Dickinson vs. Wooster

Corbett
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 16:29:33 +0000

My experience is that the USN&WR liberal arts college rankings tend to correlate with a much simpler measure: endowment $$ per student. Based on the 2016 NACUBO endowment tables:

Dickinson has a $381 million endowment for about 2,350 students, or about $162,000 per student;

Wooster has a $263 million endowment for about 2,050 students, or about $128,000 per student.

So Dickinson is somewhat wealthier, which is consistent with the difference in USN&WR ranking. Dickinson is also somewhat more selective, with a lower acceptance rate and higher yield. College Board reports ACT scores of 27-30 at Dickinson, vs. 24-30 at Wooster. So the top students at both schools are probably comparable, but Wooster has to dig deeper into its applicant pool in order to fill its class. There are probably a significant number of students at Wooster that would not have made the cut at Dickinson.

If everything else is truly equal, then I would probably recommend Dickinson. However, Wooster could still be the better choice, if there are specific features about it that particularly appeal to your kid.