<p>CMU CS > harvard.</p>
<p>I can tell you that at my D’s selective enrollment Illinois high school, CWRU is considered a safety school for applicants to CMU, MIT, CalTech, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Rochester, and the Ivies. 2008-2010, 110 of 116 were admitted but only 7 enrolled. 2011, only 25 of 44 were admitted.</p>
<p>1) Chicago is not flyover country. Even I can admit that.</p>
<p>2) Northwestern is one of the best schools in the country. </p>
<p>3) NYU is considered excellent for a number of disciplines (Law, MBA, Tisch), but its general undergraduate program is not considered anything special. However, living in NYC for undergrad is one of the best educational experiences one can ask for.</p>
<p>4) Case Western should be even being discussed in this thread, and high schools should only consider it if they want to pursue a career as a mechanic. In actual flyover country.</p>
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<p>My source is my D’s high school’s director of counseling, who says she was told by CWRU admissions that their rate had dropped to 48%. She inquired after the admission rate from our school dropped from 95%, which it had been for years, to 57% this year. She said it was an attempt to raise the yield by eliminating acceptances of people who clearly had no intention of enrolling. Whether that is her conclusion based on what she was told or what she was told directly I do not know. She emphasized the fact that the key to admission at CWRU is to show genuine interest; CWRU’s common app supplement, which I’ve posted in another thread, supports that opinion, because it asks whether the applicant has visited, interviewed, etc.</p>
<p>I can see why it makes absolutely no sense for a college to admit 110/116 of the applicants only to have 7 show up. This is truly a horrible yield. </p>
<p>However, admitting fewer people is no better solution since even fewer might show up. The only logical change in variables is what happened to Columbia where their applications went up by 20% dropping their admission rates down to 5.6% in the regular round. Was there a major jump in CWRU applicant pool so they admitted a much lower percentage?</p>
<p>Rice is the only school that I encountered so far which wants to know whether the student interviewed, when they visited the school, who they talked while visiting etc. Northwestern does want you to show love but they don’t go into so much detail in the supplement. They do seem to track all contacts based on the counselor’s presentation.</p>
<p>
According to CWRU’s 2010-11 common data set,
(<a href=“http://www.case.edu/president/cir/201011cds/admission11.pdf[/url]”>http://www.case.edu/president/cir/201011cds/admission11.pdf</a>)</p>
<p>9,472 students applied, 6,318 were admitted, and 1,021 enrolled. </p>
<p>That corresponds to a 67% admit rate and a 16% yield. Of the enrolled class, the SAT range was 1940-2150 (ACT 28-32); 67% were in the top 10% of their graduating class.</p>
<p>p.s. Sorry I didn’t see your post #24.</p>
<p>I have been told that they paid the price in a reduced size freshman class. I cannot confirm this. I do know that the admissions dean is new and that these are his policies. He has made other changes, like requiring the CSS PROFILE for the first time for 2012 admits (according to a CWRU admissions rep who spoke at a college day at my daughter’s school). I can’t imagine, though, that he would take such drastic action without the administration’s blessing and for all I know, changing the situation was why he was hired.</p>
<p>I imagine that a college with a substantial admissions history can go back and make some reasonable judgments about who is and is not using them strictly as a safety. I do not know whether this was done here, however.</p>
<p>
Being known for something often indicates little, if anything, about the quality of that or other programs at a university. Hopkins, for example, is “waaaay more known” for the sciences and pre-med preparation than anything else, yet its humanities programs are absolutely top notch. </p>
<p>Northwestern is stronger than Case in engineering; in fact, it’s an all around strong school. Case is stronger in engineering than NYU, however. Poly was always decidedly mediocre in engineering, and it hasn’t improved significantly since it was absorbed into the NYU conglomeration. </p>
<p>
The College of the Ozarks had a 10% admit rate last year. Admit rates without context are meaningless.</p>
<p>
Applications to Case Western went up [url=<a href=“http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/02/case_western_reserve_universit_20.html]44%[/url”>Case Western Reserve University sees surge in applications: Higher Education - cleveland.com]44%[/url</a>] this year. If Case admitted the same [url=<a href=“http://www.case.edu/president/cir/201011cds/admission11.pdf]number[/url”>http://www.case.edu/president/cir/201011cds/admission11.pdf]number[/url</a>] of students as last year, the admit rate would’ve been 46.3%. Whether or not that was indeed the case depends, of course, on Case’s predicted yield. Like you, I have not been able to find this year’s actual admit rate.</p>
