<p>Princeton’s math department, as I understand it, weeds out the regular “Boy I was tops in math in high school and scored a 5 on my AP and won calculus prizes” kids. Those who continue on to major in math are the types who solve major theorems, or at least become math professors at top unis. I know nothing about Chicago, and therefore will not guess about it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your useful replies!</p>
<p>Just to let you know, the reason I want to go to a top-tier school is because of its top-notch guidance and extremely extensive libraries and great environment to learn. Well, I wouldn’t pay that much just for that, but I do get a degree at the end, so that makes it better.</p>
<p>I don’t have any illusions that a Cornell degree or a Princeton degree will necessarily get me anything in life. However, I will take any college from which I can drive myself to learn enough and do enough research to get into virtually any grad school (I know this is impossible to guarantee, but I think that this is adequately possible from any Ivy.)</p>
<p>About me changing my major during college… I don’t really see that happening (but I know it’s possible), and I don’t like to think that I’m just that good kid in the class at AP Calc… I am absolutely fascinated by proofs, and even have some original ones of my own; and if I can get paid to find more, I would take that job. Thus, why I want to get a Ph.D. in Mathematics or Physics.</p>
<p>If all of this is completely available from a Cornell education just as it is with a Princeton one, I could really care less. But if any of you think that I will be severely limited from excelling at Cornell, please tell me, because this is the time for me to know.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In physics and math, there is no way that you would be limited at Cornell vis-a-vis Princeton, let alone severely limited. As 2006alum nicely put it:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That said, I can’t stress enough that there are very distinct differences between Cornell and Princeton in terms of the student experience. Cornell has three times as many undergraduates as Princeton, including students in fields that Princeton would never think to educate. Many Cornell students choose to live off-campus as upperclassmen and consider it an integral part of the Cornell experience. Cornell only requires a senior thesis if you desire to graduate with honors, etc.</p>
<p>That and Cornell seems to have been a little bit more successful on the hard court and on the lacrosse field in recent years. ;-)</p>
<p>wait til next year</p>
<p>ha!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One note on Chicago’s larger math department:
First, a BA or BS in math from Chicago requires only nine quarters of math (and a few more quarters of physical science). An AB math from Princeton requires eleven semesters (215-217-218 plus 8 upper division classes), independent work, and a thesis. That’s a huge difference.
When I visited Chicago, Prof. Boller (who teaches Honors Analysis) told me that normally somewhere between one half and two thirds of declared math majors are also majoring in a complementary field like econ, CS, or physics. I don’t think this can happen at Princeton except in special cases. The “real” math majors at Chicago are typically the ones who take the honors track, and there are about 30 of them per year.</p>
<p>If any of you think that I will be severely limited from excelling at Cornell, please tell me.</p>
<p>In a word NO.</p>
<p>However, you should read the perspectives of students that have attended both Princeton and Cornell. </p>
<p>[The</a> Prox: Orange and Apples: Cornell](<a href=“http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/orange-and-apples-cornell.html]The”>http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/orange-and-apples-cornell.html) </p>
<p>[The</a> Prox: Orange and Apples: Cornell](<a href=“http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/02/orange-and-apples-cornell_23.html]The”>http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/02/orange-and-apples-cornell_23.html) </p>
<p>[The</a> Prox: Orange and Apples: Cornell](<a href=“http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/02/orange-and-apples-cornell.html]The”>http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/02/orange-and-apples-cornell.html) </p>
<p>You should consider aspects of the universities such as size. Do you want a large university with an extensive array of activities or do you want a more personal relationship with your professors?</p>
<p>In comparing the students here are the math SATs for the 25th and 75th percentiles.</p>
