<p>There wasn't a general forum for the entire Ivy League, and so I didn't want to generate bias by posting this in just one Ivy League school's forum and not another.
I apologize if this question has already been asked before, but I think it would be useful for a lot of students if someone could give insight on each of the Ivy League schools, more than what research would indicate.</p>
<p>For example, someone should answer questions such as,
What area of study is each school distinguished in?
In general (stereotyping, I suppose), what is the student body of each school like (i.e., I heard Columbia breeds many political activists)?
What is special about each school?
What kind of students is each school looking for?</p>
<p>Etc. Basically, the "hidden nuances" of each school. I hope I made sense. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Each individual board has a ton of threads on what makes that place unique that answers all of these questions.</p>
<p>There’s really no reason it makes sense to collect the schools as “Ivies”-- you may as well have said, “What can you tell me about each of the top 20 schools in the country?”</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062388014-post2.html]#2[/url]”>quote</a> …There’s really no reason it makes sense to collect the schools as “Ivies”-- you may as well have said, “What can you tell me about each of the top 20 schools in the country?”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is a point that can’t be reinforced enough. As a country, we’re fortunate to have so many high quality institutions for higher learning; both in and out of the ivies. </p>
<p>I urge my fellow ivy-affiliated posters, grads and/or current students, to counsel college applicants to discover the value of colleges beyond the ivies.</p>
<ul>
<li>You can look up the weather at each school on weather.com with historic high/low and monthly averages charts.</li>
<li>You can see pictures of each campus via Google Earth or go to ■■■■■■■■■■ and search on each campus</li>
<li>You can look up each school’s general ranking on USNWR.</li>
<li>You can look up the faculty strength in each of 41 Ph.D. disciplines here: [NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html]NRC”>http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html)</li>
</ul>
<p>There are dozens of threads comparing and contrastinc HYP, H/PennWharton, Brown/Dartmouth, along with tons of “best Ivy” threads.</p>
<p>As you seem to be interested primarily in Business, then Wharton is the choice, along with Harvard, then Dartmouth. Or is your interest ethnomusicology? Or bioethics?</p>
<p>There really isn’t a point in another “What are the stereotypes of each Ivy?” thread.</p>
<p>there have been a lot of threads like this, just do a search.</p>
<p>although there was a lot of misinformation in those threads. you’re probably better off going to each individual forum and skimming through the “what do you like/dislike about ___” type threads.</p>
<p>Any short answer or stereotyping is going to be flawed. But given that, the student comments on PrincetonReview.com regarding each school’s Academics, Student Body, and Campus Life are about as informative as you can get without finding on your own a reasonable sample of each school’s students (though on CC, that’s not a difficult thing to do).</p>
<p>Cornell has an expansive campus on a hilltop overlooking a beautiful lake in one direction and the small city of Ithaca in the other direction. The campus has a lake, streams, waterfalls, and gorges. Campus architecture ranges from classic Gothic to modern Industrial (very eclectic).</p>
<p>The students are diverse in every imaginable way but the characteristic they all share is talent in one or more pursuits. I would go so far as to say that the student body at Cornell has the greatest socio-economic range in the Ivies with a large contingent of bright students from blue-collar families. It is an interesting melting pot of cultures and social backgrounds. </p>
<p>There is a very strong work-ethic at Cornell but students manage their stress well, finding time for a little nonsense now and then. Cornell students are completely civil in their social interactions; there is almost no interpersonal conflict despite the great variation in personalities. </p>
<p>Cornell has the most diverse curriculum ranging from agriculture to astrophysics. It is a lively environment intellectually and artistically. I would say that the Cornell curriculum has the greatest focus on science and engineering among the Ivies.</p>
<p>Cornell is unique in so many ways. You have to spend time at Cornell and then experience some other campuses to put it in perspective.</p>
<p>Well, technically, if a person is applying to all the Ivies, then he is a prestige hog because each ivy is completely different from each other (unless he wants to study lite subjects like political science and economics). If a person is smart enough to get into an ivy, he would be smart enough to research which ivy is the best for him. Without further ado, I will try to summarize as best as I can. People are welcome to correct me.
