<p>I am not kidding you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
This is based more so out of personal preference however, but personally Cornell to me seems rather pathetic, in comparison to great schools like WUSTL. Emory over Cornell as well? Def.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Um.....wow</p>
<p>And no I'm not kidding you</p>
<p>um what's Washington U of St. Louis rofl?.... a college I don't know over Cornell?</p>
<p>Here in Arkansas, WashU is pretty popular.</p>
<p>The meteoric rise in ranking has certainly caused this;</p>
<p>What I don't like about WashU and its practices.
1. Rejection of un-yieldable students (Improve yield, lower acceptance rate)
2. Superscoring ACT (Artificially improve ACT score range, I don't think any other top 20 does this)
3. Too close to Arkansas, in Missouri</p>
<p>Nevertheless, WashU is a good school overall, but I am not applying there.</p>
<p>I hadn't heard of Wash U until my junior year. I still have the impression that it has only relatively recently risen to such levels of quality and popularity.</p>
<p>sakky, there's always the transfer option out of Berkeley. Like it or not, UCB provides a very good version of the real world training.</p>
<p>It does disturb me, however, that a few respond to sakky's very pertinent comments with a measure of callousness. No one's pushing for breast-feeding, but an added measure of flexibility and some assistance won't hurt.</p>
<p>lol, students choosing washu over cornell? happens barely ever. Look at this list of revealed preferences...</p>
<ol>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li><p>Williams</p></li>
<li><p>Connecticut College</p></li>
<li><p>Washington University</p></li>
<li><p>Southern Methodist University</p></li>
<li><p>Holy Cross College</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Just look at Cornell's peers in terms of matriculation preference among students compared to washu. Washu isn't even on the same plane of existence as Cornell.</p>
<p>There is a 67% chance that a student will choose cornell over a school ten rows below it. Washu is sixty rows below, if you would choose washu over cornell that would place you in the extreme minority</p>
<p>^ on the same ranking</p>
<h1>24 Georgia tech</h1>
<h1>30 Furman</h1>
<h1>89 Trinity college (CT)</h1>
<h1>94 Hamilton</h1>
<p>i'd choose hamilton or trinity over furman any day.</p>
<p>okay...atheletically...
DUKE
STANFORD
NORTHWESTERN</p>
<p>Academics:
Stanford
Duke
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Washington U at St. Louis</p>
<p>(All in no particular order)</p>
<p>For the sake of comparison, I liken WashU to the skanky girl dressed provactively in a desperate attempt to gain attention- and it has received it (as evinced by its stratospheric rise in USNews rankings, a feat unmatched since Penn managed to rise from the low teens to now the top 5). Over time however, I'm sure WashU will lose some of its appeal.</p>
<p>Cornell is more prestigious than WashU anyday despite what USNews says, just like how no one actually believes Penn is better than MIT despite their relative ranks.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
12. Penn
15. Cornell
16. Georgetown
18. Williams</p>
<ol>
<li>Connecticut College</li>
<li>Washington University</li>
<li>Southern Methodist University</li>
<li>Holy Cross College
[/QUOTE]
</li>
</ol>
<p>Um, that's Washington University in Seattle, not WUSTL.</p>
<p>I guess I like WUSTL more so because I like the South better, and since I'm in NY I'd do anything to get out of going to a NY school except one thats in NYC, which isn't really reflective of the rest of the mostly rural barren tundra landscape of NY.</p>
<p>IT- I think els is correct. WUSTL is # 65. If you check the report, University of Washington is #100. </p>
<p>Cornell # 15 vs. WUSTL # 65 doesn't surprise me too much. </p>
<p>But everyone has to choose what environment works best for them.<br>
There's a whole host of really good schools in the south, including Duke-Emory-Vanderbilt etc.</p>
<p>WUSTL over Cornell....is that some kind of joke?</p>
<p>WUSTL over Cornell....is that some kind of joke? WUSTL practices is equivalent to an accountant "cooking" the books.</p>
<p>Ah, the Wash U haters are out again. Say what you want about the school, but it looks to me like the rapid rise of Wash U in the USNWR rankings has ruffled quite a few feathers. Upsetting the status quo is rarely popular. </p>
<p>The truth is that Wash U has done a fabulous job of attracting top undergraduate students and giving them a wonderful environment in which to experience their four years of college. I suspect that many of those responding with horror that Wash U could even be considered in the same breadth as Cornell or the other non-HYP Ivies have never even been to the school. If they had, they could see that it is a terrific place with tons of very bright, talented, motivated students. </p>
<p>Scoff all you like, but the fact is that Wash U is no second stringer to the Ivy colleges and particularly not to the non-HYP Ivies. Consider the following:</p>
<p>Acceptance Rate</p>
<p>21% WASH U</p>
<p>18% U Penn
16% Dartmouth
10% Columbia
25% Cornell
14% Brown</p>
<p>2006 National Merit Scholars enrolling</p>
<p>241 WASH U</p>
<p>100 U Penn
69 Dartmouth
62 Columbia
64 Cornell
94 Brown</p>
<p>% of students from public high schools</p>
<p>63% WASH U</p>
<p>52% U Penn
61% Dartmouth
49% Columbia
na% Cornell
60% Brown</p>
<p>Endowment Per Capita (from NACUBO a/o 6/30/06)</p>
<p>$387,136 WASH U</p>
<p>$224,151 U Penn
$537,476 Dartmouth
$243,184 Columbia
$220,032 Cornell
$266,663 Brown</p>
<p>SAT scores for 25th/75th percentiles</p>
<p>1370-1530 WASH U</p>
<p>1330-1510 U Penn
1350-1550 Dartmouth
1320-1520 Columbia
1280-1490 Cornell
1350-1530 Brown</p>
<p>ACT scores for 25th/75th percentiles</p>
<p>30-33 WASH U</p>
<p>29-33 U Penn
28-34 Dartmouth
28-33 Columbia
28-32 Cornell
27-33 Brown</p>
<p>Student/Faculty Ratio</p>
<p>7/1 WASH U</p>
<p>6/1 U Penn
8/1 Dartmouth
6/1 Columbia
10/1 Cornell
9/1 Brown</p>
<p>all of those numbers are all very nice. but what about the numbers that REALLY matter?</p>
<p>how do WashU's cross admit yields look vs. B / C / C / D / P ? </p>