<p>Cornell 660 770
Princeton 700 790</p>
<p>The Putnam math competition is an annual North American math contest for college students, administered by the Mathematical Association of America. The examination is intended to test creativity as well as technical competence in undergraduate-level mathematics. 2008 was the fifth consecutive year that the Princeton team has won first or second place and the 27th year that it has been among the winning five teams. Cornell has not placed in the top five in over 10 years. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship is widely considered the most prestigious award in the U.S. conferred upon undergraduates studying the science, math, and engineering. Through March 2006 Princeton University has had the most Goldwater Scholars followed by Harvard and Duke. </p>
<p>It is easy to criticize these comparisons. The math SATs are not limited to the math majors. Princeton may attract math students that enjoy math competitions and Cornell may not. The Goldwater Scholarships are not limited to math majors. But collectively they reinforce the general consensus that Princeton has a top math department.</p>
<p>Visit Princeton. Talk to the students. You will do your best where you feel at home, where you find students of similar interests, or where you just enjoy the atmosphere. Cornell may be best for you; but you will never know until you visit Princeton.</p>
<p>Cornell is not going to severely limit you, and if you love it there, go there. But the big thing to keep in mind is that people love to say HYPS is overrated–but it has a massive advantage over many of the non HYPS schools.</p>
<p>Money.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in research or some sort of self made initiative, Princeton has (I believe) the third highest endowment overall and the highest per-student endowment in America. People may say the student-faculty ratio isn’t that big of a deal, or the facilities aren’t that different, or the prestige isn’t that great. But whats undeniable is Princeton simply has a LOT more money than Cornell. And that means more opportunities available to its students.</p>
<p>I think you’re really splitting hairs here- in the academic ranking of world universities:</p>
<p>[Academic</a> Ranking of World Universities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities]Academic”>Academic Ranking of World Universities - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>University 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Harvard University 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Stanford University 2 2 2 3 2 2 2
University of California, Berkeley 4 4 4 4 3 3 3
University of Cambridge 5 3 3 2 4 4 4
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6 5 5 5 5 5 5
California Institute of Technology 3 6 6 6 6 6 6
Columbia University 10 9 9 7 7 7 7
Princeton University 7 7 7 8 8 8 8
University of Chicago 11 10 10 8 9 9 8
University of Oxford 9 8 8 10 10 10 10
Yale University 8 11 11 11 11 11 11
**Cornell University 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 **
University of California, Los Angeles 15 16 16 14 13 13 13
University of California, San Diego 14 13 13 13 14 14 14
University of Pennsylvania 18 15 15 15 15 15 15
University of Washington 16 20 20 17 16 16 16
University of WisconsinMadison 27 18 18 16 17 17 17
University of California, San Francisco 13 17 17 18 18 18 18
Johns Hopkins University 24 22 22 20 19 20 19
University of Tokyo 19 14 14 19 20 19 20
University College London 20 25 25 26 25 22 21
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 21 19 19 21 21 21 22
ETH Zurich 25 27 27 27 27 24 23
Kyoto University 30 21 21 22 22 23 24
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 45 25 25 25 26 26 25</p>
<p>cmburns, thanks for showing us the “academic ranking of world universities”</p>
<p>no lets look at the USNWR rankings of top US Research Universities:</p>
<p>1. Princeton
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. Cornell</p>
<p>no, that’s US News undergrad rankings- it factors in classes under 20 and over 50, reputational surveys etc.</p>
<p>In terms of research, i.e. federal funding, etc. the list looks like this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2009.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2009.pdf</a></p>
<p>Top American Research Universities (1-25)
Institutions in Order of Top 25 Score,
then Top 26-50 Score,
then Alphabetically
2008
National Rank 2008
Endowment
Assetsx $1000 2007
National Rank 2007
Federal Research x $1000 2007
National Rank 2007
Total Research x $1000
Number of Measures in
Top 26-50 Nationally
Number of Measures in Top 25 Nationally </p>
