<p>Agreeing with the others…there’s not a bad decision to be had among these. Good luck to her!</p>
<p>CoolRunning, I share your pain but not quite to your level. My D was admitted to Stanford and Yale. It was highly unexpected so now we are playing catch-up but with just two schools and not your four. It really does seem as though we simply can’t go wrong with any of these schools which is awesome. So it really might come down to just which school “feels” right when D steps foot on campus when we visit. At least that’s what I am hoping!!</p>
<p>To be clear, not only is it her choice, she is visiting each school alone (we do not want to be in the way). She earned the scholarships and will turn 18 next week. We have absolutely no say in her decision, but she has not yet visited. So, my question remains: What do YOU KNOW about these schools. If you did not attend or your kid did not attend, then you cannot advise me as requested. I’m just a dad that wants to let my DD know what to look out for. Simple.</p>
<p>MidwestPop, we ARE in exactly the same boat! Hugs!</p>
<p>I’m not an expert on Cornell…but, my d is on the Cornell campus as we speak as a prospective grad student in Chemistry. The reason she applied to Cornell was because of the excellent experience she had there as an REU student during the summer before junior year. Her other options at this point are Cal Tech, Berkeley, Yale, and Brown. Until she got back to the Cornell campus today, Cal Tech (tied with Berkeley and MIT for the top chem grad programs) was her most-likely choice. Now she’s leaning back towards Cornell in spite of the cold weather. Ithaca is a great college town, and the lab facilities are top notch. Your daughter has great options - congrats to her.</p>
<p>My brother attended Stanford, and here’s what I know: Stanford has beautiful architecture; California-ish and mission-y. It’s near the Boardwalk. You can wear short sleeves as late as Thanksgiving. </p>
<p>Why did you put “Ooops” in the thread title? (all 5 thread titles, that is)</p>
<p>OK, I see what you’re asking. Your family just has limited experience in interacting with these schools, so the question is not so much about relative academic strengths (about which not much to choose), but what the experience is like.</p>
<p>I have attended two of these schools, but as a grad student, not an undergrad; and I’ve had a fair degree of professional interaction with the other two. If it were my choice, I’d choose Yale, hands down; but that’s a reflection of my values and preferences, which don’t necessarily translate. So here’s my quick take—or personal biases, really— on some unique features and pros and cons, apart from academics which are uniformly outstanding across the four.</p>
<p>YALE: wealthy university in a small, declining New England mill town that is now trying strenuously to reinvent itself. Distinctly urban feel, which means there are seedy/edgy areas quite close to campus. Yale undergrads live in distinct residential “colleges” that provide a lot of social cohesion and intimacy but also, IMO, a certain fragmentation of the student body. Town-gown relations are often a bit strained. On the other hand, New Haven is an interesting urban laboratory both for academic inquiry and, for many students, service opportunities. Easy access to New York. More “artsy” than the others.</p>
<p>PRINCETON: located in an affluent and quite exclusive small town in central NJ at the outer fringe of both the NY and Philadelphia metropolitan regions; more of an upscale protected “bubble” feel than Yale. I admit my experience there is ancient, but at least in my day undergrad social life was dominated by “eating clubs,” some of them highly exclusive, invented as a replacement for the fraternities that were banned when Woodrow Wilson presided over the university. All these schools have a strong “preppy” contingent but to my mind Princeton is the preppiest of the lot, for good or ill. On the plus side, Princeton may have a slightly stronger orientation toward undergrad education than the others.</p>
<p>CORNELL: quite large relative to Yale and Princeton. CAS and Engineering are academically elite but some other schools and colleges within the university are somewhat less so, resulting in overall academic stats that cause Cornell to be labeled the “easy Ivy,” a misleading but persistent stigma that Cornellians resent. Absolutely charming college town, but relatively isolated location in upstate NY; cold, gray, long winters, gorgeous physical setting. Some love it, some hate it. Your D will know instantly which group she belongs in.</p>
<p>STANFORD: California-Mediterranean climate, sunnier and warmer than the others but with a winter “rainy season” that’s not so pleasant, but on the other hand maybe better than the alternatives. Suburban location, but Stanford owns so much land that you feel like you’re just in some alternative universe. Almost-but-not-quite part of the San Francisco metropolitan area, which feels far away. Definitely of, but decidedly aloof from, Silicon Valley, which in any event is a metropolitan region without a center or, as best I can tell, a culture, but oodles of technological innovation. Disdainful of cross-Bay rival UC-Berkeley but there’s a way in which that disdain smacks of class privilege.</p>
<p>Of course, its her decision… but if it were me I’d say Stanford. Neither me or my kids go to any of those schools, but I’ve known a number of people who have gone to each, and kids are just happier at Stanford. It doesn’t seem like Rice is in your final running, but that would be my other choice - again, happy students and a good experience. A good number of the students I know who go to Yale, Princeton, and Cornell are miserable. Obviously many people also love those places, but I’d go for the kindest places.</p>
<p>@bclintonk - what a great (and fair) assessment of the schools!</p>
