Bates College vs Colby College (Farmington, Dexter: student loans, house, unemployed)

[broadbill]

Originally Posted by kipling

So does anyone know which school is better?

In what capacity? Like just about everything else in life, it all depends on what criteria you are looking at.

One might be better in Science one might be better in Humanities....
One might have a better student:teacher ratio, but the other might have a more developed international program...

etc.
etc....


Ask a better question and you'll get a better answer.

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by Mainer61

Colby used to be considered better than Bates, though I'm not sure anymore. Thank you, gf2020, for agreeing with me.

Bates costs more...

[biggspc]

I attend one of the two colleges mentioned but ill try to make this as unbiased as possible.

Both are great schools and anyone who tells you that one is flat out "better" than the other would either be lying or ignorant. Although, I have heard others echo Mainers sentiments that Colby was considered more prestigious in the past.

Colby is has a significantly larger endowment than Bates and is guaranteed to meet 100% of demonstrated need with grant based aid. So if you come from an impoverished background then Colby might be the better route. I know people who go there for free.

Also, Colby is a little more preppy jock, while Bates is a little more artsy/crunchy.

As for the towns, neither Waterville nor Lewiston is exactly a happening place, but both are solid working class communities. Lewiston is quite a bit larger and the more diverse of the two. Bates is centrally located in Lewiston, where as Colby is on the outskirts of Waterville bordering nearby Oakland.

As for getting a job, where you go for undergrad isn't really going to make a difference unless you want to go into politics or investment banking. To be completely honest, if i could make my selection all over again, I'd go to the much less "prestigious" local branch of my state school. It would keep me a lot closer to fiends and family, be a lot cheaper, and they have an articulation agreement with the professional school I want to go into after i graduate. I'm not saying thats what you should do, I'm simply saying that that would have been the best thing for me. College prestige matters a lot more to high school students than it does to anyone else.

Lastly, i feel I must address the whole Ivy League debate going on. Please understand that the Ivy League is simply an athletic conference. Neither Bates or Colby is in the Ivy League. Please also understand that every Ivy League school is a large research university, where as Colby and Bates are small colleges. These two education models attract very different kinds of students. There are definitely students here who would rather be at an Ivy League school, but they are not the majority. Most students here find the Ivy League schools to be too large for their tastes; I know I did. The ones who would rather be at an Ivy would have been better served by electing to attend a non-Ivy research university rather than the small college they currently attend.

My best advice would be to spend an overnight at each of these two schools and see if you can envision yourself spending your next four years at either place.

Kipling, If you have an other questions, feel free to PM me. Im quite familiar with both schools and can give insight into student life and any academic departments that you're interested in.

[lawmom]

The eight Ivy League institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

Source: Ivy League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mollysmiles]

Great post biggspc, and on topic too!

[College Guy]

All of the New England area schools seem to similar in stature, prestige, and student body. (Colby,Bates,Bowdoin.) The real question becomes, how are these pricey schools going to stack up when going for a job interview. Although the schools carry roughly around 20 percentile acceptance ratings and high SAT scores, there are still many successful people who have probably never heard of all three schools. It just scares me that if you go to a small college, even as well regarded as these three institutions, there will still be a majority of people with no knowledge or name recognition for these New England area colleges. My question to this discussion board is: Do you really think the vast majority of people are going to recognize these schools on the same level as IVY LEAGUE or even the Northwesterns Level? (Such as Notre Dame, Washington U, Vandy.)

[bangorme]

Both schools are fine colleges that specialize in educating affluent, out-of-state, and very liberal students. I've got relatives that graduated from both of them, and you'd really have to look at specific degree programs to make a meaningful distinction.

One of my relatives graduated with a useful degree, and is now making good money. The other graduated with a worthless degree and is making minimum wage. I graduated from UMPI and made more than both. So, don't stress out over the college. Look at the programs and encourage your kid to not waste his/her money on a worthless degree. If your child insists on a worthless degree, send them to the cheapest school you can find.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Outstanding post, bangorme. Those are wise words. Far too many kids are misled into college programs that tell them how wonderful they are, but the student graduates with few employable skills. We graduate a whole lot of students in our country with degrees in liberal studies, but the real market for employees to study liberals is very small. We graduate about 60,000 history majors every year, but there are new jobs for fewer than 600 historians. I know a young man presently attending Washington County Community College. The tuition is reasonable and he will graduate with a skill that is in demand in Maine.

[moughie]

Go with your heart! If in doubt , check all the official listings! None of these rank in the top five!

[birdinmigration]

Originally Posted by biggspc

I attend one of the two colleges mentioned but ill try to make this as unbiased as possible.

Both are great schools and anyone who tells you that one is flat out "better" than the other would either be lying or ignorant. Although, I have heard others echo Mainers sentiments that Colby was considered more prestigious in the past.

Colby is has a significantly larger endowment than Bates and is guaranteed to meet 100% of demonstrated need with grant based aid. So if you come from an impoverished background then Colby might be the better route. I know people who go there for free.

Also, Colby is a little more preppy jock, while Bates is a little more artsy/crunchy.

As for the towns, neither Waterville nor Lewiston is exactly a happening place, but both are solid working class communities. Lewiston is quite a bit larger and the more diverse of the two. Bates is centrally located in Lewiston, where as Colby is on the outskirts of Waterville bordering nearby Oakland.

As for getting a job, where you go for undergrad isn't really going to make a difference unless you want to go into politics or investment banking. To be completely honest, if i could make my selection all over again, I'd go to the much less "prestigious" local branch of my state school. It would keep me a lot closer to fiends and family, be a lot cheaper, and they have an articulation agreement with the professional school I want to go into after i graduate. I'm not saying thats what you should do, I'm simply saying that that would have been the best thing for me. College prestige matters a lot more to high school students than it does to anyone else.

Lastly, i feel I must address the whole Ivy League debate going on. Please understand that the Ivy League is simply an athletic conference. Neither Bates or Colby is in the Ivy League. Please also understand that every Ivy League school is a large research university, where as Colby and Bates are small colleges. These two education models attract very different kinds of students. There are definitely students here who would rather be at an Ivy League school, but they are not the majority. Most students here find the Ivy League schools to be too large for their tastes; I know I did. The ones who would rather be at an Ivy would have been better served by electing to attend a non-Ivy research university rather than the small college they currently attend.

My best advice would be to spend an overnight at each of these two schools and see if you can envision yourself spending your next four years at either place.

Kipling, If you have an other questions, feel free to PM me. Im quite familiar with both schools and can give insight into student life and any academic departments that you're interested in.

Wow! Very impressive.

Bottom line is -- if you go to one of these schools, you might be able to write like this poster. Clear, concise, well-stated and balanced, with compare/contrast statements, this post gets an A.

Good job, and I wish you every success.