More on Harvard/Princeton cross-admit story

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>When you are a niche supplier, with a highly specific value proposition, i.e. the best undergraduate education in the country, and when you compete in a market with a gorilla who can point to broad-based #1 statements, and when you want to communicate your niche value proposition to those who will most value it and those you want to bring in as customers, you gotta do research.</p>

<p>We live these days in a world of sound bites. We live these days in a world where - and B if you doubt me I may hunt up the studies - too much information has actually led to more consumer uncertainty rather than less. In a world with more consumer uncertainty, brand marketing becomes more important. While H may have the overall "We're number 1, we're number 1, we're number 1" chant, Princeton will look to make the slightly more sophisticated statement, "We offer the best UNDERGRADUATE education in the country." More sophisticated statements of more targeted value propositions are the most rewarding marketing projects because they require a sure hand. Gotta do research.</p>

142

<p>One way P is "advertising" is by recruiting in schools, such as the public magnets, which it previously overlooked or ignored. H has long been sending out letters telling even so-so students in our part of the country that they "might be Harvard material," encouraging them to apply and boosting their selectivity enormously, whereas neither of my kids, both NM Scholars, received a single piece of publicity material from P. Rapelye is well aware of this pattern and is changing it. </p>

<p>I do think Tilghman needs to be very careful. There is a perception on campus and among many alumni I hear from that she is "trying to change P into H," and that she does not appreciate what makes P unique. The "green hair" statement is ridiculed by many on campus as a stereotype. The eating clubs have changed dramatically since the Seventies. One of the most impressive things about P is the students' cameraderie even in the face of the current grading quotas, which necessarily pit them against one another. A good leader does not only effect change; she inspires people to share her vision. </p>

<p>Re the whole concept of #1, I find it meaningless. There are aspects of the programs at Williams and Columbia, for example, that are enormously appealing, none of which are offered by H or P.</p>

143

<p>I think Alumother is wide of the mark in virtually every proscription she offers.</p>

<p>Rapelye is a capable person, and seems to be moving into the void created when Amy Guttman - sort of the Rasputen of the new feminocracy - decamped for Penn. </p>

<p>I am not overly impressed with Tilghman, who seems to me over her head and lacking as an administrator. </p>

<p>I think it was Guttman who brought in Rapelye, and masterminded a number of the changes that have been made - including brooming Freddie Hargadon out the door.</p>

<p>Niche marketing is not the way to go, IMHO, particularly if you want to compete for top science and math students. It will more likely be counterproductive.</p>

<p>Not only will Harvard, MIT and Stanford clean your clock, but even Yale will make life difficult as it pours a $ billion into its science programs.</p>

<p>I think Princeton is making a start by expanding the undergrad population by 10%, but it also needs to double or triple the size of its graduate programs in math and the sciences, and to increase the size of the engineering program.</p>

<p>Otherwise, it will get left behind. Its competitors are not standing still, and are not settling for "niche" status, a la the LACs. Princeton will have to get BIGGER.</p>

144

<p>Implied in this discussion, it seems to me, is that the reputation of a school depends enormously on its capacity to attract the mega-achievers, as in the future Rhodes and Marshall winners. However, the experience of the average (excellent) student or even of the NM Scholar there does not necessarily improve as a result of having more of those Physics Olympiad students.</p>

<p>I also note, however, that H has some excellent advising in place to help create those fellowship winners and to help undergrads get placed in law school. Within the houses it recognizes students with potential and has mentoring for them every step of the way, grooming those students who seem promising almost from the start. Mentoring programs like these produce results that <em>appear</em> to reflect the caliber of student or of the education there. P's profs are very welcoming to students who want to connect with them, but it does not yet have in place that sort of advising system. Especially as P grows, it needs to be more systematic in this area.</p>

145

<p>Byerly you willfully misunderstand my meaning. By niche I do not mean small. Niche can also mean luxury. Why would you possibly assume that niche marketing as the best undergraduate school in the country means spending less money on math and science? That is patently absurd. As far as your opinion of Dr. Tilghman, I can assure you she is very highly thought of by those familiar with the halls of university administration. If you want to go down the track of dissing university presidents who are in over their heads please advise.</p>

<p>Princeton offers the best undergraduate education in the country. Has the most loyal alumni and the highest endowment per student.</p>

146

<p>I profoundly disagree with the sentiments expressed by the prior two posters.</p>

<p>Alumother, particularly, seems carried away by the kind of party-line "no substantive changes are necessary, we're the best and we only have to shout it loud enough and everybody will near it" kind of thinking. If Princeton could have figured how to do it, they should have kept Guttman and shuffled Tilghman off to Penn for two relief pitchers and a minor leaguer to be named later. Trouble is, I doubt Penn would have agreed to the deal.</p>

