<p>Can anybody order the IvyLeagues according to their selectivity?
Which are the easiest to get into?</p>
<p>btw my stats
GPA UW: 3.73 ish
GPA W : 4.43
SAT 750 CR, 800 math, 730 writing (projected)</p>
<p>THANKS :D</p>
<p>Well, it depends a lot on which college you are applying to across many of the different Ivy League institutions. Wharton is very different form Cornell Architecture which is very different from Columbia SEAS.</p>
<p>With a 1550, you will be competitive at every one of the schools. It will mostly boil down to the rest of your application. Leadership, essays, etc.</p>
<p>What basis are you using to project your SAT I scores?</p>
<p>USNews publishes the acceptance rates for hundreds of colleges & universities. The most recent data is for the high school graduating class of 2007:</p>
<p>Harvard 9% acceptance rate
Yale 10%
Princeton 10%
Columbia 11%
Brown 14%
Dartmouth 15%
Penn 16%
Cornell 21% plus a significant # of "guaranteed transfer options"</p>
<p>The reported 25th percentile SAT score of accepted students: CR & Math</p>
<p>Harvard 1400
Yale 1400
Princeton 1390
Columbia 1360
Dartmouth 1330
Brown 1330
Penn 1330
Cornell 1290 (not including those students with guaranteed transfer options)</p>
<p>A chart that I find helpful as a basic resource shows the SAT 25th percentile for enrolled (matriculated) students to the nation's top National Universities as this is a strong indicator of the academic quality of the studentbody:</p>
<p>CalTech 1470
Harvard 1400
Yale 1400
Princeton 1390
MIT 1380
WashUStL 1370
Columbia 1360
Northwestern 1350
Stanford 1340
Duke 1340
Tufts 1340
Dartmouth 1330
Penn 1330
Chicago 1330
Brown 1330
Rice 1310
Notre Dame 1300
Georgetown 1300
Emory 1300
Vanderbilt 1300
Cornell 1290</p>
<p>Of this list of 21 national universities, the Ivies rank as high as number (2) two and, at the bottom of the list, as low as number (21) twenty-one. When including LACs, one Ivy (Cornell University) is not even in the top 35 schools. Point being that there are many top academic colleges & universities besides Ivies.</p>
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The reported 25th percentile SAT score of accepted students: CR & Math</p>
<p>Harvard 1400
Yale 1400
Princeton 1390
Columbia 1360
Dartmouth 1330
Brown 1330
Penn 1330
Cornell 1290 (not including those students with guaranteed transfer options)
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<p>These aren't accepted student numbers -- they are the numbers for matriculating students.</p>
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USNews publishes the acceptance rates
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</p>
<p>I think acceptance rates are really meaningless statistics, as they tell you nothing about the difficulty of getting accepted, nor of the quality of the entering student class. Add to this the preponderance of things like ED, EA, and other yield management techniques, they essentially give you no information about how difficult it is to get into a college.</p>
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at the bottom of the list, as low as number (21) twenty-one.
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<p>Keep in mind, of course, that if you are applying to Cornell Arts and Sciences or Cornell Engineering, you're actually in the middle of the pack, with Dartmouth, Chicago, and Brown. And don't think you are going to use the Hotel School as a back door. It's actually the hardest college to get into at Cornell, even if it has low SAT scores, due to the need for a strong interest in hospitality.</p>
<p>In the case of Cornell University, the 21% acceptance rate is somewhat misleading due to the substantial number of additional students conditionally accepted under Cornell's guaranteed transfer option.
In response to the OP's original inquirey, Cornell University is the easiest Ivy for admissions when judged by acceptance rate & SAT scores.</p>
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I think acceptance rates are really meaningless statistics, as they tell you nothing about the difficulty of getting accepted, nor of the quality of the entering student class.
