<p>Brody is off in many ways. Wesleyan, Rice, Tufts far too low. Pomona below CMC – and 12 slots below Bowdoin? Haverford (and Wash & Lee) not even on the list but Bates and Colby are? I could go on.</p>
<p>Brody ranks on how well known the schools are by employers, grad schools and the general public NATIONWIDE. Nothing about how rigorous or “good” the schools are. They aren’t misleading, as they state this quite clearly. If you can’t understand that people in all stratas throughout most of the country aren’t familiar with Wes, Haverford, and Tufts, then this is a pointless debate.</p>
<p>Huh. I hadn’t noticed that Haverford wasn’t on the Brody list. While it is tiny, so is so Swarthmore; so if Swat is #15, Haverford should at least be #35.</p>
<p>Brody doesn’t only go by “well known”, but also has some aspect of academic quality. Certainly, more people have heard of Penn State than Colgate or Bowdoin, but PSU isn’t on the list.</p>
<p>I think you should compare NUs to LACs. HYP, as well as Northwestern, UMich, JHU, Georgetown, Duke type of schools have just as high % of students pursuing PhDs as the top 20 LACs. There was a list to this effect on one of these threads, but couldn’t find it, but remember that HYP were all ~15% of students pursuing PhDs, while being surprised that Colgate, Middlebury, Colby types were only ~6%.</p>
<p>If it is doing things by ‘well known’ to a large degree, Swarthmore should be up there like it is since engineering schools do tend to generate slightly more attention.</p>
<p>Ecape, you’ve got to be NUTS to tell us that Wesleyan, haverford, tufts, and rice are not as ‘well known’ by grad schools…</p>
<p>It’s not just grad schools, also employers and the general public. What all of the above perceive as “prestigious” is what the Brody study is trying to get at. I don’t know how well Wes are known by grad schools. Probably at private grad schools, they’re better known. But I can tell you I talked to one professor doing admissions at UChicago biology (top program), and she said she looked at research experience of applicants, and name of school was definitely a minor factor. And no, not every single professor knows about those tiny schools. Many brilliant professors went to state schools themselves. So when you average everything out, I would guess more professors know of and respect UMich than Haverford. I get the impression what little schools like Wesleyan do so well, is not their name, but the fact that they do offer those research experiences to their students which then go on their grad application.</p>
<p>I do have a question though: How would you people rank Bowdoin vs. Haverford and Wes given the chance?</p>
<p>I would say that Bowdoin & Wesleyan should be in the low to mid 20’s with Haverford in the low 30’s.</p>
<p>I agree, but I think wesleyan’s reputation as a very liberal school might hurt it with rankings such as this, as does the fact that many students work at non-profit/other similar agencies which really don’t reflect the true workforce.
It’s all good though :-)</p>
<p>In the north east, no one has really even heard of Colgate… I guess it’s cause there are so many other great schools clustered in New England. I think Hamilton is probably better known because it is part of the NESCAC conference. But, I’m sure grad schools and other “people in the know” think Colgate is just as good as any of the NESCAC schools-- maybe better than some. But really, not very many people (even the ones who know all the New England LACs) have heard of Colgate University.</p>
<p>autmaine:</p>
<p>I guess by “northeast” you mean, undoubtedly, those people living in the vicinity of Allagash, Madawaska or Caribou, right?</p>
<p>nope-- the New England schools are much more recognized than Colgate in the northeast, like it or not. But again, grad schools and stuff know what’s goin’ on-- I just mean in terms of name recognition and general prestige in NE.</p>
<p>in NYS colgate is considered as prestigious as cornell, and the iberal arts schools in new england arent really heard off (like bates, middlebury,bowdoin)… so liberal arts schools are all regionally based in terms of prestige</p>
<p>In terms of name recognition, job and grad school placement, PR academic rankings and selectivity, Colgate certainly is more well known than Colby, Bates, Hamilton, Conn College, Trinity, if for no other reason than the fact that it is a fair amount larger and plays Div I sports. </p>
<p>More people are going to have heard of Colgate than know what NESCAC (which has existed for less than 20 years) even stands for, nevermind be able to name half the colleges in it. While there are potential small discrepancies between spots, this kind of assertion is what the Brody rankings are clearly able to disprove.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.brody.com/college/resources/college_rankings.php[/url]”>http://www.brody.com/college/resources/college_rankings.php</a></p>
