<p>^exactly may be the case…however, Villanova may be smart in offering merit money so it attracts higher academic caliber students than say, HC, which does not offer merit aid…It is similar to sports. Ohio state offers football scholarships and so hence has a stronger football team than Harvard, which does not offer football scholarships. Whatever way villanova attracts these kids, they still have more students who are stronger (if we are to assume that merit scholars are stronger students than those who are not) than HC which does not have any merit scholars, despite whatever reason why they do not have any.</p>
<p>1980collegegrad: Your National Merit Point is not well taken. The “top” National Merit Scholars are selected and given scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Fund itself - they do not require the college to sponsor the scholarship. Thus, for example, 248 matriculated at Harvard and 148 at Stanford – neither school provides NM sponsored scholarships. Villanova enrolled 2 National Merit Scholars and sponsored an additional 7, for a total of 9. So the true Villanova-to-Holy Cross comparison is 2-0, not 9-0. Comparing total National Merit Scholars is not “fair” to institutions like Holy Cross that do not sponsor the program. But comparing non-sponsored National Merit Scholars across institutions is a different and valid. The data point of non-sponsored National Merit Scholar matriculation is interesting and informative because it gives you a view of where the top 2,500 students in the country matriculated. And the fact is that 2 chose Villanova, and none chose Holy Cross.</p>
<p>All data above is from most recent NMSC Annual Report: [National</a> Merit Scholarship Corporation](<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/]National”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/)</p>
<p>^according to the link you provided, which offers the most recent data, Villanova sponsored 11 scholars and had a total of 13. How do you know only 2 students enrolled at VU? Wouldn’t it be that 13 enrolled and only 11 received scholarship money from the university?</p>
<p>^ Because to be a “National Merit Scholar” you had to receive scholarship money from either the NMSC itself, from a sponsoring institution, or from a sponsoring corporation. Those that receive money from the NMSC itself are the “creme of the crop” and selected first from the pool of National Merit finalist. After the 2500 NMSC recipients are selected, the remainder are eligible for sponsored scholarships. The data provided in the 2010-2011 Annual Report is that 9 National Merit Scholars (not just finalists) enrolled at Villanova. 7 were sponsored by Villanova, so the remainder were in the “creme of the crop” awarded by NMSC itself.</p>
<p>^^“How do you know only 2 students enrolled at VU? Wouldn’t it be that 13 enrolled and only 11 received scholarship money from the university?”</p>
<p>Again - using the most recent data, all 13 are enrolled at VU. 11 of them were National Merit Scholars sponsored by Villanova, the other 2 were among the 2500 “creme of the crop” National Merit Scholars awarded scholarships directly by NMSC. </p>
<p>The non-sponsored data is relevant because there is obviously fierce competition for those 2500 students awarded scholarships directly from NMSC itslef. Where those kids enroll is at least some measure of the selectivity and attractiveness of an institution (witness Harvard with 248 enrollees from this pool – Harvard does not sponsor National Merit Scholars, so all of its National Merit Scholars are from the NMSC pool).</p>
<p>The only slight glitch in this analysis is I believe the relatively few scholarships awarded by corporations (usually for kids of employees) is also included in the “non-institution-sponsored” total, but it is only about 800 or so (added to the 2500 NMSC pool).</p>
<p>According to the information provided by the National Merit link:
Holy Cross – 1 not sponsored by the HC and 0 sponsored by HC </p>
<p>Nova – 2 not sponsored by Nova and 11 sponsored by Nova </p>
<p>and because the thread is about Villanova vs Fordham
Fordham – 5 not sponsored by Fordham and 38 sponsored by Fordham </p>
<p>So totals are
HC 1
Nova 13
Fordham 43</p>
<p>With so many different ways to assess a school, one is the number of Fulbright scholarships awarded. For 2011-12:</p>
<p>NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES
Georgetown-15
Notre Dame-12
Fordham - 9
NYU - 9</p>
<p>MASTER’S LEVEL
U of Scranton-6
Villanova-4</p>
<p>[Top</a> Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12 - International - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12”>Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12)</p>
<p>For a another perspective on this subject, I just looked at the new 2012 Fiske Guide to the Best Colleges. Only the “Best” academic schools are listed and include schools from Canada and the UK. Some schools that I have seen in past Fiske books I no longer find listed.</p>
<p>To those here who still think Nova is equal to or better than BC, Lehigh, Holy Cross, Notre Dame and Fordham, here is the Fisk academic rating:</p>
<p>BC, Holy Cross, Notre Dame and Lehigh-4
Villanova, Fordham and Farifield-3 </p>
<p>That’s right, Fisk rates Fairfield a 3, the same as Villanova.</p>
<p>and FWIW Fiske lists Nova’s SAT CR is 580-680 while Fordham is 570-670.</p>
<p>I offer no conclusions…Just some more facts to consider…</p>
<p>National Merit eligibility is dependent on PSAT and SAT scores. It has been studied and is highly believed that SAT scores do not correlate with intelligence. Not to say the these scholars are not intelligence, just saying that non-scholars can also be equally bright. The number of NM scholars isn’t the factor that should put one school above another</p>
<p>Agreed LilyEmery, but in a thread where some here feel a slight advantage in SATs IS a factor to put one school [VU] over others, the number of NM scholarships is just as valid…in this context. In the real world any factor is impotant or is unimportant depending on the argument you are trying to make. I think this is all about school pride more than anything else…</p>
<p>One more point to add is the number of applicants for fulbright. </p>
<p>Fordham 9 won awards out of 44 applicants for a rate of 20%
Holy Cross 7 won awards out of 44 applicants for a rate of 16%
Villanova 4 won awards out of 19 applicants for a rate of 36%.</p>
<p>I am not making a judgement call on the statistics but just showing that, although villanova has fewer than fordham, it has a better rate of acceptance. </p>
<p>I believe the fiske guide gets their numbers from college board.
