<p>When you factor in SEAS, this year's admit rate was 10.4 percent (by itself, SEAS accepted 18 percent).</p>
<p>Columbia >>>>> Penn.</p>
<p>Obviously.</p>
<p>But seriously guys--- this thread is A YEAR Old...</p>
<p>NO F***ING WAY. I hate posting on old threads...I didn't notice it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Columbia >>>>> Penn.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ditto.</p>
<p>There are times when I wish I had gone to Penn. I wouldn't have gotten as good an education (although Penn would have provided opportunities for a great education, I feel that Columbia excels in this regard) but I would probably have had more fun.</p>
<p>Penn's problem is that in a lot of people's minds, it's still the safety Ivy. The only reason it's lost this reputation is because of how it's manipulated the USNews game the last few years. Before Penn started playing with their numbers, they were actually ranked 16th.</p>
<p>Columbia definitely has the better name unless you're going into business, in which case it doesn't really matter between the two. </p>
<p>Prestige-wise...as long as you're from a community that's well-off enough to know more than USNews rankings, Columbia definitely has the upper hand.</p>
<p>And you can't even look at yield rates reliably from schools like Penn and WashU anymore...since they started playing the USNews game.
They only admit students they think are likely to attend, not necessarily the most qualified/best fit students for the school.
Another reason why Penn's RD rate is that it has a low cross-admite ratio with other Ivies, while schools like Brown and Columbia do. What this means is that, sicne, for example, Columbia and Brown are more selective than Penn, they have a higher percentage of their accepted students also admitted to HYPS, which they will most likely attend. Penn has a lower number admitted to other Ivies...few HYPS....so students aren't drawn away and Penn is generally considered the "best" school they got into and they end up attending.
So even yield rates can't be looked at unless you look at cross-admits/yield-manipulation.</p>
<p>There was an article in the NYTimes a few months ago that accounted for cross-admits, and rated schools on yield/popularity a few months back....but I can't find the link.
Regardless, it went
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Stanford
4. Princeton
5. Brown
6. Columbia
7. Dartmouth
8. UPenn
....and so-forth.
(it didn't count MIT/Caltech b/c they are specialized schools which obscures the yield)</p>
<p>so i met the hottest Upenn girl tonight... she was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend sort of thing, moving to NYC for the summer. Dayam.</p>
<p>JohnnyK, you shoulda told me. You shoulda told us all.</p>
<p>(note: I may or may not be dee-runk right now)</p>
<p>I believe Columbia is seen as more prestigious, both nationally and internationally. Columbia's alumni includes a stronger list of politicians and people in government than UPenn's, and politics resonates.</p>
<p>According to the data below from COHE. However, for undergrad education I would say that Columbia has an edge. And the reason Penn has a slightly higher yield rate than Columbia is because their students don't overlap as much with HYPMC (not that Columbia really overlaps either... it is nowhere near as selective as HYPMC in terms of the achievements of the typical applicant).</p>
<p>TOP RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES IN THE 2005 FACULTY SCHOLARLY PRODUCTIVITY INDEX</p>
<p>The 2005 index compiles overall institutional rankings on 166 large research universities.</p>
<p>Rank Institution Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index Number of programs </p>
<p>1 Harvard U. +1.68 38
2 California Institute of Technology +1.59 19
2 U. of California at San Francisco (no undergraduates) +1.59 15
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology +1.44 26
5 Yale U. +1.35 55
6 Carnegie Mellon U. +1.18 27
7 Washington U. in St. Louis +1.16 33
8 Vanderbilt U. +1.09 48
9 Johns Hopkins U. +1.08 49
10 Duke U. +1.07 52 </p>
<p>11 U. of Pennsylvania +1.06 55 </p>
<p>12 Princeton U. +1.03 43
12 U. of California at Berkeley +1.03 70
14 U. of Wisconsin at Madison +0.90 83
15 New York U. +0.89 56
15 Stanford U. +0.89 52
17 U. of Washington +0.82 79
18 U. of Virginia +0.81 48
19 State U. of New York at Stony Brook +0.80 41
20 Cornell U. endowed colleges +0.73 68
20 Dartmouth College +0.73 21
22 Emory U. +0.71 41
22 Rice U. +0.71 27
24 Georgia Institute of Technology +0.69 29
25 U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill +0.67 56 </p>
<p>26 Columbia U. +0.66 59 </p>
<p>27 U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor +0.65 74
28 Northwestern U. +0.64 46
28 Pennsylvania State U. +0.64 85
28 U. of California at San Diego +0.64 33
31 U. of Maryland at College Park +0.60 68
32 U. of Southern California +0.57 58
33 U. of Chicago +0.56 40
34 U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign +0.55 71
35 Case Western Reserve U. +0.54 34
36 City U. of New York Graduate Center (no undergraduates) +0.52 31
37 U. of Iowa +0.46 66
38 Michigan State U. +0.43 76
38 U. of California at Los Angeles +0.43 64
38 U. of California at Santa Barbara +0.43 46
41 U. of California at Davis +0.41 60
41 U. of Kentucky +0.41 50
43 U. of California at Irvine +0.40 36
44 U. of Illinois at Chicago +0.34 43
45 Indiana U. at Bloomington +0.31 62
46 Boston U. +0.30 32
46 Purdue U. +0.30 57
46 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute +0.30 23
46 U. of California at Riverside +0.30 36
50 U. of Texas at Austin +0.28 68</p>
<p>Library: Columbia > Penn
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4066425&postcount=224%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4066425&postcount=224</a></p>
<p>Fulbrights: Columbia > Penn
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4060484&postcount=212%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4060484&postcount=212</a></p>
<p>PR Student Ranking: Columbia > Penn
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4028456&postcount=166%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4028456&postcount=166</a></p>
