Perhaps a good topic for its own thread. I’d definitely appreciate it. We had this thread a few years ago for international students who needed aid.
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To sort of state the obvious, many LAC kids plan to go on to further higher education such as PhDs, MDs, JDs, and so on. Hence their main concern is whether their LAC has a good reputation among people doing admissions at those programs.
I also note when it comes to placement in such programs, there is still an obvious component of regionalism, including at Ivy+ research universities. But presumably a lot of that is just self-selection.
So I am not sure how to disentangle all this. Nor am I sure it is really important.
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Where I live, Lewis & Clark and U of Puget Sound are both well known and well regarded among parents and students looking at LACs. We are in the Upper Midwest.
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Of course, this varies by type of program, and such information may not be readily available to high school seniors.
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Many studies have shown that academic prowess is not necessarily the most important factor when it comes to which students proceed to a PhD. Finances are a huge factor, and students who come from families with greater wealth are disproportionately represented in PhD programs.
Therefore, LACs with a higher percentage of Pell Grant students may have a lower percentage of graduates who attain a PhD. But the reason will be because the Pell Grant portion of potential grad students did not have enough money to survive 3-5 years of unpaid young adulthood to pursue a PhD.
I mentioned Allegheny College way up earlier in this thread. 41% of Allegheny’s student body are Pell Grant recipients. Allegheny has a well-respected history as an institution of higher learning. If it turns out that Allegheny has a slightly lower percentage of graduates pursuing a PhD, I would expect discerning parents+students to use enough critical thinking to realize that is not an indicator of less rigorous academics
Whereas only 14% of Harvey Mudd’s students are Pell Grant recipients. And many other “elite” LACs have similar Pell Grant percentages as Harvey Mudd. That a greater percentage of Harvey Mudd’s graduates pursue and attain PhDs is not necessarily indicative that Allegheny is a lesser academic option - just that Allegheny sees fit to admit and provide scholarships for a greater number of financially needy students
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Spelman and Morehouse should definitely be viewed as well-regarded national LACs.
During my time on CC, I have have varied a bit in terms of how/when I recommend HBCUs. At one point, especially when students were seeking very robust merit aid packages, I would more frequently mention them, as many HBCUs have very generous merit aid offerings. But upon additional reflection, I thought of a couple of things:
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If HBCUs were most often being recommended when someone had very little money to spend on college, then it’s not very beneficial to the college, particularly when their endowments are not in the billions. Thus, I generally stopped recommending HBCUs to people unless the family’s budget was such that they could pay most or all of the school’s COA, with the exception of students who identified as black.
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I am cognizant that many black students attend HBCUs because they feel they are in a safe space and that they haven’t felt themselves to be in an emotionally safe space at PWIs (whether K-12 or college). Thus, if a person indicates that they are not black, I only recommend an HBCU if I think it’s a really strong contender for them (i.e. they’re interested in politics or medium-large urban schools…Howard! or they want a strong pre-med prep at a smaller college…Xavier!, etc) and if they can be full-pay there. Because if there’s the risk of making a space feel less safe then the risk should be minimized by making sure it’s likely to be a good fit. Additionally, there should be a known reward for taking the risk by getting a full pay student (and most HBCUs have modest sticker prices in comparison with their PWI peers).
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The benefit to the college (HBCU or otherwise) of enrolling students on merit scholarships is to raise the student academic profile of the college. This is presumably why any college (HBCU or otherwise) that offers merit scholarships does so. If the college does not see the benefit as being worth the scholarship cost (reduced revenue), then it would stop offering the scholarships.
Also, if the college is enrolled under capacity, the marginal cost of enrolling an additional student may not be that high. Enrolling a high stats student on scholarship to raise the student academic profile may be more desirable to the college than having an empty seat in the incoming class.
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And by that logic, if they can raise academic standards without additional costs - why wouldn’t they?
College Transitions has done some potentially useful placement studies for all of PhDs, JDs, and MDs. I agree you can’t take the rankings too strictly because of all sorts of uncontrolled factors, but they generally support the idea that a lot of LACs can support kids in those various areas.
Interestingly, Allegheny appears on four of College Transitions’s Top 50 per capita PhD lists–Anthro, Bio, Chem, and Physics. The latter three don’t surprise me because in my circles it has a “good for science” reputation:
This is not suggesting you are wrong about other factors also mattering, but Allegheny doing well in these categories despite that is interesting.
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What is especially insightful in that outcome is something that breaks another fallacy the CC Forum tends to accept as gospel. Test Scores
The SAT range at Allegheny is 1170-1360. The ranges at some of the “elite” LACs are: Harvey Mudd (1500-1570), Bowdoin (1470-1550), Davidson (1410-1530), Barnard (1470-1560). Those are all great academic institutions, but I don’t think it’s their SAT range that makes them great.
Allegheny’s upper range falls short of these “elite” LACs’ lower range. Yet, according to the article you linked to, Allegheny’s graduates hold their own in several majors’ adjusted PhD outcomes.
I’m not disparaging the colleges many consider elite. I just want to highlight it’s not necessarily the quality of education that most differentiates the students at different colleges. Often, it’s the wealth level of the majority of the students. And that’s a very acceptable reason to choose a college if that is important to a family
I just try to present alternative options that offer an equal academic experience, while also being more accessible to a wider variety of students. More accessible in family income/wealth, more accessible regarding SAT scores, more accessible in racial diversity, more accessible in High School GPA range, and more accessible in expense.
Generally speaking, many underrecognized LACs (including Allegheny) provide great academics to a wider range of students than the “elite” LACs.
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Funny, because both of these schools are quite popular and well-liked among people in my circles in Colorado, but when people ask where my kids go to school, I find myself explaining that Williams and Bates are small colleges in New England.
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Seems like the list would be more useful if the adjusted number were based on the number of students graduating in the relevant undergraduate majors, rather than overall school size.
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This has been duly noted:
It’s a great point that there is a space between “National” and “Regional” with regard to a lot of these schools! … at least how I define regional.
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I agree, and actually sometimes I have done that for myself using NCES College Navigator (when it is working). I think if you generally have an idea of the major mix at various colleges, you can likely guesstimate pretty well, but knowing can be interesting.
Nothing like this is ever a hard line, right? And arguably this is a multidimensional question as well.
So you can look into what you think might matter to you, with whatever tradeoffs you need to consider in mind.
Yep. This thread pretty much defines National vs. Regional from the point of view of Easterners. If they have heard of it and would send their kid there, it’s National. If they haven’t heard of it or wouldn’t send their kid there it is “Regional.” It has more to do with class, race, and local signifiers of status than it has to do with actual national vs. regional student draw or reputation among graduate schools or employers nationwide.
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Interesting. There’s a parallel concern in this sub-string about the “Peer Assessment” metric within the USNews survey:
Basically, it’s the same question: How many complex institutions can even well-informed people actually keep track of?
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I note I believe US News survey participants can simply provide no response on colleges they don’t feel like they know well enough, and then the scores are just based on responses
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