Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

College Search & Selection
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<p>Help comes to those who help themselves. The NYT chart cites a source. A web search for that source gives the study as the very first link. What we continue to see in these CC boards is people posting and defending the NY Times chart without performing this most basic fact-check. </p>

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<p>That’s just shifting and raising the burden of proof. </p>

<p>No theoretical analysis is needed to discredit the factual assertion from posting #48 (and over a hundred similar CC postings) that the NY Times published “a statistical chart of cross-admitted students”, i.e., a table of the school-vs-school cross admit results found in the survey. That’s just false; the Times did not provide any direct extracts of the survey, as I indicated. </p>

<p>Second, the burden of justification is on the authors of the study to substantiate any claims of predictive power. They haven’t published the data or provided any information on how well the model fits the data, so it is not possible to evaluate the predictiveness of their model. </p>

<p>Third, the chart in the NY Times, even if predictive, is predicting something other than cross-admits. If you read the paper, you will see that the chart is about an odd sort of cross-admit battle where all factors such as geographic distance, Dad’s college (legacy status), Mom’s college, financial aid and tuition, and all others measured by the study, are somehow equalized. In deciding between Stanford and Princeton, a California student would hypothetically be turned into a simultaneous in-state resident of both (or neither) CA and NJ. You can see how this makes the NY Times chart hard to interpret as a proxy for national cross-admit data. </p>

<p>Fourth, I already have posted what you ask for in many other threads. See, for example,</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/376698-mit-reveals-data-discrediting-revealed-preferences-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/376698-mit-reveals-data-discrediting-revealed-preferences-rankings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/705595-would-you-like-see-who-choosing-m-over-hyps-2.html#post1062544446[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/705595-would-you-like-see-who-choosing-m-over-hyps-2.html#post1062544446&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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I saw nothing in the chart that would make me suspicious enough to go searching through the internet.</p>

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You haven’t proven anything yet, even with only a minimal burden of proof.</p>

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True, yet that is no reason to doubt the findings of the study.</p>

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Fair enough. So…the study wasn’t actually published? I’ve still been to lazy to check.</p>

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That seems kind of impossible to do with such a small sample size. Now you have me convinced.</p>

<p>And thank you for the links.</p>

63

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I saw nothing in the chart that would make me suspicious enough to go searching through the internet.</p>

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You haven’t proven anything yet, even with only a minimal burden of proof.</p>

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True, yet that is no reason to doubt the findings of the study.</p>

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Fair enough. So…the study wasn’t actually published? I’ve still been to lazy to check.</p>

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That seems kind of impossible to do with such a small sample size. Now you have me convinced.</p>

<p>And thank you for the links.</p>

<p>EDIT: I’m not really sure why I continued my arguing, but that last quote was the kind of thing I was looking for. Thank you!</p>

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<p>I’m amazed at how often the “cross-admit” chart and the NYT “feeder” study are mentioned on collegeconfidential. Even though college rankings in general are astoundingly flawed, these two post facto tools are almost insanely useless.</p>

<p>Also, I’m still waiting for somebody to sum up the appeal of Yale.</p>

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<p>Yale definitely for undergrad… Then Yale or Harvard for grad work.</p>

<p>Princeton is distant, cold and rural.</p>

66

<p>Yale was my first choice school…but unfortunately I was not admitted. Admitted to Princeton; but will attend west coast Stanford.</p>

<p>Yale is awesome…(1) The Yale faculty is seriously committed to extraordinary undergraduate teaching and (2) the residential college system creates an awesome active student community/small college experience. Don’t let the larger New Haven area stop you from applying to Yale. The Yale experience comes from within the great student body/university environment, not in the outer city. </p>

<p>Also (3) Yale students are not sucked into the surrounding city (Cambridge) to look for a good time. They find it right on campus. Finally, (4) A greater percentage of students
at Yale do volunteer community service than H/P.</p>

<p>My uncles and aunt who recently graduated from H,Y and Dartmouth have said that they felt Yale and Dartmouth offered the best student communities amongst the Ivies.</p>

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<p>Harvard. I live only three miles away from it, so there you go!</p>