fatladysings

I'm not much of a fan of USNWR... When we ran into the president of one of the HYPS schools (no name to protect this party) and asked for a recommendation for a college for a top (valedictorian, top hs) female science student, we were told categorically not to attend an ivy, but to go a school where mentorship in the sciences was prevalent. The suggested schools? Haverford, Carleton, Reed. I'm not debating anyone else's stand on this... just reporting an exchange.

gellino

I wouldn't put to much stock in peer assessment or USNWR rankings, but Reed does seem to have an atmosphere that is unappealing to the vast majority of even intelligent, studious applicants. Acceptance rate would be especially untelling since the school is SO self-selecting. If the school attracts 4,000 more applicants with 1000 SAT average, the result would be an acceptance rate that is half of what it previous was, but it doesn't make it any better of a school. I would always take a median SAT (of a school that requires the SAT to not get a cherrypicking effect of its best test-takers, [i.e. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Bates, Hamilton, Holy Cross]) over the acceptance rate in evaluating the academic quality of the student body.

MeasureYourself

Reed is not that underrated in USNEWS, they are not very selective, because only a small fraction of people have any aspiration of attending. The low grduation rate speaks volumes, and I do not think you can solely attribute that to the rigor of the ducation, but instead the extrememe hard drug use and otehr factors. Reed would not be in my top 20 LACs, that being said:

1. Amherst (same as Williams but with 2 all girl schools and a better location)
2. Williams
(drop)
3. Middlebury
4. Carleton
5. Swarthmore
6. Pomona
(drop)
7. Wellesley
8. Bowdoin
9. Davidson
10. Haverford

atomicfusion

1. Harvey Mudd (if we take out the non-traditional-LAC bias)
2. Pomona
3. Amherst
4. Williams
5. Swarthmore
6. Middlebury
7. Carleton
8. Claremont McKenna
9. Reed
10. Wellesley

OniLawliet

What is all of this nonsense about Reed being "unappealing" due to its less extreme selectivity?

Just because it's not in New England, a huge attractor of New England prep school kids, and admissions rate less than 30% (though it just this year hit 31.9%) and it has kids who smoke pot (like any college doesn't?), that makes it a school that can't be considered a top 10 school?

Look at this for a second:
Reed College | Reed College Class of 2012 Competitively Selected, Diverse Group

Median ACT of 31? SAT of 1409? GPA of 4.0?

Reed is, to me, a highly competitive and thriving institution that is notorious for its intense academic standards. It's not too surprising that some students smoke to get away from all that stress, and frankly, you'll find that at any top liberal arts college. Notice, also, that Reed is listed in CCs top liberal arts forum, though it's ranked 53 by USNWR. The reason Reed's 4 year graduation rate is so low is because students are either too involved in their studies to graduate in that time or they just can't handle the work in the first place.

Reed is a very good, very difficult, and very selective top liberal arts college.

MeasureYourself

onilawliet,
An SAT average of 1409, would not put Reed in the top 10 LACs, especially when considering that you do not have to submit your SAT score for admission, which means, only students with higher scores would submit these. This would place the average SAT into the 1300s easily, not top 10 worthy. Reed's GPA of 4.0, just means that they use a weighted scale for AP/IB classes, for admissions to amherst and williams the average would resemble 4.5 or so, i know plenty of people with 4.3s that didnt get into their local state school.
The work load is hard at all top 10 LACs, but people at these schools seem to manage, maybe because their is better advising, and not caliber of studnet body. But wouldn't this better advising and counseling make the school better in a way? So, Reed is listed in the forum at CC, this is an indicator of nothing, especailyl because htere is more than 10 schools listed...

xiggi

While it's pretty silly to compose lists of Top-10 or Top-25 schools, it is especially so for LACs. LACs tend to be smaller schools that offer dedicated programs. Contrary to much larger universities LACs cannot be everything for everyone. In addition to offering the "typical" liberal arts curriculum, LACs offer programs that DEFINE them quite easily. I don't think that anyone would confuse Harvey Mudd with Swarthmore or Williams with Reed.

In a world that rewards the elusive best fit, it makes no sense to lump schools in broad categories or attempt to rank the "best" 10 schools. Most schools have programs that clearly separate them from more generic programs. A student interested in music might prefer Oberlin or a student deeply interested in obtaining a PhD in a scientific area might prefer Reed. While nothing would preclude someone interested in music to be be happy at Reed, chances are that Oberlin would offer a better program. The same reasoning would apply to almost all subjects: economics, political sciences, dance, sciences, etc. For example, most schools offer classes in economics, but not all schools offer a competitive program as their resources are allocated to different programs.

