How would you rank the Ivies?

<p>And noone is trying to bash Cornell, it is one of the greatest universities in the country. UC-Berkeley has lower SAT I scores, but is recognized worldwide as one of the top universities. People just don't like unfair manipulation of the figures. It is best to compare apples to apples.</p>

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Plus the figures were neither accurate nor of the same year when comparing different universities.

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<p>I believe all of the collegehelp's numbers were from IPEDS, which has a consistent reporting requirement. So they would be both accurate and from the same year. The other numbers being tossed out may very well be from different years.</p>

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It is best to compare apples to apples.

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</p>

<p>Which I think is exactly what we always try to do. When somebody asks to rank the Ivies, you need to know what light they want us to rank it in... Football? Architecture program? Social life? Liberal arts education? Engineering?</p>

<p>So when Brown starts teaching crop and soil sciences and when Harvard actually initiates a real engineering college, we can only hope that those schools are as clear and as transparent with their numbers as Cornell has been all along.</p>

<p>Come to think of it, there are a lot of colleges out there who hide behind their data -- Penn, Columbia, and Northwestern come immediately to mind. If Cornell doesn't mind breaking out the SAT scores for the Hotelies, why can't Penn break out the scores for Wharton and Arts?</p>

<p>collegehelp's numbers were incorrect for a number of schools regardless of the source or sources. This is not worth arguing about.</p>

<p>^ Well, Penn2013, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? You're obviously insecure, putting down Cornell to elevate Penn. I bet you already bought your "Not Penn State" shirt, didn't you? That said, I'm in no way insecure about Cornell, but I feel like I should defend it against your ignorance. What CayugaRed is trying to do is compare apples to apples - Cornell's A&S and Engineering to the other Ivies (most of them only have liberal arts colleges and engineering colleges - or one college which houses both). Take Penn's School of Nursing - surely the SAT's in that college are lower than, say, Dartmouth's. The difference between Penn and Cornell, though, is that Cornell has five "specialty" colleges, as opposed to Penn's one. So that brings down Cornell's SAT scores. But even with these colleges included, Cornell's scores are not much lower than those of the other Ivies. </p>

<p>Regardless, I don't think SAT scores define prestige. How would you define prestige? By name recognition? Because if that's the case, Cornell certainly beats Penn (after all, why will you need that "Not Penn State" shirt anyway?). By quality of the faculty? You'd be hard-pressed to argue that Cornell's is any weaker than Penn's. By research prowess? Again, good luck convincing anyone that Penn, in this area, is superior to Cornell. The notion that Cornell is, in your uninformed and adolescent view, "AT THE BOTTOM OF THE IVY LEAGUE," is one that exists on CC but not in the real world.</p>

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This is not worth arguing about.

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<p>Fair enough. I was simply answering your question.</p>

<p>"monydad: I think that we all understand that, but it is still ridiculous to compare SAT scores for Cornell's engineering students to non-engineering students at other schools. Plus the figures were neither accurate nor of the same year when comparing different universities."</p>

<p>Coldwind, It is ridiculous to compare, on an aggregated basis, universities that do not have large amounts of students admitted, by separate process, to, eg, a college of agriculture, to other universities that don't have the same separate colleges , hence proportion of student pools to such colleges, whatsoever. Yet that's what some on this thread would like to do, by lumping all disparate colleges of multi-college universities together, as if some aggregate had value to any particular student or applicant. Look directly at the stats of the particular colleges that are alike, apples to apples. Doing otherwise, by lumping the colleges all together as if they were homogeneous: That is what is ridiculous. It does not serve to accurately inform any applicant who applies only to a particular college.</p>

<p>Apples to apples.</p>

<p>Or just stop. Lest ye mislead.</p>

<p>(Ranked by obnoxiousness of student body)</p>

<p>Princeton
Penn
Columbia
Harvard
Dartmouth
Yale
Brown
Cornell</p>

<p>I would say obnoxiousness wise:</p>

<p>Penn
Princeton
Columbia
Harvard
Yale
Cornell
Dartmouth
Brown</p>

<p>Scariest quote ever "Lest Ye Mislead".??? monydad: You miss the point as the comparison was made to other universities which have multiple colleges/schools for which separate or direct application is made & for which separate stats are maintained. And the numbers used were inaccurate or outdated for the other universities.</p>

