Hey so I was thinking what are the 8-10 liberal arts colleges that (if they were given the attention they deserve) would form their own sort of “Ivy League”? Oh and please don’t discriminate based on geography; focus on academic quality and student outcomes.
Dartmouth is probably the closest thing to a LAC among the Ivy League schools. Maybe Brown also.
NESCAC’s are already nicknamed the “Little Ivies”.
@ucbalumnus sorry I should’ve clarified. Only traditional LACs, excluding smaller universities that might have a LAC feel. So that’d exclude Brown and Dartmouth.
I agree NESCAC because that is also a sports league and in the NE, so likely the closest comparison.
Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, Middlebury
Haverford, Wellesley ( for the ladies )
@shavree287 The Little Ivies get plenty of attention. Cool group of schools.
Maybe some of the Claremont Colleges like Pitzer and Pomona. I don’t know if Harvey Mudd is really an LAC - it’s more like Caltech’s little brother or MIT’s little, little brother.
I always thought of Oberlin as an elite LAC, though it’s admission statistics don’t quite reflect that…
Carleton. Davidson.
Williams
Amherst
Pomona
Middlebury
Wesleyan
Davidson
Wellesley
Bowdoin
@Jwest22’s list plus Swarthmore. Maybe Middlebury.
Take your pick from the top schools on this list.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
The schools must have geographical and historical ties and a common sports conference for this to be realistic. They also must be very selective, virtually all the NESCAC schools admit the top 3 - 4% of students, including recruited athletes. CC and Trinity dip a little lower but not much. NESCAC guidlines are more restrictive than the Ivy League schools on admitting athletes. I know this first hand.
The existing NESCAC schools are the best proxy.
WASP (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore & Pomona) would be on any list. That acronym for the very top LACs has become almost as common as HYPSM among the crowd on here who obsessively rank colleges.
My list would also include Wellesley, Middlebury, Carleton, Bowdoin, Haverford, Davidson, and probably Wesleyan and Oberlin. But pretty much everyone’s list would have the first 4.
@ThankYouforHelp I agree. All of the school’s you listed are considered, from my experience, to be the best of the best in LACs. In reality, WASP is at the top due to longstanding academic reputation, yet others (maybe Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/UPenn-level schools if we continue this analogy) like Wellesley, Carleron, Bowdoin, Haverford, and others are not as over-hyped as WASP.
In terms of standardized testing-achievement, the top would include (excluding Harvey Mudd due to @simba9’s reasons) Pomona, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Bowdoin, Carleton, Wellesley, and Haverford, in that order. Of course, the difference between the highest on this list (Pomona - 1460) and lowest (Haverford - 1400) is not even that significant - really at all.
@simba9 I agree, Oberlin is actually really well known (I once asked a student if they’ve heard of Pomona, they said no, then I asked them about Oberlin and she was really impressed) for a LAC, although yes the stats are arguably lower and it is not as selective with a ~30% acceptance rate.
Also, although Pitzer has a rather low acceptance rate, all Claremont a Colleges usually do, and it is not usually considered an “elite” LAC (its average SAT is 1305), although it is still a fine school. Much of the “elite” status comes from academic reputation within the - in all honesty - rather small community of people who are even vaguely aware of LACs.
@shavree287 Students obsess about the relative rankings and acceptance stats of the top 20 or top 25 universities and liberal arts colleges without understanding one key thing: it doesn’ t really matter. In the top 20 LACs if you remove the service academies and account for the ties, there are really only ten or so.
The difference in selectivity is about 1 percentile and that is rare, so to say one is “dramatically” more selective is nonsense.
Students normally get in some and not others without logic, and depending when you apply makes all difference. One school that is on paper “less selective” can be much more difficult to get in than another during regular decision once athletes and legacies come in through early decision.
This is why so many kids are disappointed come decision day. They figure a school like Colgate is much easier than say Amherst because of ranking and the truth is they never had a chance.
Not really. Pomona is a relative newcomer to this list. In fact, based on academic reputation scores in a certain national magazine, it falls below Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams (and is tied with Bowdoin and Middlebury).
I thought somebody made up WASP about a month ago. Has that acronym been around longer than that?