<p>Yes, of course. USNWR, for example, ranks them all in top 15, with Princeton on top and Brown at bottom, but all exceptional. </p>
<p>The reason they are together is the unity and quality of their academic mission as well as the traditional athletic rivalries. If the Ivy League were only premised on competitive sports history, schools such as Boston University or Syracuse or even Rutgers would be in the conference.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I rank Ivy prestige like this:
1. Cornell
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Columbia
5. Dartmouth
6. Brown
7. Yale
8. Harvard</p>
<p>[engineering prestige, that is]
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's a big of anti-Harvard bias, don't you think? I am fairly certain that Harvard engineering is ranked higher than Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown. In fact, according to USNews Graduate Edition 2007, Harvard is ranked higher than even UPenn in grad engineering.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My perception is that there is a lot of reflected glory from HYP to the others. A question I frequently wonder about is how well would the lower Ivies be considered or ranked if they were NOT in the Ivy League. For example, would Brown or Cornell or even Penn be popular with applicants or academics or the media if they were part of the ACC (like Duke) or the Big 10 (like Northwestern) or the SEC (like Vanderbilt) or the Pacific 10 (like Stanford)?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree, but frankly, it doesn't matter. Whether we like it or not, what you call 'reflected glory' and what I call 'marketing' works. Maybe it shouldn't work, but it does work. It's no different from how the undergraduate programs at the famous research universities derive reflected glory from their graduate programs.</p>
<p>A few statistics from 2006:
admissions "yield"
This is the percent of admitted students who actually enroll. This is a measure of relative drawing power (relative to cross-admit schools). </p>
<p>Harvard 83
Yale 70
Princeton 69
U of Penn 66
Columbia 58
Brown 58
Dartmouth 49
Cornell 46</p>
<p>Number of applications.
This is a popularity measure to some extent, and is also affected by the mix of programs offered at a school.</p>
<p>Cornell 28,098
Harvard 22,645
U of Penn 20,483
Columbia 19,851
Yale 19,451
Brown 18316
Princeton 17564
dartmouth 13,938</p>
<p>collegehelp,
I think a better way to score the popularity/demand is number of applications divided by number of freshman spots:</p>
<p>Yale 19,451 (est # of freshman enrollment spots = 1352, apps/spots = 14.4)
Princeton 17564 (1226, 14.3)
Harvard 22,645 (1662, 13.6)
Dartmouth 13,938 (1028, 13.6)
Brown 18316 (1544, 11.9)
Columbia 19,851 (1830, 10.8)
U of Penn 20,483 (2460, 8.3)
Cornell 28,098 (3379, 8.3)</p>
<p>Collegehelp not sure how those help (for example Cornell is at the top of one list, the bottom of the other). Dartmouth has a tendancy to admit without any concern for whether an applicant will attend, whereas Penn does take this much more into consideration for example. Similarly a small school without many specific programs and without as many alumni, admissions officers, etc is unlikely to draw the number of applications as the bigger schools.</p>
<p>Hawkette-
I disagree with your idea of dividing apps by the number of freshmen spots. When students apply, they generally don't take into account the number of freshmen spots. They just know that they want to go to that school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the number of freshman spots might be an indication of how many majors are offered and how popular those majors are. I think the breadth and mix of the curriculum does influence the number of apps.</p>
<p>I also want to point out that the differences among the Ivies in selectivity have much more to do with verbal skills than math skills. There is only about a 30-40 point math SAT difference between the top math SAT Ivy (HYP) and the bottom math SAT Ivy (Cornell). On the other hand, there is an 80 point gap between the top verbal SAT Ivy (HP) and the bottom verbal SAT Ivy (Penn).</p>
<p>Furthermore, I want to mention that comparing Ivies on an equal basis would involve comparing comparable colleges within the schools, such as Arts and Sciences colleges. There is relative uniformity in quality among the Ivy Arts and Sciences colleges.</p>
<p>I agree with fuzzylogic's list :)</p>
<p>Stanford is way better than all other Ivies save for HYP. :]</p>
<p>Yield doesn't really show that much since we know certain schools (Penn, WashU, Chicago) waitlist students they think will get in somewhere "better" in order to protect their yield.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, outside of Cornell and Princeton, none of the Ivy engineering programs is really worth a darn anyway, so I don't claim to be an expert. I was just going by the fact that Harvard's only ABET-accredited undergrad degree is "Engineering Science," with little in the way of specialized disciplinary offerings. Also, Harvard only graduates about 20 S.B. students per year, last I saw. Their graduate program may be better, for all I know, and it sounds like Harvard is putting some effort and money into improving the program, so I could be a little off. In any event, Haaahvaad certainly doesn't hold a candle to Cornell in engineering.</p>