<p>Private Columbia University 9 0 545,995 20 459,748 10 7,146,806 8
Private Massachusetts Institute of Technology 9 0 614,352 13 476,318 6 10,068,800 5
Private Stanford University 9 0 687,511 10 534,787 4 17,200,000 3
Private Harvard University 8 1 451,276 28 392,103 15 36,556,284 1
Private University of Pennsylvania 8 1 648,247 11 449,687 12 6,233,281 12
Private Duke University 8 0 781,843 7 459,122 11 6,123,743 14
Public University of Michigan - Ann Arbor 8 0 808,731 5 577,201 3 7,571,904 6
Private Yale University 7 2 448,671 30 349,027 17 22,869,700 2
Public University of California - Berkeley 7 1 552,365 19 251,043 38 2,885,352 23
Public University of California - Los Angeles 7 1 823,083 4 488,846 5 2,320,333 30
Public University of Washington - Seattle 7 1 756,787 8 620,375 2 2,262,149 31
Public University of Wisconsin - Madison 7 1 840,672 3 469,076 8 2,119,513 32
Private Johns Hopkins University 6 3 1,554,103 1 1,362,836 1 2,524,575 26
Private University of Southern California 6 3 508,138 23 355,084 16 3,589,225 21
Public University of Minnesota - Twin Cities 6 2 624,149 12 337,966 19 2,750,770 24
Public University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill 6 2 477,231 25 346,672 18 2,358,676 28
Private Washington University in St. Louis 6 2 572,775 17 424,451 14 5,350,470 16
Public University of Texas - Austin 6 1 446,765 31 289,331 24 6,895,038 9
Public University of California - San Diego 6 0 798,896 6 475,708 7 525,555 136
Public University of California - San Francisco 6 0 842,840 2 467,402 9 1,306,438 54
Public Ohio State University - Columbus 5 3 720,206 9 313,242 21 2,075,853 33
Private University of Chicago 5 2 322,488 52 261,870 31 6,632,311 10
Private Princeton University 5 1 188,732 91 119,171 77 16,349,329 4
Private Cornell University 4 5 449,307 29 256,938 34 4,416,095 19
Public University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh 4 4 558,566 18 441,357 13 2,333,602 29
Private Northwestern University 3 6 443,345 32 249,411 39 7,243,948 7
Private Vanderbilt University 3 5 399,149 35 312,178 22 3,524,338 22
Public Pennsylvania State Univ. - Univ. Park 3 4 582,443 16 331,159 20 1,140,442 61
Public Texas A&M University 3 4 543,888 21 228,363 42 6,259,791 11
Public University of Florida 3 4 592,835 15 240,819 40 1,250,603 59
Public University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign 3 4 473,890 26 253,612 37 1,043,892 68</p>
<p>Look, these are all different ways of slicing the same apple. The world rankings are based on reputational surveys, which are probably the most relevant information anyway if you are trying to assess academic quality. The USNWR college rankings try to introduce some more objective factors in there, which is a laudable goal, but the factors are of questionable relevance to actual educational quality, and systematically favor whichever university has more money/student, more applicants, and greater selectivity (i.e., is more popular with high school students). In a sense, the USNWR rankings measure how closely a college resembles Princeton, so it’s no huge surprise that Princeton does very well in them. (For years, the effort was being run by Princeton alumni. I don’t know if that’s still true.)</p>
<p>The main point is that there is no yawning chasm of educational quality between Princeton and Cornell. Saying that doesn’t diminish at all the many fine things that Princeton offers that cause most people to prefer it to Cornell. It does mean that if someone affirmatively likes Cornell, he’s not throwing his life away if he forgoes applying to Princeton.</p>
<p><a href=“For%20years,%20the%20effort%20was%20being%20run%20by%20Princeton%20alumni.%20I%20don’t%20know%20if%20that’s%20still%20true.”>quote=JHS</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This has never been true but, perhaps unsurprisingly, keeps getting repeated as “common wisdom”.</p>
<p>
NY Times July 10, 2003.</p>
<p>
NT Times April 16, 2000.</p>
<p>I know for a fact, of course, that there was only one Sara Sklaroff at USNWR and that she oversaw the rankings from 2002 to, I think, 2006 (not sure when she stopped).</p>
<p>Obviously, just another plot by the mainstream media to smear Princeton.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For what it is worth, if you only look at Cornell’s Colleges of Arts & Sciences and Engineering (the schools with the math/physics majors), the 25th/75th percentile for SAT math increases to 690/780.</p>
<p><a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf</a></p>
