<p>There was a comment at the beginning of this thread about Cornell having a focus on graduate students, which is why I tried to dispel that myth. The myth probably stems from Cornell’s size. It has more students but it also has more faculty and resources. </p>
<p>Cornell undergrads get a great deal of attention from faculty even though faculty are very busy. Cornell is a predominantly undergraduate institution, but with an excellent graduate component. It is a nice balance.</p>
<p>The topic of this thread has to do with Ivies. I threw in some non-Ivies for comparison and perspective. Cornell is one of the most undergrad-focused Ivies. On the other hand, it is surprising how many grad students the smaller Ivies have (proportionally).</p>
<p>Here are the top 40 universities or so sorted by the percent of graduate students 2006 IPEDS.</p>
<p>school, SAT 75th percentile, total enrollment, undergrad enrollment, percent undergrad</p>
<p>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1420 6565 5148 78.4%
College of William and Mary 1440 7645 5678 74.3%
Brown University 1530 8115 5981 73.7%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1400 42476 31242 73.6%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 1390 3880 2853 73.5%
University of Maryland-College Park 1390 35102 25154 71.7%
Dartmouth College 1550 5786 4097 70.8%
University of California-Berkeley 1450 33764 23784 70.4%
University of California-Los Angeles 1410 36365 25350 69.7%
Cornell University 1490 19641 13562 69.0%
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 1400 17931 12355 68.9%
Princeton University 1590 7065 4790 67.8%
Boston College 1420 14381 9749 67.8%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 1420 37720 25430 67.4%
University of Notre Dame 1500 9564 6313 66.0%
Wake Forest University 1400 6739 4321 64.1%
Brandeis University 1440 5312 3307 62.3%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1390 27539 17111 62.1%
University of Virginia-Main Campus 1430 23950 14810 61.8%
Tulane University of Louisiana 1425 10606 6533 61.6%
Rice University 1530 5024 3011 59.9%
University of Rochester 1420 8654 4843 56.0%
Carnegie Mellon University 1490 9999 5548 55.5%
Washington University in St Louis 1530 13532 7505 55.5%
Vanderbilt University 1460 11607 6378 54.9%
Emory University 1470 12338 6646 53.9%
Tufts University 1480 9637 4994 51.8%
New York University 1410 39228 19929 50.8%
University of Pennsylvania 1490 23685 11874 50.1%
University of Southern California 1460 33389 16729 50.1%
Northwestern University 1500 18508 9183 49.6%
Georgetown University 1490 14148 6853 48.4%
Duke University 1560 13124 6234 47.5%
Yale University 1580 11475 5410 47.1%
George Washington University 1390 24423 10792 44.2%
Case Western Reserve University 1430 9592 4080 42.5%
California Institute of Technology 1570 2086 864 41.4%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1560 10253 4127 40.3%
Harvard University 1590 25120 9750 38.8%
Columbia University in the City of New York 1540 24164 8639 35.8%
Stanford University 1540 19042 6576 34.5%
University of Chicago 1560 14332 4846 33.8%
Johns Hopkins University 1490 19708 5738 29.1%</p>
<p>Like mj93 said, Regardless of prestige, BROWN! followed by Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth/Yale.<br>
What is the order of prestige for the Ivy’s. I would think Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell.</p>
I think that’s due in part to Berkeley’s notorious selectivity in grad level programs. Another reason could probably be Berkeley’s small endowment fund where it cannot support/sponsor additional grad students like Harvard/Stanford can.</p>
<p>A quick comment on the stastics which I did find interesting as I don’t recall seeing this sort of analysis before. I think these numbers include students in both graduate and professional programs not just graduate schools, right? hat makes a difference as students and the faculty in professional schools really are not integrated with undergraduates to the same extent as those in the academic graduate programs that lead to a Ph.D.</p>
<p>For example, I may be wrong but my understanding is that Dartmouth doesn’t have any graduate programs but they do have professional (Tuck for MBA etc.) programs. I would view Dartmouth as almost completely an undergraduate institution with few, if any actually, TA’s. No doubt someone else will be able to confirm or reject my impressions.</p>
<p>Likewise many of Columbia’s graduate students may be in law, business, or their graduate school of education (Teacher’s college).</p>
<p>If I had to pick, Princeton. Hands down. But overall I am not a big Ivy supporter. Nor “top 30” in the sense that being in the so called “top 30 matters” or not. </p>
<p>School size, the programs, professors, administrators, campus culture, student body diversity, student body culture, geographical location, “feel”, a bit of architectural beauty, sports history and opportunities, graduation percentages, graduate and professional school percentages and where, dorm size and amenities, school safety, school spirit…are all things I/we considered. Prestige was way down the list.</p>
<p>I wish everyone the best of luck in admissions and the best of luck in their collegiate experience no matter where they go.</p>
<p>lol so an endowment between 3-4 billion is “small”? Sure, it’s not as big as top privates, who have monstrous endowments, but it’s certainly huge, especially in comparison to the vast majority of colleges.</p>
<p>UCLA has more grads, but a smaller endowment. OSU has a smaller endowment, but about 3,000 more grads. USC has a smaller endowment, but it has about 6,500 more grads. NYU has a much smaller endowment (by over a billion) and it has more than 6,000 more grads. So, I don’t think Berkeley’s grad program is as small as it is (though not really small at all) because of its endowment.</p>
<p>Catfishin listed some important criteria. If all the Ivies were equally prestigious, then I would choose based on the following (in rank order):
(1) strength of the particular program (the Ivies are not equal in this way)
(2) campus “feel” or “climate” or “culture” (nebulous, I know)
(3) distance from home (closer is better)
(4) location (I don’t like urban, I like safe)
(5) size (I like big)
(6) campus beauty
(7) graduation percent (~=selectivity~=prestige)</p>
<p>not important to me at all:
sports
diversity</p>
<p>slipper1234-
Well, I would never go to a single-sex school. I would never go to a school that was almost all engineering or any narrow curriculum. I guess that’s diversity. I’ve thought about this. Other than co-ed and broad interests, I would not choose a school based on diversity.</p>