<li>Penn (no brainer)</li>
<li>Harvard (name)</li>
<li>Yale (presidents)</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s where it gets interesting</p>
<li>Brown (ive always had a thing for brown)</li>
<li>Cornell (great science programs and nice offerings)</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
</ol>
<p>I think US News has got it right in terms of selectivity and class success, but no matter what way you look at it, I think Harvard has the others beat simply because their school is so much larger than the others and its students are still of the highest caliber.</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Penn
Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell</p>
<p>Cornell
Dartmouth
Princeton
Columbia
Brown
Penn
Yale
Harvard</p>
<p>My ranking measured two factors:
1) Elevation- obviously the best way to measure how one college can rise above another
2) Grade- the steepness of the slopes on campus</p>
<p>Since admissions statistics are frequently used to rank the Ivies, naturally I used the admissions offices as the elevation data points with the aid of GoogleEarth.</p>
<p>With a combination of elevation and steep hills, Cornell and Dartmouth are indeed the "higher Ivies." Being relatively flat and near sea level, Yale and Harvard are part of the "lower Ivies."</p>
<p>I'm confused. Cornell has twice as many undergrads as graduate students, so how could it be less focused on undergrads than places like Columbia, Penn, and Harvard, which have more graduate students than undergrads?</p>
<ol>
<li>Princepenn</li>
<li>Umouth
lil gap</li>
<li>Collell
GAP</li>
<li>Dartown
GAP
GAP</li>
<li>Yavard</li>
<li>Braton
BIG BIG BIG GAP!</li>
<li>Cornumbia</li>
<li>Harale</li>
</ol>
<p>you see, according to rankings and popular consensus, Princepenn is far superior to a lowly school such as bravard!! or the lowly harale-- a school for the ugly and stupid masses indeed.!</p>
<p>Just because you can cite those numbers doesn't mean that Cornell is any less undergraduate focused than some of other schools, which was your initial claim. I fail to see the direct correlation. A couple of points to consider:</p>
<p>1) There is a large fixed cost component to student spending, so some economies of scale will naturally be enjoyed. So it's no surprise that Princeton and Dartmouth spend more per student -- they have the smallest student bodies, so spending per student will naturally have to be larger than at the larger schools, like Cornell, Penn, or Harvard.</p>
<p>2) Cornell's endowment per student is not significantly different than Brown or Penn's. I'm not certain how endowment per student is directly related to the undergraduate experience, though, as a lot of endowment is budgeted for things like research funds of professor salaries.</p>
<p>3) After you take into account the revenue that Cornell receives from the state of New York as quasi-endowment money, Cornell's endowment per student numbers become significantly higher than Brown, Columbia, and Penn. In 2007, this difference was around $450k compared to $350k.</p>
<p>4) Ironically, of all these schools, Cornell may actually hurt the less in the coming years as it is less reliant on its endowment funds for funding. Dartmouth supports a full third of its operating revenue from investment income, whereas Cornell supports less than 15 percent with such income. So when all of these endowments have taken a bath, some schools will be hurting more than others.</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology 1470 1580
Harvey Mudd College 1430 1560
*Harvard University 1400 1590
*Yale University 1390 1580
*Princeton University 1390 1580
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1380 1560
Pomona College 1380 1530
Washington University in St Louis 1370 1530
Swarthmore College 1360 1540
*Cornell Engineering 1360 1520
*Dartmouth College 1350 1550
Stanford University 1340 1550
*Columbia University in the City of New York 1330 1540
Duke University 1330 1540
*Cornell - Arts & Sci and Engineering 1335 1525
Amherst College 1330 1530
*Brown University 1330 1530
University of Chicago 1320 1530
*University of Pennsylvania 1330 1520
Williams College 1320 1520
Tufts University 1340 1490
Northwestern University 1320 1500
Rice University 1310 1510
University of Notre Dame 1300 1510
Claremont McKenna College 1300 1500
Carleton College 1310 1490
*Cornell University (including NYS statutory colleges) 1290 1500
Georgetown University 1300 1490
Wellesley College 1300 1480
Reed College 1310 1470
Carnegie Mellon University 1290 1490
Haverford College 1290 1490
Vanderbilt University 1300 1480</p>
<p>ranked by math SAT</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology 770 800
Harvey Mudd College 740 800
*Cornell Engineering 720 800
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 720 800
*Harvard University 700 790
*Princeton University 700 790
*Yale University 690 790
*Cornell Arts & Sciences and Engineering 690 785
Washington University in St Louis 690 780
Pomona College 690 760
Stanford University 680 790
*Dartmouth College 680 780
Duke University 680 780
Carnegie Mellon University 680 780
*University of Pennsylvania 680 770
Swarthmore College 680 760
Lehigh University 680 710
*Columbia University in the City of New York 670 780
Rice University 670 780
*Brown University 670 770
Northwestern University 670 760
Tufts University 670 740
*Cornell University (including NYS statutory colleges) 660 770
University of Notre Dame 660 760
Amherst College 660 760
Williams College 660 760
Emory University 660 740
Carleton College 660 740
Vanderbilt University 660 740
University of Chicago 650 760
Johns Hopkins University 650 760</p>