<p>The character of the campus - and future recruiting success - are determined in large measure by the presence of superstars. The big state universities, plus the "merit aid" schools like Duke, WUSTL, Emory, Rice, Caltech etc realize this, which is why they are willing to "overpay" to attract such kids to their campuses.</p>

<p>Princeton needs to be attracting them too - which it can well afford to do. Future success will not be decreed by becoming known as the school willing to settle for the "average (excellent) student."</p>

147

<p>Oh, Byerly, you don't even agree with me when I say something good about Harvard. I agree that the superstars help build reputation, although I still say that this does not necessarily create a better experience for the other 98 percent of students. But through the house system H has in place advising and grooming mechanisms for producing these superstars that P does not. </p>

<p>I happen to think that P's current anti-grade-inflation mania is a wrong-headed approach to creating more Marshall and Rhodes scholars. I think having a more relaxed attitude toward grades -- as Harvard does -- offers students the opportunity to explore and experiment, which is more likely to result in creativity and innovation in areas in which they are truly talented. If P wants to produce more superstars, it ought to beef up its advising.</p>

148

<p>Byerly, I agree with you and I disagree with you. While I do think that Princeton needs to improve the quality of its student body, I dont think a significant growth in population would help it.</p>

<p>Last summer, I visited Princeton with my father, who is a Princeton alumnus. He commented on how every time he comes back to visit, there are 5 or 6 new buildings-almost all of them science related. As far as faculty goes, Princeton's math and physics faculty are at least as strong as those at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. </p>

<p>The difference, however, is, as Byerly says, the students. Harvard and MIT have stronger programs primarily because they have stronger students enrolled in the programs. Now that Princeton has the faculty and has the buildings it needs to get the students on board. Not necessarily more of them, just higher quality.</p>

149

<p>Well, it is a given that Princeton is going to expand the undergrad student body by more than 10% - to reach about the same size as Yale is currently.</p>

<p>Yale, for its part, has medium range plans to increase it OWN undrgrad enrollment by the same fraction, just as soon as it gets finished with its (seemingly endless) effort to complete long postponed restoration and repair of its undergrad housing, You can't build new until you fix the old.</p>

<p>Harvard has budding plans for its OWN 10% increase in undergrad enrollment, as part of the mega-billion new campus planned on the Allston side of the Charles.</p>

<p>The point is, you can't stand still, because if you do, others will cruise past you in the left-hand lane.</p>

<p>In this day and age when the received wisdom is that quality education requires more and more "diversity" - growth is essential. </p>

<p>I think Princeton needs to expand its graduate programs in order to provide the kind of "opportunities" and "research" and "diversity" that will, allegedly be key for elite colleges in the 21st century.</p>

150

<p>Princeton's overall student body is being unfairly characterized here. The SAT ranges for H and P are extremely close, which is remarkable considering P's smaller undergraduate size and relatively higher proportion of varsity recruits (this is, of course, about to change). It is the presence of those few, reputation-building superstars that give H a certain luster. </p>

<p>H, all that you say re expansion at HYP is true. Are these schools going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?</p>

151

<p>where does it end? when does the diversity goal compromise the quality of education. When will harvard begin to resemble OSU? I think there is a happy medium with the current sizes of HYP, and that expansion, even with a parallel faculty expansion would only serve to undermine the undergraduate experience as a whole.</p>

152

<p>To any students or prospective students who may be following this thread. Observe carefully. In marketing, you've got to train the execs to speak to the press. I went through several of these trainings, with a highly respected consultant who also did a lot of training for politicians you'd recognize if you saw them on TV:).</p>

<p>Here's what they teach you. Pick three points you want to get across. Repeat them over and over again. And here's the key. NO MATTER WHAT YOU GET ASKED JUST REPEAT THE SAME ANSWERS. If your questioner doesn't ask the right question to prompt the answer you need to give, misinterpret their question or statement in order to give yourself an opening to say what you planned to say anyway.</p>

<p>If you can't do that, then just start arguing your point anyway. And, if you can't argue your point, attack very very quickly and emotionally to draw your questioner/opponent off guard.</p>

<p>Observe this thread and you will see Byerly do this very well. But you have to learn to separate content from approach. He says some things that are true and some things that are not. Learn to distinguish.</p>

153

<p>I can't believe we are actually having a debate that calls into question Princeton's share of "academic superstars." </p>

