<p>It wouldnt count out your non Ivy schools. Some state schools like Michigan Ann Arbor and Michigan State, Berkely, Brown, Wahington University-St. Louis are EXCELLENT schools. Personally I would probably go to Northwestern or WashU rather than any other school. Plus the glamour factor of the school isnt always the best. Sure your paying thousands of extra dollars than you would at a non Ivy but is the education at Harvard really better than WashU? My suggestion would be save the Ivy Leauge Education for grad. school. I holds a little more weight.</p>
<p>"In terms of selectivity (not quality, prestige, etc.):
Yale 10%
Harvard 11%
Princeton 13%
Stanford 13%
Columbia 13%
MIT 16%
Brown 17%
Dartmouth 19%
Williams 19%
CalTech 21%
Amherst 21%
Penn 21%
Georgetown 22%"</p>
<p>Purely using acceptance rates is not a great indicator of selectivity. Few people would call MIT or CalTech less selective than Stanford.</p>
<p>The Atlantic Monthly, therefore, does ranking of student bodies based also on the kinds of students they take (based on SAT Score, Top 10% of class, etc) to measure truly measure how selective/strong the school is. </p>
<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>?</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://www.crimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349293%5B/url%5D">www.crimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349293</a></p>
<p>jpps1, what's the definition of selectivity? I'm confused because I thought it meant acceptance rates.</p>
<p>How hard a school is to get into, but just because a school has a lower acceptance rate than another doesn't mean its harder to get into. The applicant pool might be different.</p>
<p>Overall though, with a few noted exceptions I'd say its a fairly accurate depiction. Applicant pools for the tech schools tend to be more self-selected leading to higher acceptance rates, although they often are also looking for different things (higher scores, math/ science oriented vs. ECs).</p>
<p>Okay, thanks for the clarification.</p>
<p>"Applicant pools for the tech schools tend to be more self-selected leading to higher acceptance rates, although they often are also looking for different things (higher scores, math/ science oriented vs. ECs)."</p>
<p>Not to mention that smaller schools (especially very small schools) have deflated acceptance rates as well. There are several third-tier universities that have lower acceptance rates than a place like Chicago.</p>
<p>there is a pool of applicants that are shared by multiple top universities which decreases yield. thats what pushes acceptance rates high (look at chicago for example) is because of poor yield.</p>