In so many words, it serves little purpose to answer a question related to the "10 best LACs" ... a better question is "In which areas are schools XYZ very good?"

vossron

I'm not a fan of one-size-fits-all rankings, but those who are can note:Reed looks more attractive when its objective statistics are considered, as before 1995 with USNWR. Reed also looks better when a particular outcome is considered; Reed has been third or fourth (depending on years measured) in overall future PhD production percentage (behind CalTech, Mudd and sometimes Swarthmore), and the professors are thus teaching to a corresponding level. Many future-PhD students self-select to such schools, so there's a self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and thus a reputation for it. Schools like this are attractive to students with such interests, and so Reed attracts students with academic and research interests, and perhaps not so many with other interests.

xiggi

Vossron, people have often used the example of Reed to describe retaliatory tactics by the USNews surveyors. The change in the "ranking" of Reed that followed the school's refusal to provide information amounted to a "delisting."

For the record, this is what happened to Sarah Lawrence not so long ago. While I cannot comment on Reed's situation precisely, the decision to remove SLC from the RANKED listings was the ONLY acceptable in my eyes. SLC tried --without success-- to have its cake and eat it too by playing games. I also believe that USNews should delist every school that uses "fuzzy" admissions criterias or is constantly misrepresenting its admission data by well-chose "omissions" (think Bates, Middlebury, and several others.)

After all, schools that deviate from the norms measured by USNews should NOT be permitted to be included in the ranked list, but should be listed alphabetically. In the case of Reed, since the school insists on NOT being "measured" by USNews, this request should be honored and the school unlisted entirely.

PS Dropping from the "top 10" at USNews is not that rare. A few years ago, Bryn Mawr jumped just behind AWS but promptly returned to a more legitimate position. The early USNews rankings were not above being bizarre, to say the least.

beefs

I thought Wellesley was a top LAC.

AdamM412

I can't comment on all of these USNWR factors because, honestly, I don't care for all of these specifics. my own personal list would look something like this...
(no order)

Reed
Swarthmore
Haverford
Vassar
Middlebury
Williams
Amherst

vossron

If not retaliatory, it's at least a creative way to perform a delisting!

MeasureYourself

I still do not see a reason for rankings to not exist and for why a school would not want to be on them

teenage_cliche

I'm not quite sure of order, but:

Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Carleton, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Vassar...

That's 7 and the first to come to mind.

hampster

MeasureYourself, Reed requires the SAT:

http://www.reed.edu/apply/applying_t...p_instruct.pdf


Secondly, even if it's true that all the top LACs are hard (which is not true by the way cough* Amherst *cough), some like Reed perhaps are more difficult than others, which would explain the low graduation rate.

Danas, you state that US News unfairly ranks Reed yet you use US News to support your claims against the school! A high alumni contribution rate tells you nothing about the academics at the school. To me, it says two things: 1) Man, school X has a damn good development office and 2) Wow, school X's basketball team must have won the NCAA last year.

Third, acceptance rate is another almost worthless factor when considering the academics at a school. In fact, a reputation for rigor often scares away applicants. The University of Chicago is the perfect example. Your typical student applies to a school for all sorts of reasons that often have nothing to do with the quality of education (i.e. geography, climate, sports, availability of major, brand name, etc.). And doesn't an applicant pool that self-selects for Reed's prodigious ph.d rate indicate that the school must have an excellent academic environment?

Fourth, peer assessment score is a valuable way to measure the quality of a school, but the way US News conducts its survey makes it meaningless in this case. The "experts" US News surveys are ill qualified to assess all these schools because they often know nothing about the schools they're being asked to evaluate. A dean from Lewis & Clark for instance would probably give Reed a very high rating while giving Haverford (or insert some other great school that one may not know anything about) a very low one. I also suspect an east coast bias in effect since many of the most well-known LACs are located in that region.

The most serious charge that can be levelled against Reed is its low graduation rate, and I'm sure a host of factors contribute to this. By the way, Measure what gave you the impression that Reed has a culture of hard drug use? I know it has a reputation for pot, but that's hardly a "hard" drug. If you're referring to the student who died from a heroin overdose, I doubt that incident is representative of the campus culture. Also, the school has been nothing but open about what happened.