<p>I agree that Cornell has the best engineering program among the Ivies. In fact, if you could somehow strip away the overall "prestige effect" and compare them major versus major, Cornell would probably be among the top 4 Ivies. Of course, it isn't really possible to strip away the overall prestige factor. And, I have to say that overall prestige does seem to affect how you feel about a school.</p>
<p>Harvard / Princeton / Yale
Brown / Columbia / Dartmouth / Penn
Cornell</p>
<p>"My perception is that there is a lot of reflected glory from HYP to the others. A question I frequently wonder about is how well would the lower Ivies be considered or ranked if they were NOT in the Ivy League. For example, would Brown or Cornell or even Penn be popular with applicants or academics or the media if they were part of the ACC (like Duke) or the Big 10 (like Northwestern) or the SEC (like Vanderbilt) or the Pacific 10 (like Stanford)?"</p>
<p>Interesting - notwithstanding the logistics, a sports conference made up of schools like Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, UoChicago, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, etc. would compare favorably and over time, probably would raise the profile/stature of all of the schools.</p>
<p>Penn, does have schools that draw apps...Warton rannk #1, and nursing rank #1.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Whether we like it or not, what you call 'reflected glory' and what I call 'marketing' works.
[/quote]
Marketing indeed. Take "Ivy League" and "first" out of Penn's prospectus and half the paper is saved. :p</p>
<p>Prestige:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>
<p>Which I think are the best in order:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>
<p>1) I think that this is a really different question inside the U.S. and out. For instance, I think really few people in America honestly believe that Harvard is a better school than Yale. (I sure don't.) But go to East Asia and ask around.</p>
<p>2) I think Brown in particular, and to some extent Dartmouth, has/have a different type of prestige that the other Ivy schools. Brown has a sort of hippie countercultural streak that the other Ivies lack. . . for a long time, it was perceived as the Ivy League institution for people who were both smart and non-conformist, which is a type of prestige in and of itself. Yale is widely considered to be a more creative and also somewhat more countercultural place than Harvard. On the other hand, while Harvard is the stereotypical elite institution, it is also the definition of "status quo," for better or worse. Think for a moment about movies you've seen recently with characters who went to Harvard. Let me guess: they were pretentious, overbearing in some way, maybe symbols of inherited privilege? Harvard always carries that baggage, which is the opposite of earned prestige.</p>
<p>So I guess it depends on your personal value system and also where in the world you live.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, outside of Cornell and Princeton, none of the Ivy engineering programs is really worth a darn anyway, so I don't claim to be an expert.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First off, that's missing the point. The point is, is there really any evidence to indicate that Harvard is worse in engineering than Dartmouth, Brown, or Yale? If not (and I certainly haven't found any), then there is no reason to believe that Harvard should be ranked 8th in the Ivy League. </p>
<p>Second of all, you're making some pretty strong statements when you say the "aren't worth a damn", don't you think? After all, even the worst Ivy engineering program is ranked maybe in the 50's, maybe in the 60's at worst. There are hundreds and hundreds of engineering programs out there. So if those Ivy engineering programs are 'not worth a damn', then what does that mean for the vast majority of engineering programs that are ranked even lower? I guess they're REALLY not worth a damn, right? </p>
<p>
[quote]
