<p>LOL</p>
<p>I bet if Harvard was ranked say #6 in the US News rankings Byerly would have a heart attack..........</p>
<p>You better get ready for the inevitable, my friend.</p>
<p>I'm not sure about Harvard, but take my word for it: Yale is a mortal lock to surpass Princeton in the upcoming 2006 edition of USNews "Best Colleges."</p>
<p>Princeton's relatively disasterous 2008 admissions numbers - plummeting app numbers and lower yield - will move it below Yale, which had a strong 2008 admissions record.</p>
<p>Further, I can give you early notice that Stanford will surpass Princeton in size of endowment this year. They came within a whisker of passing Princeton last year. This year, they should surge ahead - based on the Google stock if nothing else.</p>
<p>"Further, I can give you early notice that Stanford will surpass Princeton in size of endowment this year. They came within a whisker of passing Princeton last year. This year, they should surge ahead - based on the Google stock if nothing else."</p>
<p>big deal, if so. princeton will still far outstrip stanford on the more-important measure of endowment per capita. that stat explains how princeton has gone loan-free for several years now, while stanford whines that it doesn't have the resources to match princeton's (and now others') financial aid moves.</p>
<p>It still will be a fact that the Princeton endowment will decline relatively.</p>
<p>but assuming similar rates of return on similar-sized endowments, princeton's endowment will continue to INCREASE, on a per capita basis, relative to stanford, because princeton is one-third of stanford's size. in other words, it will have an even GREATER "real" financial advantage at the end of next fiscal year.</p>
<p>I disagree. According to the CAE, Stanford raised $524.2 million in fiscal year 2004, compared to Princeton's $125.1 million. Stanford raised 4.2 times as much money as Princeton last year. And with a strengthening alumni base, that factor will only grow. Let's also consider that Princeton is twice as old as Stanford.</p>
<p>Per capita, per capita, per capita....</p>
<p>Fair Warning</p>
<p>You better get ready for the inevitable, my friend.</p>
<p>I predict that in 10 years, Harvard aura will be declining. Reasons?</p>
<p>(1) Top talent being lured away by merit $
(2) Too much PCness
(3) Too many useless soft majors
(4) Ageing world renowed faculty
(5) Sucky Engineering
(6) Low medical reasearch grants (I think H ranks around 30th in getting NIH funding)
(7) Production of too many binary zealots who are obsessed with the name. </p>
<p>You better get ready for the inevitable, my friend.</p>
<p>I disagree, Simba.
(1) Harvard's top competitors, ones who would take away top students, don't offer merit money (S, Y, P).
(2) Yale is more PC than H. Will it too decline? Summers has proved H can't be all too PC, now can it?
(3) Harvard is spending too much money on science to have "too many useless soft majors"
..and so on</p>
<p>You seem to be describing Yale better than Harvard. It isn't the matter of Harvard's decline but of other schools reaching Harvard's level. Strength in the sciences shouldn't be determinant of a college's greatness, not at all. MIT isn't #1 for a reason. I believe that for a better democracy, we need those who are well-eduated, not good number crunchers. The death of the liberal arts is the greatest travesty to face American education.</p>
<p>zephyr151: That post was not meant for you.....</p>
<p>But, I do think my points have more reasoning than argueing about useless stuff to put school A down because school B is the greatest. Wouldn't you agree?</p>
<p>On the side note,"The death of the liberal arts is the greatest travesty to face American education."....that may be, but the real death of American supremacy, American lifestyle, and American innovation will be due to death of math, science and engineering. It is happening - look at the percentage of foreign born graduate students in all the universities. Today, foreign nationals are the backbones of reasearch and innovation in technology - Just like our government which runs on the IOUs bought by the foreign countries.</p>
<p>I know it wasn't for me, but I felt like replying anyway. </p>
<p>Math, science and engineering aren't dying, however. The liberal arts certainly are.</p>
<p>well, they can't ALL be dying, can they?</p>
<p>Most of them are, I think.</p>
<p>this stuff DOES NOT MATTER.</p>
<p>all that matters is the success and achievements of alumni. outside of CC, admissions circles, prospective applicants, and obsessive freaks, these obscure statistics are of no importance to the outside world.</p>
<p>when many of the most accomplished people of recent time DON'T come from HYPS (i.e. the clintons, alan greenspan, colin powell, etc) it is a sign to stop squabbling and concentrate once again on the mission to generate the future leaders of the world.</p>
<p>The Clintons certainly came from HYPS--they both went to Yale Law.</p>
<p>i believe all the statistics so far squabbled about have been mainly relevant to the undergraduate operations.</p>
<p>"Princeton's relatively disasterous 2008 admissions numbers - plummeting app numbers and lower yield - will move it below Yale, which had a strong 2008 admissions record."</p>
<p>I noticed that it had 73% in 2003, then 68% ion 2004 and around the same for 2005 -- what happened? Is this because they moved beyond accepting the "Princeton type"?</p>
<p>in a way, although i think this notion of a "princeton type" under hargadon has been overstated. anyway, for 2009, princeton's application numbers more than recovered, to a record high of more than 16,500 apps, but its yield remained near the 2008 level. the purported cause is that princeton is now going head-to-head against HYSMC for a greater proportion of its RD admits.</p>
<p>The yield rate plummeted because Princeton backed away from Hargadon's single-minded pursuit of the "Princeton type" (ie. people who could reliably be counted on to enroll if admitted) and decided to compete for top scholars who it previously ceded to Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Yale without a fight.</p>
<p>He's baaaaack. :).</p>