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<p>Because those in engineering at Brown will be included in the overall average, while at Cornell it will not since they have such seperate, distinct schools, while none of the other Ivies are structured that way (save Penn to a lesser extent).</p>
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Ah. In that case, you might want to inform Dartmouth that they need to change their website. After all, they didn’t state it as an opinion.</p>
<p>*If you have selected Dartmouth as a clear first choice, you may request an Early Decision on your application.</p>
<p>Early Decision is intended for students who consider Brown their top choice.</p>
<p>For those applicants who have already decided that the University of Pennsylvania is their first college choice…we encourage application under the Early Decision Plan. </p>
<p>Apply Early Decision if you have determined that Duke is your top college choice.</p>
<p>If you are certain that Northwestern is where you want to enroll, we encourage you to apply under our Early Decision plan.</p>
<p>If Williams is your first-choice college, your application is due postmarked November 10.</p>
<p>If Washington University is clearly your first-choice school, you should consider applying as an Early Decision candidate.*</p>
<p>What’s childish is attempting to game the system by applying ED unnecessarily or sending out mass applications in the hopes of getting into one top school somewhere, anywhere. What’s even more childish is urging others to do the same.</p>
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Seemed like an interesting analogy until you got to Harvard. They have arguably the most prestigious math department in the world (though Princeton and MIT really do give Harvard fierce competition).</p>
<p>But I do agree; the SAT math score is a terrible metric. Obviously all of the engineernig schools are going to come out on top. And why would international scores matter? They matter to all colleges; they don’t just bog down Cornell. Plus, don’t even get me started on my gripes with the SAT math section. It’s an embarrassment.</p>
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<p>I’m going to be arrogant and condescending here (at least in some people’s eyes, in mine it’s just straight shooting). </p>
<p>Are you kidding? A school IS your first choice if you apply ED, what made you decide to do so is immaterial.</p>
<p>The colleges say lots of things on their web sites and at college fairs where they tell everyone they have a shot. I’ve been an adcom and was employed to say all those things.</p>
<p>How you arrive at applying ED matters not as long as you understand the commitment. That there is only one college you can love is a totally absurd and immature notion.</p>
<p>Applying to highly selective colleges without a hook is best handled as a strategic exercise if you want to be successful. That may or may not involve applying ED.</p>
<p>Agree with hmom on the last point. </p>
<p>Gellino I think you missed my point. You can’t take one piece of one school and compare it with the entire student body at another, regardless of how they decided to create their data. You have to compare apples to apples.</p>
<p>I think we have established that Cornell and Dartmouth are nearly the same in selectivity when you compare apples with apples. That is exactly the point. Dartmouth is not more selective than Cornell.</p>
<p>CH: not sure we have established that at all. Cornell’s ED acceptance rate is waaaay higher than D’s, almost 2x. Thus, it’s a better bet (all other things being equal, which they never are.) OTOH, Dartmouth is no-loan, so it’s finaid is waaaay better, and maybe worth the gamble.</p>
<p>I do concur with the other posters: don’t apply ED if you haven’t visited. Of my two kids, one loved Hanover and one loved Ithaca; and they both hated the other town.</p>
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I would NEVER attempt to support that idea, so clearly I was not explaining myself well. I was simply saying that ED is for those who wouldn’t prefer to be anywhere else. I agree that many colleges can fit the same student.</p>
<p>(You may want to be careful mentioning your ex-adcom status. You might find yourself bombarded with PMs from posters about essays. ;))</p>
<p>ED, IMO, is for those who feel they can live with the commitment.</p>
<p>And I refer all those looking for an essay reader to a good consultant:)</p>
<p>bluebayou-
Acceptance rates don’t tell the story about selectivity. SATs are a much more valid index of selectivity.</p>
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<p>My point was precisely the same. You can’t include all of Brown (including its engineering majors, who are bringing up their Math SAT avg) and then compare it to a school at Cornell (CAS) that has no engineers and say that it is an accurate comparison. Combining CAS and Engineering at Cornell and comparing it to Brown as a whole I thought was the best apples to apples approach that would include the most similar set of students between the two schools as opposed to including the Hotel school, ILR, CALS, Arch that for the most part don’t have the same majors as one can pursue at Brown.</p>
