Applicant #s for Princeton vs Harvard

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>I just saw that Princeton had over 26,000 applicants while Harvard had over 30,000. I'm not trying to compare the two schools in any way, just curious as to the reasons people think Harvard got more than 4000 applications than Princeton. They are both extremely well-regarded, top schools that anyone would be excited to attend. </p>

<p>Oh and I just saw that Yale had almost 26,000 applicants but over 5000 were from their Early Program. What's the reason for so many applying to Harvard? The only thing I can come up with is maybe prestige and Harvard is Harvard, but that wouldn't account for over 4000 more applications right?</p>

2

<p>Where did you see the 26,000 for Yale?</p>

<p>Last year was close to 26,000, for the class of 2013. Do you have a news link or anything?</p>

3

<p>There’s about 1,800 spots in each class at Harvard, whereas there’s only about 1,250 at Princeton.</p>

4

<p>Whoops!! My mistake, 26000 is from last year!! There’s probably more this year then but I couldn’t find any info.</p>

<p>The number of spots at each school shouldn’t affect the number of people who apply right? I know I didn’t look at how many spot there were, and I don’t think 4000 applicants would be dissuaded because of that</p>

5

<p>Proof:</p>

<p>[U&lt;/a&gt;. sees 19 percent jump in applicants to Class of 2014 - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/01/15/24906/]U”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/01/15/24906/)</p>

6

<p>^ That’s for Princeton, lol.</p>

7

<p>Oh, sorry, I just skimmed the posts and didn’t realize you guys weren’t talking about Princeton anymore!</p>

8

<p>Not everyone necessarily applies to the same list of schools, just because they are similar in “prestige”. Of course, Harvard might get more applicants applying “to see what happens”, but it could also very well be that Harvard seems a more obvious reach on more college lists. Say, people who want to study in Boston (thus apply to BC, BU, Tufts, idk) , people who like urban-ish schools (might opt for Chicago/Penn/Columbia as well etc.), people who find financial aid really important , people who want a strong economics program, etc all apply to Harvard. </p>

<p>People who want a more suburban environment, small town feel and undergraduate attention, might apply to a range of LACs and similar research universities and pick Princeton as their reach. </p>

<p>It could very well be that Harvard (although Princeton and Harvard share a lot of (these) characteristics -hence the high number of cross applicants) attracts more applicants from their particular nichegroup than Princeton does from its particular niches, because Harvard’s specific characteristics apply to more different types of students. </p>

<p>It can be compared to Columbia and Penn: Both are considered somewhat equal in academic respect, and have a lot of cross applicants, but Columbia receives more applications because a lot of people are really attracted to New York City, thus also becomes on of the top choices of all the people who apply to NYU, Barnard, etc. Penn attracts a lot of people who, for example, want to go into business. Possibly the group of high school seniors who want to go into business (and apply to top schools) is smaller than the group of students who desperately want to live in NYC in absolute numbers. </p>

<p>Furthermore, people are put off by really low admit rates. The lower the percentage of admitted students gets, the more people decide to try their luck somewhere else. With fewer spots, the single digits are reached faster, thus fewer people apply. The number of spots obviously does count. </p>

<p>This was a rather long post.</p>

9

<p>"people who find financial aid really important , people who want a strong economics program, etc all apply to Harvard. "</p>

<p>This is a relatively ignorant post, as Princeton’s financial aid is exactly the same as Harvard’s, and their economics department is equal to, if not stronger than, Harvard’s department.</p>

<p>What this post does tell us, though, is what the average person thinks, since the average person is much more likely to jump to the conclusion that Harvard is stronger in all of these areas, simply because it is Harvard.</p>

<p>“Furthermore, people are put off by really low admit rates. The lower the percentage of admitted students gets, the more people decide to try their luck somewhere else. With fewer spots, the single digits are reached faster, thus fewer people apply. The number of spots obviously does count.”</p>

<p>Obviously Harvard’s admit rates are lower, so this argument actually supports the opposite view.</p>

10

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<p>Newest Newb did a great job in explaining the false reasoning in your post, but last year Penn had 22,808 applications while Columbia had 21,273. Penn may have had slightly more apps because it uses the common app and Columbia doesn’t which eliminates the lazy or uninformed students ( don’t understand common app, universal, or individual apps) who apply to all the ivies based on prestige.</p>

