<p>I was wondering-if the hidden Ivys and small highly selective schools like Oberlin, Amherst etc are so good, why are they not as well known and popular as say, Harvard or Columbia? (at least here, in Europe)</p>
<p>Are they as good as my counselor says?</p>
<p>Because they arent in the Ivy League?</p>
<p>“Ivy League” refers to eight schools that decided to form a football league many years ago (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard Yale Columbia Cornell Princeton Penn). There are a lot of other schools that are highly selective but weren’t in this football league!! I think you might hear more about larger universities that have big graduate schools and more research. Oberlin and Amherst are competitive undergraduate schools but don’t have the big grad school attached. They both have great reputations and are most likely as good as your counselor says. It all depends on what you want to study and the kind of atmosphere you’re looking for.</p>
<p>People from outside the US – even in neighboring Canada – generally have trouble understanding the US concept of liberal arts colleges. This may reflect the following factors:</p>
<p>(1) Other countries don’t have LACs. There really aren’t any small, private, selective schools, focusing exclusively on undergraduate education, in Europe or Asia. Higher education is conducted exclusively in big universities, usually state-run.</p>
<p>(2) Many foreigners have studied in the US, but they usually come here for graduate or professional degrees, which means that they studied at US universities. Relatively few foreigners get US undergraduate degrees, and relatively few of those enroll at LACs.</p>
<p>The closest European equivalent to a LAC might be a British “public school”, (like Eton or Harrow), if you can imagine one that has been “upgraded” to offer college degrees. In fact, many of the older US LACs began as independent secondary schools.</p>
<p>In the US, top LACs are competitive with top universities in terms of selectivity and [graduate</a> school placement](<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights).</p>
<p>Except for Cornell and Penn, the other six Ivy schools are similar in offerings on the UG level to US LACs, except that to differing degrees the Ivys also have graduate programs and most LACs don’t offer engineering (Swarthmore, Bucknell, Lafayette, Union are the only ones I know of that do).</p>
<p>Claremont McKenna also offers engineering in conjunction with other schools. Harvey Mudd offers engineering and in fact, specializes in it.</p>
<p>Many hidden schools are the top LACs that most people ignore. In addition to the above schools, Amherst, Williams, Swathmore, Carleton, Pomona, and many many others are considered excellent schools and are highly reputable within academia.</p>
<p>And many hidden ivy and super elite LAC’s have historical significance but were often schools for the local elites until recently…Vanderbilt and Washington and Lee and Emory and Furman and Wake Forest and Duke are clear examples of such schools. </p>
<p>If you are from europe and want to attend a college in the United States then decide what geographical area you are interested in living for four years…and then pick schools in that area…</p>
<p>is it New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or Cleveland Nashville or Atlanta? Or a more rural setting like Charlottesville or Chapel Hill? or even more remote settings like Hamilton College in Clinton New York? Or Colgate?</p>
<p>Or Bowdoin College?</p>
<p>Many many choices. You decide.</p>