<p>College admissions is becoming more competitve precisely because more and morestudents are achieving at a higher level. There are plenty of academic superstars to go around. At the risk of sounding facetious, I hypothesize that even the LACs and non- HYP Ivies probably get their share. </p>

<p>Bona-fide academic genuisus compose a very small part of any college class, including that of Harvard. Even if it could be proven that Harvard had more of these students, proportionally, than Princeton aparent is right in questioning how much of an effect this would have on the student body. However, I find Byerly's evidence far from conclusive.</p>

<p>Byerly has two types of evidence, anecdotal and statistical. The anecdotal generally consists of posting worthless threads about individual students being honored for Harvard acceptances, or scattered boasts about the number of Harvard students selected as Intel winners or placed on the All American Academic Team. He doesn't, of course, take into consideration that Princeton is smaller than Harvard, making the proportional difference less dramatic than the total difference between Princeton and Harvard students recieving such distinctions. He also doesn't tell us, and probably doesn't know, where else these students applied and whether they were accepted at other schools. Additonally, he has the luxury of only posting those articles which are most favorable to his cause. For example, I saw nothing about the Harvard pre-frosh on the Thomas Jefferson quiz bowl team, which won at the NAQT nationals - possibly because his achievement was cheapened by the presence of two lowly Princetonians on the same team.</p>

<p>Now for the statistics. I can't argue with the 75 % cross-admit statistic, although I will point out that, as others have mentioned, the number of students admitted to both schools is likely relatively small. However, I can argue with his assertion that all or even most of these students are the "academic superstars" Byerly so values. First of all, there are some "average excellent students" with the good fortune to be admitted to both Harvard and Princeton. For every one of these Harvard gets, Princeton has a comparable student with whom to replace him. More significantly, many of the students likely to be most desired by all of the elite schools are not necessarily the best students. A URM or athelete whose qualifications are simply comparable to that of an "average excellent student" is likely to be accepted at multiple elite colleges without being significantly better than his competitors. To a lesser extent, the same holds true for residents of underrepresented states or girls interested in engineering. So it is unclear how many of the common admits are really "academic superstars." </p>

<p>Additonally, while no Princeton ED student can possibly be admitted by Harvard, Harvard EA students who have shown at least an initial preference to Harvard by choosing to apply there early are free to apply to and, in some cases, be accepted by Princeton, further influencing yield rates.</p>

154

<p>This is the standard blah blah stuff, and lacks any relevance to the kind of interesting issues some other posters have been discussing. </p>

<p>I have zero interest in marshalling any "evidence" to convince the prior poster of anything, since he/she has already made up his/her mind and has rationalized away any sticky issues.</p>

155

<p>I thought her post was very interesting:). And lo a little child shall lead them. ICargirl I hope you have a wonderful time at Princeton. Do you know what you are majoring in yet?</p>

156

<p>Her post was definitely interesting and well stated.</p>

157

<p>Did you find that Sports Illustrated article?</p>

158

<p>"I have zero interest in marshalling any 'evidence' to convince the prior poster of anything, since he/she has already made up his/her mind and has rationalized away any sticky issues."</p>

<p>It would appear that the poster isn't the only person to have "made up his/her mind and has rationalized away any sticky issues."</p>

159

<p>Which issue that you are interested in learning more about strikes you as sticky?</p>

160

<p>Wow. This is ridiculous. I used to go to this site a lot as a high schooler and I was just bored, thought I'd drop in and see some of the Pton 09-ers for fun. Byerly, you are a Harvard student? Why are you wasting your time arguing about which college is "better" or more prestigious? There are so many other things to be doing in college! Go involve yourself in some of those undoubtedly great Harvard things you do over there. </p>

<p>Personally, I am a Princeton student, I am having the best time of my life, and there are pretty close to an unlimited number of things I'd rather be doing than engaging in such a petty argument. Doesn't the fact that you feel the need to keep posting in Princeton forums and claiming how much better Harvard is, show that you are insecure about this? Just take your belief and go with it. Just like others won't convince you, you won't be able to convince others. </p>

<p>Just out of what I have seen, I would say that Princeton students seem on the whole happier. I have not talked to a single person at Princeton who really dislikes it there, and almost everyone I know loves it. I have good friends who go to Harvard and they love it there too, but they do tell me that some people hate it there. </p>

<p>Pre-frosh weekend also showed this, when all you heard was Princetonians taking time out to gush about how much Princeton will change your life and how amazing it is. Many of the still deciding pre-frosh made comments about how genuinely happy the student body seemed as a whole and how it contrasted to the atmosphere at other schools like Harvard.</p>