@DeepBlue86 Take it easy with the personal attacks buddy. Not that it is any of your business, but I was accepted by Yale and chose Penn for the reasons I mentioned above. Please point me to where my posts are short on facts? In fact I happen to think that all/most of my posts are supported by facts. Just cause you don’t agree with what I am saying it does not mean it is not true. So please enlighten me.
You find the other post helpful because it matches your opinion. Now who is being biased and short on facts?
M & T would give you the group of people with similar interests, the structured driven enviroment, collaboration and very likely friendships. You can find roommates with similar interests on Facebook or try the themed housing.
No facts, just assertions in your posts 2, 4 and 6. 8 is one-sided, but at least there are some citations. I think that most of those who are in the clear minority that chooses Penn over Yale do it because they prefer an undergraduate business degree at Wharton, or a dual-degree program. Not a clear argument to do it for bioengineering, or CS either.
Like I’ve said on other threads, you have an obvious agenda in your almost 1,500 posts, which is as I summarized above. There’s nothing special about this thread; it’s just the one where I chose to comment on it.
@DeepBlue86 Not quite, what you are describing is the choice between Harvard/Stanford vs Penn. For Yale quite a few people also choose Penn simply for engineering, in addition to Wharton and dual degrees. As for M&T cross admits routinely choose Penn over Yale. (M&T people who turn down Penn most often go to Stanford, MIT and even less so Harvard, it is practically never Yale). The cross-admit split of Penn vs Yale is not as clear a minority as that of Harvard/Stanford vs Penn.
Regarding my so-called assertions, do you dispute that Penn has a stronger engineering school than Yale? (open any ranking out there, research funding stats etc). Or that there are more engineering offerings and STEM-oriented student clubs/organizations at Penn? Or do you dispute that Penn is more pre-professionally and practically minded than Yale?
Penn has about 37 engineering student organizations, Yale has about 17. Penn organizes the biggest college hackathon in the world, PennApps.
Yale offers 3 ABET-accredited BSE engineering degrees, Penn offers 10.
But as I said above quite a few times, fit is even more important than all else and I have repeatedly urged @sheilsarda to consider fit and the differences of culture between the schools.
I’m talking specifically about bioengineering, which is, after all, OP’s concern. It’s not at all obvious that Penn is stronger there.
If you don’t believe the Parchment data that somewhere between half and two-thirds of Penn-Yale cross-admits choose Yale, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. And, assuming you accept that Yale wins on cross-admits, if you don’t believe that a large chunk of what Penn gets is due to kids choosing Wharton…again, we’ll have a difference of opinion.
I entirely agree that Penn is more pre-professional than Yale - that’s why a lot of people turn it down. I know many - I would guess hundreds - of people who went to Penn; you’re the first I’ve met who I’m aware turned down Yale to do so, but perhaps I should get out more.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/biomedical-rankings
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-biological-biomedical
@DeepBlue86
Maybe you should get out more, cause there are quite a few.
Please don’t distort my words, where did i say that a lot of it is not due to Wharton? Of course it is. But it is also due to engineering. I do believe the Parchment data, where the split is 58%-42% in favor of Yale (although the split is not statistically significant according to parchment). The difference is driven primarily by liberal arts and pure sciences admits who would choose Yale much more, but Yale loses a big chunk of the engineering and business admits to Penn. It is precisely because it has an edge in these preprofessional areas than Penn is able to attract more cross-admits. By comparison the split between Harvard vs Penn and Stanford vs Penn is 77% vs 23% and 72% vs 28% and is statistically significant. And this is because it cannot attract as many of these admits from Stanford and Harvard.
We are talking about engineering in general, op is not exactly set on bioengineering. but even for bioengineering, while the difference is not huge, Penn is still ranked higher and in combination with its stronger medical school and hospital and higher research funding in this field, it can be argued that it has an good edge.
@Penn95, re: the first line of your post, I’d love to see the numbers; absent that, I’ll regard it as another unsupported assertion. Apart from that:
This is inaccurate; according to Parchment, at a 95% confidence level, Yale gets between 67% and 49%. The rest of that paragraph is speculation. In any case, I’m certainly not “distorting [your] words”, just observing that some cross-admits undoubtedly choose Penn for Wharton, since Yale doesn’t have an undergraduate business major.
Finally, there’s no major difference on bioengineering or on medical schools, where both Penn and Yale are top-ten. If you’re going to hang everything on rankings, it looks like a lot of Penn and Yale grads didn’t get the memo that they should have gone to Georgia Tech or UCSD for bioengineering.