<p>Case is a great little school with strengths in several different areas - art history, (medical) anthropology, engineering, its combined professional studies programs, etc. The requested comparison in post #19 is interesting, as in many ways Case and CMU are similar, though Case is admittedly weaker and less selective.</p>
<p>It’s free to apply to Case, and they offer EA - not a bad combo for a possible safety school. I also recommend taking a look at U Rochester.</p>
<p>Warblesrule,</p>
<p>“The College of the Ozarks had a 10% admit rate last year. Admit rates without context are meaningless.”</p>
<p>Never heard of the college and if they admitted only 2%, it still would nt mean much to me to put it in context. From what I know, the three defence schools have lower admit rates than the most selective schools in the nation but again, I feel the same way since my kid wont apply to any of those. </p>
<p>Thanks for the links on CWRU. They do validate the suddenly lowered admit rates with the big increase in applications. If one followed NU’s trend since the mid 90s, they went from 13k (?) to 30k applications this year. So who knows where CWRU will be in a few years if the applications keep going up.</p>
<p>“College of the Ozarks”? Now you guys are just making places up.</p>
<p>Since when is a school that is in the top 50 not prestigious…?</p>
<p>And seriously, don’t choose your school based on prestige. Especially for undergrad. Choose whats right for you, it is supposed to be the best four years of your life.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The university’s overall enrollment has been fairly stable in recent years. As a comprehensive research institution, CWRU has a larger proportion of graduate and professional students than many of its peers, roughly 56% of total enrollment. The size of the entering fall 2010 freshman class was 1,021, similar to levels in the last several years, and up from 836 in fall 2002. Management reports they the university is at an optimum total enrollment and freshman class size, and it expects the fall 2011 freshman class size to be stable. The student draw remains, in our view, relatively broad, with about 45% of undergraduates coming from Ohio, and large numbers from Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Illinois. In fall 2010, CWRU accepted about 67% of its freshman applicant pool, an improvement from the 70%-75% rate seen in the last three years. Of those accepted, only 16.2% matriculated, a weak level, in our view, that indicates very strong competition from other institutions for the university’s high-quality students. Student quality is high: for the fall 2010 entering freshman class, the average SAT score is more than 1350 (the national average is about 1017) and the average ACT score is 30 (the national average is about 21).<a href=“emphasis%20added”>/quote</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://case.edu/treasurer/documents/docs/CWRU%20Rating%202-02-2011.pdf[/url]”>http://case.edu/treasurer/documents/docs/CWRU%20Rating%202-02-2011.pdf</a></p>
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<p>[CWRU’s</a> Snyder earns no end of accolades: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com](<a href=“http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/08/cwrus_snyder_earns_no_end_of_a.html]CWRU’s”>CWRU's Snyder earns no end of accolades: Brent Larkin - cleveland.com)</p>
<p>Case Western is many people’s safety school. That much is apparent from their 16% yield. It’s not a bad school, but it’s not a great school. It’s best known for engineering but most people would say it’s the second-best engineering school in the state of Ohio, after Ohio State, and Ohio State is the 7th-best engineering school in the Midwest. Most Midwestern public flagships have stronger engineering programs than Case. US News rates its engineering program #8 in the Midwest and #40 overall, tied with Iowa State and Michigan State but well behind Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio State. The National Research Council ratings based on faculty surveys give Case’s engineering graduate programs pretty similar rankings: #45 in mechanical engineering, #66 in chemical engineering, #111 in civil engineering, #23 in electrical engineering, #34 in biomedical engineering, #78 in materials science/engineering, #55 in operations/systems/industrial engineering.</p>
<p>Case Western’s basic sciences aren’t exceptionally strong, either. NRC ratings for its grad programs are #83 in physics, #36 in chemistry, #76 biochemistry, #25 neuroscience</p>
<p>Just because a school is “best known” for something (e.g., Case Western in science & engineering) doesn’t mean it’s better in that field than others “best known” for something else (e.g., Northwestern in theater, communications, etc). Northwestern’s actually a much better engineering school than Case, and a much strong school all around. I’m sure you can get a decent undergraduate education at a school like Case Western, but it’s just not in the same league with a Northwestern.</p>