<p>My impression regarding the "guaranteed transfer option" to Cornell is that it is for borderline/marginally qualified students because the recipients of this offer are required to attend college elsewhere for a year & achieve certain minimum grades. I know a handful of students who have been offered guaranteed transfer options from Cornell & they were not the strongest students in terms of GPAs & SATs. Doesn't Cornell offer waitlist status to well qualified applicants as opposed to guaranteed transfer options?</p>

<p>Applicants to a particular college, to the extent they are zoning in on the entrance stats of their peers, should indeed determine whether others are being admitted "off balance sheet", and what those people's stats are as well. This would apply to all colleges, and all universities of interest.</p>

<p>With respect to Cornell, my understanding is that the "contract colleges" are the ones primarily involved with this. If you are an applicant to the colleges of Agriculture or Industrial & Labor Relations this might be worthy of inquiry. </p>

<p>I know that this Spring Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences received over 100 applicants for transfer, accepted 15 of them, and 12 are attending. I doubt most of them are Guaranteed transfers, probably none of them are. But the numbers are so small as to be trivial in any event.</p>

<p>I don't know what practices other Colleges of Agriculture follow. This will be most germane to prospective applicants to Colleges of Agriculture. My understanding is many state-affiliated colleges have some mandate to accept certain numbers of CC students from their state.</p>

<p>As far as applicants to Colleges of Arts & Sciences are concerned, it doesn't appear there is any big "smoking gun" here.</p>

<p>But yes, if you are deciding between Dartmouth College, where you would study Government, and Cornell's College of Agriculture, where you would study Animal Husbandry, this is yet another factor you might plug into your decision process.</p>

<p>The contract colleges at Cornell may have somewhat lower SAT scores but they are regarded as the best schools in the world in their respective disciplines.</p>

<p>"You miss the point as the comparison was made to other universities which have multiple colleges/schools for which separate or direct application is made & for which separate stats are maintained"</p>

<p>No, YOU miss the point. The point is that there IS no point in aggegating these disparate colleges and then comparing the aggregations. Worse than no point, it can in fact be grossly misleading to applicants. Because they are all grossly different situations, types of colleges, proportions of students involved; and an individual appplicant is probably only applying to one college of a university, not some amalgam.</p>

<p>Even if the other universities that also have various colleges had the same types of colleges, and the same proportions of students allocated between these different colleges - even then this would be pointless to an applicant to just one particular type of college. That they are not all comparable in these particulars makes the aggregation yet more misleading.</p>

<p>Compare apples to apples, period. One type of college to the same type of college.</p>

<p>Engineering to engineering- like you said yourself.
Arts & sciences to Arts & Sciences.
Nursing to Nursing.
Architecture to Architecture.
etc.</p>

<p>if I am interested in applying to Architecture schools I do not want to see Penn's Nursing college comingled in to my reference comparison group. etc.
Lest I be misled.</p>

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You miss the point as the comparison was made to other universities which have multiple colleges/schools for which separate or direct application is made & for which separate stats are maintained.

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<p>No. You missed our point. Not many schools are kind enough to break out the SAT scores by their different colleges. Columbia doesn't do this. Penn doesn't do this. Northwestern doesn't do this. But Cornell does. So at the very least this allows us to compare Cornell to other institutions in a more apples to apples setting, as most of these schools don't have undergraduate programs in architecture, hotel management, or agriculture.</p>

<p>There is an inherent utility in being able to compare Cornell Engineering to Caltech or Harvey Mudd, just as there is a value to compare Cornell CAS to Dartmouth or Brown. How you are unable to see this I do not know.</p>

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And the numbers used were inaccurate or outdated for the other universities.