<p>CR, as all have said, there is no bad decision available. I would just add that Cornell has an extra level of diversity, partly due to the factors bclintock noted above. It is larger than the others at the undergrad level (13,000), and the other schools besides CAS and COE bring in a wide variety of students in terms of interests (a few examples would be animal science, agriculture, business, hotel management, architecture, urban planning, textiles and industrial and labor relations). Many of these programs are the best in the country, and their students bring an extra level of variety to campus life. </p>
<p>Three people in our family have gone there, and all have been in different schools at Cornell. DS2 will start there next year in yet a fourth school. All of us have loved the experience of meeting friends with talents so different from our own.</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily a cozy place–there is an assumption that you are smart enough to figure out a lot of things on your own without a ton of hand-holding, but we have found that this is good preparation for real life, which will show up all too soon.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>@bclintock–agree that you wrote a masterful and balanced assessment. Perhaps you should work for the Fiske Guide-- they are generally positive, but often wrong about the details!</p>
<p>Gross. This is one of THE most obnoxious thread titles I have EVER seen on this website. And that’s saying something, because there have been some pretty damn obnoxious thread titles before…</p>
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<p>ha!..she will cancel the trips after the Princeton visit. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg[/url]”>http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg</a></p>
![http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg[/url]](http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>In fact you will have to fly in from Florida to physically remove her from the Princeton campus because she will not want to wait until September!</p>
<p>In all seriousness, I have degrees from two of the 4 schools and some of my best friends are Princeton, Yale and Stanford alumni. I have several friends from Cornell.</p>
<p>So for undergraduate school, you can’t lose with any of the four but I would choose in the following order</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>
<p>Man, these are some great and useful responses (except Born2Dance). It is exactly what I was looking for. @bclintonk, somebody taught you to think and write very well!
Japanoko, I like your style, you make things sound fun.</p>
<p>CoolRunning, having read your threads on your d’s exceptional choices, it does seem that your intention was not to gloat, but to gather information. However, I’ll admit that I was also put off by the word “Ooops” followed by the names of schools that disappointed so many kids and parents reading this board. I can’t see what’s “ooops” about being in your d’s situation. </p>
<p>There are many threads this year about kids who are reeling from poor results. It seems insensitive to use the word “ooops” when almost all of your luck has been good. I think that’s where some of the less-enthusiastic posts on this thread are coming from. Sincere congrats to you, and your d, for being in such a wonderful place. We have “school vs. school vs. school vs. school” threads all the time, and even a crotchety old gal like me doesn’t mind. 
I just think the “ooops” was unfortunate.</p>
<p>A couple of other points.</p>
<p>If your D is on a path to grad school, she should learn about the grading policy at Princeton. After concern about grade inflation, they set a limit on the proportion of students in each course that can receive an A. There are many students there who resent this policy as it is guaranteed to impact most GPAs.</p>
<p>Also, if she is interested in sports (as a spectator/fan), Stanford has big time athletics, far beyond what the Ivies will offer.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^this discusses grading policy at Princeton in full and the lack of a negative effect it has on graduate school acceptance successes:</p>
<p>[FAQ</a> -*Office of the Dean of the College](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/odoc/faculty/grading/faq/]FAQ”>Grading at Princeton | Office of the Dean of the College)</p>
<p>OP: In some important respects, notably location, these are very different schools. The vibe at Princeton – in a beautiful, bucolic, affluent rural-ish area – is very different from the vibe at Yale – on a bustling, beautiful campus in a somewhat gritty city. My kid found Princeton boring, Yale energizing. Every kid has a different perspective. </p>
<p>You and your D should amass as much knowledge about each school as you can. Try to narrow the choices to two, three at most, before visiting. Four schools are a potentially overwhelming number to visit. In the end, your D will make the decision by gut – underpinned by deep knowledge.</p>
<p>If I were in your shoes, I would advise my child to choose based on the (research) opportunities available to her as an undergraduate. The sciences can be tricky, and there is huge debate among scientists themselves about whether larger universities with strong graduate programs in the sciences offer better opportunities for undergraduates. My sense is that they do, but for far fewer students, and so that one’s chances of having meaningful faculty interaction and research opportunities is actually better at undergraduate institutions. So my ordering of schools would be the same as japanoko’s in #32 because of the ratio of undergraduates to graduate students. But this is really something that is best discovered in a campus visit and by speaking with actual faculty members in the relevant departments.</p>
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<p>More likely you will have to cancel the remaining trips because she will be so bored at Princeton that she will fall into a deep coma. You will have to fly from Florida to bring her back home. Don’t worry though, just whisper “Yale” a few times into her ear and she will gradually recover from her coma.</p>
<p>CoolRunning, so why did you put “Oooops” in the title? It’s a sincere question; I’m genuinely curious.</p>