<p>Well JHS, believe it or not, I’ve heard that one too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> U.S. News Ultimate College Guide 2005 (Us News Ultimate College Guide) (0760789202926): Inc. U. S. News & World Report, Anne McGrath: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/U-S-News-Ultimate-College-Guide/dp/140220292X]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/U-S-News-Ultimate-College-Guide/dp/140220292X)</p>
<p>Sara Sklaroff, who graduated from Princeton in 1992, was education editor at U.S. News for three years from 2002 to 2004. At the time she left the magazine in 2005 she was culture editor. She was never involved in decisions regarding “research, data collection, methodologies [or] survey design” all of which have always been managed by Robert Morse who has absolutely no connection to Princeton and has been managing this project for over 20 years. Morse took on the data collection and analysis project in 1988 and has been responsible for it every year since.</p>
<p>USNWR has published its rankings for over 25 years now. During that quarter century, Princeton has been ranked number one or two (generally sharing these positions with Harvard) most of the time and every year for the last decade. It’s a bit difficult to make a case that a Princeton grad not directly involved in the research or analysis of the data and in the position of education editor for a mere three years would have affected rankings over a quarter of a century of their publication.</p>
<p>Ironically, the one reference you have to Sklaroff acting as a spokesperson for the rankings is related to a change that actually worked against Princeton. At the time the decision you quote above was made, Princeton had an early decision program. As you know, both Harvard and Princeton dropped their early programs three years ago. (As you probably also know, Yale, your alma mater, has retained its early program.) Early programs boost yield significantly so dropping yield from the USNWR formula back in 2003 when Princeton had a binding early decision program, would, to the extent it had any effect, have harmed Princeton’s position in the rankings. </p>
<p>For you to suggest that Sklaroff’s three year association with the educational content of the magazine in a non-technical capacity is somehow part of a great Princeton plot to dominate these rankings is embarrassingly light on evidence. For someone like you, with a legal education, it’s more than embarrassing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The nastiness of this comment aside, I don’t think we need to rely on the mainstream media here on the Princeton board when we have so much help from you, my friend.</p>
<p>PtonGrad:</p>
<p>The history of the USNWR rankings is pretty well known. It has more Harvard fingerprints on it than Princeton, granted, but after an initial period of just pulling it out of their butts, when they designed some sort of automatic system, the test that was applied was that it had to produce Harvard, Yale, or Princeton as #1 every year, preferably changing year to year so that there would be some “news” involved. Morse’s role was to come up with a formula that would produce that result, and he did. Morse was replaced by Amy Graham, who revised the ranking formula in 1999 in a way that caused Cal Tech to be ranked first, whereupon she lost her job and the formula was revised yet again to ensure a HYP or sometimes S win. Jim Fallows was running the project at the time – a Harvard AB, and former Crimson Editor-in-Chief, but also a fellow at Princeton for three years in the mid-70s.</p>
<p>Of course, there was no Princeton conspiracy to rank Princeton first. There was a bunch of Ivy-educated Establishment types who believed that to be credible their system had to reflect what everyone “knew”, that HYP was the best. Which, in large part, is why USNWR tells us every year that Vanderbilt and USC are better than Michigan and Berkeley. One of the consequences, though, is that size winds up being a negative – in the top 10, I believe only Penn has more than 6,500 undergraduates – which devalues a place like Cornell. Princeton does well in the rankings because the rankings are designed to measure the qualities that Princeton has.</p>
<p>When they stopped treating yield as a separate factor, by the way, it was because everyone had noticed that yield was already reflected in admission percentage, which essentially is beds / yield / applications, so that treating yield as an additional factor effectively double-counted it. Was it relevant that Harvard and Yale had recently ended their ED programs in favor of EA? Probably.</p>
<p>I always heard it was a Penn graduate who was jiggering the rankings:).</p>