<p>ch: methinks you’ve been hanging with hawkette for way too long. :D</p>
<p>But regardless, you can’t look at one data point without the other. If Cornell’s ED acceptance rate is 40% and Dartmouth’s is 20%, do you really feel that the SAT scores are THAT important?</p>
<p>Collegehelp, really? Twisting facts makes Cornell as selective as Dartmouth??? Are you kidding. Dartmouth (and Brown and Columbia) have half the acceptance rate of Cornell. Dartmouth SAT scores are 50 points higher. In every single way ever possible in the history of the world for eternity Dartmouth is much more selective than Cornell. Do you know high schoolers? In my high school we had two Dartmouth acceptances, 9 Cornell. None of the Cornell acceptances were even close to getting into Dartmouth.</p>
<p>admitone-
You are simply incorrect. I am actually untwisting the facts. The SATs for Dartmouth and Cornell A&S/Engineering are within 20 points (negligible) and the math SATs are even closer. </p>
<p>Acceptance rates are not a good way to judge chances of admission. An extreme example illustrates the point. College A has 10,000 apps from students all with 1200 SAT scores and accepts 1000 for a 10% accept rate. College B gets 10,000 apps from students all with 1400 SAT scores and accepts 2000 for a 20% accept rate. College B is actually much more selective although it has twice the accept rate. U Chicago is one of the most selective schools in the country with a 35% accept rate. There are too many irrelevant factors that influence accept rates.</p>
<p>The acceptances at your particular high school are meaningless. You have to look at the overall numbers.</p>
<p>ch: you are building a straw man with your example. The two under discussion are both Ivy League institutions, and both rural. Thus, their applicant pools aren’t all that much different, although I would guess that Dartmouth’s is a bit stronger bcos it’s more national in scope. Cornell receives a bunch of apps from New Yorkers hoping to win the contract college lottery (great financial deal instate) when they really know that their stats will most likely put them in a SUNY. In any event, the scores are within the same realm, so the next big factor is admission rates, where Dartmouth is clearly lower, particularly ED.</p>
<p>A better, and real example, is acceptance rates to the Academies. While 2200+ scores are nice, they may not cut it.</p>
<p>bluebayou-
The bottom line is that there is only a miniscule difference in the quality of the student bodies at Dartmouth and Cornell after all the acceptance rate dust settles. The acceptance rates just cause confusion.</p>
<p>ch: I agree with your first point, but disagree with the second. Yes, the student bodies are similar, with the exception of more eng types at Cornell (since D doesn’t have much of an eng program). And since the students are ~similar, admission rate is huge for someone applying ED, particularly to Cornell. First, it gives one a much higher chance of admission (than it does at Dartmouth), with the same test scores; and second, it gives one a shot at a Transfer Option (no longer guaranteed), which are given out primarily to ED’ers (or hooked RD’ers).</p>
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<p>CAS and Engineering at Cornell are not one of the contract schools, so that would be irrelevant to this discussion. I would also disagree that Dartmouth is any more national in scope in comparison to the non-contract schools at Cornell.</p>
<p>^^But the simple fact is that the contract colleges represent ~40% of all undergrads. And half of those are New York State residents. Thus, at least 20% of the total undergrads are contract colleges in-staters. </p>
<p>btw: what is it about Cornellians (and no other Universities) that always parse the individual college stats? (Plenty of other major Unis have engineering, liberal arts, architecture, etc. divisions/colleges.) :)</p>
<p>SAT scores aren’t the whole picture. When you factor in intangibles that are shown through ECs, essays, and recs you’ll see a difference between people who end up at HYPSM and those that do not. From the people I know at Cornell and other top schools, I’ve always felt that the ones at Cornell were strong students, but lacked that “wow” factor that I found with people I knew at the other Ivies (and Duke, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech). Maybe the 20+ people I know at Cornell (almost all in CAS and Eng) just failed to impress me. They’ve always just left me with the impression that if you had the numbers and some solid ECs you had a great chance of getting in. The other Ivies just felt like giant crapshoots where people with great everything were easily rejected.</p>