Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fairly recent Swarthmore graduate and have a multitude of friends at other LACs, including Amherst/Williams. The common experience is that our LACs are highly well-regarded in region, but not elsewhere. For example, it would be readily accessible for a Williams student to get a top notch job/internship in Boston, but considerably harder in LA or Seattle. This is different from the experience at the Ivies, whose grads are sought out not just in region but also by the whole world. Most top LAC grads chose to go to gradate school eventually to make up for that prestige/opportunity gap.

Furthermore, companies are bypassing visiting many of our schools for other larger, urban schools that have more students of similar caliber. What's the point of making the trek all the way to Williams/Amherst when you can recruit at much closer Harvard/MIT/Tufts (which now has a higher SAT average than both W & A)/Northeastern/Wellesley/etc? The on-campus recruiting at many top LACs is not happening by actual recruiters unaffiliated with the school, but by alumni of those companies. Williams and Amherst are fortunate to have incredible alumni connections, but Swarthmore is quite lackluster when it comes to career services and alumni connections. In any case, there is a risk involved, and putting it to "people that matter know" is being a bit simplistic.

LACs are in a troubled position. Their yields haven't gone up to the extent that other universities have. Students would frequently turn down the non-HYP Ivies for WAS (to a 50/50 percent), but that's rare today-
when it's between places like Brown and Dartmouth, cross-admits largely go there instead. WAS are largely competing against the universities ranked 15-25 now- places like Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc- they usually lose to the universities ranked from 1-15. Salaries are very low for LACs too (https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all). Compare Swarthmore (salary 52,500)/Williams (salary 54,100) to Duke (77,900) or Hopkins (69,800). Big difference.

I'm proud to be a Swarthmore alum, and I feel that I received an experience like no other, but if I have to separate my personal bias, I do think that the LACs are in a lower position among the top students than they once were.

Don't know how recently you graduated but for the last few years Google, Apple, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Bain & Co and JP Morgan are among the companies that recruit heavily at Amherst and likely Williams and Swarthmore. Also, I don't think there ever was a time when close to 50% of cross admits were turning down Harvard to go to AWS. This year many of the NESCAC schools report record #s of applications with Bowdoin increasing 25% and Amherst rumored to have received nearly 11000 applications for 470 seats. Admission rates are getting close to 10% at those schools so I don't think they are in trouble. They may be forced to get larger though. However, I'd agree that the middle of the road small liberal arts schools are in danger especially those not on the coasts.

I graduated in 2011. No doubt there are grads from AWS working at the companies you mentioned, and several of those companies actively recruit on campus, but the point I was making is that it is often alumni recuiters who sponsor that: https://www.amherst.edu/news/calendar/node/680296 At the Ivies, you have both alumni and non-alumni recruiting events, and the recruiting lasts for upwards of a week compared to a day for the LACs. At Swarthmore, almost no major IB or BB firms visit us despite our proximity to a major metro area. When I search the colleges with a recruitment page on Boston Consulting Group (https://www.bcg.com/en-us/careers/join/default.aspx), the only LAC which shows up (as a combined group) is the Claremont Colleges. Even Williams/Amherst don't show up, let alone Swarthmore. The same goes for Deloitte, where the only LAC recruited, again, is Claremont McKenna/Claremont Colleges. McKinsey lists Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin/Wellesley as Northeast targets, Pomona/Claremont as West targets, and Swarthmore/Davidson/Middlebury as "other targets". No other LACs show up. On Bain's campus page, Williams, Amherst, and the Claremont Colleges are the only LACs with active recruiting. The Claremont Colleges are lucky in that they are in a less competitive region and they are one next to the other, making it compelling for an employer to target them as if a mid-sized university rather than a small standalone LAC. But Amherst/Williams/CCs are the exception, not the rule, and Swarthmore doesn't seem part of the exception.