<p>Oh, JHS, there you go again . . . </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For a lawyer, JHS, you are an astonishing believer in conspiracy theories. Do you have any hard evidence for any of this? I’m guessing you may simply be repeating what you read in Amy Graham’s scathing and widely discussed article in the Washington Monthly, which, one should note, now annually publishes its own highly criticized college rankings and thus competes with USNWR. </p>
<p>[“Broken</a> Ranks” by Amy Graham and Nicholas Thompson](<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0109.graham.thompson.html#byline]"Broken”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0109.graham.thompson.html#byline)</p>
<p>While she was an insider and some weight should be given to her opinion because of that, Ms. Graham’s seemingly overly broad characterizations of motivation and bias need to be taken with a grain of salt given her employment history. She ran the research department for two years and then resigned. She makes many perfectly valid points but, at least in my opinion, goes over the top with her own conspiratorial explanations of motivation.</p>
<p>The initial survey back in the early 80s was primarily a popularity contest that relied on survey respondents’ preferences for different schools. Over time more and more detail was added and the reputational survey portion was weighted less and less. There was a system from the beginning, however imperfect it was. </p>
<p>You do USNWR a disservice with the vulgar colloquialism and there has never been any hard evidence that the magazine’s intention from the beginning was to guarantee top placement for certain schools, however popular that theory might be here on CC, and in spite of what Ms. Graham has written. In fact, if that had been the editors’ intention, they failed miserably. Over the 25 years of the survey, Yale has only been given a number one ranking once hasn’t it? Stanford was only ranked number one in the early days when the ranking was based entirely on the popularity poll. If the goal was to generate excitement and anticipation over who would be number one each year there would not have been anywhere near the stability that has existed over the last decade. For each of those years Princeton and Harvard have shared the top spot or were number one and number two in some order. There has actually been very little change in the rankings and when change has occurred, it can be traced to some modification of the methodology with at least a rational justification.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I assume then that what you really mean is that “the rankings are designed to measure the qualities that Princeton, and Harvard, and Yale, and Stanford, and Penn, and MIT, and Caltech, and Columbia and…” all have, given the fact that they are all ranked so highly. How is it that you explain Harvard’s typical number one ranking? If you believe that the analysis is designed to “measure the qualities that Princeton has” then I assume that the explanation for Harvard’s ranking is that it too has those qualities? So are you suggesting, in fact, that the ranking methodology is actually designed to favor Princeton and Harvard?</p>
<p>At any rate, I’m glad to see you’re backing off your suggestion that the USNWR rankings are being “run” by Princeton alumni. That was almost too ridiculous to call for a response.</p>
<p>None of this should be taken as a full-throated endorsement of this particular ranking. If there is a bias in the ranking it is just as Amy Graham points out, toward large research institutions. The editors have tried to respond to this by having a separate category for liberal arts colleges. There is also a legitimate criticism that the ranking fails to assess the quality of teaching, though the editors have tried to address this as well with a separate ranking (in which, nationally, Princeton is second after Dartmouth). Finally, and as you well know, there are numerous rankings available so the consumer may take his or her pick. Interestingly, a number of them also started out as simply reputational surveys and are now trying to refine their methodology just as has USNWR.</p>
<p>My apologies to the OP for this diversion from the primary discussion. On one point, my Yale friend (who spends a surprising amount of time on the Princeton board) and I can certainly agree. Cornell offers a fine undergraduate education and may well be preferred by some.</p>
<p>Good Lord, another ‘rankings war’ on CC. Who would have guessed?</p>
<p>No sweat, at least I keep learning things. I never knew that Stanford ever hit #1 on USN&WR. I do remember when Caltech did and thinking at the time, what won’t they do to make a splash. USN&WR, that is, not Caltech.</p>