<p>I am going to attend all 3 colleges for overnight visits. I am going to try to put aside any preconceived thoughts and have a completely open mind. I hope this will help me to find the right college for me.</p>
<p>Sounds like a good plan. One thing is confusing: prior posts of yours seem to indicate that your daughter was the applicant - not you. Am I missing something?</p>
<p>And am I correct that you (or your daughter) applied early to Yale?</p>
<p>Byerly is the FBI of Collegeconfidential.</p>
<p>First, congratulations!!!</p>
<p>Then, I have to say that I feel your pain...last year I was in ABSOLUTELY the same position. It was a pain for me to choose.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK!</p>
<p>Crimsonbulldog, Byerly is the KGB of CC, not the FBI.</p>
<p>And Zepher is the Taliban, I presume?</p>
<p>zephyr keeps on getting burned</p>
<p>Oh come on. A cheap shot like that isn't even worth replying to.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>i hate you.</p>
<p>wow, u must be a genius! your parent must be very proud of you !! if i were u, i would choose harvard. harvard decal would be cool wif my bimmer fo shizzle !</p>
<p>what did the harvard yale princeton admittees have that the rest of us didn't??????????????????????????
now that you're in , if you re not a urm or a rich rich heir, what was it?</p>
<p>why does everyone think it's so easy for a urm to get in to an IVY?</p>
<p>well it's not easy for anyone to get into Yale, but it's arguably easier for a urm compared to a white or asian due to affirmative action policies.</p>
<p>According to the HLS admit data,</p>
<p>H >>> Y >>S > P. H is stronger than Y, which is better than P.</p>
<p>Well of course HLS will favor HC students. </p>
<p>That's a terribly inaccurate measure.</p>
<p>And outdated? These things change relatively quickly - and you shouldn't base yourself on something like that. Your happiness and success cannot be determined by some HLS study/equation. Go with your gut feeling.</p>
<p>Go to the one you like best. Where you will be most happy and enjoy the company of other students is where you are most likely to succeed. All three are fantastic schools. But definitely do the overnight visit -- sit in on some classes and hang out with students.</p>
<p>Out of students who visit overnight at all the schools, Yale usually becomes the first choice, which ties in with the fact that it is the most selective university in the United States. I think this is because it has the most campus life, and also an incredible dedication to undergraduate education (don't let anyone tell you it is a "big" school because it is better for undergrad than any of the small liberal arts colleges; the only school that can claim more emphasis on undergraduates is Caltech). Harvard attracts equal or slightly more "attention" -- in the way that Ford Motors attracts more attention than Mercedes-Benz -- because it is a bigger university in terms of the sheer number of students who are enrolled there. Because of this, students who do not do thorough overnight visits (or can not because they live far away) are about as likely to choose Harvard as they are to choose Yale. Princeton is also an amazing university, but it is much smaller and isolated, without any graduate schools, so honestly it doesn't have the same degree of excitement on campus that you have at Harvard or Yale (which is most likely why it is far less selective than Harvard or Yale).</p>
<p>Also, check out Cornell. It's also a great option.</p>
<p>That law school rank is not normalized for school size (nor is it relevant). Law schools will almost always take more of their own, so when comparing professional schools, school like princeton and LAC's will be at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Take a better law school, i.e. Yale:
2004-2006
Absolute numbers:</p>
<p>Y: 86</p>
<p>H: 78</p>
<p>S: 34</p>
<p>P: 38</p>
<p>Berkeley: 24</p>
<p>Brown: 19</p>
<p>Columbia: 18</p>
<p>Duke: 17 </p>
<p>when converted to percentage of students:
1. Yale 2.16%</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard 1.56%</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton 1.09%</p></li>
<li><p>Williams 1.03%</p></li>
<li><p>Amherst 0.73%</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford 0.68% </p></li>
</ol>
<p>For HLS, if you convert the raw numbers to a percentage of the student body that was accepted, then you get:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard College 4.71%</p></li>
<li><p>Yale University 3.16%</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University 1.85%</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton University 1.81%</p></li>
<li><p>Amherst College 1.30%</p></li>
<li><p>Pomona College 1.20% </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Don't make anything out of these numbers. To rank schools this way is absurd. I just wanted to point out the fallacy in comparing raw numbers.</p>
<p>PS: PosterX, please stop posting. your posts are riddled with myths and fallacies. For instance, Princeton has one of the most prestigious and highly ranked graduate school in the country. Nor is it less selective than Yale.</p>
<p>Having the lowest acceptance rate does not necessarily indicate greatest selectivity. MIT has something around a 16% acceptance rate (although I believe it dropped this year) but does that mean that it is easier to get into than schools with lower acceptance rates like Brown, Columbia, even HYPS? I don't think so. I hear so many people saying that Yale is now the most selective university simply because it had <9% acceptance this year, but this may not be entirely true, as selective as Yale is. It is also inaccurate to say that Princeton is "far less selective than Harvard or Yale." On what grounds?</p>
<p>You were really missing my point there. Yes, of course Princeton has graduate Ph.D. programs (within its arts and sciences school), but it does not have any separate graduate schools of any significant size, such as law, medicine, drama, music, art, business or environmental studies. As a result, in most people's opinion the campus just isn't nearly as exciting as a place like Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Berkeley.</p>
<p>Also, the grounds that Princeton is less selective are based on several factors, not just the admissions rate, which is significantly higher than Harvard or Yale's. I'm familiar with much of the literature on selectivity, such as the Hoxby "Revealed Preference" study. But sure, it's not a big difference (depending on your opinion of what's big) and shouldn't influence anyone's decision about where to go, which was my first statement. Everyone should go to the school that's best for them. But, I think the numbers show that, for the population as a whole, especially among people who actually take the time to visit and become familiar with each college, there is definitely a difference in the desirability of the school in general.</p>