I was just going by the fact that Harvard's only ABET-accredited undergrad degree is "Engineering Science," with little in the way of specialized disciplinary offerings.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't find that to be necessarily a problem. After all, Harvey Mudd offers only a "General Engineering" degree, with no specialized disciplinary offerings. Yet nobody who knows the engineering field would consider Harvey Mudd to be 'not worth a damn'. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.eng.hmc.edu/EngWebsite/index.php?page=FAQ.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.eng.hmc.edu/EngWebsite/index.php?page=FAQ.php</a> </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, Harvard only graduates about 20 S.B. students per year, last I saw.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nor do I find this to be necessarily a problem. It's not clear to me that what size has to do with anything. Caltech, for example, is a tiny school that nobody disputes is a technical powerhouse. All the LAC's are similarly quite small. It's not clear to me that you need to have a lot of students in order to run a strong program. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Their graduate program may be better, for all I know, and it sounds like Harvard is putting some effort and money into improving the program, so I could be a little off.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, look. Harvard grad engineering is ranked only a few slots better than Harvard undergrad engineering. Hence it seems to me that whatever improvements may be happening in the graduate engineering program are trickling to the undergrad program.</p>
<p>
[quote]
so I could be a little off. In any event, Haaahvaad certainly doesn't hold a candle to Cornell in engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree that Harvard engineering is not as good as Cornell engineering.</p>
<p>But I would now posit that it may not matter anyway, for the simple matter that plenty of engineers, especially Ivy engineers (including Cornell engineers) aren't going to work as engineers anyway, but instead are going to do other things. For example, even at MIT, it's become something of a running joke that the best engineering students will never work as engineers, but instead prefer to work as management consultants or investment bankers. Other people here on CC have talked about Cornell engineering students who have similarly jumped to consulting or banking. Hence, I'm not even sure that, when it comes to the Ivies, distinction of engineering program strength really matters anyway.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) I think that this is a really different question inside the U.S. and out. For instance, I think really few people in America honestly believe that Harvard is a better school than Yale. (I sure don't.) But go to East Asia and ask around.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, actually, there are PLENTY of Americans who think exactly that way. Maybe they're wrong, maybe they're deluded, but they do. </p>
<p>I cringe at using an example from a fictional TV show. But consider this exchange from season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, between Cordelia and Willow</p>
<p>Cordelia: "...Yale is a dumping ground for those who didn't get into Harvard"
Willow: "I got into Harvard"</p>
<p>Now, one might say that, sakky, that's just a TV show and Cordelia is just a fictional character. But I think it does capture a larger truth held by a LOT of Americans (and Buffy's viewer base was mostly US), that Yale is considered a safety school for those who couldn't get into Harvard. Fair or not fair, that is the perception out there. Whether we like it or not, Harvard is Harvard.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>If you wanna argue until you're blue in the face as to whether Harvard engineering is the fourth, fifth, or whatever best program in the Ivy League, be my guest. I spent about thirty seconds coming up with that list, and I don't claim to be an omnipotent guru regarding engineering programs, particularly the smaller ones. We all know this "Ivy ranking" game is a rather pointless exercise, and most ppl will have the exact same list, so I just threw mine out there to shake things up a bit. It was off the top of my head, based on what little I know about the programs outside of Cornell, my alma mater from way back when.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that Harvard has some of the most brilliant engineering students in the country, many of which have gone (or will go) on to accomplish great things, both in and outside of the engineering fields. I myself only worked directly in engineering for about five years, though I still work with engineers on a daily basis. So I'm sure my list has some inherent bias toward those schools that produce more practicing engineers, since I have never been interested in i-banking, consulting, whatever...</p>
<p>Two final notes, and then I'll let you type your inevitable responsive dissertation. First, with regard to lower-ranked engineering programs, there really are a number that have no business churning out graduates, and there should be some stricter requirements for ABET accreditation (just as the ABA should reduce the # of bad law schools, but that's a whole 'nother argument). Finally, I said DARN, not DAMN... there are impressionable kids around here, ha ha! ;-)</p>
<p>I am outta here for the weekend, AV</p>