<p>Cornell demonstrated its science superiority again, when the list came out for Goldwater Scholars (the most prestigious undergraduate science award). Cornell topped the list with 4.</p>
<p>MetaEzra</a> -- Cornell Owns the Goldwater</p>
<p>Cornell - 4
MIT-4
Princeton-3
Harvard-2
Yale-2
Dartmouth-2
Brown-0
Upenn-0</p>
<p>whoa that really is domination</p>
<p>yea, and each school can nominate a max of 4 students so all of the students from Cornell that were nominated won.</p>
<p>it’s not really surprising considering Cornell’s reputation in science and in engineering. i mean if you bring the world’s most famous professors, spend billions on the best facilities, then you’ll attract the world’s top science students. A couple of my friends from IMO and the chemistry olympiad are all applying with me. I hope I get in because I want to double major in philosophy and either applied mathematics or computer science. A lot of people have been telling me its the best place if you want to be around the best science programs and study humanities.</p>
<p>Of course Cornell won :)!! Cornell is a school “where any person can find instruction in any study” :D!! I love Cornell’s quote :)</p>
<p>cornell is awesome! way to go yayaya <em>hugs cornell</em></p>
<p>and to provoke the upenn ■■■■■■ on this board</p>
<p>upenn got 0.</p>
<p>pretty much says it all.</p>
<p>yes for cornell and mit!</p>
<p>Complete list:
Cornell 4
MIT 4
CalTech 3
Michigan 3
Northwestern 3
Princeton 3
Rice 3
Berkeley 2
Chicago 2
Dartmouth 2
Emory 2
Harvard 2
Vanderbilt 2
Yale 2
Johns Hopkins 1
WUSTL 1
Brown 0
Penn 0
Duke 0</p>
<p>What’s surprising to me is that Princeton and Chicago did so well and that Hopkins, Wash U, and Duke got owned. The former aren’t really known for the sciences and the latter are.</p>
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<p>Clearly you know nothing about academics. Princeton is top 5 (maybe even first or second) in math and physics. </p>
<p>And at the U of Chi, they only did integral work in designing the first atomic bomb. They also own the FermiLab, which is one of the most prestigious physics centers in the world. According to NRC, 11th in bio and 7th in physics/math (so there the rankings corroborate).</p>
<p>But why you’re mistaken is a common misconception. It doesn’t matter how crappy a school’s particular program is, that program will almost always have students that match the rest of the student body. Harvard only has a *decent * engineering program, but do you honestly think that Harvard’s engineering school isn’t full of brilliant people?</p>
<p>Clearly, Northwestern is underrated on this board (like Cornell)!!!</p>
<p>I don’t consider Northwestern underrated.</p>
<p>Schools I consider overrated: Penn, Duke, Brown, Columbia, and Stanford.</p>
<p>well yea from what i’ve read penn, brown, and columbia are not really top science schools</p>
<p>Do you really think Brown’s overrated, Cayuga? I guess that depends on what your gauge is.</p>
<p>I find Brown is a go-to movie stereotype to define a key personality characteristic of some attractive, young, female (always female) go-getter, so in that sense perhaps one could argue Brown doesn’t necessarily live up to its cultural billing (I don’t argue that, but one could).</p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m always surprised at how low Brown gets ranked in numerous rankings given its reputation. It kind of reminds me of Georgetown. So in that sense, I don’t think it’s overrated. I feel kind of bad for the students, though.</p>
<p>Similarly - with the cultural shift away from finance and to more pragmatic fields, do you sense that Cornell’s stock has already started to rise? I have no solid reason to say this, but these awards and other indications I’ve stumbled upon suggest it’s gaining a greater credibility in the public eye than it’s had in recent decades. I just don’t remember non-boosters including it in with places like MIT, Stanford, and CalTech before.</p>
<p>From a scientist’s point of view…
The number of scholarship winners is so small that there isn’t a statistically significant difference, it could be the effect of randomness.</p>
<p>I’d say given the sample size per school - 4 - it’s pretty statistically significant. </p>
<p>One less is a 25% drop.</p>
<p>From a (social) scientist’s point of view, let’s look at that claim. There are about 1,500 students who receive their university’s nomination, up to 300 of whom are awarded scholarships. So let p=0.2 denote the probability of receiving a scholarship conditioned upon receiving a nomination but not conditioned upon university attended. </p>
<p>Suppose the probability of winning the scholarship is independent of the university that nominates you. Then the probability of a given university’s four applicants receiving the scholarship is 0.2^4 = 1 in 625 (and under sampling without replacement, and since the true value of p is even below 0.2, the odds are truly even worse). From here, an exact test requires a chi-squared test, which we can’t do due to insufficient information, but we can get an idea. </p>
<p>Supposing that 400 schools submit 4 nominations each, we can refer to a binomial calculator to calculate the probability that at least two universities have four Goldwater winners when winning is independent of university affiliation, this comes out to a p=0.13. Then, repeat the process for 3 winners; the probability a university gets three winners is (0.2)^3(0.8) = 1 in 156. Returning to the binomial calculator, we find the probability that at least five schools receive five winners is 0.11. The joint probability that at least two schools receive four winners and five schools receive three winners is 0.13 * 0.11 ~= 0.014, which is an overestimate since these are not independent events. THEN, we could repeat the process for 2 winners, 1 winner, and 0 winners, which will reduce the probability that these scores were due to idiosyncratic variation even lower, leading us to conclude that it’s statistically extremely improbable that winning the Goldwater is independent of what university nominated you.</p>
<p>well put renthesecond. the Goldwater scholarships are a reflection of the strength and intellectual capital of the student body and faculty.</p>