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</p>
<p>Agreed. There are thousands of dreamers flooding Columbia with applications due to city-lust, Harvard on account of prestige-lust.</p>
<p>Better to look at Ivy selectivity this way. Most students who apply to Cornell are interested in their Arts & Science or Engineering schools which are more selective.</p>
<p>Harvard University 1400 1590
Yale University 1390 1580
Princeton University 1390 1580
Dartmouth College 1350 1550
Columbia University in the City of New York 1330 1540
Cornell - Arts & Sci and Engineering 1335 1525
Brown University 1330 1530
University of Pennsylvania 1330 1520
Cornell University 1290 1500</p>
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the 21% acceptance rate is somewhat misleading due to the substantial number of additional students conditionally accepted under Cornell's guaranteed transfer option.
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<p>I don't see how it is misleading at all. The published statistics reflect the percentage of applicants accepted to enroll in the freshmen class. Cornell allows strong candidates -- candidates who more likely than not were just as strong as those accepted -- to be granted transfer status pending satisfactory completion of a pre-approved heavy academic course load at another institution.</p>
<p>The other Ivies should be so progressive as to actually want to educate more students with their unparalleled resources.</p>
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Columbia with applications due to city-lust, Harvard on account of prestige-lust
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<p>And Cornell on account of cow-lust.</p>
<p>Okay. Bad joke.</p>
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when judged by acceptance rate & SAT scores
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<p>And what a silly way to judge it, given that each of these institutions could fill their class twice over with applicants with similar statistics.</p>
<p>If you don't judge selectivity by acceptance rates and/or standardized test scores, then how should selectivity be judged? Certainly USNews would love to know as these are the primary factors used in their survey which rates selectivity.
Regardless of what standard one may conjure up to measure student selectivity, among the Ivies, Cornell University is absolutely the least selective. Although, the selectivity is diminished somewhat by the easier schools like ILR & AG & Human Ecology which receive state funding & give in state students SUNY like prices, hence the nickname SUNY-Ithaca.
Cornell, like Berkeley, Michigan,UNC & UCLA is a great university- albeit the only quasi-public/private university in the country.</p>
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If you don't judge selectivity by acceptance rates and/or standardized test scores, then how should selectivity be judged? Certainly USNews would love to know as these are the primary factors used in their survey which rates selectivity.
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<p>Well, I for one am not in the business of giving a silly news magazine a new reason to sell more issues. But I'll give it a shot.</p>
<p>First, can we agree that acceptance rates as published tell you nothing? A much more meaningful statistic would be the percentage of student acceptances relative to the total population of applicants whom the school would deem fit to enroll were space not a problem. If one out of every five applicants to Harvard is doing it as a lark and they have absolutely no shot at getting accepted, what does that tell you about selectivity? Nothing really. </p>
<p>Similarly, a lot of schools are now engaging in pretty... interesting... behavior to tailor their entering classes as they see fit, which can affect the acceptance rates in odd ways. Penn is enrolling 50 percent of its class early decision, way beyond the norm for any of its peer schools. And WashU has been known to purposeful reject candidates considered to be overqualified. </p>
<p>So, that said, in my mind, there are two underlying qualities that colleges look for when they accept students -- academic qualifications and what I will call extramural qualifications. These comprise the basis of what it is meant to be "selective". Often two students may have the same academic qualifications but differ extramurally, and those factors will make all of the difference.</p>
<p>Now, it is impossible to quantify these extramural factors in any meaning form, so good luck with that. </p>
<p>Turning to the academic qualifications, there are many known issues with the standard statistics used. The first failure is that selectivity is often paired with statistics for the entering class, and not the accepted class. If selectivity is really to be a gauge for how difficult it is to get accepted to a school, I think the accepted class statistics should be used across the board.</p>
<p>More importantly, SAT and ACT scores are widely considered to be endogenously correlated with the household income of a student, suggesting that the wealthier a school's student body is, the higher standardized test scores you should expect, all other things held equal (e.g. the academic qualifications of the student body are exactly the same). So if 10 percent of Dartmouth students are on Pell Grants, as compared to 35 percent of Berkeley students, I'm not certain you can make a meaningful comparison across the two institution's SAT scores without taking this fact into account.</p>
