United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy (also known as USNA, Annapolis, or simply Navy) is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States.It is the second-oldest of the United States' five service academies, and educates officers for commissioning primarily into the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps.

The United States Naval Academy's campus is located in Annapolis, Maryland, at the confluence of the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay. In its most recent report, the 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report ranked the US Naval Academy as the No. 1 Public Liberal Arts College in the nation, tied for first with the US Military Academy. In the category of High School Counselor Rankings of National Liberal Arts Colleges, the Naval Academy is also tied for No. 1 with the US Military Academy and the US Air Force Academy. It also holds the No. 5 spot with the US Air Force Academy for Best Undergraduate Engineering programs. In the same year, Forbes ranked the US Naval Academy as No. 17 overall in nation in its report "America's Top Colleges 2011".

Prospective candidates must be first nominated by a US congressman, senator, the Vice-President, or the President, or be the child of a Medal of Honor recipient. This nomination typically involves an interview with that specific nominating body and/or retired officers within the same jurisdiction. Candidates must also pass a physical fitness test and a thorough medical exam as part of the application process. In the 21st century, there have been about 1,200 students in each new class of plebes (freshmen). The U.S. government pays for tuition, room and board. Midshipmen receive monthly pay of $1,017.00, as of 2015. From this amount, pay is automatically deducted for the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, services, and other miscellaneous expenses. Midshipmen only receive a portion of their total pay in cash while the rest is released during "firstie" (senior) year. Midshipmen fourth-class (plebes) to midshipmen second-class (juniors) receive monthly stipends of $100, $200, $300, respectively. Midshipmen first-class receive the difference between pay and outstanding expenses.

Claremont McKenna College

Claremont McKenna College, well known as  CMC, is an independent, co-educational, and private liberal arts college with a curricular emphasis on economics, government, and public affairs. CMC is also a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California, United States.

U.S. News & World Report‍ '​s 2015 rankings rated Claremont McKenna as tied with Haverford and Carleton for 8th best liberal arts college in the nation. Forbes 2013 America's Best Colleges Rankings removed Claremont McKenna from its list as the college found that the admission dean had provided falsified data that artificially boosted rankings from 2004 to 2012. In 2015, Forbes ranked Claremont McKenna as the 18th best college in the nation, the 6th best liberal arts college, and the 3rd best college in the West. Washington Monthly ranked the school 68th in its 2014 liberal arts college rankings.
Money Magazine ranked Claremont McKenna 19th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2015 Best Colleges ranking. The Daily Beast ranked Claremont McKenna 47th in the country for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking.
The Princeton Review‍ '​s 2015 rankings placed Claremont McKenna 2nd in the nation for "Happiest Students." The Daily Beast ranked Claremont McKenna in 2014 as one of the top 25 most rigorous colleges in the nation." College Factual's 2014 report rated Claremont McKenna as the 14th most selective college in the nation. Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Claremont McKenna 25th in its 2015 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.

Newsweek ranked it among the top 25 schools in America in several top 25 categories in 2011. It was ranked the 20th "Most Desirable School," 8th "Most Desirable Suburban School," 7th "Most Desirable Small Schools," 24th "Brainiac Schools", 17th "Stocked With Jocks," and 7th "Great Education, Great Tan." Claremont McKenna was ranked the 460th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings.

For the Class of 2019, CMC accepted 698 students from an applicant pool of 7,152. With an acceptance rate of 9.76%, the school has the lowest acceptance rate of any liberal arts college, tied with Pomona. For the Class of 2018 the middle 50% range of SAT scores for enrolled freshmen was 660-750 for critical reading, 690-770 for math, and 680-760 for writing, while the ACT Composite range was 30–33.

Pomona College

Pomona College is a private liberal arts college located in Claremont, California, United States. Pomona is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled approximately 1,650 students in fall 2014.

Forbes in 2015 rated Pomona 1st in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges. It rated Pomona 9th in 2012, 2nd in 2013, and 8th in 2014.Kiplinger's Personal Finance placed Pomona 2nd in its 2014 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the United States. Pomona was ranked the 411th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings. A National Science Foundation study on baccalaureate origins institutions of STEM PhDs from 2002-2011 ranked Pomona 12th in the nation for production per capita. Pomona ranked 10th in the nation for PhD production from 1975-2004. Money ranked Pomona College 50th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking. The Daily Beast ranked Pomona College 20th in the country out of the nearly 2000 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking.The 2014 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes Pomona as 'most selective' and ranks it tied for the 4th best liberal arts college in the nation (and 4th for "Best Value").^[63] In 2001, the school was given an academic reputation score of 4.3, tying it with Middlebury, Grinnell, Bryn Mawr, and Oberlin.

