<p>I don’t know, from impression of Colgate-- it doesn’t surprise me that Colgate doesn’t make the list. Yeah, but I sure agree that the list is very subjective (but not nearly as much as brody’s you guys were talking about earlier-- he even admits it). I remember wen my sister was looking at colleges some one mentioned Colgate to her as a safety, and sort of one of those ‘hidden gems’ that not too many people know about. She got into Bates, which she was very happy about, (she applied ED) and is loving it.</p>
<p>Something to add,
In the WSJ list, if you look carefully at the numbers, the differences between the schools are very very small. It’s hard to compare schools which are so similar, but for some reason we always have to know who is best. For example, in Maine, Bowdoin is barely more prestigious than Bates or Colby-- yet it places much higher in the US News ranking (that one is really off) and in the WSJ’s list.
and mhc48,
Yeah, Moorehouse (which is extremely prestigious, actually) did send more than Colgate-- as did all the others on the list-- it is just, after all, the facts, the numbers.
But despite the many flaws in the WSJ list, for me, it actually does a very good job at ranking our countries most prestigious colleges in my opinion (even though that’s not what it is ranking). I don’t know if that was luck or not, but it all seems to fit for me. But this is only from my NE prospective.</p>
<p>Colgate as a safety?? I think not, maybe for Amherst, Williams, Harvard, Yale, etc…but not a safety to most people.</p>
<p>Yeah, a safety. I guess I was just not aware of Colgate for whatever reason. I thought it was a small little school in upstate NY, that not many people knew about but had okay academics and really preppy students. After reading the threads on the Colgate section, I see that people who go to the school at least like to think of it as being prestigious. And, maybe it is-- but I never heard of it being compared with Middlebury or even Bates. I guess I’m just not “in the know,” but I know a lot of people who aren’t then.</p>
<p>Colgate below Colby, Bates, Macalaster in the WSJ list surprised me because it consistently ranks above them in USN&WR and PR rankings and to me what has been general consensus. I have actually always thought that Bowdoin was a fair bit better than Colby and Bates, but do enjoy watching grads fron the three duking it out.</p>
<p>If you look at admissions stats, the only way that that Colgate is more of a safety (and only for the top 15 schools at that) is that its yield at 34% is a little lower than Bates (38%) and Colby (35%) and is still higher than Hamilton (30%) and Trinity (28%), even though its admit rate is lower than all four of these schools. So, it appears that more Colgate applicants have it as a lower choice because they are more interested in the Ivys, Williams and Amherst than applicants of Bates and Colby. For instance, I know that 61% of my class at Colgate was either wait-listed or rejected at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I think the WSJ approach is a good one (much better than their more subjective methodology for MBA schools). You could argue with which five schools they choose in each of three disciplines (the fact that Stanford isn’t included in any of them is a farce, but probably helps Colgate) and whether using the top 10 schools in each discipline would be a better approach. One area where it is off is to what extent each school is pre-preofessional, which especially bores itself out with CalTech ranking at #28. In actuality, it is regarded much higher, but with 36% of their grads pursuing PhDs is never going to effectively compete with more similar academic schools in this type of survey.</p>
<p>Well, I think Bates, Colby, and Bowdoin sort of do attract a different group than Colgate does. But, it is definitely not true that Bates students didn’t try to, or get into, the Ivies. The Maine schools are well respected in the NE college world, they are very old and have very strong alumni and legacy networking. A LOT of the students at Bates, for example, went to private NE high schools (many from the Phillips Academies) who weren’t quite at the top of their classes and didn’t get into the ivy they hoped to. But, a lot of students chose the Maine schools over ivies too. I think more people choose the Maine schools (especially Bowdoin and Bates), rather than just going there after being rejected from say, Dartmouth. It’s pretty common in NE for some one to be deciding between Bowdoin and Dartmouth, or Bates and Cornell. I also know Bates has a lot of transfer students from Ivies (kids that wanted a more relaxed environment with the same amount of opportunity). The Maine schools send their graduates to the best grad programs, and they have connections with the Ivies especially.<br>