Yes, top LACs are reaching record level of applications. I've heard Swarthmore will go down to a single digit acceptance rate this year for the first time. But a large reason for this is that colleges everywhere are getting more selective, leading to a loop in which students apply to more schools due to fear of not getting in. Also, acceptance rate can be manipulated. Bowdoin upped the ante on marketing this year, and Swarthmore has been embarrassing in how they've reached out to students. Amherst put a simple application essay in which you can submit a written assignment from a class; William's essay is entirely optional. Most LACs went SAT test optional as well. The real measure is the yield of students admitted without a binding commitment (I'll term this RD yield). Every single Ivy has a 40%+ yield for those candidates, with Harvard reaching a peak of 83%. The RD yields are lower at Amherst/Swarthmore/Williams- 26 to 30%. Furthermore, other universities which once had lower RD yields than these LACs, like NU, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, UChicago, and Johns Hopkins, have seen surges both in overall yield and RD yield. UChicago and Northwestern are especially telling, going from a ~30% overall yield to a 72% yield for UChicago and a 59% yield for Northwestern (the yields for AWS are 39-44% respectively). This is significant because the RD admits reflect the desirability of a school.

I definitely don't think AWS and other top LACs are in trouble overall. It's more of a relative statement against top universities. In an increasingly competitive and expensive market, how can top LACs convince students deciding between other top universities to choose them? Some LACs have found their answer by touting that they can offer the best of both worlds, such as Pomona with the Claremont Colleges/LA and Barnard with Columbia/NYC (these 2 LACs have the highest RD yield). Admitted students know of Amherst/Swarthmore's consortium but see upon visiting that it's nowhere near as convenient or well used. For rural, standalone colleges like Middlebury (RD yield 20%) or Colby (RD yield 22%), it's especially tough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fairly recent Swarthmore graduate and have a multitude of friends at other LACs, including Amherst/Williams. The common experience is that our LACs are highly well-regarded in region, but not elsewhere. For example, it would be readily accessible for a Williams student to get a top notch job/internship in Boston, but considerably harder in LA or Seattle. This is different from the experience at the Ivies, whose grads are sought out not just in region but also by the whole world. Most top LAC grads chose to go to gradate school eventually to make up for that prestige/opportunity gap.

Furthermore, companies are bypassing visiting many of our schools for other larger, urban schools that have more students of similar caliber. What's the point of making the trek all the way to Williams/Amherst when you can recruit at much closer Harvard/MIT/Tufts (which now has a higher SAT average than both W & A)/Northeastern/Wellesley/etc? The on-campus recruiting at many top LACs is not happening by actual recruiters unaffiliated with the school, but by alumni of those companies. Williams and Amherst are fortunate to have incredible alumni connections, but Swarthmore is quite lackluster when it comes to career services and alumni connections. In any case, there is a risk involved, and putting it to "people that matter know" is being a bit simplistic.

LACs are in a troubled position. Their yields haven't gone up to the extent that other universities have. Students would frequently turn down the non-HYP Ivies for WAS (to a 50/50 percent), but that's rare today-
when it's between places like Brown and Dartmouth, cross-admits largely go there instead. WAS are largely competing against the universities ranked 15-25 now- places like Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc- they usually lose to the universities ranked from 1-15. Salaries are very low for LACs too (https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all). Compare Swarthmore (salary 52,500)/Williams (salary 54,100) to Duke (77,900) or Hopkins (69,800). Big difference.

I'm proud to be a Swarthmore alum, and I feel that I received an experience like no other, but if I have to separate my personal bias, I do think that the LACs are in a lower position among the top students than they once were.

Don't know how recently you graduated but for the last few years Google, Apple, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Bain & Co and JP Morgan are among the companies that recruit heavily at Amherst and likely Williams and Swarthmore. Also, I don't think there ever was a time when close to 50% of cross admits were turning down Harvard to go to AWS. This year many of the NESCAC schools report record #s of applications with Bowdoin increasing 25% and Amherst rumored to have received nearly 11000 applications for 470 seats. Admission rates are getting close to 10% at those schools so I don't think they are in trouble. They may be forced to get larger though. However, I'd agree that the middle of the road small liberal arts schools are in danger especially those not on the coasts.

PP didn't say cross admits were turning down Harvard but rather non-HYP ivied.