@DeepBlue86 we are saying the same thing. here is the link to the parchment college matchup tool.
http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Yale+University&with=University+of+Pennsylvania
The split based on their data is 58% vs 42%, and based on that and the statistical method they are using, they estimate the actual split to be between 67% vs 33%(Yale vs Penn) and 49.2% vs 50.8% (Yale vs Penn).
I definitely agree with you that a lot of the cross admits Penn is able to attract is due to Wharton, never disputed that.
For undergrad both overall undergraduate quality/ standing and specific departmental strength matter. This is why it is not uncommon for people to choose Penn or Yale over much better engineering schools like Gtech and UIUC.
I agree the difference it is not big, but it is there.
Regarding medical school/hospital, by the sam logic Yale law and Penn Law are both top 10, caN one say that there is so difference? Same for Wharton vs SOM. Sure for medical school and hospital strength the difference is not big but it is there.
I know what Parchment says, @Penn95 - I quoted it to you. It says that there’s an overwhelming likelihood that Yale gets half to two-thirds of cross-admits - and, conversely, a negligible likelihood that Penn gets more than half - surprising no one. And we’re apparently in violent agreement that a lot of what Penn gets is due to Wharton.
Yale and Penn’s bioengineering programs and med schools appear to be in the same band, such that I don’t believe there’s a big difference between them. This is why I’m saying that if you wouldn’t pick Georgia Tech or UCSD for undergrad bioengineering, then you’re picking Yale or Penn for other reasons than pure excellence in that narrow field. On the other hand, I believe Yale Law (top in the country) is clearly better than Penn Law, and Wharton (arguably top three) is clearly better than Yale SOM, so the choices would be much more straightforward.
@DeepBlue86 yes of course. I never said Penn wins the cross-admit battle against Yale, i simply said that it gets a sizable piece, 50%- 30% is a sizable piece. Also yes a lot of it is Wharton but it is not only Wharton. With Harvard & Stanford it is practically only Wharton and dual degrees, with Yale it is engineering students as well.
I never said the choice between the two schools should be based solely on the difference in bioengineering. but i just laid out the fact that Penn has consistently been ranked higher for bioengineering, medical school and its hospitals and tends to get more research funding in the field. But i do agree with you that it is not a substantial difference. And definitely not a substantial difference to base a choice of college on.
If you have noticed i keep emphasizing fit to the OP in every other post, as i think this is the main consideration.
^ I don’t think the above conversation helps the OP much with her decision. I would suggest staying on point.
@sheilsarda wrote:
Most people consider the residential colleges to be one of the strongest points about Yale. They tend to foster a great sense of community, and make the university more accessible. Freshmen are generally undeclared, and the majority of them are not physically housed in the residential college itself (depending on the college), so you would almost certainly be with “random roommates we’ll probably not be in my major”. Many students change prospective majors. All of that is part of the experience of being at a school with a strong liberal arts focus.
I’m a huge fan of Penn’s dual degree programs, for the right students. Those students are usually very focused and motivated, and are ready to jump in from day 1. If you know you want to combine engineering and entrepreneurship, and like the idea of being with a elite cohort of similar students, it’s hard to beat M&T. The program will certain have extreme rigor and a heavy workload, but I don’t get the sense that most people find the environment toxic.
Both are amazing schools, but very different experiences (especially with M&T factored in). I would think it depends on whether you want a more focused, intense experience in your subjects of interest with a lot of resources and a program tailored to your interests, or a broader, more liberal arts based experience, where you will have to carve out your own path.
I hope this helps.
This seems right to me. Yale’s residential system (which, as @renaissancedad says,most people would say is one of Yale’s crown jewels and unique strengths) is arguably the best for the average college student who isn’t certain going in what they want to study and isn’t looking to spend most of their time with other people in their chosen program (I believe upwards of two-thirds of Yale students change their intended major). The idea is that living with a variety of people studying various things, in a smaller community (the residential college, which you’re affiliated with whether or not you live in it as a freshman), is part of your education. Penn is a much more pre-professional environment, and that’s what some students undoubtedly prefer and thrive in.
N.B. Not sure I trust Parchment, which reports that Columbia takes 15% of cross-admits with Stanford; UCLA, 12%, Berkeley, 13%; Duke, 15%; Brown, 21%; Penn, 28%; USC, 9%. The linked document suggests that each of these schools claimed less than 10% of cross-admits in 2014, when Stanford had a lower yield rate.
https://stanford.app.box.com/s/y4abufqg66nte7uax6eq
N.B.II. 95% confidence intervals notwithstanding.
N.B.III. Suspect that the Stanford data are completer and more comprehensive than those for most other schools.
Your post shows just how strong the “HYMPS” designation is. Further, Admissions Dean Richard Shaw talks about the admissions “systems” at the top 5 being quite similar, so that the overlap is highest here (p. 24 of https://stanford.app.box.com/s/y4abufqg66nte7uax6eq).