<p>NMSC-Sponsored Merit Scholars in Class: Penn about equal to Columbia
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4019320&postcount=13%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4019320&postcount=13</a></p>
<p>(not that Columbia really overlaps either... it is nowhere near as selective as HYPMC in terms of the achievements of the typical applicant).</p>
<p>PosterX do you know what you are talking about.</p>
<p>I hate to spit out admit rates as they are not the only thing that goes into "selectivity", but Columbia College at least did have the lowest admit rate among the Ivies.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I can tell you that of the 10 Princeton acceptances at my school and out of those the 6 that applied for both Columbia & Princeton, only 2 out of those 6 were accepted at both. This means that 4/6 P/C cross applicants were denied. Furthermore, out of 4 Yale acceptances, 2/2 were denied at Columbia. one girl got into HYPBrown, waitlisted at Columbia. Columbia does not yield protect (reject those likely to turn them down for HYPS), so this is not a factor. THere are plenty of kids at HYPMS rejected at Columbia and vice versa.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Columbia does not yield protect
[/quote]
lol. /*************/</p>
<p>Truazn, acceptance rates don't give any indication, especially when the figures are cited (like the ones you cited) for just a small portion of the total undergraduate student body. In any case, I was talking more about the qualifications of the students, not how many happen to apply. For example, see <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4019320&postcount=13%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4019320&postcount=13</a> or look at the average SAT ranges of Columbia versus its HYMC peers (which are much higher).</p>
<p>^That just shows what schools value SAT scores more. Everyone knows SAT's are big for Dartmouth, Penn, and especially Duke, but downplayed for Columbia and Brown.</p>
<p>SATs are downplayed by everyone. The fact is that some schools just end up attracting more qualified applicants, who just happen to have higher SAT scores.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a good figure on Columbia's SAT range by the way.
I know SEAS tops out at 1550, but I've seen CC figures range everywhere from 1510-1540, and overall figures range everywhere from 1510-1540.</p>
<p>I think one of the best indicators of how much Columbia downplays SAT's compared to other top schools is by looking at cross-applicants that are accepted by HYP, but not to Columbia. There are a whole lot of them...probably more than at any other school. I have no statistical evidence of this, but just look around the forums. So basically, Columbia isn't accepting kids that other schools have validated as worthy of acceptance, simply because Columbia is more concerned with creating an interesting, diverse student body than the rest of them (which I don't agree with, I'm just saying it happens). There's no way that if Columbia placed a huge emphasis on SAT's, with only an 8.9% acceptance rate for CC, that the SAT range wouldn't cap off higher than it currently does.</p>
<p>There's no statistical evidence of your claim whatsoever. Your theory doesn't make any sense at all given the data at <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...0&postcount=13%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...0&postcount=13</a> which show where the "cream of the cream of the cream of the crop" end up choosing to go to school. As those data show (and I can provide a more thorough dataset if you would like), the top 2,500 students in America are clearly heavily concentrated at Harvard and Yale, and also Princeton, MIT, Stanford and the top tier of LACs. Comparatively few end up at the "lesser Ivies." I think you forgot to also factor in that many students aren't cross-admits because they apply early to places like HYPM, get in, and don't end up applying anywhere else.</p>
<p>This hyper-concentration of the elite in elite places also ends up translating later on, in terms of the fact that the very, very tip-top graduate schools (in med, law, business) and "top employers" (Goldman Sachs etc) are absolutely dominated by HYP/Dartmouth and top LAC grads, not so much "lesser-Ivy" grads. You can't draw from that that fewer lesser-Ivy grads apply to top grad schools, because in fact, the opposite is true.</p>
<p>If the position of the schools posterX lists are so secure, why does he feel his presence necessitated on the Columbia forum to defend them against prospective students here and among the other "lesser Ivies"?</p>
<p>Aren't those applicants self-selecting into HYP anyway? (wait, perhaps they have preferences other than the atmosphere of a prestigious East Coast Ivy League university...but let's set that little matter aside...) What would they be doing here? Why would posterX have to herd them back to Old Eli?</p>
<p>Mind-boggling.</p>
<p>C2007, I'm only pointing out a simple logical error in the above poster's reasoning. </p>
<p>I don't care about herding anyone to anywhere as much as you seem to - all I've maintained throughout is that prospective students need to visit each school for 2-3 days each to really see what they are like.</p>
<p>
[quote]
C2007, I'm only pointing out a simple logical error in the above poster's reasoning.</p>
<p>I don't care about herding anyone to anywhere as much as you seem to - all I've maintained throughout is that prospective students need to visit each school for 2-3 days each to really see what they are like.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>are you serious?</p>
<p>1) its our job to inform kids about our school as best we can. if you view that as "herding" then so be it, i dont think anyone really cares.
2) if you notice, we dont go around on other boards trying to spread this general discord that you do. you are a troll. go away.
3) these are the kinds of things you post on other forums
[quote]
Harvard is not overrated. It is clearly one of the greatest universities in the world. The Times of London calls it one of "the two greatest universities in the world" along with Yale.
[/quote]
<p>you are very objective, arent you?</p>