<p>Another question I have in regards to selectivity is why class size doesn't come into account more often. It seems to me to be pretty easy to create a selective class when you may only enroll 1,000 new students a year. But it is a lot harder to enroll a just as "selective" class when you enroll 2,500 or 3,000 students a year. If you look at the distribution of </p>
<p>I believe that the best indicator of academic qualifications is one's academic record in high school. But there are a couple of issues with how to consider one's academic record, especially as no two high schools are going to grade similarly. </p>
<p>There is also the problem of non-reporting of high school rank in class. Not all high schools feature the same caliber of a student body, so one who may be a top 10 percent in a certain high school might only hit the top 30 percent in another high school. Apples to oranges. And a majority of students no longer report it, so I'm not certain how meaningful it is anymore. </p>
<p>Finally there is the role of interest and motivation in all of this. Somebody could be fascinated by birds or driven to play music all day, but really struggle in English class. If Cornell is enrolling some of the world's future premier ornithologists or Oberlin is admitting some of the best chamber musicians in the country, but they just so happen to have a spotty record in some traditional academic subjects, how can you compare this type information with other schools? You can't.</p>
<p>In the end you need to trust that each institution is accepting and enrolling the students they think will make the best use out of the resources and opportunities offered. Quite frankly, I'm not so certain that is happening anymore at a lot of schools, as everybody falls prey to this rankings madness. Intellectually curious students are being passed over for drones who have good test scores but can't come up with an independent thought to save their life. </p>
<p>Food for thought.</p>
<p>When you come down to it, the Ivies are all within 70 SAT points of each other and, if you compare them program for program, they all have their share of programs among the top three or four in the Ivies. Taken together, they are the most elite group of schools in the world. I think their prestige is well-deserved. The largest numbers of elite students are at Cornell and Penn.</p>
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I think acceptance rates are really meaningless statistics, as they tell you nothing about the difficulty of getting accepted, nor of the quality of the entering student class.
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Agreed! Its not so hard to increase your acceptance rates so some think you are a selective college. Heres how (from Business Week):
The first phase begins in the spring, when Harvard mails letters to a staggering 70,000-or-so high school juniors. 70,000 flattering recruiting letters; if 1 in 3 respond, thats 23,000 applications. With such marketing, more students are motivated to apply, thinking they are somehow being recruited. While flattering at first glance, the letters are part of a marketing plan to increase H's application numbers. More applications means more rejections, which increases the 'selectivity' percentage, increases the ranking, and makes people think H is the 'most' selective college. A tricky business . . .</p>
<p>Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest</p>
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Agreed. There are thousands of dreamers flooding Columbia with applications due to city-lust, Harvard on account of prestige-lust.
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Such an oft quoted flawed statement. Not for Harvard, but for columbia. For every student that applies because they love NYC another rejects Columbia because they do not want city campus/college experience. I can not even tell you how many kids I know decided not even to think about Columbia because of NYC. Thats just like saying Dartmouth gets all its applicants because of its rural setting or Princeton because of its suburban one, different locations appeal to different people and the distinction of why is irrelevant</p>
<p>Finally on Acceptance rates Penn may enroll 50% or roughly that ED, but every ivy that has ED enrolls around 40%+ so its not that different. Finally selectivity is not perfect, but for non-niche schools it provides a good depiction of the strength of the student body. Acceptance rates couples with SAT scors are really the best we have (obviously ECs matter so were not talking mindless drones here). A lower acceptance rate means that a school has its pick of the students and they will enroll the best. Cayuga I understand your defense of Cornell, but realistically this system is the best we have..</p>
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Finally on Acceptance rates Penn may enroll 50% or roughly that ED, but every ivy that has ED enrolls around 40%+ so its not that different.
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<p>I'm pretty certain that both Dartmouth and Cornell are under 35 percent.</p>
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Cayuga I understand your defense of Cornell, but realistically this system is the best we have...
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<p>So Panglossian.</p>
<p>Honestly? It would be nice if the emphasis on stats and rankings was downplayed. I feel a lot of otherwise very good institutions get overlooked -- like Rochester, Tufts, or CMU.</p>
<p>A possibly better system (under which the Ivies still fare pretty well): </p>