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</p>

<p>Frankly, I'm confused. You said that there was no point arguing over this, and yet you continue to bring it up. We've already provided you with the source of the data (IPEDS from the federal government) and the year 2007. If you are unhappy with the data that the federal government provides, I suggest you start providing your own data instead of relentlessly complaining about it while admitting there is no use in arguing about it.</p>

<p>The</a> Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System - Evaluate Data & Statistics</p>

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My impression regarding the "guaranteed transfer option" to Cornell is that it is for borderline/marginally qualified students because the recipients of this offer are required to attend college elsewhere for a year & achieve certain minimum grades.

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</p>

<p>You are free to make your own impressions of Cornell's admissions programs, but it is incredibly rude and inconsiderate to consider any of these students as borderline or marginally qualified. GPA and SATs only go so far -- the program is designed to give students who really want to attend Cornell (they often applied ED) the peace of mind that they are strong candidates, the school really likes them but unfortunately there isn't enough room, and that they can transfer to Cornell without having to worry about the normal transfer pool. It's no surprise that this is frequently used by the Ag school for the agricultural majors where Cornell offers the best of this type of education in the area and there is considerable interest from farm families across the state.</p>

<p>Frankly, I've already explained the program to you, and I'm amazed that you are willing to make sweeping generations based on personal anecdotes. </p>

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Doesn't Cornell offer waitlist status to well qualified applicants as opposed to guaranteed transfer options?

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<p>Cornell does put students on a waitlist as well. The Arts and Engineering colleges tend to put more students on the waitlist due to the lower yields they receive, but I know that last year nobody was taken off the waitlist.</p>

<p>"Not many schools are kind enough to break out the SAT scores by their different colleges. Columbia doesn't do this."</p>

<p>Columbia doesn't even report stats for one its undergraduate colleges, College of General Studies, at all, even as part of aggregate reporting. It doesn't even require these tests of undergraduate entrants to this college. They do not report, visibly,even the admit % for this college so far as I can tell. Yet,near as I can tell from what's been posted elsewhere, few Columbia college & SEAS students believe these stats, if collected and reported, would be very similar to theirs.</p>

<p>Maybe if Cornell would follow suit and just not report the stats for the five other specialty colleges at all, all of a sudden you would decide its Arts & sciences and engineering colleges were magically somehow "better", compared to other Arts & Sciences and engineering colleges? The whole "lumping" concept is ridiculous.</p>

<p>compare apples to apples.</p>

<p>^
Columbia -General Studies can not be compared in this discussion to Cornell's schools.
This particular college is for "older" students who want to continue their education. SAT scores lose their value after a certain period of time...</p>

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Columbia -General Studies can not be compared in this discussion to Cornell's schools.

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<p>This is exactly monydad's point.</p>

<p>Yes, but beyond that..</p>

<p>These students are generally or frequently the same age, or younger, as applicants to graduate MBA programs. Yet Columbia's graduate business school requires submission of standardized tests, from their perspective pools of "older" applicants. If there were no value in standardized testing for these older applicants, why do these graduate programs, admitting students of this same age, require standardized testing?</p>

<p>I am in my 50s, I was thinking for a yuck about entering some graduate program and I would have to submit standardized testing.</p>

<p>I personally believe this is a deliberate artifice of the college, to enable it to profit by accepting , for $$$, an applicant pool which would not otherwise meet standards if brought to light of day. I believe the argument that standardized testing is somehow not relevant is specious and self-serving, as my example above demonstrates to my personal satisfaction. Beyond scores, even mere admission % numbers are not readily available.</p>

<p>YMMV.</p>

<p>However, if you were an applicant to such program I would think you would want to judge how you stand relative to its peer group at that particular college.</p>

<p>Not that these should be lumped together either. But the data should be collected and available for reference of applicants to that college, and for others opining about that college.</p>

<p>Which would not make columbia's Engineering college any worse, one way or the other.</p>

<p>I am anti-lumping, but I am pro individual disclosure.</p>

<p>Yale
Harvard
Penn
Columbia
Princeton
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell</p>

<p>Obvi!</p>

<p>Ranking IMO:</p>

<ol>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> Penn</li>
<li> Harvard/Yale</li>
<li> Cornell</li>
<li> Columbia</li>
<li> Brown/Dartmouth</li>
</ol>