<p>would anyone at the ivies/mit/caltech consider any other school THEIR peer?
maybe hopkins is in the middle ground between duke emory berkeley rice northwerstern and the ivies. in the end, there are too many factors to consider to make any rating/ranking worthwhile.</p>
<p>Again, peer schools vie for the same students, that’s it - “My school is better…” is silly talk.</p>
<p>BearCub–I never said that the admissions office mentioned “yield protection.” What I said was the admissions officer, in response to an inquiry from the college counsellor, said that if my daughter would commit to attending, then she would be extended an offer. It is not uncommon at many universities for such conversations to take place after May 1, but this one occured in early April–well before the admissions officer would have much inkling as to who was going to accept outstanding offers. I concluded that this practice was a form of yield protection, particularly in light of the admissions history of students at my daughter’s school. You can choose not to believe it, but its true.</p>
<p>And BearCub, as to whether the Ivies and MIT consider Hopkins their peer, the answer is yes. That’s what peer assesment is, and Hopkins PA is equal to a number of the Ivies (and higher than WUSL. BTW, I am not knocking WUSL–it is a terrific school. But I do think that it intentionally engages in yield protection.</p>
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<p>concur. I really love chatting about schools, but serious speaking I think this “peer schools” thing is kind of meaningless. Every school is unique in one way or another, you can never say one school is definitely better than another. For instance, if we talk about engineering, most people will agree that MIT beats JHU in that field. Take humanities such as literature/history as another example. You really cannot say that JHU is far better than Yale in history&literature&philosophy studies, can you? and I would feel quite hurt if somebody tells me very confidently: " Caltech’s physics really stinks compared with that of Hopkins."
We may find out that, many schools claim themselves to be peer schools of Stanford&MIT&Princeton etc, yet Stanford&MIT&Princeton care not a fig about which schools are their peers. Talking about peer schools, I personally think, is just a lack of confidence in one’s own school. </p>
<p>If we must talk about peer schools, I highly recommend judging by the following factors(some of which have been mentioned in previous posts):
research opportunities for undergraduates (consider both quantity and quality)
social life
student/faculty ratio
variety of academic programs
average difficulty of courses (rigor of study)
student body
international&national reputation
average salary of graduates
employment statistics of graduates</p>
<p>The last two are most important. Almost all top 50 colleges&universities (ranked by US News) offer rigorous academic studies and great social experiences. But graduates of some schools can hardly find decent jobs. Some people may have heard of a St. John’s College which is reputed for its “Great Books Program”. This program gives students the best learning experiences in classical literature. Perhaps studying classics here is better than in Harvard. Graduates in classical literature of this school, however, when seeking jobs, are often less competitive than graduates with the same major from Williams etc. </p>
<p>Taking into account all factors mentioned above, one has reasons to doubt the idea that Hopkins is a peer of HYPSM. (in general. Consider not specific fields) If we talk about “peer school” at all, that is.</p>
<p>“That’s what peer assesment is, and Hopkins PA is equal to a number of the Ivies (and higher than WUSL. BTW, I am not knocking WUSL–it is a terrific school. But I do think that it intentionally engages in yield protection.”</p>
<p>First of all, WUSTL did and does not fill up the class with ED applicants. If it does engage in Yield protection, you should be able to see that close to half of the class is filled by the end of ED period (but this is not the case). Secondly, people think that waitlisting = yield protection. If you go to WUSTL and if you interact with the students there, you should be able to see that more than half of the students actually did get into at least an Ivy, so those waitlisted people are not “overqualified” applicants who might affect the yield. Finally, you used the PA to judge which school is peer with which schools. Well, in this case, is UC Berkeley undergrad peer with HYPSM undergrad? Maybe for out of staters, but for in staters? I used undergrad cos I assume that u’re referring to the undergrad PA. So, what I’m trying to say is PA isnt a good measure to determine which school is peer with which schools. I think the quality of students and area of expert-y is a good measure for that. In this case JHU and WashU are peers as they are famous for their medical schools and students in both schools are most likely to have gotten into the other school as well.</p>