Bates College Prestige

[Sue22]

It sounds like the OP has researched schools and is applying to Bates for the right reasons but needs to convince international parents who have never heard of the school. @iwantcollegeplz, if all you’re looking for is ammo, we can help.
Please note, these are not the reasons my kids applied to Bates, nor are they the reasons I would normally cite, but in this case the parents are looking for prestige, so we can play that game.

1. Bates is one of the NESCAC school, sometimes referred to as the "Little Ivies." Tell them the NESCAC is the equivalent of Ivy League but for liberal arts schools and show them this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies

Among the Little Ivies are the “Little Three”, a term used by Amherst College, Wesleyan University and Williams College, and “Maine Big Three”, a term used by Colby College, Bates College and Bowdoin College. The term is inspired by the “Big Three” Ivy League athletic rivalry between Harvard, Princeton, and Yale[12][13] despite there being no academic, athletic or historical relationship between the liberal arts colleges and the Ivy League universities.

Personally, I’ve never even heard the expression “Maine Big Three” and I’ve been associate with Bates for 35 year, but hey, if it’s on Wikipedia it must be true, right?

1. Debate is great preparation for law, and Bates has a long tradition of strength in debating. http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/10/31/bates-debate-rank-fifth-nation/ From a story on the World Debating Championships in Berlin (2013):

   Of the 33 U.S. colleges and universities that sent 53 teams to Berlin, only five schools made the break: Bates, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Not making the cut were U.S. teams from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams, among others.

…and two stories from 2017. Bates won the North American Women’s Debating Championship
https://www.bates.edu/news/2017/03/22/bates-wins-2017-north-american-womens-debating-championship/

Forty teams from some of the top North American debate programs competed, including squads from Harvard, Cornell, Loyola Marymount, Seattle University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Vermont.

…and reached the finals of the World University Debate Championship.
Trust and respect propels Bates to finals of World Universities Debate Championships | News | Bates College

Joining Bates in the finals, held Tuesday, were teams from Oxford University, Yale University, and the University of Sydney, judged the winner. (Among North American colleges not making the finals: Harvard, Duke, Brown, Stanford, Princeton, Cornell, McGill, Clemson, Swarthmore, Berkeley, University of Chicago, Brandeis, and Johns Hopkins.)

That make Bates better than Harvard, right?

1. Bates graduates do well in the job market. As of 6 months after graduation only a half percent of graduates in the class of '17 were still looking for work. For Yale graduates the percentage still looking for work was 3.4% https://www.bates.edu/career/class-outcomes/ https://ocs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/OCS%20Stats%20pages/Final%20Class%20of%202017%20Report%20(6%20months).pdf

Of the 92.4% of the Class that completed the survey, 96.4% reported confirmed plans. Approximately three percent of the total class (3.4%) were still seeking opportunities six months after graduation.

1. Bates graduates go on to many great graduate schools, including Ivies. Bates is among the schools currently represented at Harvard's Law School, Business School and Medical School.

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/undergraduate-colleges/
https://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/class-profile/Pages/undergraduate-institutions.aspx
https://www.bates.edu/career/class-outcomes/

In 2017, Bates alumni matriculated at Harvard Medical School, Brown University Alpert Medical School, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine, Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine, and more.

The law schools currently attended by Bates students include Stanford, Yale, Harvard, UCLA, Berkeley, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, U Penn, and Duke. Not bad for a school with fewer than 2,000 students.
https://www.bates.edu/career/students/advanced-studies-graduate-and-professional-school-advising/law-schools-accepting-bates-grads-in-2010-11/

1. Prestigious awards- Bates is a perennial top producer of Fulbright Award winners. Last year Bates won more Fulbrights than any other liberal arts school in the nation, and more than many top universities, including Yale, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, Dartmouth, Berkeley and many other schools with as many as 10x the number of undergraduate students. http://www.bates.edu/news/2018/02/19/bates-college-ranks-no-1-in-fulbright-student-awards-for-2017-18/

Good luck, @iwantcollegeplz. Hopefully you’ll love Bates and your parents will be able to see what a wonderful place it is aside from the issue of prestige.