<p>in other words for those students who have a choice of choosing between WashU and any one of those 5, how many choose WashU? if WashU is indeed somehow superior to the non-HYP Ivies -- or indeed even a peer -- then WashU's cross admit yield should look competitive -- at least at or near 50%</p>
<p>^^ agree</p>
<p>^^ to what extent is a choice between a non-HYP ivy and WashU motivated by the student's and family's conceptions of prestige and better name? </p>
<p>I imagine WashU and its non-Ivy cohorts lose big-time to students cross-admitted to Ivies, but I don't think that means that the WashU etc. are "inferior" to Ivies.</p>
<p>Personally, I don't think there's a universal metric for judging a quality of a school, and without a universal metric, I think that one is left to examine course selection, professor quality in a given field, location, dorms, etc. I might want to choose WashU over a lot of the options I could be offered because WashU is near a city and has an art school. Then again, my family and friends might be pushing me towards more "prestigious" options.</p>
<p>What hawkette's data shows is that WashU is a peer to Ivies. There's nothing numerically "inferior" about it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
to what extent is a choice between a non-HYP ivy and WashU motivated by the student's and family's conceptions of prestige and better name?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, are these students and their families stupid? If WashU is somehow superior (or even a peer), why wouldn't WashU's cross admit yield be competitive? After all, if they've done their homework, and WashU is indeed truly the superior school which should get their hard earned money, then it shouldn't matter what "perception" is (if indeed that is the only reason people choose the non-HYP Ivies over WashU).</p>
<p>But could it be, is it a possibility, that WashU's rise in the USNWR rankings is based less on substance and more on clever numbers manipulation and aggressive marketing than anything else? That when all is said and done, that Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania are actually pretty damn good schools that might actually be worthy of their "HYPe"?</p>
<p>And finally, if the only thing that really does separate WashU from the 5 non-HYP Ivies is reputation and nothing else, can you blame people for choosing the school with the better reputation? After all, why would you go to a school with an inferior reputation if you had the chance to go to a school with a superior one -- all things being equal? Why not?</p>
<p>
[quote]
They shouldn't be at Berkeley...</p>
<p>.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And you just reinforced my point: some Berkeley students would have been better off if they had gone to another school. Like that guy I discussed above. </p>
<p>Furthermore, this phenomena contributes to Berkeley's relatively low 40% yield. People rationally figure: why take the risk of ending up like that guy? Why take chances if they don't have to? For example, at a school like Stanford, if somebody wants to switch from EE to English (or vice versa), he is free to do so at any time. Nobody is going to stop him. Can Berkeley say the same? Unfortunately not, as you may find yourself trapped in your major. It is entirely rational to want to avoid that possibility. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Why does everyone who gets into college have to "do well"? Coddling is for the privates
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First off, I wasn't necessarily talking about 'doing well'. I was talking about simply passing. Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where, if you want a decent job, employers expect you to have a bachelor's degree. You can get that degree from anywhere and in anything. The only thing that matters is that you get that degree. If you don't have one, employers aren't going to care why. All they're going to see is that you don't have a degree. </p>
<p>Secondly, the guy in question was in fact doing fairly well...in his non-engineering courses. In fact, he was getting better grades in those courses than the majority of the other students in those same courses. So why should he be the one that gets expelled, and not those other students that he was outperforming? </p>
<p>The major difference is that obviously those other students weren't also trying to take engineering courses. But I'm sure that if they did, most of them would have ended up flunking. </p>
<p>But that speaks to the problem at hand. The guy in question tried engineering and found out that he wasn't good at it. Fine. But then why not let him pursue some other subject at which he has shown himself to be good? In other words, if he's not going to major in engineering anymore, what does it matter what his old engineering grades are? Why not let the guy complete a degree in another major in which he was actually doing well? </p>
<p>Thirdly, Berkeley does indeed run numerous programs where basically every student does well in the sense that practically nobody actually flunks classes. I'm talking specifically about the Berkeley graduate programs. You practically never hear of a Berkeley graduate student who actually flunks out. Granted, some of them don't complete, say, PhD programs because they can't complete their dissertation, or, in some cases, because they can't pass their qualifying exams (and hence they will at least leave with a consolation master's degree). But practically no grad student will actually flunk his classes. </p>
<p>So that begs the question of why the Berkeley undergrad program has to flunk students out, but not the Berkeley *graduate *programs? Probably a lot of it has to do with simple admissions selectivity: that the graduate programs will simply not admit those students who would have flunked out. But then why doesn't the undergrad program do the same? If that guy had never been admitted to Berkeley EECS, he would have gone to another school where he would have probably graduated. As it stands now, he ends up with no degree at all. </p>
<p>But like I said, as it stands now, situations like the above are rational reasons not to want to go to Berkeley. It's sad, it shouldn't be this way. But it is this way. Berkeley should change its policy. But until and unless it does, prospective students are justified in choosing another school for fear of ending up like that guy. Like I said, why take chances if you don't have to?</p>