<p>Which school is harder to get into? They both seem equally selective but one of my friends was absolutley convinced that it was much harder to get into Brown than Dartmouth. Any truth to this?</p>
<p>im choosing between those same schools right now. they are both completely comparable academically. brown does have a lower admissions rate and i definitely met around 15-20 kids at dartmouth's weekend who had been rejected or waitlisted at brown. dartmouth has higher sat scores and higher usnews ranking though. theyre really pretty even</p>
<p>From what I've heard, Darthmouth is the smallest ivyleague school with the highest rejection rate. It is supposed to be extremely difficult to get into. However, it is ranked very close to Brown school wise. I think thats right.</p>
<p>"highest rejection rate"? isnt that just the inverse of "lowest acceptance rate"? that would be harvard or yale</p>
<p>buddy of mine got into princeton and MIT but not dartmouth</p>
<p>I got into columbia and cornell but not dartmouth :( so i guess dartmouth was hard for me to get into</p>
<p>dartmouth median sat is a lot higher then browns i think, and, keep in mind, brown is a popcultured referenced school(see the oc)</p>
<p>I think Dartmouth has a higher median SAT score because it cares more about test scores and GPA whereas Brown seems to value personality, ambition, desire for learning, and essays over scores meaning that, while you may have great scores and a high GPA, without a driven personality and great essays, you dont have a shot of getting into Brown but may still get into Dartmouth. This goes the other way around: if you dont have great test scores and a high GPA you have a very small chance of getting into Dartmouth whereas, if you have a great personality, good essays, etc, you still have a shot at Brown. (The two schools put more weight on different parts of the application. These are all of my observations from students going to the respective schools and what I've heard about each school...I could be wrong)</p>
<p>brown is selective enough to be able to fix the mean SAT and GPA if that is what they cared to do. brown has both a lower admit rate and a higher yield (people who admitted that decide to come) than dartmouth, so it is much more able to be choosey among the most competitive students</p>
<p>Yes, if you look at the stats, you can see lots of high scorers that don't make it into Brown ...</p>
<p>I think it is a sign that Brown does not game the USNews rankings. </p>
<p>It could raise its ranking by tilting acceptances towards higher SAT students. The yield would drop somewhat since higher SAT students have more choices, but yield is no longer in the USNews formula. By accepting enough more high SAT applicants, Brown could move its mean SAT score quite a bit higher. But why in the world should it do that? Things are working just fine the way they are, and it would mean rejecting some students Brown wants simply in order to boost average scores. Yet another reason in the long list of why USNews is nonsense.</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote> <p>so it is much more able to be choosey among the most competitive students</p> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>Guys, the acceptance rate difference is almost moot. This year, you're talking a 13.7% rate vs. a 15.4% rate. Historically since the early 1990s both have been within a 2 percent difference almost every year. </p>
<p>Bottom line: No difference and both are extremely selective.</p>
<p>actually, slipper (though you're almost always right on), the two schools have not always been within 2 percentage points. as recently as six years ago there was almost a 7 percentage point difference (15% for brown in 2000, 22% for dartmouth)</p>
<p>Lol, you are right. But during the last 5 years they've been very close and through most of the 90s. In 1995 for example Dartmouth was 23% and Brown 22%. Brown surged in the late 90s through 2000, they have moved closer together (to usual difference) in the last few years. </p>
<p>The point is they look for slightly different things but are the same in terms of selectivity. I'd say Dartmouth is slightly more self-selected in terms of applicant pool for example negating the 1.7% difference in acceptance rate. In my dealings with Dartmouth admissions (as a interviewer, and a good friend of a former admissions officer) I have seen that dartmouth is focused on 1) scores, 2) diversity, 3) "change the world" people (leaders). Brown is focused more on 1) rank, 2) "hooks" (i.e. virtuoso or awesome painter), 3) geography (brown has TONS of New York applicants so its very selective here).</p>
<p>Remember, these "differences" are not major.</p>
<p>Maybe I should apply for transfer to Brown in a year or two, since I'm ranked 3, I'm a great sketch artist, and I'm in Georgia.</p>