<p>how good do you have to be to get a "likely" letter? pry pretty good. I am from Waseca, MN. (in between owatonna and mankato)</p>
<p>"And the NBER ranking shows that when deciding where to go, people don't pay attention to your favorite polls. Unless you are prepared to argue that students deciding where to spend the next four years of their life know less than your poll takers, I'd say you have a weak case.</p>
<p>How many H.S. students have heard of NBER? Good or bad, many, many more are familiar with, and motivated by the U.S. News, The Princeton Review, The Fiske Guide and the Atlantic Monthly. Yale does not appear ahead of Princeton in ANY national publication that I am aware of, but Princeton is consistently at or tied at #1. </p>
<p>That said, Yale is an incredible school for those lucky enough to get in.</p>
<p>Yalebound, I don't understand why you're here, other than to make underhanded attacks at the school. Each of your posts seems to imply "Princeton's a great school... just not as great as Harvard and Yale", based on your precious NBER ranking. Maybe lots of cross-admits choose Y and H--I can certainly understand the appeal of these schools--but that doesn't necessarily translate to picking them based on the right reasons. Y and H are "name brand" schools since they both have such large and strong graduate programs. Princeton is less "name brand", as evidenced by the recent poll on name recognition, so it is not likely to attract many of the cross-admitted students who are solely looking for the best name (which many people are). I consider this a blessing, personally. I don't want to be surrounded with the type of person who just wants to use his credentials to impress others--I want to be surrounded by students who are passionate about something other than a school's name. These are the ones who will really do something wonderful with their lives, who don't expect to have things handed to them on a silver platter because of their school's name. The student quality has not been sacrificed, either, with SAT ranges that are nearly identical to both H and Y (remarkable considering the much larger proportion of recruited athletes that must be admitted in order to keep the varsity teams full), and more students in the top 10% of their class. </p>
<p>Personally, I felt that I had a similar chance at any of these schools. 1st time on SAT: 1560, 2nd time on SAT: 1590, Ranked 1/540 (unshared), ranked as one of the top musicians in CA on a very HOOKy double reed instrument that all 3 schools (especially yale) are in need of in their orchestras, regional debate champion, and came up a with very impressive and large-scale community service organization. All the typical awards (nat mer. semifinalist, AP scholor/dist, etc.) When I asked my english teacher for help on my main essay ("describe an important activity"), she told me that it was one of the best college essays she's ever read. She later told me that she wrote in my rec that i was the highest achieving and most intellectually insightful student in her 28-year teaching history. I felt that my application would hold up at PHYS.</p>
<p>The reason why princeton stuck out to me above the rest was not because of the name or rankings, but because of the type of student who decides to go to princeton, along with the type of education a princeton student receives. It seemed to me, from my visits to all three schools, that the princeton students had the most intellectual drive. This makes sense, since the intimate classroom environment, combined with renowned professors, fosters an individual's sense of exploration. Also, princeton has long departed from its preppy white image. As a matter of fact, it offers the best financial aid program out of any of the three schools, giving students grants (which don't need to be paid back), rather than loans, and thus attracting well-qualified minority applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. That's why princeton students, on average, graduate with the least debt. Princeton also has the most financial resources per student of any of the three schools, or any other school in the world for that matter ("largest endowment per capita"). While many times at H and Y you must wait until the upper division level courses or grad schools to be in a class with a "star" professor, at princeton, these professors teach everything from freshman seminars (like cornel west and peter singer; fresh. seminars are 10-15 students), to the most advanced of upper-division courses, and most of them are devoted entirely to undergraduates because of Princeton's lack of a significant grad school system. To me, it seemed like I would learn the most and garner the most connections with this type of individual contact (princeton has the best student:faculty ratio of PHY). Another factor: Princeton is not known for the backstabbing, etc of Harvard and Yale. Also, when asked in an (admittedly subjective) survey asking students to rate their undergraduate experience, princeton ranked near the top in terms of student happiness, while H and Y weren't even on the list. Many of us are going onto grad schools, and I very well may end up at Harvard or Yale for my grad studies. Both have outstanding grad programs. For now, though, I'm sticking with the best option for an UNDERgraduate education: Princeton.</p>
<p>Like I said, I think they're just for recruited athletes and the like, so my guess is you have to be pretty dang good, but I don't know. I know I didn't get one, that's for sure.</p>
<p>I'm from around the Twin Cities (but not a suburb. We're older than the Twin Cities, seriously), us Minnesotans gotta represent!</p>
<p>yeah, hopefully the MN thing will give me a boost. They go to give a little boost to a kid who thinks the freezer at work is warm compared to outside!</p>
<p>christopher, and I am not just saying this to stroke you, I'm impressed by your evaluation. Princeton is very lucky to have you, and it's clearly mutual. It's H and Y's loss, but they'll probably get you as a law or med student eventually, unless you decide to stay on in diplomacy or history at Old Nassau. You are starting off on an awesome professioanl and personal life that no one could fail to envy, myself included. Congratulations! May your greatest joy in life be to give back all you can to the world that has given you such an extraordinary opportunity.</p>
<p>Everytime I walk outside I wonder why I'm not going to Berkeley...</p>
<p>...and then you walk into school and realize why you're going to Princeton :)</p>
<p>does Berkeley really have that big a reputation among non-californians? it usually gets overlooked here in cali cause of stanford...kids that dont get into stanny stanny stanford usually go to cal...but it seems like they've made quite a name for themselves among out of staters....no?</p>
<p>I would be pleased as punch to go to Berkeley for grad physics or engineering. Just not for undergrad! In Waseca, it is kinda hip to wear berkeley and harvard clothes, although I am sure that the people wearing them could never get accepted.</p>
<p>This ranking has Berkeley in the top 10.</p>
<p>yeah, totally. among houston's asian students, it is immensely popular, but it IS a great school. popular in houston, but thats probably because of the large asian population.....not to sterotype or anything</p>
<p>that ranking also has columbia ahead of yale...ucla ahead of penn and dartmouth...UCSD ahead of georgetown!! what kinda crackpot ranking system is that??? i dont know A SINGLE PERSON who would turn down penn or dartmouth for ucla....im prolly gonna end up going to LA cause its only 15 minutes away from my house, they have a good honors program, and i can get a nice scholarship....but thats only if i get rejected from penn or dartmouth.... :</p>
<p>its popular among science oriented kids....for its great engineering department...but i dont hear english and history majors salivating to go to berk :-\ </p>
<p>true, its as good as a public school education is gonna get....but is that REALLY saying a lot?</p>
<p>I considered it just because it's a top 5 math school, and really I was looking at school with math as the most important factor.</p>