Columbia more selective than Princeton

Parents Forum
1

<p>I always thought the Ivy selection pecking order was Harvard, Yale, Princeton--HYP followed by the rest. But, according to data compiled by the NY Times "The Choice Blog," Columbia, with a 7.42% acceptance rate edged out Princeton, which had a 7.86% rate. (Both were less selective than Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, but also Cooper Union and Juilliard.)</p>

<p>So what's going on here? Is this not new? Is this Columbia trying to up its profile, game US News, and make it HYCP? Is this the lure of bright lights, big city?</p>

<p><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArlRBr9Qvz0mdEdLNzNsRnBKT3Z1dDZ5QTFCQVV1NkE&output=html%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArlRBr9Qvz0mdEdLNzNsRnBKT3Z1dDZ5QTFCQVV1NkE&output=html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>Students get into Princeton and rejected at Columbia and vice versa. I don’t think either is necessarily more selective than the other.</p>

<p>Columbia also received more applications than Princeton. Something to keep in mind.</p>

3

<p>There is more to selectivity than pure acceptance rate. One reason that Columbia has a lower acceptance rate is extensive use of ED. Although some students get into Columbia and not Princeton and some get into Princeton but not Columbia I suspect overall Princeton is still more selective.</p>

4

<p>Columbia’s acceptance rate is actually going up from last year. They had the second lowest acceptance rate of the Ivies last year behind Harvard (maybe the Gossip Girl exposure) at 6.93%.</p>

<p>[Ivy</a> League Admission Statistics for Class of 2015 Hernandez College Consulting, Inc. and Ivy League Admission Help](<a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admissions-statistics/]Ivy”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admissions-statistics/)</p>

5

<p>I think NYC has gotten a lot more attractive to people than it was in the bad old days of graffiti covered subway cars.</p>

6

<p>I think anyone who looks at acceptance rates out to 2 decimal places needs a life.</p>

7

<p>What Pizzagirl said. LOL. By the way, Anyone who thinks that such a miniscule distinction is important doesn’t deserve to attend Columbia.</p>

8

<p>Rejecting more candidates does not make a school more “selective”. We know nothing about the quality of the candidates. And, at a certain point, rejecting more candidates actually makes a school LESS rather than more likely to get those candidates who could benefit most from attending a particular school to actually attend. It may be counterintuitive, but think it through.</p>

9

<p>TONS of kids from my school applied to Columbia as a far-reach just because it was their dream to live in NYC. Many of them ended up at NYU. From my experience, there are more students who apply to Columbia with virtually no chance of getting in than students who apply to Princeton with virtually no chance of acceptance. This is not to say Columbia’s applicant pool isn’t generally exceptionally qualified, I think there’s just a slightly higher percentage of unqualified kids in Columbia’s applicant pool than Princeton’s.
A school’s acceptance rate is not always a good judge of its selectivity. Both schools are obviously incredibly selective, though.</p>

10

<p>Alice Lloyd College had a 7.3 acceptance rate… Who’s heard of them?</p>

11

<p>[Top</a> 100 - Lowest Acceptance Rates | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate]Top”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate)</p>

<p>The data is from Fall 2010, but you get the point.</p>

12

<p>Yes, on page 2 of [Top</a> 100 - Lowest Acceptance Rates | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate/page+2]Top”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate/page+2) , you will find that two nearby state schools in California had 22% acceptance rates. But most people would not say that California State University, East Bay and University of California, Berkeley are equally selective.</p>

13

<p>But it’s in us news! It must be true!
;)</p>

14

<p>US News or otherwise, it does show the fallacy of assuming that acceptance rates necessarily imply selectivity.</p>

<p>As an aside, it is likely that many of the CSU East Bay rejections are due to incomplete applications, based on more detailed information from a CSU web site. CSU East Bay acceptance rate is much higher when considering only completed applications, though still not 100%, which is odd since that campus is non-impacted and anyone whose GPA and test scores meet those of a publicly shown eligibility table gets in (so you know if you will get in or not before you apply).</p>

15

<p>Most of the objective data reported on US News and other similar sites are all from self reported information from colleges called the Common Data Set. It really has nothing to do with US News, they are just the messengers of the information.</p>