I think gellino is right, the applicants seem to be different at Colgate and the NE LACs. At Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby, most kids are from MA-- it seems like Colgate has a better rep. in the mid-west and mid-east. Who knows though.</p>
<p>In my experience, the three Maine schools draw predominantly from MA, CT and the NYC metro area. Colgate has a much wider net; 11-12% of its student body is from CA, e.g. It has a large number of kids from CT, NJ and obviously NY, including the NYC area. Also, because of its athletic competition with the Ivies as well as its fellow Patriot League schools, Colgate, as a D-1 school, enjoys a more national reputation, especially in business, than the three Maine NESCAC schools.<br>
As for Colgate being a “safety,” it’s only to schools such as Dartmouth, Williams, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Penn, Georgetown, all of which enjoy a campus culture similar to Colgate’s. Students choose Colgate over Cornell, Middlebury and yes even Stanford.</p>
<p>Whoa, guys, slow down. The 2003 WSJ article was not about “prestige” nor nor name recognition, nor quality of school nor quality of education ~ or any of that. If you read the actual article and not just the table, it was simply about which undergraduate schools ~ that year ~ were the top feeders to 15 specific post grad programs, 5 Med, 5 Law 5 Business, that WSJ determined were the top 5 in each category.</p>
<p>4 of the top Ivies didn’t make the top 10 list.</p>
<p>A number of small schools on the list admittedly tailored and packaged their students into the grad schools.</p>
<p>A number of schools didn’t keep track of the records the Journal needed and Journal writers resorted to facebooks to determine where the students came from.</p>
<p>A number of schools grad and undergrad both on and off the list criticised its utility.</p>
<p>And the article focused on enrollment, not how many students applied. So many more students at the “feeder” schools could have applied and not made it in. And students at other schools perhaps didn’t apply in as large numbers to those grad schools or in those areas. </p>
<p>So…those colleges may still be very or even the most successful in getting their students into those 15 grad schools. On the otherhand, some of those “packaging” lessons highlighted in the article may have now been adopted or learned by other schools since then. This is not unlike the games colleges play to get into the USNWR top college lists. It’s just marketing and the schools will focus on the things that get them students. It is one factor and hardly the be all and end all of anything.</p>
<p>For that matter, I don’t recall reading that the WSJ ever did that study again. Perhaps no one (else) much cared.</p>
<p>In general, I would agree, although think that Bowdoin is more known nationally than the other two. I don’t think Georgetown is that much more selective (when I was there, Colgate’s avg SAT was 30 points higher) to have Colgate considered its safety school. I did see many students choose Colgate over Cornell and Middlebury, but hardly knew anyone who had even applied to Stanford, nevermind choose it instead. Replacing Stanford and Penn with Amherst and Brown on your list of eight, I would say is an accurate description of what schools Colgate students receive the most rejection letters from, except for Cornell (where ~ 2/3 of Colgate students applying there are W/L or rejected).</p>
<p>mhc, I don’t think anyone said the WSJ survey was about prestige rather than grad school placement effectiveness. Also, the Ivys aren’t necessarily 8 of the top 10 schools, so the results of the top 10 would be expected. It still doesn’t explain how smaller, less selective schools like Colby, Bates, Trinity, Macalaster could make the list before Colgate. I thought the study was done last year and was hoping they would do it again because I thought it generally was interesting and a unique idea.</p>
<p>Gel, perhaps I was misled into thinking the article was being cited to measure prestige by the topic of this thread being, “is colgate prestigious” or the fact that autmaine introduced the WSJ journal article into the mix as a preface to saying, and support for the statement: " I just don’t find Colgate all that prestigious".</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, although Bates and others used WSJ story (entitled, “Want to Go to Harvard Law?”) as part of their marketing, at the time, Bate’s President, criticised it: <a href=“http://www.bates.edu/x44171.xml[/url]”>http://www.bates.edu/x44171.xml</a>.</p>
<p>And as I mentioned before, a number of other undergrad and grad schools including those on the list didn’t think too much of it. Here’s a typical article in The Michigan Daily: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2003/10/02/Opinion/Out-To.Lunch-1419043.shtml?norewrite200605311617&sourcedomain=www.michigandaily.com[/url]”>http://www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2003/10/02/Opinion/Out-To.Lunch-1419043.shtml?norewrite200605311617&sourcedomain=www.michigandaily.com</a></p>
