Penn CAS vs Brown Dart Columbia

[muerteapablo]

<p>Wow, MonyDad posted this on another thread. It’s very interesting. Don’t let a Brown kid EVER talk to Penn about “gaming” their admissions or ranking again:</p>

<p>An article MonyDad found on a newsgroup site:</p>

<p>" The story of how Brown has come to attract ambitious self-starters as
applicants is well-told in Bill Mayher’s 1998 book, The College Admissions
Mystique. In 1969, Brown’s new admissions director James Rogers decided that
he ought to be able to exploit the Magaziner-Maxwell curriculum to pull
Brown out from underneath the doormat of the Ivy League. And underneath the
doormat is where it was.</p>

<p>When I was applying to colleges at that time, Brown was all but
invisible to the college placement office of my prep school. Between Brown
and the other Ivies in the pecking order there lay twenty schools, including
most of the Seven Sisters, Wesleyan, Haverford, Bowdoin, the service
academies, Reed and other top regional schools, and perhaps five top state
universities. In New England, Brown was considered better than Trinity and
Brandeis, but only barely better. The favorite backup college choices at my
prep school were North Carolina, Wesleyan, Penn, and, believe it or not,
Stanford (which accepted the bottom-ranked person in my class).</p>

<p>In the mid-1960s Wesleyan was enjoying a real vogue. It had got rich
all of a sudden (Xerox stock), had published Norman O. Brown’s Life Against
Death, and was helping invent minority recruitment. Because Middletown is
close to Providence, Wesleyan has always shared its applicant pool with
Brown, and in those days, as Ron Medley may wi****lly recall, Wesleyan was
unquestionably the harder place to get into.</p>

<p>So in 1969, James Rogers of Brown considered his situation and hit on a
plan which is now legendary among admissions officers. He hired members of
the classes of 1970 and 1971 and sent them out on the road to pitch the
Brown Curriculum. Their instructions were to look for students in the second
quintile who were lively interviewees and who showed iconoclastic
tendencies. The Young Turks of the admissions office made a hit wherever
they went and applications rose almost immediately. Rogers was then in a
position to implement phase two. He began rejecting students in the top
quintile who had made Brown their third choice. Word quickly went round the
secondary school placement offices that Brown was no longer easy.</p>

<p>There was another component of the Rogers strategy, one that Bill
Mayher’s book misses. Rogers was a preppy from Taft and understood that it
is preppies who put elite colleges in fashion. Rogers made Brown
prep-friendly. He began to accept twenty and thirty people a year from
Andover, Exeter, Choate, St. Paul’s, and Harvard-Westlake. He made Brown the
first backup choice at the leading schools, and by the mid-1970s, New York,
Los Angeles, and the exurbs of America had gotten the message. The seal of
approval was given in a 1975 article in the Sunday New York Times, titled
“Everybody Wants to Go to Brown.” (There have been many such articles since,
culminating in a perverse extravaganza in last February’s Vanity Fair,
titled “School for Glamour.”) "</p>

[Chad10]

<p>@muerteapablo</p>

<p>-I don’t know many rankings off the top of my head since I don’t worship them as some do, but one that comes to mind is the Guidance Counselor rankings that I believe were also published in US News, where Brown (and Cornell) are higher than Penn. </p>

<p>-No, the “Revealed Preference” data I saw were from 2006, I believe, and certainly not from before 2005. I can’t find the article with google, however, so you’ll have to take my word for it/ find it yourself.</p>

<p>-Brown and Penn were the same schools they were nine years ago. Maybe not rankings-wise, but virtually everything else has stayed exactly the same. You have nothing to go by here other than the rankings.</p>

<p>-Also, why does Penn’s website not post the SAT averages of enrolled students (like almost every other college does)? [Penn</a> Admissions: Incoming Class Profile](<a href=“http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/profile/]Penn”>http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/profile/)</p>

<p>-Penn is certainly not lying, and I never said they were; they are, however, completely gaming the system, and this is most glaring from their determination to accept half their class early no matter the number of applicants (such as this year, when they accepted the same percentage of the class despite applications being down 8%). </p>

<p>The fact is, you, your brother, and some other people on these forums value the rankings far too highly. The average student, whether at Brown, Penn, or wherever, couldn’t possibly care less about the rankings. </p>

<p>I’m sorry I wasn’t more immediate/ thorough in my response, but I have many better things to do than sit on College Confidential all day. Brown and Penn are both great schools, but what is not great is when people go on forums and start denouncing schools purely based on one ranking. And this is coming from someone in no way acquainted with Brown or Penn.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>Reed is another school where it appears to have worked very well (by traditional measures) to have almost exclusively Reed alums as adcom deans. What better way to communicate a school’s culture and personality than through its own graduates.</p>

[gellino]

<p>

I talked to him on the phone yesterday, and he told me that he would much rather have a concrete statistic behind his resume (the US News ranking, the Princeton Review’s, etc.) than the layman’s prestige (ie, your barber knowing Columbia vs. Penn). He probably makes a valid point.

</p>

<p>

muerteapablo:</p>

<p>Thank you for giving Chad10 a much-deserved thrashing.

