<p>and ranking wise, the only reason why Rice is not ranked as a top 10 school is b/c its peer assessment score is relatively low, which is not indicative of its extremely fabulous academic but is indicative of Rice being unheard of in some parts of the country.</p>
<p>its a pretty general way to measure selectivity, thats all.</p>
<p>then you clearly chose a less selective school by going to Duke rather than Columbia, which has a lower acceptance rate....??</p>
<p>and btw, ur SAT range thing isn't always that accurate. A lot of schools "cook" the books and do not count everyone in the student body. Rather, they get rid of the same scores in the distribution and only count some. For example, look at 3 different websites, Penn's website, Princeton Review, US News, and another one, you will see that there are 3 ranges listed for UPenn in a given year. Also, larger schools like Cornell have a huge student body, therefore, even if the average is a little lower than a school like Duke, that only has 1600 students, it still has its fair share of kids with extremely high scores, and thats a fact. Last year, Cornell's Sat range was a 1290-1490, my source is College Board and Princeton Review. Therefore, 25 percent of 3,400 students at Cornell have above a 1500 roughly, which translates to about 850 kids that have above a 1500 on their SATs just in the freshman class.</p>
<p>Also, I am willing to bet that schools that also extensively use the ACT such as Duke and schools in the midwest do in fact use ACT scores for some ppl and SAT scores for others. For example, with Northwestern, look at their chart with a distribution of ppl accepted with certain scores, verbal and math SAT scores. If you add up the verbal and math distributions, you will finid that they are not equal. Therefore, they counted only certain ppl's verbal scores, and other's math scores only.</p>
<p>I liked Duke better than Columbia, even if it was less selective</p>
<p>I'm not reading all that.</p>
<p>and btw, I think that places that give out merit scholarships are not exactly in the same category as places that don't.</p>
<p>that doesn't make them less of a school becuase they offer merit scholarships.... i think all schools should give merit instead of need based scholarships.... although i know i will get yelled at for saying that</p>
<p>but I feel like if these places didn't give out "merit scholarships" to some students, they would not be attending. I mean isn't the whole pt of giving a student a merit scholarship b/c they are the top of the top of the student body???</p>
<p>Look at Rice, for example, which you don't consider to be good becuase it gives merit scholarships. A majority of the scholarships are not given to those who have the highest SATs/GPAs etc. If Rice really just wanted to boost its rep, it would give them to those students. However, they give them to
Students whose diverse life experiences and contributions to diverse groups distinguish them within the context of the admitted applicants.
Students who demonstrate an aptitude for research.
Students who have distinguished themselves through initiatives that build bridges between cultural, racial, and ethnic groups.
Most of the people who got scholarships from Rice would still go to Rice even if they weren't given "merit based aid"</p>
<p>I think Rice is amazing, and I never said it wasn't as you can see from my posts. I think its a top 15 or top 10 nonetheless. Also, I was more talking about Duke w. the scholarships b/c they give out FULL paid scholarships to a lot of top kids. I mean, look at Northwestern, they don't give out any merit scholarships, and they have a student body just as good as Duke's.</p>
<p>right...</p>
<p>you seem to know everything</p>
<p>excuse my grammer, but I am not really paying attention to it when I am writing on these boards.</p>
<p>"a lot of top kids"...you don't know what you're talking about...I got into Princeton and didn't get a likely letter to Duke--and I also chose to matriculate at Duke, by the way. Duke doesn't just give out merit scholarships to everyone who will get into Harvard or Yale, as you insinuate. Duke's biggest overlaps are with HYPS--it attracts extremely strong applicants, this is why it's yield is relatively low. Duke gives out VERY FEW scholarships (~30 for non-NC residents) to exceptional applicants who could get in anywhere they'd like. And Duke has a stronger student body than Northwestern by any objective measurement... Are you saying that Caltech, Rice, Duke, Chicago, Georgetown, and the host of other schools that give out some merit aid are not as good as Cornell or Brown because like less than 4% of their student body is getting some non-need-based financial help?</p>
<p>What is your deal, man...You have no idea how hard it is to get merit aid at Duke or at Caltech or anywhere else. It's not like Tulane, you know...</p>
<p>Also, you talk as if getting into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton is some like amazing, objective task that indicates you are truly worthy. These schools are JUST AS RANDOM as all the other ones we're talking about.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, Duke gives out full TUITION scholarships, not including room and board.</p>
<p>Dude, on this CC board, if you say anything, you are attacked by dog hounds. RELAX buddy!!. These are all great schools. I got into Duke, and I was reallly considering going there. It just didn't seem to match me as a person, which is just my personal preference. It is a fabulous school like all the other ones, and I have some friends going there. In terms of selectivity, from my school, only 1 kid got into Penn and about 10 ppl got into Duke. In terms of colleges and everything, I would have to say that the following schools in no particular order are all great and anyone would have a tough time arguing one is better than the other. The fact that X is more selective than Y does not make it a better school.</p>
<p>Group 1
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
MIT</p>
<p>Group 2
Columbia
Penn
Duke
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell
Northwestern
U of Chicago
Michigan
UC Berk
JHU</p>
<p>Group 3
Emory, Tufts, Rice, Georgetown</p>
<p>Hey, I am not the one who needs to chill. You're just spreading around ignorant statements for no reason...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Duke for example, will give out full tuition scholarships to kids that are H, Y, P material. Without these scholarships, these kids would not be coming to Duke for the most part.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Personally, I happen to know only three or four kids who are on scholarship, and I know perhaps three or four times that many who turned down one or more of HYPS. So there goes that speculation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Therefore, the top 10 percent of kids at Duke I think would not be there if it weren't for the scholarships they are getting.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nowhere near 10 percent of Duke's student body is on scholarship. It's more like 3%.</p>
<p>how do you do that quote thing on CC???</p>
<p>collegekid, why are you telling incollege to relax, when you basically wrote three pages in the last three hours about this topic...</p>
<p>all my comments were in response to some of the other posts which I disagreed w. I told him to relax, b/c he is telling me that I am "spreading around ignorant statements." Honestly, I believe that the ppl on this board have seriously "inflated" Duke to the extent that it is like on par with H, Y, P, MIT, and Stanford. I do not think that anyone agrees with that except the Dukies. I am going to Cornell, and I know its a great school, but its not on par with those 5 schools I just mentioned (they are in a league of their own). Before coming to these boards, I never heard of Duke being soooo prestigious, I mean I guess my perception of Duke has been elevated just from reading all these posts on how wonderful Duke is. Anyways, I have to go out, and I would appreciate if ppl wouldn't attack me for just giving my opinions. Final thing before I go, all these ancedotal stories about ppl knowing others who turned down X, Y, Z, for A is worthless b/c no one knows the valadity of these stories, they could be true, or they could be false.</p>
<p>collegekid, you were the only one who compared schools and said school x wasn't as good as school y...</p>
<p>lol, okay collegekid. I really don't care about how Penn accepted 1 kid or Duke accepted 10 from your school. The average SAT for all the kids going to Cornell from my class was probably under a 1300...you don't see me citing that as rationale for senseless vitriol. Give it a rest.</p>
<p>By the way, grammar has two As and Duke just beat Cornell's butt in the men's lax tourney.. :)</p>