I stand corrected. I still don't think cross admit figures have changed that much between the non HYP Ivys and Williams and Amherst. If Parchment is to believed, 67% of cross admits betw Williams and Dartmouth choose Williams: http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Dartmouth+College&with=williams That really doesn't seem right to me but I'd bet that cross admit stats between the 90s and today hasn't materially changed. Then again who knows for sure...

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Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

LOL Most educated professionals have certainly heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore just as they know the names Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth.

Sorry, you can LOL as much as you want. I have 3 degrees, so I am an educated professional. Never heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore. I heard about Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth. As I mentioned before, those schools are known only to americans. Very few foreigners ever heard about them. And I do work with the people who had liberal arts degrees. I assume those schools even less known in STEM fields.

University of Idaho has more name recognition abroad than Swarthmore. Only a fool who thinks USA is still gonna be on top in 20 years will pay a quarter of a million for these obscure brands.

People that matter know so that's all that really matters, isn't it?

no it's not the only thing that matters. 1) people who matter today are not necessarily the same people who will matter in 20 or 30 years 2) majoritu of graduates of all top schools will be working nowhere close to "people who matter".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fairly recent Swarthmore graduate and have a multitude of friends at other LACs, including Amherst/Williams. The common experience is that our LACs are highly well-regarded in region, but not elsewhere. For example, it would be readily accessible for a Williams student to get a top notch job/internship in Boston, but considerably harder in LA or Seattle. This is different from the experience at the Ivies, whose grads are sought out not just in region but also by the whole world. Most top LAC grads chose to go to gradate school eventually to make up for that prestige/opportunity gap.

Furthermore, companies are bypassing visiting many of our schools for other larger, urban schools that have more students of similar caliber. What's the point of making the trek all the way to Williams/Amherst when you can recruit at much closer Harvard/MIT/Tufts (which now has a higher SAT average than both W & A)/Northeastern/Wellesley/etc? The on-campus recruiting at many top LACs is not happening by actual recruiters unaffiliated with the school, but by alumni of those companies. Williams and Amherst are fortunate to have incredible alumni connections, but Swarthmore is quite lackluster when it comes to career services and alumni connections. In any case, there is a risk involved, and putting it to "people that matter know" is being a bit simplistic.

LACs are in a troubled position. Their yields haven't gone up to the extent that other universities have. Students would frequently turn down the non-HYP Ivies for WAS (to a 50/50 percent), but that's rare today-
when it's between places like Brown and Dartmouth, cross-admits largely go there instead. WAS are largely competing against the universities ranked 15-25 now- places like Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc- they usually lose to the universities ranked from 1-15. Salaries are very low for LACs too (https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all). Compare Swarthmore (salary 52,500)/Williams (salary 54,100) to Duke (77,900) or Hopkins (69,800). Big difference.

I'm proud to be a Swarthmore alum, and I feel that I received an experience like no other, but if I have to separate my personal bias, I do think that the LACs are in a lower position among the top students than they once were.

Don't know how recently you graduated but for the last few years Google, Apple, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Bain & Co and JP Morgan are among the companies that recruit heavily at Amherst and likely Williams and Swarthmore. Also, I don't think there ever was a time when close to 50% of cross admits were turning down Harvard to go to AWS. This year many of the NESCAC schools report record #s of applications with Bowdoin increasing 25% and Amherst rumored to have received nearly 11000 applications for 470 seats. Admission rates are getting close to 10% at those schools so I don't think they are in trouble. They may be forced to get larger though. However, I'd agree that the middle of the road small liberal arts schools are in danger especially those not on the coasts.

PP didn't say cross admits were turning down Harvard but rather non-HYP ivied.

While I'd agree that the elite liberal arts colleges like those mentioned above are in no danger and will continue to be extremely popular with high achieving HS students, its undeniable that there has been a trend over the last 2 decades toward larger and more urban college experiences. The growth of STEM careers also plays a factor as small schools outside of the elite can't compete with the resources of major universities. The growth in the number of STEM majors is one of the reasons Amherst has spent $250 mil to build a ginormous state of the art science and research center that would rival those of much larger universities. The urban renaissance that has occurred in many cities incl NY, Boston, Washington and even Pittsburgh on the east coast and LA, San Fran and Seattle on the west has contributed towards this trend. Whether this trend continues over the next 20 years isn't clear. Smaller schools may have to merge or grow larger or specialize like Carnegie Mellon to compete. On the other hand, I could also easily see some mass casualty event in a major urban area changing the dynamics.

