<p>Hanna and Marite:</p>
<p>Thank you for your comments. Hanna, you must be correct in saying that the actual cross-admit data are not available to the general public. I certainly can't find them anywhere and no one has stepped forward with any verifiable source (though plenty seem to claim they have one!)</p>
<p>To both of you, I followed your implied suggestions and contacted a couple of alumni I know from Yale and Princeton who had both (in the past) been involved in volunteer admissions work. Both quickly pointed out that their information might not be current and that they had mostly anecdotal information to provide. Both, however, did their work in large urban areas in the northeast and, interestingly, they seemed to agree on the following points. First, both said that in their experience, each of their schools lost more students to Harvard than they won in the cross-admit wars. As to the contest between their two schools, they actually seemed to agree that it was about a draw, with each school doing better with certain types of students. Princeton tended to win the battle with Yale when it came to students who leaned toward the hard sciences and engineering. Yale tended to take more of those interested in the arts and literature. There were many exceptions but that was the general tendency. As to MIT and each of their schools, the greatest overlap seemed to be with Princeton rather than with Yale, since most were science/engineering types. MIT seemed to have a slight edge over Princeton among these students though it was not overwhelming particularly in certain disciplines such as math and physics students. There was less overlap with Yale, but where it existed, MIT was usually the winner (again, presumably because of the type of student in question). </p>
<p>In the battle with Stanford, both said that at the time they were involved there was a definite edge for both Yale and Princeton over Stanford though they understood that this was probably due in large part to the fact that they were interviewing in the northeast. Both seemed to feel that since Stanford had a real recruiting advantage on the west coast and particularly in California, that, nationally, it was roughly a draw. </p>
<p>Finally, the Princeton alum pointed out that the statement Marite quoted from the Daily Princetonian article "Rapelye confirmed that most of Princeton's cross-admits choose Harvard, Yale, Stanford or MIT over Old Nassau," was a misunderstanding by the reporter and that what was meant was simply that, of the students choosing not to enroll at Princeton, the majority ended up at one of those schools. It was not meant to suggest that Princeton loses its cross-admit battles with all of them (though I suspect they do when it comes to Harvard). I wasn't able to confirm this interpretation with the Princeton admission office. If this interpretation is correct, then this information is no more interesting than the Stanford pie chart which also says little about the decisions of cross-admits. I suspect that it's the case for all of these schools that the students who turn them down do so primarily to attend one of their competitors.</p>
<p>There you have it. Interesting but admittedly non-scientific responses (and readily acknowledged to be so). Still, it sounds about right.</p>
<p>As for the revealed preference ranking, it does, of course, examine exactly this issue but, as far as I can tell, the raw data on which the study is based has not been made available. </p>
<p>In the end, I suppose it should be said (as Avery, the author of the preference ranking stated) that these cross-admit studies are not an indication of the quality of education being offered at various institutions. In Avery's words, (as quoted in the article to which Marite provided the link) "basically what that's showing [i.e. the fact that Harvard wins most of the cross-admit battles] is that Harvard's a popular college. It doesn't mean it's better, just that it's popular." (How's that for a little jab on the Harvard board? [smile here])</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your help. I think I've answered my question here.</p>