The Princeton Review ranked it the 5th best value in private colleges in 2013. In 2010 Pomona was ranked number one in classroom experience by The Princeton Review. It also ranked 6th for "Best Run College", "Great Financial Aid", and "Their Students Love Their College", 10th for "Happiest Students", 11th for "Most Accessible Professors", 14th for "Best College Dorms", and 16th for "Best Quality of Life", in the 2013 Edition of Princeton Review. Pomona was one of the 22 schools in the country to receive the highest score possible, a 99, in environmental practices and sustainability. It also ranked 4th for "Great Financial Aid", 5th in "Best College Dorms", 5th for "Best Run Colleges", 7th for "Best Science Facilities", and 13th for "Their Students Love Their College", according to the 2014 Princeton Review.The Princeton Review also rated Pomona 96 for academic quality, 99 for admissions selectivity, and 97 for quality of life. Unigo named Pomona as one of the "Top 10 New Ivies" in 2013 and first for "Top 10 Wired Schools". In 2011, it named Pomona as one of the 10 "Most Intellectual" colleges.In 2010, Newsweek ranked Pomona as the second most desirable small school, eleventh most desirable school, and fifteenth for production of students earning PhDs and/or winning prestigious fellowships. The school also ranked fifth for great weather and thirteenth for gay-friendliness. In 2011, Newsweek ranked Pomona third for "Accessible Professors", 8th for "Top School for Activists", and 8th for "Brainiacs", a measure of competitive fellowships won by alumni and student selectivity.

For the 2011-2012 year, Pomona had the fourth largest endowment per student of any undergraduate university or liberal arts college in the country, at $1,099,906.00 per student. In a study on student debt produced by the Project on Student Debt for the Class of 2011, Pomona College was among the top 20 schools in the least amount of debt taken on by graduates.

The Daily Beast rated Pomona College the 3rd happiest school in the country. College Prowler gave Pomona an A+, the highest grade possible, to its academics, campus dining, campus housing, campus strictness, computers, weather, parking, and facilities. Pomona also received an A in diversity.Pop culture website Flavorwire ranked Pomona 4th on its list of "The 25 Most Literary Colleges in America". A 2003 study by The Wall Street Journal listed Pomona 13th on the list of "Top 50 Feeder Schools", measured by the number of graduates per capita in 15 select elite graduate school programs.

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States.

Middlebury is the first American institution of higher education to have granted a bachelor's degree to an African-American, graduating Alexander Twilight in the class of 1823.Middlebury was also one of the first formerly all-male liberal arts colleges in New England to become a coeducational institution, following the trustees' decision in 1883 to accept women. Middlebury has an acceptance rate of 17.0% and was listed as the fourth-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankingsU.S. News & World Report ranked Middlebury as the 4th-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in 2013 and classifies it as "most selective." U.S. News and World Report also named Middlebury 7th in the nation for "colleges most beloved by their alumni," measured by the percentage of alumni who donate to their school, in 2012.The 2016 Princeton Review includes Middlebury in "The Best 380 Colleges," and ranks the college 2nd for "Impact Schools," 3rd for "Best Science Lab Facilities," 6th for "Best College Library" and "Students Study the Most," 9th for "Their Students Love These Colleges" and "Top 50 Green Colleges," 13th for "Best Financial Aid" and "Professors Get High Marks," 15th for "Best-Run Colleges," 16th for "Best Classroom Experience," 18th for "Best Quality of Life" and "Happiest Students," 19th for "Least Religious Students," 20th for "Great Financial Aid," and 46th for "Top 50 - Colleges that Pay You Back."
The 2015 Parchment student choice college ranking, which tracks 441,822 college acceptances of thousands of students who have been accepted to multiple schools in order to reveal their preference for their chosen school compared to the other schools that admitted the student, ranks Middlebury as 9th nationally and 2nd for liberal arts colleges for student preference.
Middlebury ranked 5th nationally in 2014 according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association's annual report, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.In the 2014 Forbes "America's Top Colleges," Middlebury ranks 30th nationally overall.Washington Monthly ranked the school 70th in its 2014 liberal arts college rankings.In 2012, Alumni Factor, which measures alumni success, ranked Middlebury 7th nationally.The college ranked 23rd nationally in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the top feeder schools to elite medical, law, and business schools in America.

In addition to its core undergraduate program, the College organizes undergraduate and graduate programs in modern languages, English literature, and writing. The Middlebury College Language Schools offer instruction in 11 languages. The Bread Loaf School of English is a summer graduate program in English literature, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is one of the oldest writers' conferences in the country. The College also operates 38 C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad in 17 countries across 5 continents. The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey is a graduate school of Middlebury College. The Institute enrolls graduate students in the fields of international environmental policy, international relations, international business, language teaching, and language translation and interpretation.

