@GMTplus7 Is Hunt’s thingie really so CC-weighted?
Given Tufts’ acceptance rate of 16% this year and the growth in its desirability over the last decade (as gauged in the Parchment Student Choice Rankings, in which Tufts this year ranks higher than UND, Cornell, Northwestern, and Vandy–all on CC’s list), I can’t imagine that the reason for Tufts exclusion from the CC top universities list isn’t the reason the mods gave me. Really, it’s a head-scratcher.
Let me put this in perspective. Number of applications for Boston area schools in this admissions cycle:
54,757 BU
49,822 Northeastern
37,305 Harvard
19,075 Tufts (2014)
18,356 MIT
MIT has slightly fewer applications than Tufts, but MIT is the gold standard for East Coast engineering schools. And engineering schools have a narrower pool of applicants.
QUICK-- If I asked you to name, off the top of your head, 20 universities in the US that people are likely to inquire about, does Tufts immediately spring to mind?
People are likely to mention Ivy schools either individually or collectively. Then they’ll likely name elite schools by region.
I picked out Tufts as an example along with Union as just two examples from U.S. News that would seem to deserve a spot on the CC Top lists. There are several more. And things look even weirder of you compare the lists with Forbes. But U.S. News, if not the gold standard, is the conventional wisdom. Interesting that Tufts generated discussion, but not a peep about Union. This probably reflects the fact that even the top lacs generate significantly less posting than an average university. Days can go by without a post, which makes sense given thousands versus tens of thousands applications.
I wonder to what extent being on a CC Top list has some real-world effects. Does it impart prestigiosity and drive applications and yield? Will applicants see that Trinity is on the list but not Union, and be more likely to apply or attend? And subjectively will students think, “It’s not Stanford but it’s on the CC Top list”?
These may be small but significant effects.
CC are the flapping “butterfly wings” that cause a tropical cyclone/typhoon in India and China?
I think they were basically the top 25 lists in the year (or year before) the forum established those categories. Maybe there has been a couple changes since then. Probably not many, if any.
To test this theory, somebody less lazy than I am could look up the lists from each year from 2000 to 2003 or so and see if they find an exact match.
It’s not like it’s never occurred to anybody.
The same group of non-listed schools have repeatedly been lobbied for, and run up the proverbial flagpole. The powers that be are not keen on implementing this new “Tufts syndrome” (ie the desire to screw around with CC top 25 ). Or just not convinced on the merits. I got the impression that they don’t really like discussing it much either. In the past, anyway.