I generally tend to dismiss the USNWR rankings, but now that our D is choosing between 4 LACs, with 3 ranked in the top 40-50, and one in the 80-90 range, I’m wondering…
Certainly the top 50ish schools have better 4 year grad rates, and freshman retention rates, which I do think are significant factors.
D’s current top choice is the lower ranked LAC. Is there any reason to push the other 3 choices because they are ranked higher? I don’t think we will do this, but just want to hear some opinions.
Merit aid is similar at all 4, btw. Discuss. 
The graduation rates and retention rates are likely highly correlated to admission selectivity (although a school where these are very different from similar selectivity schools with similar size and academic offerings may have some unusual aspect that raises or lowers its rates).
Would it be correct to assume that all of the four LACs have good offerings in her academic interests and potential majors?
One thing to consider is that if a student is an academic outlier at a small school, the school may not have suitable offerings (rigor/depth/pace-wise) for outliers, since there may be too few such outliers for the school to offer them (unlike at a big school, which may have enough outliers to offer honors courses and such). However, an academic outlier at the high end will likely attract favorable attention from the faculty. So there are pluses and minuses to being one of the top students at a small school.
That is correct, all have offerings in her interests, which include neuroscience, psychology, and economics, possibly pre-med. She falls comfortably in the middle-maybe a little above average at top 50ish schools academically. She is at the top 25% for grades and scores at the top 80 school.
The schools are Denison, Centre College, Sewanee, and Southwestern U in TX.
@ucbalumnus is right. Rankings a lot of times depend on a college’s selectivity. This is why many top colleges send flyers out in an attempt to attract more people to attend. The incoming freshman class for a top college generally remains the same, but the more people that are attracted to the college and apply to it, the lower the admit rate (higher denominator, same numerator), the higher the ranking, the higher the prestige the college gets, and basically a positive feedback loop. So the rankings are not the most accurate, but even if they were, I think that they should not affect where your daughter is going.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the grad rates and stuff like that because even if a college has a 99% grad rate, it won’t matter much if you’re that 1% that didn’t graduate.
I would say ask your daughter why she chose the school that she did. Has she visited or gotten to understand more about the colleges that she got in? She must like that specific college for a reason and if she likes the college that she’s going to, then she will be more successful, regardless if the college has a high ranking or not.
Being happy at a lower ranked school is a million times better than being disappointed/frustrated at a higher ranked one.
Southwestern is a fine school full of motivated, interesting students. Part of the reason it is ranked a bit lower, in my opinion, is the fact it is located in Texas which is an area not particularly friendly to LACs in general. I believe all four are included among the Colleges That Change Lives. Aside from maybe regional biases that might positively affect opportunities closer to each school’s home territory, I don’t think that any one of those schools offers head-and-shoulders benefits over the other for general employment or grad school purposes.
You are so right @rdeng2614, being happy at her choice is most important. The problem here is she really likes them all - which is a little surprising, since they are different in many ways. She has visited, and spent the night at all but one - and she is doing an overnight at that school this week.
The one she is leaning toward is closest to home, (well, not actually close at all, a 14 hour drive, but conceivably drivable, and easier/cheaper to get to by plane). I think that is a big factor in her choice. Also, it is nearby a great city (Austin). However, she says she would be happy at any of these 4, and I believe that.
@sltxdad, I think you are right about Southwestern. It is probably the “least known” of the 4 choices, and its location in TX could be seen as a negative by some. Something like 90% of students come from TX, but with such a giant state, that means kids from all over the state.
I wonder about her fitting in as a non-Texan. But we are in CO, where many Texans love to visit - I’m sure her friends there, if she attends, would love to come home with her for a ski vacation!
She applied mostly to CTCL schools. I have been very impressed with every single CTCL school we visited. Really can’t go wrong!
For pre-med there may be an advantage to being a top-end student at the school, due to the need to get a very high GPA to have a realistic chance of medical school admission (however, if the school has less grade inflation than other schools, that could be a disadvantage for pre-med purposes).
Given they are all highly ranked, I would go for fit. If there were a noticeable difference in how my daughter felt about them after visiting, that would give me all I need to know.
@ucbalumnus, that point about med school I had not considered. Very true. @onceuponamom, I agree about fit. Thanks.