Wow, we have gone down the rabbit hole in this discussion and are now nowhere near answering the OP's query...

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fairly recent Swarthmore graduate and have a multitude of friends at other LACs, including Amherst/Williams. The common experience is that our LACs are highly well-regarded in region, but not elsewhere. For example, it would be readily accessible for a Williams student to get a top notch job/internship in Boston, but considerably harder in LA or Seattle. This is different from the experience at the Ivies, whose grads are sought out not just in region but also by the whole world. Most top LAC grads chose to go to gradate school eventually to make up for that prestige/opportunity gap.

Furthermore, companies are bypassing visiting many of our schools for other larger, urban schools that have more students of similar caliber. What's the point of making the trek all the way to Williams/Amherst when you can recruit at much closer Harvard/MIT/Tufts (which now has a higher SAT average than both W & A)/Northeastern/Wellesley/etc? The on-campus recruiting at many top LACs is not happening by actual recruiters unaffiliated with the school, but by alumni of those companies. Williams and Amherst are fortunate to have incredible alumni connections, but Swarthmore is quite lackluster when it comes to career services and alumni connections. In any case, there is a risk involved, and putting it to "people that matter know" is being a bit simplistic.

LACs are in a troubled position. Their yields haven't gone up to the extent that other universities have. Students would frequently turn down the non-HYP Ivies for WAS (to a 50/50 percent), but that's rare today-
when it's between places like Brown and Dartmouth, cross-admits largely go there instead. WAS are largely competing against the universities ranked 15-25 now- places like Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc- they usually lose to the universities ranked from 1-15. Salaries are very low for LACs too (https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all). Compare Swarthmore (salary 52,500)/Williams (salary 54,100) to Duke (77,900) or Hopkins (69,800). Big difference.

I'm proud to be a Swarthmore alum, and I feel that I received an experience like no other, but if I have to separate my personal bias, I do think that the LACs are in a lower position among the top students than they once were.

Don't know how recently you graduated but for the last few years Google, Apple, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Bain & Co and JP Morgan are among the companies that recruit heavily at Amherst and likely Williams and Swarthmore. Also, I don't think there ever was a time when close to 50% of cross admits were turning down Harvard to go to AWS. This year many of the NESCAC schools report record #s of applications with Bowdoin increasing 25% and Amherst rumored to have received nearly 11000 applications for 470 seats. Admission rates are getting close to 10% at those schools so I don't think they are in trouble. They may be forced to get larger though. However, I'd agree that the middle of the road small liberal arts schools are in danger especially those not on the coasts.

I'm a fairly recent Swarthmore graduate and have a multitude of friends at other LACs, including Amherst/Williams. The common experience is that our LACs are highly well-regarded in region, but not elsewhere. For example, it would be readily accessible for a Williams student to get a top notch job/internship in Boston, but considerably harder in LA or Seattle. This is different from the experience at the Ivies, whose grads are sought out not just in region but also by the whole world. Most top LAC grads chose to go to gradate school eventually to make up for that prestige/opportunity gap.

Furthermore, companies are bypassing visiting many of our schools for other larger, urban schools that have more students of similar caliber. What's the point of making the trek all the way to Williams/Amherst when you can recruit at much closer Harvard/MIT/Tufts (which now has a higher SAT average than both W & A)/Northeastern/Wellesley/etc? The on-campus recruiting at many top LACs is not happening by actual recruiters unaffiliated with the school, but by alumni of those companies. Williams and Amherst are fortunate to have incredible alumni connections, but Swarthmore is quite lackluster when it comes to career services and alumni connections. In any case, there is a risk involved, and putting it to "people that matter know" is being a bit simplistic.

LACs are in a troubled position. Their yields haven't gone up to the extent that other universities have. Students would frequently turn down the non-HYP Ivies for WAS (to a 50/50 percent), but that's rare today-
when it's between places like Brown and Dartmouth, cross-admits largely go there instead. WAS are largely competing against the universities ranked 15-25 now- places like Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc- they usually lose to the universities ranked from 1-15. Salaries are very low for LACs too (https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all). Compare Swarthmore (salary 52,500)/Williams (salary 54,100) to Duke (77,900) or Hopkins (69,800). Big difference.