<p>It appears that what I said I’d heard about CWRU’s freshman class enrollment dropping this year was correct. The following is from a Google-cached copy of a Crain’s Cleveland Business article published July 25 (emphasis added). I’ve heard that they are closing down one of their freshman dorms.</p>
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<p>Got any data based on something that matters?</p>
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<p>The College of the Ozarks has a 9-10% admit rate every year because they charge no tuition. That’s the “context.” </p>
<p>But I’m not sure I see any such big contextual distinctions between Northwestern, NYU, and CWRU, apart from academic quality (Northwestern wins, hands down), FA (Northwestern is the only one of the 3 that meets 100% of need, though CWRU probably gives the most merit aid), and location (NYU is located in the heart of an exciting city, Northwestern is located in an attractive suburb of an exciting city, and Case Western is located in . . . well, Cleveland). Apart from that, they have some basic similarities: medium- to large-sized private research universities in major metropolitan areas (not classic college towns) that come with a big sticker price.</p>
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<p>Well, no, I’m sorry, if you’re going to be that dismissive of the views of the people in the best position to evaluate the quality of a school’s faculty—namely, the people in the same field at other institutions, which is what’s reflected in the NRC data—then I’m not sure why it’s even worth having a discussion about these things. Might as well just put the names of schools on a dartboard and fire away.</p>
<p>HS counselors survey on undergrad academic quality (out of 5.0):
Northwestern 4.6
NYU 4.3
Case Western 3.9</p>
<p>Average freshman retention rate:
Northwestern 97%
NYU 92%
Case Western 91%</p>
<p>6-year graduation rate:
Northwestern 95%
NYU 85%
Case Western 81%</p>
<p>Freshmen in top 10% of HS class:
Northwestern 90%
Case Western 65%
NYU 64%</p>
<p>Students whose need was fully met:
Northwestern 100%
Case Western 91.9%
NYU N/A</p>
<p>Average percent of need met:
Northwestern 100%
Case Western 87%
NYU 71%</p>
<p>
Exactly my point. My point was not that Case is somehow more selective than it seems (it’s not). My point was that acceptance rate is a poor measure of quality and often selectivity. </p>
<p>(1) Admit rate is often more indicative of popularity than the bar for admissions. As an example, it was not so long ago that Chicago had a remarkably high acceptance rate - nearly 50% the year I was admitted, in fact. The school was nevertheless selective; someone with poor grades and an essay of dubious quality would not have been able to skate in. As another example, Caltech has a relatively high admit rate (13%), yet its test scores are through the roof and often the highest of any college. As yet another example, Hendrix has test scores and class ranks roughly comparable to Pitzer, yet the latter boasts an admit rate only 1/4 that of the former. In fact, Pitzer also has a lower admit rate than Wellesley, which has noticeably higher test scores and class ranks. </p>
<p>(2) It is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately compare schools with different early admissions practices. As an example of this, you might look at Princeton (8.39%) and Brown (8.70%) and conclude that they are of virtually identical selectivity. However, this fails to take into account that ~20% of Brown’s admits were admitted early. Put more simply, ED drives down a college’s admit rate without necessarily making it more selective. You start to see the differences between the two when you start looking at the numbers more closely – Princeton’s admit rate for people with a perfect GPA (14.1%) is scarcely higher than Brown’s admit rate for all applicants in the top 10% of their class (12.9%). </p>
<p>(3) Even schools with the same early admissions practice take different numbers of students early. As noted, ED applicants make up about 20% of the admits at Brown, but they make up over 30% at Penn. Having more ED admits results in a raised yield and lower admit rate.</p>
<p>Admit rates MUST be looked at in the context of test scores, GPAs, class ranks, etc. in order to be at all relevant. Dartmouth is considered more selective than Ozarks because it expects amazing extracurriculars, strong grades, superb test scores, unique essays, etc. – NOT because it has a lower admit rate (which it doesn’t).</p>
<p>That NYU has lots of applicants shouldn’t surprising to anyone. How many hundreds of posters over the years have clamored to go to college in NYC or California? :rolleyes: A low admit rate is thus to be expected…though extraordinary selectivity may or may not be present.</p>