<p>which pointed out that “schools were ranked by the ratio of the number of students accepted to these particular graduate schools to the size of the entire student body. The University’s large number of undergraduates skewed this ratio, severely lowering its ranking despite the fact that only four schools in the country yielded more students to those fifteen elite schools than the University.”</p>
<p>One of the other reasons cited for a number of schools like Colby, Bates, Macalestar, Florida’s New School et. al. making the list was their focused efforts to get their students into those grad schools.</p>
<p>I guess I didn’t read the part about focused efforts, which is esp interesting given students in business and a lesser extent law & med school don’t even apply while they’re enrolled in college. Part of my theory why Colgate may do worse than Colby, Bates, Trinity, Macalaster is that it is 1.5x-2x the size of the other schools. I think making it the top 10 schools in each category rather than top 5 would make the results much less volatile year to year.</p>
<p>Think it may be time to stop the comparing and embrace what Colgate, not the other, has to offer. Good luck</p>
<p>no doubt in my mind that colgate is better than bates and colby</p>
<p>I guess it just depends on where you live, cause I just think Bates and Colby are more prestigious (I have no idea if they are better).<br>
mhc48, you are really making a lot of speculations in your posts-- some pretty far-fetched ideas there. But, I completely agree that the WSJ list is very subjective, because it only measures the students who attend those schools. But it is somewhat right, I think, cause HPYS are on the top. I think the list was put together last year, and I think they will do it again this year. It will be intersting if it changes a lot-- it seems like it could easily. But I agree with waverider86, prestige doesn’t really matter and is mostly a matter of opinion, whether you go to Colgate or Harvard or Bates, you can get where you want-- they are all among the best schools in the counrty and the world.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to recent articles on rankings and a desire for new criteria for assessments:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=197021[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=197021</a></p>
<p>When I got my first mailing from Colgate i thought this too. The reported test scores on collegeboard, in college guidebooks and other places seemed to say that the ACT mid 50% was 28-30. I figured that I could almost use Colgate as a safety (to williams, Dartmouth, Georgetown) but when i went to visit last august the adcoms at the information session reported much higher stats. I remember being mega p*ssed off, becuase they were saying the range was 30-33. Thats just as competitive as what the other 3 schools i listed were reporting. I assumed colgate was just puffing their scores to appear more selective, but as i found out, they were dead honest about what their scores are.<br>
And thanks to D1 athletics, namely hockey, colgate has better national recognition than many other LACs. But certainly in VT midd is more respected and known than colgate. the same would go for all the NESCAC schools.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that Midd is more respected and known than the 'Gate in VT. I kind of question the extent that all the NESCAC is more respected there than Colgate (esp. Trinity, Conn College & Hamilton, which aren’t exactly nearby). I also had a couple of family friends from VT choosing Colgate over Bates & Colby. Either way, fortunately there aren’t a whole lot of employers or grad schools in VT.</p>
<p>I think Colgate is very prestigious. But I would say schools like Bates and Colby are prestigious in different ways… and mostly only in the Northeast. And, I do think that the NESCACs are somewhat established. They are defined as the “Little Ivies,” and all the schools in the conference are very prestigious in New England-- but not nearly as well known as the real Ivies.</p>
<p>aloutak,
The “Little Ivies” are no real set group of schools. Yeah, some people call them the NESCACs, but there are schools that are often considered Little Ivies. But, according to Wikipedia, Colgate is not one… again, doesn’t surprise me. Well, Colgate isn’t one of the schools that is “often” called a Little Ivy. But, you know, Little Ivy doesn’t really mean anything (it isn’t an athletic conference) and the term has been criticised by some of it’s “members.”
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies</a></p>