@Publisher: “the Williams college name is more valued than almost all other LACs by IBs & the top 3 consulting firms.”
I think @collegemom3717 point is that companies evaluate the individual, not the school. And I’m not going to agree with your assertion. Williams grads do well at placing in to IB and MBB, but Williams also has a greater proportion of bright high achievers than most other LACs. If you switch the student bodies and Williams and Colgate, would Williams still do better? I’m not so sure, so I wouldn’t say it’s the name. I mean, Williams is a top LAC, but it isn’t HBS or the GSB. Honestly, no undergrad college (either a LAC or within a uni) is.
BTW, I’ve never heard of Swarthmore as a top target for IB or MBB. It’s more of a PhD factory. Colgate probably places more in to IB than Swarthmore.
Of course, employers evaluate individuals. I never suggested otherwise. But employers select which campuses at which to interview & to solicit resumes.
I would suggest Carleton kids are the academic peers of those at the three schools the OP mentioned. Maybe it is slightly lower in those ridiculous rankings on account of its location rather than anything pertaining to the academics there and the intelligence of the student body?
With the changing ethos of the younger generation, using ib and consulting as the yardstick of undergraduate excellence is very 1990s.
It’s also boring when every thread discussing school prestige and employment prospects always devolves to this single narrative.
The top lacs and there are many more than 3, have awesome resources and opportunity. The students and professors are universally bright, accomplished and full of promise.
Apply to all and go to the one that accepts you, you can afford and you personally like the best. It’s really that simple.
@Jon234, Carleton kids definitely match WAS kids in pure intellect. Carleton probably offers less in East Coast IB/MC opportunities, but as @privatebanker noted, that’s a rather narrow way to look at things and in any case, the difference in opportunities in even those industries among all these LACs discussed just isn’t as big as some folks make them out to be. We’re not comparing a top 10 LAC with a 100-110 range LAC after all.
And honestly, even attending a top 10 LAC vs. 100-110 LAC just doesn’t make all that much difference if you’re fundamentally a smart, hard-working, driven person with people skills. I see people who graduated from non-selective no-name LACs that nobody outside of their low-population Midwestern state has ever heard of retire as MD at an investment bank (yes, picking up a M7 MBA along the way, but that just shows that where you go for undergrad isn’t as momentous as many people on here make it out to be on here).
The discussion has moved on a bit (not in a bad way) from the OP’s Initial questioning.
”But are the students on average noticeably brighter? Is it a more truly intellectual atmosphere? Coursework any more rigorous?”
I’m not familiar with Davidson and Grinnell, the other two colleges mentioned.
I’d imagine the likes of Haverford, Bowdoin and Wellesley just to throw three more names into the ring, would be equal to WAS in terms of student smarts, intellectual atmosphere and rigour.
@Jon234 Funny that you misread the comment – thought you brought Carleton into the conversation because it’s a much more respected institution. And IMO, it is.
Yes, I didn’t think Carleton was out of place in this discussion. And it is one of the few LACs that have finished among the top three in U.S. News’ annual ranking.
Where is Pomona in this conversation? Bowdoin? Big Three is meaningless in LACs.
Having watched far too many college decisions reactions videos, it would appear that the overwhelming majority of those high achieving kids (at least the superstar students who are posting their videos on YouTube) are ALWAYS applying to most Ivies, Stanford, Williams and Pomona. And funnily enough, they rarely get into Williams or Pomona. Maybe that’s more indicative of the type of kid who wants to rack up subscribers not being a great fit for those schools.
As so many of these posts go, this one is evolving into a case of splitting hairs.
I won’t name this LAC, which is reasonably highly ranked, but not WAPS. It has consistently had more Fulbright Scholars for the last five years than any other LAC. Many grads go into Big Four accounting firms. I know kids with jobs already lined up at JP Morgan. I know a girl who’s been offered a job post grad at nearly six figures, not in banking or accounting or management consulting.
My point is that once you’re talking about the top 20 or so LACs, many grads are going to have excellent outcomes and there is a fair bit of overlap among applicants at all of those schools.
Pomona is decently strong. I’d put it up there with Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore. Bowdoin is a tiny bit lower in terms of sheer intellectual horsepower. Still a great school, and for the right person, it could be the best LAC of course.
What about Reed, @OneMoreToGo2021 ? It’s not even in the USNWR rankings because it refuses to provide them with the info. Many here would argue that Reed has more intellectual horsepower than any of them. Yet few would suggest that its grads go on to highly paid jobs.
What about Harvey Mudd, whose grads make more money post grad than Harvard or MIT grads.
Is the point that to be successful, the college must produce money-makers?
I would suggest the notion any of these so called top 3 having more intellectual horsepower than the students at the top 20 or 30 lacs is horse… something else.
Perhaps slightly better high school academic profiles. If one believes that is totally indicative of ultimate academic prowess or ability, I politely disagree. Most people, thankfully don’t peak at 17.
Also ,academic profiles of high schoolers are a combination of many factors including economic backgrounds and home life.
Many flourish and prove to be world leaders in science and academia even from, gasp lol, state schools.