What this demonstrates, then, is the extraordinarily small number of cross-admits who get into a top 5, but then choose to go elsewhere. In the report, Stanford lists its top 12 admissions competitors (with UPenn coming in at #11 - an increase from some years back, so, to @Penn95 - a good sign for Penn!).
The data is sobering, however. Stanford now takes 42% of cross-admits with Harvard (up from 35% in years past), and takes the big majority from everywhere else. Dean Shaw even says that, outside of HYMP, no school takes more than “single digit percentages” from Stanford. With Penn at #11 in Stanford’s top competitor pool, and not taking more than 9.9% of cross-admits (in past years, Shaw actually posted the data - and Penn took 2%, but recently he’s stopped even bothering posting data from non-HYMP schools), it means maybe only 5-15 students at Penn turn down Stanford a year.
BRINGING THIS BACK around to the discussion about Yale - it’s important to remember the numbers here. As Yale has about a 70% yield rate, and its admissions system resembles Stanford, it stands to reason that it loses the biggest chunk (60-70%) of its cross-admit pool to HMPS. So, for the 600 students who don’t choose Yale, HMPS probably gets about 400 of them. There are then only 200 Yale admits who choose to go elsewhere.
Of that 200, if Penn does phenomenally well, it brings in what, 20 students? (That would be an extraordinary haul, btw, because it means of the 300+ colleges in america that could be competing for the 200 yale cross-admits not choosing HMPS, Penn would get 10% of them.) So, all should keep in mind that the universe we’re talking about here is super small.
In choosing for fit (which is the key when choosing between somewhat like institutions): Yale has released the survey results from their mental health survey, and the data can be found here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/586d882946c3c40a1c57b1ee/t/5875baf06a49630b1d28f122/1484110581172/YCC-Mental-Health-Report-1ms1ra1.pdf
Penn, unfortunately, has not released its own survey results, just its recommendations for an overhaul, as seen here: https://billypenn.com/2015/02/23/experts-students-mystified-by-penn-suicide-task-forces-change-the-culture-mandate-how-exactly-do-you-do-that/
There are overlaps between Yale’s extensive report and Penn’s (incomplete) reporting - both schools stress excellence across many sectors, although social endeavors receive more attention in the Penn report. Further, at Penn, the importance of seeming “perfect” seems more pronounced, whereas at Yale, there seems to be more pressure to appear “happy.”
You can also sift through school cultural/inclusion climate reports. You can find Yale’s here: http://provost.yale.edu/title-ix/yale-report-aau-campus-climate-survey and UPenn’s here: http://www.upenn.edu/ir/surveys/AAU/Report%20and%20Tables%20on%20AAU%20Campus%20Climate%20Survey.pdf
Lots of info to sift through!
@Parapraxes @Cue7 - there’s a related debate on a different thread, so I’m going to cross-post something here:
Note that those quadruplets all by themselves probably represent a ~2% shift to Yale in its cross-admit match-up with Harvard, which illustrates how small the actual cross-admit numbers are and how little one can read into cross-admit trends.
@Cue7 - thanks for all that very useful information.
@DeepBlue86 - yes, I think it’s key to see just how SMALL the universe of cross-admits is. Even amongst the top 5 schools, the actual numbers are pretty tiny (say 50-100 students actively deciding between a couple top 5s).
Below the top 5 schools, then, the number of cross-admits going to any other school is really small - like in the single and low double digits.
It is amazing - as HYMPS have similar admissions “systems,” out of, say, the 1-2 million people applying to US colleges in any given year, only about 8,000-9,000 are truly in the running at the top 5. That’s maybe only an eighth of a percent of the applicant pool! This speaks to:
1.) the selectivity at the tippy top AND
2.) a narrow-mindedness in what the top schools seek. Dean Shaw, in the Stanford Report, noted that he needs to come up with reasons why a student is accepted at Stanford and not Harvard, and faculty question him on it. I’m not sure it’s a good thing that all top schools now define “excellence” in the same narrow way.
@Penn95 kill me now. But you are right. In life / medical sciences, engineering and entrepreneurship, Penn wins over Yale. The combination of its top five medical school, Wharton resources and courses and top engineering school are top of the line. UChicago has no engineering and its life sciences/ medical school are its relative weak spot. UChicago is not in the conversation for these subjects.
@Chrchill that really depends. If you’re talking about life sciences, Yale is considered significantly better than Penn (US News Ranks #7 vs #19). Penn might have a marginally better medical school, but that doesn’t have much relevance for undergrad admissions.
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I am talking about the combination of all three: entreneurship, life science and engineering. And it hurts me inside to support @Penn95