<p>i'd say that if you got into the real cornell (and not into the hotel management school i think it is) you're as good as stanford mit and caltech.</p>
<p>as opposed to the fake cornell?</p>
<p>When people hear the term ivy they think of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT. Even though S and M aren't ivies there are tons of people outside collegeconfidential who think they are. Unfortunately, many people aren't aware that Dartmouth, UPenn, Brown, Columbia, and Cornell are ivies. </p>
<p>When some of my family from Seattle came over to visit, the topic of college applications came up. They heard I was applying to Dartmouth and UPenn, among others, and apparently they never heard of those schools before. I had to tell them that they were "ivy league" in order to make them understand that those schools are actually reputable and not some regional backwater state schools. </p>
<p>It came as a bit of a shock to me because I thought everyone knew all the schools in the ivy league. But apparantly they only know the Big Three plus S and M. Most people don't know about Caltech either.</p>
<p>This is probably because schools like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT and Princeton transcend the prestige of the ivy leagues. Whereas a school like Brown or UPenn is not as prestigious as the league it is in, a school like Stanford or Harvard is actually prestigious in its own right. The school itself is so prestigious that it doesn't rely on an ivy-league membership in order to boost its prestige. </p>
<p>When a person says he goes to Columbia or Cornell, they would sometimes need to hint at the school's ivy-league status in order to receive an impressive response. When a person says he goes to MIT, Harvard, or Stanford, the name of the school is sufficient enough to recieve an impressive response from other people.</p>
<p>I think most people are impressed when they hear that someone goes to Columbia or Cornell. These schools (including schools like Duke, UPenn, Dartmouth, etc.) all are prestigious, and most people in the United States know that. If anyone needs to be a part of the Ivy League as reassurance of their academic ability then there is something wrong with their perception of what is important in choosing a school. I can say I am going to Cornell and be proud of it, and I'm sure anyone who actually loves the university they attend can be proud to say they go there as well. </p>
<p>It is obvious that HYPMS are the best schools, but a school like Cal tech is just as good, and schools like Cornell are better than Yale in science. Any school in the top 15 is of excellent caliber and should not be degraded through debates of their prestige.</p>
<p>
[quote]
USNews ranked Duke 8th in terms of selectivity, above Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown. Seems to me that it's right in the mix of the Ivies...sometimes I think that students who go to Ivy League schools just refuse to admit when a great non-Ivy school is on par with their beloved university.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah and guess what? Last year Dartmouth and Columbia were ranked above Duke. It alternates every year.</p>
<p>"Last year Dartmouth and Columbia were ranked above Duke. It alternates every year."</p>
<p>I think that's why s/he said that Duke is "in the mix" of the Ivies, not necessarily harder or easier than any specific other school. It's sometimes not possible to accurately assess selectivity because of differences in applicant pools, etc. </p>
<p>For example, one year at my school, a kid got rejected by MIT and went to yale; the next year a kid got rejected by yale and went to MIT. The weird thing is that the kid at yale was like a math and science freak and the kid at MIT is more focused on the humanities/liberal arts. But from that, can you say which one is harder to get into, MIT or Yale? All schools look for different things. The point is that Duke is quite selective, on par with schools like Dartmouth and Columbia.</p>
<p>P.S. Sorry if my example doesn't really make sense, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying.</p>
<p>US News has been getting criticized heavily for switching around the top schools arbitrarily just to maintain the "entertainment factor" in its report on colleges. The top ten schools on the list are all pretty much on par - just different flavors, different attitudes at the different places. And recognition varies by education level, really. Of course my teachers and most educated people give the proper response when I tell them I got into MIT, but a lot of less educated people I tell, especially kids my age, just say, "What's MIT?" And I just say, "Well, it's like Devry, only better."</p>
<p>I'm just sick of people using these dumb distinctions.</p>