I'm proud to be a Swarthmore alum, and I feel that I received an experience like no other, but if I have to separate my personal bias, I do think that the LACs are in a lower position among the top students than they once were.

This is getting ridiculous on all sides. My brother and an older cousin both went to Amherst and I'm sure they'd readily admit it is far less well known than Harvard, Princeton and Yale around the world and in the US as well. But accounting for the small size of the colleges many Amherst grads like Williams grads do very well. Among the guys my brother played baseball with were Neal Huntington and Ben Cherington. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/sports/baseball/3-general-managers-true-to-one-school.html And Dan Brown, David Foster Wallace, Chris Coons and Rob Bradway all were dormmates at one point with my cousin (though not at the same time).

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Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

LOL Most educated professionals have certainly heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore just as they know the names Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth.

Sorry, you can LOL as much as you want. I have 3 degrees, so I am an educated professional. Never heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore. I heard about Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth. As I mentioned before, those schools are known only to americans. Very few foreigners ever heard about them. And I do work with the people who had liberal arts degrees. I assume those schools even less known in STEM fields.

University of Idaho has more name recognition abroad than Swarthmore. Only a fool who thinks USA is still gonna be on top in 20 years will pay a quarter of a million for these obscure brands.

People that matter know so that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

LOL Most educated professionals have certainly heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore just as they know the names Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth.

Sorry, you can LOL as much as you want. I have 3 degrees, so I am an educated professional. Never heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore. I heard about Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth. As I mentioned before, those schools are known only to americans. Very few foreigners ever heard about them. And I do work with the people who had liberal arts degrees. I assume those schools even less known in STEM fields.

I said "most" educated professionals...For ex, I wouldn't expect a professional in Pakistan to know about those schools. But here in the US those schools are well known to those that matter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

LOL Most educated professionals have certainly heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore just as they know the names Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth.

Sorry, you can LOL as much as you want. I have 3 degrees, so I am an educated professional. Never heard of Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore. I heard about Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth. As I mentioned before, those schools are known only to americans. Very few foreigners ever heard about them. And I do work with the people who had liberal arts degrees. I assume those schools even less known in STEM fields.

University of Idaho has more name recognition abroad than Swarthmore. Only a fool who thinks USA is still gonna be on top in 20 years will pay a quarter of a million for these obscure brands.

Anonymous wrote:My son attended George Mason University majoring in Computer Engineering. That was five years ago. He is now working for a defense contractor and have several people reported to him. One of those people is another person that attended Amherst around the same time that he attended GMU.

IMO, I am willing to pay 70k/year for Stanford but not Amherst but that's just me.

+1

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

lacs are a distinctly American thing. I am an immigrant and i would never attend one or send my kids there. They have zero name recognition abroad.

And not to bum you out, "the club" of 1%ers, is filled with kids/families from these schools and not immigrants, kind of for this reason and because of it

you are not bumming me out, I went to Harvard and I am 2-percenter or so (so pretty good for an immigrant). That said I would (and willl) go back to my home country in a second and I hope my kids settle there.

My son attended George Mason University majoring in Computer Engineering. That was five years ago. He is now working for a defense contractor and have several people reported to him. One of those people is another person that attended Amherst around the same time that he attended GMU.

IMO, I am willing to pay 70k/year for Stanford but not Amherst but that's just me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to Williams and Swarthmore. My favorite comment was "Oh, I never heard of those schools". Kept me humble.

Unless you hang with a lot of boarding school families, those aren’t gonna be on people’s radar.

I am a foreigner and already have one kid in college (STEM), so we've done some college research. Never heard of any of those schools. It is probably known to a small group within US.

lacs are a distinctly American thing. I am an immigrant and i would never attend one or send my kids there. They have zero name recognition abroad.

And not to bum you out, "the club" of 1%ers, is filled with kids/families from these schools and not immigrants, kind of for this reason and because of it