Author:
Colgate Man
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Date Posted: 02:41:26 10/19/04 Tue
Objectively "better" means offering what? A better education? Hard to say since it depends on profs, courses you take, etc. All the so-called "Small Ivies" (Wesleyan, Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Colgate, etc.) offer first-class educations. I'm sure Lehigh does, too, especially for engineers (Didn't they used to call their teams that name?) and pre-business. My brother went there, and he got a great education. Many of the Patriot League schools offer excellent educations, too -- Lehigh, Colgate, Bucknell, others.
Tougher to get into? G'town and Colgate are clearly the toughest in the Patriot League to get into by published stats. Ivies have admission rates of maybe 15% tops, Colgate's is more like 30%, and I think Bucknell and Lafayette are about 35%. Or you can compare top 10% of high school class with about the same results. But, what's the point, really? I'm sure Yale is "better" than Cornell or Dartmouth? Do Cornell and Dartmouth worry about this? I hope not since they're totally different types of schools. Everybody's a "back-up school" to somebody else--except maybe Harvard and I suppose they're a backup to somebody. The hardest colleges to get into, by the way, in the U.S. are the military schools--Army, Navy--and a few small colleges like Deep Springs College (ever heard of it?).
Some PLeague schools don't compete for the same applicants at all. Georgetown is big, urban, Catholic, and Colgate, Bucknell, etc. none of those. Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette are much like small-town small-size Colgate in "style," but I'd say most objective evaluations would put Colgate one step above the others in admission stats, overall quality -- not just U.S. News, but "guidebooks," college deans, high school college counselors, and so on across the board, but I won't argue if Bucknell seems best to you. If so, it is.
There are a lot of small colleges that are first-rate: Swarthmore, Amherst. Do you know what the 4th best small college in America is (U.S. News again)? It's Carleton College in Minnesota? I say who cares? Look up Rhodes College. Or Elon College. Great schools no one ever heard of. How about Davidson. No where no being invited to join the Ivies, but top schools. When did being about to be invited to join the Ivies make you a good school?
The Ivy League is a whole different group of larger universities with graduate schools. Yale is 5,300 undergrad (11,000 with grad school), Cornell is 13,000 just undergrad! Colgate plays both schools regularly in many sports. Clearly, however, both schools are perceived as better academically than Colgate, attracting more applicants. Yet Colgate offers a first-rate education -- as I'm sure do Bucknell and so on. You get the education you work at getting. Lots of people who go to Yale and Cornell get mediocre educations. I've known some.
Rather than trying to rank the Patriot League colleges, it might be more useful to see their appeal as smaller, more personal schools where you can know your profs and get educated without the intensity and pressures of Yale or Harvard. If the Ivies are perceived as the top colleges, many of the PL colleges are almost as good and somewhat better in certain ways (friendlier? more personable? more classes with top professors? fewer lecture classes?
less difficulty cutting through the ancient encrusted snob appeal of 'Skull and Bones' crap)
As to anyone being about to be asked to join the Ivy League, that will not happen. The Ivies are set and have been since the league was created in the 1950s. These are all larger universities or top reputations with grad schools. There is no purpose for them asking other schools to join unless they're the same kind of schools--and even then, what would be accomplished? In the early years of the Ivy League, there was some talk about admitting one or two additional schools, and Colgate was mentioned. I don't know how seriusly. I've been told Colgate "turned down the Ivy League" b/c it did not want to be limitted by its athletic schedule, etc. -- but I've always assumed this was at best a half-truth.
If my kids went to Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette or most other PL schools, I'm sure they'd get great educations.
No point in tearing apart anyone's school even if Yale does hate Harvard and vice versa. And in any case, there are hundreds of equally good schools out there. Not to mention a few good colleges elsewhere--Oxford, Cambridge, McGill in Canada, etc. Everyone's college is the "best".
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