11

<p>Also remember that tons of international students apply to these schools. There tends to be a pretty big gap in the level of prestige that Harvard and Princeton (or Yale or any other school, really) enjoys outside of the United States. I’m willing to bet that many, many more international kids know about Harvard than Princeton, and so more apply there. Of course, that doesn’t completely explain the 4,000 difference…</p>

12

<p>The prestige level of Harvard is much higher than Princeton’s. </p>

<p>For example, the academic prestige of Princeton and UPenn is equivalent and thus received similar number of applications. </p>

<p>Because Harvard Yale and Stanford all have similar level of academic prestige, they received similar number of applications.</p>

13

<p>german car appears to be the same person as a poster named jomjom, who spent most of his time on CC trying to bash Princeton for unknown reasons. I assume it’s some kid who didn’t get into Princeton and was upset about it.</p>

14

<p>Penn and Princeton are definitely not on the same level of academic prestige.</p>

<p>I’m not saying that Penn is not an amazing school, because it is, but Princeton is definitely more well known than Penn.</p>

<p>The “P” in HYP does not stand for Penn.</p>

15

<p>Well if you are claiming that Princeton is as prestigious as Harvard, then UPenn is definitely at the same level as Princeton .</p>

16

<p>Nooooo nooooo nooooo</p>

<p>Okay, sorry, English is my second language, so I am sorry my post was vague.</p>

<p>Let me explain myself: </p>

<p>Of course I know Princeton and Harvard both have great financial aid and Princeton is probably the best for economics, hence I said:

read the THESE. </p>

<p>And I am sorry about the Columbia Penn reasoning, it was just an example really, to explain what I meant, because the schools are really different, but always considered to be on par slightly academics wise, so I thought I could make a clearer distinction between the two of them. (I never said that Princeton and Penn were equal though? Or was that aimed at our little Trabant?)</p>

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<p>Third of all, the admit rate does count. Obviously. Okay, Princeton and Harvard might not differ that much, but I meant up to the point where they reach single digits. A lot of people decide not to apply to both these schools (and I am not arguing about 0.6 percent differences here) because they think they don’t stand a chance. Princeton needs fewer applicants to reach the point where they admit <10%. And I said this was one of the factors, so it is rather stupid to look at absolute numbers to prove a theory wrong. So maybe, ceteris paribus, Princeton and Harvard would have similar admit rates? You can’t just disprove that with the actual admit rates. </p>

<p>I understand that my post was vague, but you could also read a little more careful, before you jump to conclusions. I don’t think Harvard is BETTER in everything. That was the point of my post. Something that was overall clear, I reckon.</p>

17

<p>Collegestress16: “The number of spots at each school shouldn’t affect the number of people who apply right?”</p>

<p>Tell that to UCLA, which had over 55,000 applicants last year.</p>

<p>german_car: First you say that Harvard is much more prestigious than Princeton, and is on par with Yale and Stanford. Princeton, on the other hand, is only about as prestigious as Penn. Okay. Then, you say that if someone were to claim that Princeton was as prestigious as Harvard, then Penn would definitely be as prestigious as Princeton. What does this 2nd statement mean? It implies that saying Princeton = Harvard is a ridiculous statement, so ridiculous you can claim Penn = Princeton. But earlier, you already made an unsarcastic claim of Penn = Princeton. This implies that you actually know your claim of Penn = Princeton is ridiculous, and are just ■■■■■■■■ regardless.</p>

18

<p>Well, so Princeton has overtaken Yale in applications. ;)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/852906-2010-yale-applications-down-slightly.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/852906-2010-yale-applications-down-slightly.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

19

<p>^ Yale’s decrease is an anomaly to the increases at almost every other top school. Probably due to the fear after the death which probably reinforced people’s perception of New Haven as unsafe and ridden with crime. When the campus is actually not as bad as people make it out to be.</p>

20

<p>^ I’m well aware of that, and I’m a huge fan of Yale actually. I wasn’t trying to imply anything about Yale by posting that link, rather I was addressing those who like to bash Princeton by citing how how its applications rates are in comparison to H and Y.</p>