<p>completely agree with gellino, despite that i am biased towards nescac schools</p>
<p>Just a reminder, the brody rankings are skeevy so take them with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Colgate is an awesome school, and it is known of in the northeast. I live in PA and more people know of Colgate than they do of Wesleyan, where i’m going.</p>
<p>I think the Brody rankings have some semblence of reason to them and a lot more than a statement like Colgate is less known than all the NESCAC (not exactly a household name) and thought the rankings provided some evidence of support. I feel I had heard of all of the schools in the NESCAC before knowing what it was or what the acronym stood for. The average, even relatively informed, person is going to have heard of Hamilton, Colby, Bates before the NESCAC. </p>
<p>Anyway, having a high % of people having heard of something doesn’t make it better. Knowing any geography at all will cause people to effectively know the University of Illinois, but that doesn’t make it “better” or “more recognized” (depending on what that’s trying to mean) than Bowdoin, Middlebury or Colgate.</p>
<p>As an FYI, when my daughter applied to Williams, most people asked- William and Mary? William and what? I explained and explained how high ranked Williams was and how it was similar to Amherst (that, they had heard of). Now that she is going to attend Colgate, almost everyone has heard of it and thinks of it as prestigious (ooh, aah- wow, what a great school). I have heard nothing but fabulous comments about how great the alumni base is, how much everyone loved school there, how helpful alumni are in helping you find jobs after college…
Again, prestige is what you make of it. As I have told my kids, someone can go to the KU and become Secretary of Agriculture, be a millionaire, be a CEO etc- you can go to Harvard (or similar) and do nothing with your life. You are given opportunities, it’s up to you to make something of it</p>
<p>rtc, Brody might be *screwy or skewed * but skeevy??? [don’t you have any Italian friends?]</p>
<p>The fact that more people in PA know about Colgate than Wesleyan is really probably more illustrative of the same type of regional thinking that prompted autmaine’s silly comment. Colgate may be more well known in PA because it plays three well known PA schools: Bucknell, Lafayette and Lehigh in the Patriot League.</p>
<p>Yeah, it is based on region (and by northeast, I meant NE)-- take a look at the WSJ’s top 50 feeder school list. Colgate didn’t make the list, while Bowdoin, Midd., Bates, Trinity, and Colby did. But that list isn’t very good because it mostly deals with ivy graduate programs, or just the very elite ones. I just don’t find Colgate all that prestigious, not that it matters anyway.</p>
<p><a href=“http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:EMgwkU7FTkkJ:online.wsj.com/documents/wsj_college_092503.pdf+feeder+schools+wsj&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5[/url]”>http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:EMgwkU7FTkkJ:online.wsj.com/documents/wsj_college_092503.pdf+feeder+schools+wsj&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5</a></p>
<p>Certainly that WSJ list, which shows, in one particular year (2003??), the number of graduates of the ranked schools who went on to 15 particular grad schools (med, law bus), is indicative of * something*. Although what is not entirely clear:</p>
<p>That by in large, a whopping 1.5 to 3.5 percent of their students went to the selected grad schools? or that SUNY Stonybrook, Moorehouse and Ga Tech were better than other colleges not mentioned? That other schools sent more of their graduates on but to other than the 15 chosen graduate schools? Or that other colleges grads went off to work or took a year off before heading on to get their MBA or JD?</p>
<p>Or maybe that graduates of other schools (Colgate since we’re talking about it here) were able to draw upon reputation and alumni connections to go on directly from graduation to well paying, satisfying jobs in their areas of study or chosen careers.</p>
<p>Who knows? I don’t.</p>
<p>So yeah, I suppose the list is a criteria for prestige, but one criteria only.</p>
<p>I was surprised that Colgate didn’t make the WSJ list as I thought it would do better than ~ 15-20 schools on that list and am curious if the WSJ continues to do that list if Colgate will make it in the future. Having gone to Colgate and then one of the 15 grad schools that the WSJ used as its criteria for ‘elite’ grad schools would say that there were consistently more students there from Colgate than Trinity, Macalaster, etc. I never felt that Colgate was that much of a pre-med school, so maybe that’s what hurts it the WSJ rankings, although I don’t get the impression that Midd, Colby, Bates, Trinity are that much of pre-med schools either.</p>