The top three spots are held, in order, by Harvard, Princeton and Yale Universities. Williams College ranks fifth and Swarthmore College 10th.
Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., ranked 13th on the list and sent a higher proportion of its students to Harvard Law this fall than Columbia or Duke Universities. "It will be interesting to see if this particular WSJ article impacts anything here. We're thrilled that the small liberal arts colleges are being acknowledged," said Kerry Martin, the associate director at the career development office at Pomona. "It's incredibly valuable, it legitimizes for many students the experience of going to a liberal arts education, which we've been touting all along."
The Journal also reports that undergraduate schools are putting an increasing focus on getting their students accepted at top professional schools. These schools hold work-shops, foster interaction with the graduate schools and track the recommendation letters professors give to students.
"Grad. schools told us these small liberal-arts colleges tend to do a better job of advising their students, in areas like picking courses that look good on an application. And when students work directly with professors in small classes, they tend to get better recommendation letters," The Journal article stated.
Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Career Center Rosalind Hoffa listed the ways in which the career center can help students reach their postgraduate goals. "Faculty advisors are a key resource. [We also have] pre-professional advisors [who] work with students as undergraduates and with alumni applying to graduate school after several years," said Hoffa.
Some students, however, are not impressed by the career center's performance. "From my few encounters with the career center ... I've got to say that I'm not the biggest fan of their organization, or lack thereof, but the advisers for premedical studies ... are great," said Alicia Little '04, who is applying to medical school this year.
Jacob Appelbaum '03 is also applying to medical school after taking this year off to work. "Amherst has been more than helpful in terms of letters of recommendations and things like that, but that's only a small part of it," he said, emphasizing that the types of students who come to Amherst are particularly self-motivated and thus take a lot of individual responsibility for getting into professional graduate programs.
Hoffa agreed that the high caliber of students at the College also explains their success in gaining admittance to top graduate programs. "We have a very strong student body that is intellectually prepared for graduate studies. We prepare them well; they come out with good writing skills, analytical skills, quantitative and research skills."
The Journal noted that the College places more emphasis than other schools on helping recent graduates who are seeking admission to a graduate program.
Students can also make use of the career center's books relating to graduate school, standardized tests and writing personal statements. "We offer specific workshops with the help of [Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Writing Center] Susan Snively on writing a personal statement and a more general session on applying to graduate school," said Hoffa.
The career center maintains a broad network of alumni who have volunteered to advise current students in selecting and launching a career. According to Hoffa, the College also prepares its students for the job market after graduate school. "Students don't learn job-specific skills. Rather, they learn transferable skills ... the stuff managers are made of," said Hoffa. "That is the eternal question in the liberal arts world," Hoffa said. "We teach students how to translate the experience from Amherst so that they know their skills are marketable and desired in the job market."
According to Martin, Pomona also tries to enhance graduate school placement. "We do workshops and bring in speakers and grad school representatives. We have career nights with alumni speaking about their grad school experience," Martin said.
According to Martin, 46 percent of Pomona's class of 2004 stated in a survey completed their junior year that they plan to apply directly to graduate school. "In the last couple years, with the downturn and uncertainty in the economy, we are seeing a good number of students looking to go directly to graduate school," Martin said.
The Journal acknowledged that there are problems and biases in the way it conducted its study. They relied heavily on facebooks to report where the incoming graduate school students studied, but facebooks do not always include last minute changes. The focus of the study was on 15 top graduate programs, so certain high-quality programs were excluded, according to The Journal.