<p>And I still maintain this position. The Revealed Preferences Survey's data is a bit dated(ca. 2000), but clear. When cost was a factor, in the Price-Considered portion of the survey, Brown came in just after HYPS. When Price was a consideration, it came after HYPS, Caltech, and MIT. If you read the research carefully, the elo points was referent whereby colleges could be pitte against each other in a matriculation "tournament" for the most meritorious students. The principle is similar to establishing rankings for tennis and golf. Based on elo points, Brown seldom lost the cross-admit battles with Penn. In general, at least for the early 2000s, Brown would win 60% of the cross-admits it shared with Penn.</p>
<p>There is a caveat to this however. It's difficult to dispute that however much Penn may have gamed the college admissions system, it's rise in the U.S. News rankings has increased it's selectivity. Nevertheless, the latest numbers indicate Brown still handily wins this battle. Not saying Penn isn't a fine school. It's just marginally less selective than Brown.</p>
<p>According to the 2006 USNews, Penn is tied with WUStL as the 6th most selective, while Brown is tied with Stanford as the 8th most selective national university.</p>
<p>(The leaders are Harvard at #1, MIT and Yale tied at #2, and Caltech and Princeton tied at #4. Trailing Brown and Stanford, ad tied at #10, are Dartmouth, Rice, Coliumbia and Duke.)</p>
<p>And what does that say about the USNews rankings, Byerly?
Stanford has a 17.7% early admit rate compared to Penn's 25%. Overall admit rate is 11% compared to Penn's 21%. </p>
<p>I agree with Pinderhughes. The question is if Brown and Penn had the same rankings in USNews, how many cross-admits would Penn win? Considerably less than it does now, I think.</p>
<p>WashU 6th most selective in the nation? I'd have to disagree. More like 10th or 11th...</p>
<p>Next year though WashU will be somewhat harder to get into because of some housing shortage they had this year, caused by a huge overenrollment. It was like 120 kids, almost 10% more than they were hoping for. WashU wanted 1350 to matriculate, but instead 1470 decided to matriculate...that may cause a slight selectivity increase next year (e.g. instead of 17% acceptance rate this year, it would be like 14-15% next year). </p>
<p>Penn near the Big Six? Hmm who knows; I don't think it should be there. I think it still should be a top 10 school though. I honestly don't think Duke deserves to be #5 either. It's got some great programs but by no means is it as stellar as the Big Six.</p>
<p>Nobody really "enrolls" until they show up for the first day of classes, scottie; thats why the preliminary (May) yield rate always falls short of the actual (September) yield rate.</p>
<ol>
<li><pre><code> Harvard University (MA)
</code></pre></li>
<li><p>Yale University (CT)</p></li>
<li><p>Massachusetts Inst. of Technology</p></li>
<li><pre><code> Princeton University (NJ)
</code></pre></li>
<li><p>California Institute of Technology</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia University (NY)</p></li>
<li><p>Washington University in St. Louis</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University (CA)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Pennsylvania</p></li>
<li><pre><code>Brown University (RI)
</code></pre></li>
</ol>
<p>WUStL would not rank as high if yield or RD yield were a factor - as I believe one or the other should be. But it does well with the other factors.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard University<br></li>
<li>Stanford University<br></li>
<li>Yale University<br></li>
<li>California Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>University of California at Berkeley<br></li>
<li>University of Cambridge<br></li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute Technology<br></li>
<li>Oxford University<br></li>
<li>University of California at San Francisco<br></li>
<li>Columbia University</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> Harvard University US 100.0
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology US 86.9
3 University of Cambridge UK 85.8
4 University of Oxford UK 83.9
5 Stanford University US 83.4
6 University of California, Berkeley US 80.6
7 Yale University US 72.7
8 California Institute of Technology US 71.5
9 Princeton University US 64.8
10 ETH Zurich</li>
</ol>
<p>As you well know, the Shanghai and London rankings include graduate programs in their rankings. They are therefore meaningless as a toold for determining the strength of a school's undergraduate program.</p>
<p>"Aug. 13, 2006 - In response to the same forces that have propelled the world economy toward global integration, universities have also become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire spec* trum of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an inter* connected world and collaborative research programs to advance science for the benefit of all humanity. To capture these developments, NEWSWEEK devised a ranking of global universities that takes into account openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research...."</p>