Berea Named Best Liberal Arts College 2025 by Washington Monthly

IMO it is most often the seasoned, experienced senior posters who are the most helpful, providing accurate and educated guidance to new posters. That is what makes this site great.

Not first hand knowledge, but a family member of mine attended Berea (they were from a rural, homeschooled background) several years ago. They worked in DC out of college at National Geographic and other publications. They loved their experience at Berea and seemed to have found internships/work in the journalism field after their time at Berea.

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I think Bates has changed now – the most recent info I saw listed finance and medical/health careers as the most popular after college. Lots of econ, bio, and neuro/psych majors. They have also added a business program with Tuck (Dartmouth) for short term that was overenrolled this spring.

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Yes - have a current student at Bates so have been following what the seniors are doing. Lots of Linked In posts about summer gigs and the most popular are finance/business internships and health/medical internships. There are all kinds of other paths as well (law, sports, environment, etc) but seems to be that the two I mentioned are currently the most popular career paths at Bates.

Again, not first-hand, but Berea has been around for a long, long time. I’m actually surprised that it survived so many shocks to the world and national economies over the years, with its business model intact. I met a fellow summer school counselor from there years ago and was very impressed by her intelligence, and upbeat attitude. She made me wish I’d known about Berea when I was still applying to colleges. Unfortunately, Berea has sort of the same ā€œdisadvantageā€œ that so-called, elite colleges have in the sense that middle-class kids would fall through the same donut hole that works against their attending, only from the other side - their families make too much money.

I expect many people go to Bowdoin, Bates, as well as other highly selective private colleges with expectations of high earnings. This contributes to why many highly selective private colleges (more often universities than LACs) do well in the WM outcomes rankings by overshooting earning expectations. Kids attending such colleges are far more likely to choose majors and careers associated with higher earnings than typical. Specific stats for Bowdoin and Colby are below, both with a concentration of majors associated with high earnings. The most common employers of both Bowdoin and Colby grads includes Google and Goldman Sachs.

Top Declared Majors at Bowdoin

  1. Government and Legal Studies (often followed by JD)
  2. Economics (often followed by finance/consulting)
  3. Biology (often followed by MD)
  4. Mathematics
  5. Computer Science

Top Majors at Colby

  1. Economics (often followed by finance/consulting)
  2. Government (often followed by JD)
  3. Neuroscience (often followed by MD)
  4. Computer Science
  5. Global Studies
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While I have no personal experience with Berea, I do know it is a member of The Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP) which encourages the study of poverty as a complex social problem, by expanding and improving educational opportunities for college students in a wide range of disciplines and career trajectories. SHECP began in 1998 as the Shepherd Poverty Alliance. It was founded at Washington & Lee University and allied with Berea College and Spelman College. The Alliance incorporated as SHECP, an independent nonprofit in 2013, and since then, has grown into a consortium of colleges and universities that provides coordinated internships, coursework, and co-curricular support. SHECP provides unique programming through direct educational opportunities such as the Summer Internship Program, networking and collaboration opportunities for students, alumni, faculty, and staff, and a range of events featuring professionals and experts from within and outside the Consortium.

My D21 was part of SHECP at one of the member schools and found the program extremely rewarding. She participated in a summer internship and attended conferences with students from multiple member schools, including Berea. The access to educational and experiential programs and internships was an influential part of her undergrad experience.

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I guess I am also informed by the clustered interests of my student’s friends and colleagues. More public interest, graduate school, medicine and not a one interested in Wall Street. Bates’ own reporting ranks healthcare and education above finance. But it’s true, there’s something for everyone.

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in full?

I am more shocked by US News methodology these days TBH.

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Yes, but they’ve been branded as ā€œthe sourceā€ - although some like Poets & Quants for b-school. When I got my MBA, Business Week was all the rage.

There’s always one major player - and then the rest it seems

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