Anonymous wrote:I am a former Brunswick townie and find Bowdoin so overrated! There is a big NE prep school pipeline. I visited Oxford, Ohio (Miami u) for work, and the kids there looked so much more full of life and pep.

Travel goggles bias? I do think that we all tend to see the ho hum in our local, and get excited about a new place. To an extent. I once visited Bowdoin on an absolutely glorious November Friday. The students were awesome. Then I came home to the land of the suburban nerds. Strong preference for autimn in Brunswick. Also travel bias, I suspect.

—Former Palo Alto resident

My boys weren't SLAC-oriented. But among all the small liberal arts colleges, Bowdoin seemed the most appealing. They both go to top 20 universities today, but Bowdoin was definitely the only small liberal arts college they were interested in. Bowdoin seems like a very humane, nice, and challenging school in an interesting corner of America.

They had absolutely no interest in Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, or Pomona. Bowdoin feels more normal, and a place where normal smart kids can do their thing. That is no small thing in 2026.

Anonymous wrote:Middlebury is a safety for WASP. Nothing wrong with that as a lot of other schools are.

I wouldn't say a person who get's into WASP has any guarantee of getting into Middlebury. It's a highly competitive school.

Anonymous wrote:Williams is the gold standard of SLACs.

No...not really. It's rich though.

Williams is the gold standard of SLACs.

Middlebury is a safety for WASP-B. Nothing wrong with that as a lot of other schools are.

On schedule Middlebury boosters are up.

Anonymous wrote:Bowdoin and Amherst acceptance rates are artificially low because they are need blind for international students. This adds a couple of thousand extra applications every year. Bowdoins acceptance rates for internationals is under 2% but the application numbers pad things making them look a bit selective more than they are.

I agree that need blind admissions for internationals increases applications. As it does at Princeton, Yale, Stanford, etc… This is not some quirky “little college” detail. The big guns are even more greatly inflated.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The acronym is now BAWPS.

WASP is a good standard but schools like Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley are obviously just as good.

I am a former Brunswick townie and find Bowdoin so overrated! There is a big NE prep school pipeline. I visited Oxford, Ohio (Miami u) for work, and the kids there looked so much more full of life and pep.

Anonymous wrote:CMC at $1.3billion and Middlebury at $1.4 billion, they are panhandlers compared to WASP-B.

They only have 1371 students. If they had 3 bil they’d be above every lac and Stanford level. They only need a couple hundred million to be on par with the rest.

CMC at $1.3billion and Middlebury at $1.4 billion, they are panhandlers compared to WASP-B.

Middlebury had no money.

Lol the 2nd name in W&L isn’t an application magnet.