Harvard: great at everything, good engineering, but the Harvard-MIT consortium sort of makes it great. Crimson Colonial feel. Located in Boston, the area of intellectual enlightenment. Sister college: used to be Radcliffe and is now Wellesley.
Yale: great at humanities and social studies, good-to-okay at everything else. Medieval-Gothic feel. Located in New Haven, an okay but lackluster city with notorious reputation for violence (relative to the Northeast). Sister college: Vassar until it became co-ed.
Princeton: great at social studies, good everything else. English country feel. Located in the “farmlands”, or Plainsboro.
Columbia: great at humanities, okay at the sciences and engineering. American Revolution/Enlightenment feel. Located in Morningside Heights, aka Harlem’s Haven. Lots to do in NYC. Sister College: Barnard.
Penn: great Wharton, good humanities, okay at the sciences (better in bio-related fields), lackluster engineering. A blend of Columbia and Harvard feel. Located in Pennsylvania, the city of the American Revolution.
Dartmouth: great humanities (especially economics and English), good to okay in the sciences. Liberal artsy feel. Focus on undergrad. Located in suburban Hanover. Sister College: Mt. Holyoke.
Brown: great to good at humanities and good to okay in the sciences. Liberal arts research university feel. Focus on undergrad. Located in Providence, same feel as Boston, but more subdued.
Cornell: great at specialty colleges, sciences, and engineering, good to okay in humanities. Medieval, ice palace country feel. Located in Ithaca, where there are lots of gorges and little else, comparative to Boston and the likes.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the helpful replies! I realize that there must have been many posts like this before, but I was hoping that someone could post a link to them since wording makes finding exactly what you’re looking for rather difficult at times.
About being a prestige hog…Don’t worry, I’m not. In fact, the purpose of the thread (or so I thought when I wrote it) is to PREVENT qualified people from simply applying to all the Ivy’s. By having a general idea of the “feel” of each school, I feel like people will be able to narrow down their choices better. At least that’s what vinnyli’s post did for me.
To those of you who emphasize that general statistics and facts can be found via the web…you’re right, of course. What I’m primarily looking for is what vinnyli gave—a general “nuance” of the college. In my opinion, I think that would be hard to get from looking at rankings and pictures alone. One has to have been there and felt it. And most of us have not, so I thought organizing this information in a single thread would be helpful. For example, while I was reading through a Yale thread, I came upon this: That Yale does not particular encourage study abroad. This detail would have been helpful information for someone who was hoping to gain a broad, global perspective. It’s details like this that distinguish one Ivy from another. And I say “Ivy” because you KNOW that there are people who apply to every single Ivy League school for the sake of the name. I just want to emphasize the fact that I wrote this thread so people can look at the differences instead of lumping them all together into a single pot of prestige. Forgive me if I came off as something else.</p>
<p>Vinny, where on earth did you get the sister college info? And Hanover is suburban? Sounds like your info came from a book written in the 1950’s!</p>
<p>hmom5: I did a research paper on the Seven Sisters once (I think Brown used to have Pembroke and Princeton used to have Evelyn, both non-Seven Sisters women’s colleges, but they were closed). And technically, Hanover is suburban (it’s located next to the city of Lebanon, and is definitely not small enough to be considered rural).</p>
<p>Vinny, Dartmouth is about as rural as they come and Holyoke has never been it’s sister college, so check your sources. And as all of these schools have been coed for 3 plus decades, is there any use for sister college data anyway?</p>
<p>Additionally, Pembroke wasn’t closed, it was unified with Brown like many/most of the so-called “sister” colleges to these schools. But like hmom said, these things are not really relevant anymore.</p>
<p>You can go onto any BS college guide webpage and find the kind of general information you’re looking for. I’d list them here, but College Confidential has the stupid policy of blocking competing site links.</p>