The sat scores from college board show:</p>
<p>Villanova CR 590-680
mth 620-710 Total 1300. </p>
<p>Fordham CR 570-670
mth 580-670 Total 1245</p>
<p>And another way to look at it is that Holy Cross and Fordham had more than twice as many students who took the academic initiative to do all the work that a Fulbright application requires. </p>
<p>Also, HC is about half the size of Nova.</p>
<p>generally speaking VU and HC are considered to be stronger than Fordham. However, it depends what field one is going into as VU and HC do not beat fordham in every field.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t call the Fiske opinions facts and agree certainly not conclusive</p>
<p>To those here who still think Nova is equal to or better than BC, Lehigh, Holy Cross, Notre Dame and Fordham, here is the Fisk academic rating:</p>
<p>BC, Holy Cross, Notre Dame and Lehigh-4
Villanova, Fordham and Farifield-3 </p>
<p>That’s right, Fisk rates Fairfield a 3, the same as Villanova.</p>
<p>and FWIW Fiske lists Nova’s SAT CR is 580-680 while Fordham is 570-670.</p>
<p>I offer no conclusions…Just some more facts to consider</p>
<p>I know this thread is fordham vs VU but I figured it wouldn’t hurt too much if i added some facts of VU vs HC…I posted these same facts on a HC thread and thought people on here might find it useful as well. </p>
<p>Acceptance rate VU 39% HC 33% HC wins
SAT score avg VU 1300 HC 1295 VU wins </p>
<p>GPA > than 3.75 VU 66.4% HC 60% VU wins
Avg. GPA VU 3.86 HC 3.84 VU wins</p>
<p>% in top tenth of class VU 64% HC 61% VU wins
number of merit scholars VU 13 HC 1 VU wins</p>
<h1>of merit scholars not offered scholarship money by college VU 2 HC 1 VU wins</h1>
<p>Financial endowment VU $370 million HC $600 million HC wins</p>
<p>GPA data came from common data set for the most recent class.
Acceptance rates from wikipedia.
SAT scorss from college board.
Merit scholars from the merit scholar handbook.</p>
<p>I didn’t include the math SATs when comparing FU to VU from the Fisk guide as Fordham does not have a school of engineering, so the math score is not going to be the same. I compared apples to apples, or reading score to reading score as that was common to both schools</p>
<p>“Fordham 9 won awards out of 44 applicants for a rate of 20%
Holy Cross 7 won awards out of 44 applicants for a rate of 16%
Villanova 4 won awards out of 19 applicants for a rate of 36%”</p>
<p>And little U Scranton 6 won awards out of 10 applicants for a rate of 60%!</p>
<p>Scranton wins! /;^D</p>
<p>This thread was started in 2010. I have seen some numbers posted here from different sites and they did not always seem quite right.</p>
<p>So, I went to the .edu sites of Villanova and Fordham to get a comparison of some stats as of June, 2012 for the current addmitted classes. I think this will provide a real-time comparison of the two:</p>
<pre><code> Fordham - Villanova
</code></pre>
<p>Acceptance rate 42% - 39%
GPA range 3.7 - 3.8
SAT-middle 50%: 1830-2050 - 1340-1440</p>
<p>For all the hype and hoopla, both schools are very close indeed but unlike what has been reported in some posts, it would appear the median SATs for Fordham are higher than first reported. You can go to each school site to validate this info.</p>
<p>And so dear friends…I bid you a fond farewell…and be secure in the knowledge that VU is not significantly better than Fordham…or HC, Lehigh, CW and others.</p>
<p>^keep in mind those SAT numbers are ACCEPTED students and not necessarily the average for students who enrolled at the school. Common data sets can provide the average scores for students who actually attend the university. </p>
<p>common data set as of 2009-2010 (earliest data I could find for fordham)</p>
<p>SAT scores of students who actually attend fordham: avg. 1240 cr+ mth 1140-1340<br>
cr+mth+wr 1710-2010</p>
<p>students who actually attend VU (2009-2010 data): avg 1295 cr+mth 1200-1390<br>
cr+mth+wr 1780-2070</p>
<p>common data set (could only find Villanova’s) for 2011-2012
SAT scores of those enrolled: avg 1300 </p>
<p>VU is 50-55 pts higher than fordham. Not too significant of an amount.</p>
<p>Anyone trying to decide and with all other things equal like cost, I would say to pick the school that is most appealing to the student. One can argue all day about this. Otherwise flip a coin.</p>
<p>I agree 100% cptofthehouse.</p>
<p>Point of fact knight2011, the Fordham.edu information was pulled for the class of 2015, so IS for the actual enrolled students and not accepted. This is the most current information you will find.</p>