<p>Haha this ranking totally lost all credibility by putting Penn over MIT. I have never seen any empirical data that puts Penn in even the same ballpark as MIT and that includes strength of student body, mid-50% range of accepted students, selectivity, etc. The only feature of Penn that even comes close to MIT is the fact that Wharton is probably on par with MIT in terms of its connections to Wall Street and the corporate world. There are students who got into Penn this year on CC with sub-2000 SAT scores and cookie-cutter EC's while MIT rejected or deferred candidates early who had a 2400 SAT. 3x800 SAT II's, 4.0 GPA, stellar performances in the 4 major olympiad competitions, great research, etc. Professor reputations and teaching quality between the two institutions don't even compare.</p>
<p>Here's what the top 10 should actually look like in my opinion:</p>
<p>Whatever though, I'm going to Duke so I'm not really going to complain that it's ranked higher than Columbia even if that really shouldn't be the case.;)</p>
<p>Well, it's really a generational difference.
Anyone older than 25 that knows top schools will tell you that Penn is down with Cornell as the "worst" Ivies.
But younger people who've grown up seeing Penn ranked from 4th-7th on USNews since it started gaming will consider it a Mid Ivy.</p>
<p>You have to give Penn credit though. People used to consider it the worst Ivy, and it was around 20th place when USNews started. But due to their manipulation, they've brought their school up to the Top 5, which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the school now attracts applicants it wouldn't have before, making the school better.</p>
<p>Anyways, USNews will change its system again when Penn passes one of the big three (HYP), just like they had to when Caltech did (although Caltech did it because of their size, not gaming the system)</p>
<p>I don't understand why everyone is so ga-ga over the new rankings. It's not like people suddenly became dumber just because the 'revered' USNEWS says their school is ranked lower, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>
[Quote]
In real terms - it doesn't matter if Columbia or Brown have lower acceptance rates - the students who enroll at Duke are as strong or stronger statistically.
[/Quote]
I don't know about that. US News says so but my anecdotal evidence is different. The top students in my senior class went for HYPSDC plus specialist schools MIT, CalTech and Wharton. Penn(ex-Wharton), Duke and Cornell got all the middling students. The same trend happened for the senior classes that preceded us, though some of the stronger students also went for Brown. I don't know if that's also the trend in other schools or if we're just an outlier.</p>
<p>Which leads me to ponder how does US News verify the statistics that colleges supply? Based on sampling? Or full cross-checking with CB, ACT, and all schools that sends graduates to colleges? These stats are self-reported, not based on publicly observable data. Is there a CPA that guarantees the veracity of this reports?</p>
In real terms - it doesn't matter if Columbia or Brown have lower acceptance rates - the students who enroll at Duke are as strong or stronger statistically.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That can be attributed to the fact that all schools look for different things in their students. Columbia and Brown in particular are known for rejecting 4.0-1600's for "more interesting" students.
Duke will accept anyone that's academically qualified, which is why Duke has such a large Asian population.</p>
<p>It's a great thing that Duke practices more limited Affirmative Action than other top schools, however, they are a little too number heavy sometimes.</p>
<p>Even less than ten years ago most people I knew thought of Penn as a lower Ivy along with Cornell. Dartmouth and Brown were the mid Ivies, with Columbia somewhere in between. Times change but Penn is now in the same category as Dartmouth, Brown, and Columbia not higher than them.</p>
<p>I really don't see how Penn has improved besides in their student body.</p>
<p>Basically, summary of Penn over the last few years:</p>
<ol>
<li>Penn is perceived as lowest Ivy and ranks somewhere around 17th USNews.</li>
<li>Penn games the system. Rises to the top 5.</li>
<li>Top students see Penn in the top 5 and start to apply.</li>
<li>Penn gets better students, and therefore has improved somewhat, but it is still certainly not a Top 5 school.</li>
</ol>
<p>"this ranking totally lost all credibility by putting Penn over MIT"</p>
<p>to be subjective: MIT much better than penn in engineering and sciences
wharton > sloan
pretty much everything else (humanities, many social sciences, arts) penn>MIT
yes MIT is by far the best engineering school, but it offers other programs and it doesn't do as well as it's peers in those. (wharton is the best ug business school)
also penn has some prestigious joint programs, this in itself is nothing, but it attracts top applicants, educates them like nowhere else and jop places them aggressively. They generally enter the business world after graduating and become extremely successful, they end up giving a ton of money back, penn's endowment has grown immensely over the past few decades. There certainly has to be more than manipulating numbers to go from 20 to 5. especially when all schools will try to manipulate numbers, rankings are not even close to being cyclical enough to change a university's fortune as much as penn's has. There have been structural changes within penn, important policy changes, aggressive job recruiting strategies, endowment growth, improvements in athletics, and some mouth watering programs. don't fuss about it, universities do change, i don't go to penn, but hats off to it for rising up, it's definitely worthy of that number 5, MIT i feel belongs where it is ranked.</p>
