prestige and thats just not important to me.

I can buy subtle differences. It was the "so completely different it's hard to imagine people applying to both" logic that threw me.

Surprising to me (though it probably shouldn't be) how many people see this process as essentially one of branding rather than education.

Anonymous wrote:Why do people see Swarthmore and Princeton as so different? To my DC, for example, they're both academically-challenging undergraduate-oriented schools with strong bio departments and places where a student with diverse academic interests can indulge them (or where a student who is uncertain about major will have lots of attractive options). They're both located in affluent suburbs on the Northeast Corridor, a couple hours from home via Amtrak and less than an hour from another major city via commuter rail (with a station located on the edge of campus). Both have athletic opportunities DC finds attractive. Neither has a med school or hospital. Both have honors theses. Neither has a core curriculum

Yeah, one's a SLAC (so no grad students) and one's a research university. The SLAC is smaller than the Ivy (and course offering reflect that), but the similarities are greater than the differences given DC's preferences and interests.

Swarthmore's alumni magazine never published anything about being "in the confederacy's service"...

They have different atmospheres. Princeton is more of a good old boys club, with the eating clubs and exclusivity. Swarthmore is more liberal. Princeton has a lot of students aiming for finance. Swarthmore has a lot of students aiming for academia. The differences are subtle but they're there.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the ivies are equally horrible for education. Go to a school like Reed, U Chicago, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona etc. to find people who are actually there to learn and not jumpstart their iBanking career.

How silly. These are good schools, but most of their students would be at an Ivy tomorrow if they could get in.

Completely untrue. My kids have lots of friends who have turned down ivies for all of these schools.

No they don't. No one chooses Swarthmore over Princeton. Get real.

I would imagine that there are plenty of ivy admits who were also accepted elsewhere w full scholarships, and they find themselves in the position of choosing full pay (loans, if their parents can't cover it) for an ivy vs full-ride at a lower tier school. In that case, I could understand choosing a different school. Frank Bruni (NYTimes) has been on a book tour and discussed how he made that same choice (full ride over Yale, I think). So I imagine it happens.

Ivies are among the most generous with need based aid, so this is bogus. It's a nice way for ivy rejects to save face, but seriously, everyone who gets in chooses princeton over swarthmore.

Yes, ivies are quite generous for families making under $60k/ year. But families in the $125-175ish range will not qualify for need-based aid nor can they afford $60k plus per year for four years. Ivies don't otherwise give merit aid and the kids w/ the chops to get an ivy admit often get merit-based offers elsewhere. It's actually very common.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the ivies are equally horrible for education. Go to a school like Reed, U Chicago, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona etc. to find people who are actually there to learn and not jumpstart their iBanking career.

How silly. These are good schools, but most of their students would be at an Ivy tomorrow if they could get in.

Completely untrue. My kids have lots of friends who have turned down ivies for all of these schools.

No they don't. No one chooses Swarthmore over Princeton. Get real.

You're crazy. Smart kids who have the pick of the litter are often smart enough to choose a college based on culture, atmosphere, and curriculum, and not name.

We're not quite there yet but I strongly suspect both of my children will want small liberal arts colleges over Ivies.

Probably because they can't get into an ivy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the ivies are equally horrible for education. Go to a school like Reed, U Chicago, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona etc. to find people who are actually there to learn and not jumpstart their iBanking career.

How silly. These are good schools, but most of their students would be at an Ivy tomorrow if they could get in.

Completely untrue. My kids have lots of friends who have turned down ivies for all of these schools.

No they don't. No one chooses Swarthmore over Princeton. Get real.

You're crazy. Smart kids who have the pick of the litter are often smart enough to choose a college based on culture, atmosphere, and curriculum, and not name.

We're not quite there yet but I strongly suspect both of my children will want small liberal arts colleges over Ivies.

Why do people see Swarthmore and Princeton as so different? To my DC, for example, they're both academically-challenging undergraduate-oriented schools with strong bio departments and places where a student with diverse academic interests can indulge them (or where a student who is uncertain about major will have lots of attractive options). They're both located in affluent suburbs on the Northeast Corridor, a couple hours from home via Amtrak and less than an hour from another major city via commuter rail (with a station located on the edge of campus). Both have athletic opportunities DC finds attractive. Neither has a med school or hospital. Both have honors theses. Neither has a core curriculum

Yeah, one's a SLAC (so no grad students) and one's a research university. The SLAC is smaller than the Ivy (and course offering reflect that), but the similarities are greater than the differences given DC's preferences and interests.

"Everyone" = 100%