<p>The IIT exam is pretty huge (I think), so I doubt people would take it just for the hell of it. Plus, their parents would make sure that they studied rigorously for it. Since it's just one test, everyone is on equal footing and so no one is going to think, "I never volunteered in high school, I have no chance of admission."</p>
<p>Voronwe, Someone on another thread copied that portion of the Templeton survey that dealt with the selection process. It was exhaustive. The Templeton group, headed by Sir John Templeton, world financier, is not a nickle and dime operation. My recollection was that in addition to inviting schools to send in info. about their practices, they also hired an indpendent group to do research. I suggest you go to the site if your are interested.</p>
<p><<1. Gives students an edge ( or greater chance of getting into the school they really want).>></p>
<p>Except that in effect, it disproportionately helps kids who already have a leg up.</p>
<p><<2. Helps schools identify kids who REALLY want to be there (and not kids racking up offers)>></p>
<p>But more importantly, it helps them raise their selectivity rating, which greatly impresses people and fosters a climate of near hysteria which those people love to incite repeatedly.</p>
<p><<sounds like="" a="" great="" quid="" pro="" quo="" to="" me.="" and="" if="" you="" don't="" it,="" apply="" ea="" or="" rd!="">></sounds></p>
<p>Yeah, because that would magically create more fairness. The thing is, as soon as the playing field is leveled and even Joe Regular in a small town in Montana applies EA, the rich and powerful will just come up with another way to skew the process. </p>
<p>Oh and any child who knows where they want to go to college in 9th grade and never wavers in their choice is really going to the college of their parents' choice.</p>
<p>New Ranking:
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Columbia School of Broadcasting
4. Princeton</p>
<p>"Except that in effect, it disproportionately helps kids who already have a leg up."</p>
<p><<Who are you talking about? If you're talking about leagacies, athletes etc. they're going to get accepted anyway, wheteher it's ED/EA/RD.</p>
<p>"But more importantly, it helps them raise their selectivity rating, which greatly impresses people and fosters a climate of near hysteria which those people love to incite repeatedly."</p>
<p><<Last time I checked ED was voluntary. Further, from a student's perspective their only interest is in getting accepted. The college's reasons are unrelated to the student getting accepted.</p>
<p>"Yeah, because that would magically create more fairness. The thing is, as soon as the playing field is leveled and even Joe Regular in a small town in Montana applies EA, the rich and powerful will just come up with another way to skew the process. Oh and any child who knows where they want to go to college in 9th grade and never wavers in their choice is really going to the college of their parents' choice."</p>
<p><< Believe or not there are kids in Montana who do know where they want to go to school. Who are you to tell them they don't. ED is their choice, their decision.</p>
<p>Sigh. I'm sorry you don't understand. Look up the reasons why UNC discontinued ED. Maybe you will understand it better the way they explain it.</p>
<p>I prefer the explanation of the 6 Ivies who support ED.</p>
<p>TheDad, the financial aid aspect doesn't ring true for a school like Princeton which is need blind and has one of the best financial aid programs in the US</p>
<p>IIT is the most selective college in the world, as has been said by previous posters.</p>
<p>Careful with the numbers... schools always accept more than the number of seats, just because of a certain yield percentage.</p>
<p>What is IIt?
I am a chemical engineer with PHD degree. I don't see any research paper form "IIT", I don't see a Text book form "IIT". It is rediculous to compare between MIT, UCB, or CIT with "IIT".</p>
<p>I am sorry I mean "from" not "form".</p>
<p>Ditto that. I too would like to hear about how relatively competitive ITT is to MIT.</p>
<p>About Princeton's selectivity - it is easily one of the most difficult colleges to get into in the world, and definitely in the US. Perhaps not the most selective ever, but it is incredibly selective already.</p>
<p>"I am a chemical engineer with PHD degree. I don't see any research paper form "IIT", I don't see a Text book form "IIT". It is rediculous to compare between MIT, UCB, or CIT with "IIT". "</p>
<p>i think IIT is a lot more undergrad focused. the students who go there learn to get a good grasp of tech skills and try to find the best jobs in india or come over to the USA to work. besides, i dont think they have the resources to do top-notch research. nevertheless, the students who get into IIT are extremely bright and relatively successful.</p>
<p>"Ditto that. I too would like to hear about how relatively competitive IIT is to MIT."</p>
<p>I believe that last years acceptance rate was 1.75%</p>
<p>I'm sorry if you don't know what IIT is - the same goes for gianievve; however, every single engineer I've met knows what IIT is. Perhaps, gianevve, you aren't an engineer; so you shouldn't sound overbearing by degrading IIT when compared to MIT. And yes, MIT is far less competitive to gain entrance into than IIT - nearly 100,000 apply to IIT yearly, but they have only roughly 1,000 seats; giving a 1% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Well I know one thing,doing an MIT app was far easier and far less stressful then preparing for the IIT exam</p>
<p>ITT must be well known within the engineering field, but for many humanities students in the U.S. - ITT is not a household name. Although it is highly selective, because of its primary focus on engineering instead of the all-round diverse education found at institutions like Princeton and Harvard, ITT is not the #1 college in the world.</p>
<p>nobody is saying it is Gianievve,just that it is the most selective in the world</p>
<p>Princeton is notorious for doing somewhat sketchy things to increase yield %. Their decision to stick with ED while Harvard and Yale went to SCEA is one example. Another one is that Princeton exhibits a version of "Tuft's syndrome," rejecting students with high SAT scores because accepting them might hurt yield.</p>
<p>Quoting from "A Revealed Preference Ranking" <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewPaper&id=1298%5B/url%5D">http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewPaper&id=1298</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
At Princeton, the admissions probability rises to 20 percent at the 93 percentile, then falls to 10 percent at the 98 percentile (precisely the region where competition is toughest), and then rises again for students with SAT scores in the top 2 percentiles. In short, it appears that Princeton practices more strategic admissions than MIT or Harvard. When we see the revealed preference ranking later in the paper, we will see that Figure 1 makes sense because Harvard and MIT could benefit less from strategic admissions than Princeton could. While Figure 1 is not definitive, it provides suggestive evidence that even a highly prestigious school may practice potentially costly strategic admissions. Such behavior is potentially costly to the actual quality of an admissions class, with no clear benefit beyond a higher reported matriculation rate.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That Princeton will only accept 4-5% of RD applicants says very little about its selectivity. If Princeton took 0% of RD applicants (accepting the entire class in the ED round), how would that be selective? The small number of spots available for RD show that Princeton is using ED as a crutch to prop up yield.</p>
<p>I think the revealed preference rankings in the paper I linked to are rather revealing. I don't think a perfect selectivity ranking can be created (or rather, if it could it would become instantly irrelevant as college admissions massaged their numbers to change their ranking).</p>
<p>A random ranking I found via google: <a href="http://www.consusgroup.com/news/rankings/colleges/colleges.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.consusgroup.com/news/rankings/colleges/colleges.asp</a> Does anyone know their methodology?</p>