<p>Wharton is better than Sloan at attracting noveau yuppies-to-be, but certainly not academically.</p>
<p>As much as everyone sees Wharton as Penn's shining beacon of greatness, it really holds the rest of the school back by asserting itself as better than everyone else there.</p>
<p>
[quote]
penn has some prestigious joint programs, this in itself is nothing, but it attracts top applicants, educates them like nowhere else and jop places them aggressively. They generally enter the business world after graduating and become extremely successful, they end up giving a ton of money back, penn's endowment has grown immensely over the past few decades. There certainly has to be more than manipulating numbers to go from 20 to 5. especially when all schools will try to manipulate numbers, rankings are not even close to being cyclical enough to change a university's fortune as much as penn's has. There have been structural changes within penn, important policy changes, aggressive job recruiting strategies, endowment growth, improvements in athletics, and some mouth watering programs. don't fuss about it, universities do change, i don't go to penn, but hats off to it for rising up, it's definitely worthy of that number 5, MIT i feel belongs where it is ranked.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>amen!
yay top 5</p>
<p>ppl who say penn doesn't deserve that spot should stop living in the past... yeah, it used to be #20, but it's changed a lot since then and managed to attract a lot more/better applicants... its endowment is currently higher than columbia's btw... and the rankings are based on lots of stuff, such as alumni giving rate, that the average person would have no clue about. so, penn = low ivy-advocates should chill just a bit.</p>
<p>"Wharton is better than Sloan at attracting noveau yuppies-to-be, but certainly not academically."</p>
<p>it's a business school no-one is there to find higher truth, they're out to get good jobs and make money, live with it. that's gets them top applicants, better PA (since we're concerned with business after all) and potential for endowment growth.</p>
<p>"As much as everyone sees Wharton as Penn's shining beacon of greatness, it really holds the rest of the school back by asserting itself as better than everyone else there."</p>
<p>not the case, because of the joint programs and penn's general interdisciplinary nature, penn has cleverly used wharton to help the other schools. having a strong school in no way undermines the other schools in a university</p>
<p>The boutique joint programs have hurt the other schools, actually.
It's like telling engineering and CAS's best students "well...you're too good for your school, so we'll let you share Wharton."</p>
<p>And anyways, the joint programs are so small that they don't have much of an impact on the whole school, especially because they're not quite as selective as Penn wants us to believe. They don't release any statistics regarding the program to maintain that notion, but 3 students were accepted from my school over the last 2 yeas (1 Jerome, 2 Huntsman), and all had SAT's below 2200...one had only a 2100, and none of them were top 10%.</p>
<p>"The boutique joint programs have hurt the other schools, actually.
It's like telling engineering and CAS's best students "well...you're too good for your school, so we'll let you share Wharton.""</p>
<p>ok now you seem to have no idea what you're saying. the top engineering and cas students are not picked up and asked to join programs (many of them try to get an extra wharton degree on their own). the joint programs are more or less finalized at the time of admission and they get top top students. these students when they graduate bear the name of the engineering/ cas school on their degrees. They also come in and make the school more competitive, they improve incoming class stats, and job placements for eng and cas improve. and money is donated to penn as a whole.</p>
<p>"the joint programs are so small that they don't have much of an impact on the whole school"</p>
<p>your school is the exception not the norm. they are really selective, i know people who have done them, and testify to the excellence of their peers relative to other penn kids, it also known that the joint programs enroll many HYPS acceptees. the most important point is that these kids are educated very well (for wall street) and get the best wall street jobs. They end up making a ton of money and donate. it only takes a few stellar students who donate a lot of money to improve the school and have a huge impact.</p>
<p>"It makes no difference whether or not it's post or prior to applying"</p>
<p>here's what makes the difference that discredits your assertion: good cas and seas students are not asked to join the program because their schools are not good enough, when they apply, they realize the huge opportunity in these joint programs, and apply to one of them, some apply only for the joint degree programs.</p>