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College , informally known as Swat is a private liberal arts college located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles (17.7 km) southwest of Philadelphia.

Greene's Guides  have termed Swarthmore one of the "Little Ivies". In its 2013 college ranking, the national news magazine, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked Swarthmore as the 3rd-best liberal arts college in the nation, behind Williams and Amherst. Since the inception of the "U.S. News" rankings, Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore are the only colleges to have been ranked for the number one liberal arts college. Swarthmore has been ranked the number one liberal arts college in the country a total of six times (the most recent being in 2002).In its 2014 ranking of undergraduate programs, Forbes magazine ranked Swarthmore as third in the nation. In the March/April 2007 edition of Foreign Policy magazine, a ranking of the top twenty institutions for the study of international relations placed Swarthmore as the highest-ranked undergraduate-only institution, coming in at 15. The only other undergraduate-focused programs to make the list were Dartmouth and Williams, although neither school is exclusively undergraduate.

Swarthmore ranks 10th in The Wall Street Journal's 2004 survey of feeder schools to top ranked business, medical, and law schools. Swarthmore ranked fourth among all institutions of higher education in the United States as measured by the percentage of graduates who went on to earn Ph.D.s between 2002-2011.Swarthmore ranked tenth among all colleges and sixth for liberal arts colleges only in the amount of schools that selected it as a peer institution. Swarthmore selected Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Davidson, Haverford, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams as schools of comparable academic quality.
In 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013, Swarthmore was named the #1 "Best Value" private college by The Princeton Review. Overall selection criteria included more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs and financial aid. Swarthmore was also placed on The Princeton Review's Financial Aid Honor Roll along with twelve other institutions for receiving the highest possible rating in its ranking methodology.

The total cost of tuition, student activity fees, room, and board for the 2013-2014 academic year was $57,870 (tuition alone was $44,368). One hundred percent of admitted students' demonstrated need is offered by the college. In total, about half of the student body receives financial aid, and the average financial aid award was $38,701 during the 2013-14 year. As a need-blind school, Swarthmore makes admission decisions and financial aid decisions independently.
Swarthmore's endowment at the end of the 2010 fiscal year was $1,249,254,000. Endowment per student was $819,720 for the same year, one of the highest rates in the country. Operating revenue for the 2010 fiscal year was $108,600,000, over 40% of which was provided by the endowment. Swarthmore ended a $230 million capital campaign on October 6, 2006, when President Bloom declared the project completed, three months ahead of schedule. The campaign, christened the "Meaning of Swarthmore," had been underway officially since the fall of 2001. 87% of the college's alumni participated in the effort.

Amherst College

Amherst College  is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,792 students in the fall of 2014. Students choose courses from 38 major programs in an unusually open curriculum. Amherst is ranked as the second best liberal arts college in the country by U.S. News & World Report and ranked tenth out of all U.S. colleges and universities by Forbes.

Since the inception of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, Amherst College has been ranked ten times as the first overall amongst 266 liberal arts colleges in the United States, and in 2013 ranked second, behind Williams.In 2014, Forbes ranked Amherst College as the tenth best college or university in the United States.Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Amherst at fourth in its 2012 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.Amherst College ranked second overall in 2012, according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association's annual report, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.
Amherst ranked as having the second-highest graduation rate of any institution in the United States, second only to Harvard according to a 2009 American Enterprise Institute Study.

Amherst ranked tenth in the 2012 Washington Monthly rankings, which focus on key research outputs, the quality level and total dollar amount of scientific (natural and social sciences) grants won, the number of graduates going on to earn Ph.D. degrees, and certain types of public service.
According to The Princeton Review, Amherst ranks in the top 20 among all colleges and universities in the nation for "Students Satisfied With Financial Aid," "School Runs Like Butter," and "Top 10 Best Value Private Schools."Amherst also participates in the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). Amherst’s sustainability efforts earned it an overall grade of “A-” on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010 published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. No institution received an "A" or "A+."

Amherst College is widely recognized for its commitment to quality teaching, with rigorous professor-student interaction, so much so that Harvard and Columbia University looked to Amherst in 2007 when they were in the throes of reviewing their teaching program.
Maintaining a student-faculty ratio of 8:1 and an average class size of fifteen students, Amherst places a high priority on meaningful interaction between students and their professors. Faculty members are leading scholars and researchers in their fields, as well as effective teachers who strive to develop better and more innovative ways to teach their students to learn, discover, and create. The historic guiding principle at Amherst is dialogue between professor and student. Amherst classes are characterized by interchanges among students and faculty adept at asking challenging and probing questions and offering alternative points of view