<p>Yield has less impact than you think; to be admitted, you have to apply, and to apply you generally want to attend. All the people who do not want to attend those schools don’t apply, are not accepted, and thus do not affect the yield one way or another. Thus, while yield affects how Harvard/Yale and Princeton (unmentioned by the comment) are viewed within their common groups, with respect to cross-admits, it shouldn’t be projected to the whole.</p>
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If you believe that there is an objective measure of universities in which one capable university can be seriously held as generally “better” than another without specification.</p>
<p>But again, my point was merely that the comment was idiotic, and it has since been labelled a jest, so the issue is moot.</p>
<p>It would be idiotic to believe that EVERYONE wants to go there. However, not at all un-common to believe that many if not majority of the people consider HYP one of their top schools on the list. Many people cut them off their lists because they know they are not of the caliber to be admitted. </p>
<p>I doubt there are many people, however, that would choose Northwestern University over Harvard/Yale.</p>
<p>“Many”? Yes. “Majority”? No. Generally, people favor regional universities the most. It would not be uncommon for the average person in Texas to want to go to UT more than anywhere else, for example.</p>
<p>Harvard, predictably, leads the survey, at 16% of respondents. Stanford (4%) follows, MIT and Princeton tie (3%), Yale, Notre Dame, Duke, UCLA, and Penn State all follow with 2%. The rest are 1% or less. Since Harvard and Yale account for 18% of respondents, and “best university” can be translated as “favorite university” or “university you would like to attend,” then it seems that the majority of people would not pick one of those two, and only Harvard is substantially ahead of everywhere else.</p>
<p>Now, this is the general public, not the educated teenage population here, yet still, I did this to prove a point. It isn’t surprising that most people don’t have Harvard or Yale as their #1, and this thread shows that result.</p>
I KNEW it would already have been said XD
They just seem so damn perfect, I don’t know why…but they do… and the people I’ve spoken to from the schools seem to love the place.</p>
<p>@Dolorous: You’d be right, if you were on just about any other website. However, CC is filled with cream-of-the-crop students who frequently post stats threads for HYPSM, seek help to get into Ivy League schools, etc. The focus of the majority of forum users is to get into the best school for them. Since Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Princeton are so good in so many areas, students would generally consider one of these to be the best school for them, or their dream school (generally, so there are exceptions). Remember, this thread is not about realistic choices, it is about where you would go if you had a free pass to any college. Thus, it is not wrong to be surprised that more of the answers don’t include the HYPSM (I believe he was generalizing top schools when he said Harvard/Yale, so no need to argue specifics). This is not elitist, nor is it ‘rank-driven’; it is simply a logical thought.</p>
Which they do, for the most part. But to expect them to mostly aim for the same one or two schools would be wrong. You might call it an “understandable” assumption, but it’s still a wrong assumption.</p>
Have you visited? If not, then DON’T! Not until you’re accepted, at least. I visited after I got in, and loved it so much, I was glad I didn’t do so before, because it would have made rejection very bitter.</p>
<p>And basically, once you get to the top 10 schools in the nation, it really doesn’t matter if you went to Harvard versus Johns Hopkins for pre-med or MIT versus Caltech, etc.</p>
!</p>