</p>

<p>A valid point? A deserved thrashing? Are you kidding me? To me, Chad10 is right on the mark here. You guys are unbelievably mindless and pathetic. You show no ability to think critically and decide for yourselves what criteria are important to you. For decades, Brown has had a lower acceptance rate and higher SAT avg than Penn. All the factors like endowment per student and quality of nearby hospitals and relation to grad schools and things like that are not determinant of the people coming out of the school UG, which It seems like you’re most concerned about. It seems like your goal is to mindlessly follow the obsequious ■■■■■■ who pay homage to the USNWR rankings above other more important considerations like those that have come before you. No one in the real world cares what one ranking (this year no less) ranks as #7 vs. #11.</p>

[muerteapablo]

<p>@Chad

1. The guidance counselor rankings are almost unanimously criticized for their complete lack of meaningful criteria. They are totally arbitrary, and they mean nothing about actual selectivity. As many critics point out, what do guidance counselors know about colleges they have never attended?</p>

<p>For example, the most recent ranking puts Berkeley ahead of Caltech, Penn, and Dartmouth by a sizable margin. This is totally incomprehensible. Dartmouth arguably offers best education and most attention of any Ivy League school.</p>

<p>2) Accepting approximately half of the class ED is a normal strategy. Does Columbia game their numbers? Columbia accepted 48% of their class this way this year! Brown and Dartmouth also accepted almost half of their class early.</p>

<p>3) Penn admissions posts the data of the admitted students because they’re trying to give an idea of what it takes to get in. They post the real averages on the website, as well. Guess what? Dartmouth, Brown, and Columbia all HIDE their SAT averages! Columbia, I’ll admit, is easier to find, but you go to the Dartmouth or Brown websites, and you won’t find the averages posted anywhere.</p>

<p>4) Your last point, regarding Penn’s maintenance of acceptance percentage despite a drop in applications, comes to the wrong conclusions. Colleges always have a glut of qualified applicants. Last year, there were probably hundreds of kids who were qualified enough to be accepted but were rejected due to the large number of applicants; this year, those qualified kids will be accepted. Penn isn’t lowering their standards at all; they’re simply maintaining their normal modus operandi for admissions. This is evident from looking at any college that loses applicants. U. Chicago, which lost 15% this year, will probably do the same.</p>

<p>In short, your points regarding Penn’s so-called weaknesses or dishonesty is either incorrect, or true of basically every other college as well.</p>

[muerteapablo]

<p>@gellino</p>

<p>You cite evidence of Brown’s previous academic. That’s very nice, and totally meaningless. All that matters is what’s true TODAY, which is that Penn has at least comparative SAT scores and HS GPA, etc.</p>

<p>Given your line of thought, though, it might be pertinent to note that in the 60s and early 70s, Brown was the “door mat of the Ivy League.” See my post above if you’re unconvinced. The article chronicles Brown’s rise to prominence… similar to Penn’s!</p>

<p>Also, while it’s true that US News shouldn’t be as meaningful to the public, it most certainly is. Take it or leave it. But don’t deny that Brown is absolutely suffering as a result, nor that Penn benefits hugely.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>“Columbia, I’ll admit, is easier to find, but you go to the Dartmouth or Brown websites, and you won’t find the averages posted anywhere.”</p>

<p>The SAT numbers were in the first place I looked for both schools:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/CDS2008_2009.pdf[/url]”>This Page Has Moved;
<a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University;

<p>Knowing that such data are in the Common Data Set helps. ;)</p>

[Chad10]

<p>Umm, please enlighten me as to how Brown is suffering as a result of the rankings, considering that its scores are almost the highest in the country, its acceptance rate is almost the lowest, and its prestige is as high as it’s ever been.*</p>

<p>*ever been to most people; muerteapablo and his brother do not qualify as ‘most people’</p>

[Amadeuic]

<p>Obviously, I should have applied to Brown.</p>

<p>I blew it. </p>

<p>Such is life.</p>

<p>And I think Brown doesn’t submit all of its information to the World News and Report, which causes it to drop, or perhaps it’s simply because of its endowment. In any case, there are NOT fifteen universities in the United States alone that are better.</p>

[muerteapablo]

<p>Chad, Brown is definitely one of the 10 best colleges, I just don’t think it’s better than Penn. It’s certainly prestigious; but not more so than Penn. And, like Penn, it’s relatively nouveau riche. I just find it hard to understand why you can’t accept any of that. The only people who seem to think it better are Brown undergrads or Penn rejects.</p>

<p>I apologize about the SAT information, but you must admit that it’s very well hidden. Why might that be, hmm? Possibly because Brown’s SATs appear slightly lower than its peers (ie Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia).</p>

<p>Out of curiosity, where DO you go to college? Why are you so vehement? Were you rejected from Penn? Does your brother go to Brown? Are you simply a snot-nosed elitist?</p>

<p>And please, “his brother”? I’m a she. :)</p>

[vonlost]

<p>“I apologize about the SAT information, but you must admit that it’s very well hidden.”</p>

<p>No. If you know that the Common Data Set is the most common place schools publish such standardized data, it is the first place to look, and then it’s obvious.</p>

[muerteapablo]

<p>This is basically what you just said: “If you know where to look, the location is obvious.”</p>

<p>Well, fantastic. To almost all prospective students ■■■■■■■■ college websites - the people looking for SAT averages in the first place - the common data set is meaningless. </p>

<p>Even if not, Chad10 obviously didn’t know about it. Otherwise, he should have been able to find Penn’s common data set as well. It’s after the Penn numbers and statistics link:
[Penn:</a> Institutional Research & Analysis](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/ir/facts.html]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/ir/facts.html)</p>

[vonlost]

<p>“Possibly because Brown’s SATs appear slightly lower than its peers (ie Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia).”</p>

<p>Sorry, what I meant was that it has nothing to do with Brown or Dartmouth or anyone else trying to hide anything.</p>

[ilovebagels]

<p>

Brown and Penn were the same schools they were nine years ago. Maybe not rankings-wise, but virtually everything else has stayed exactly the same. You have nothing to go by here other than the rankings.

</p>

<p>With faculty turnover being as intense as it is, both schools are quantitatively and qualitatively different places than they were in 1999/2000.</p>

<p>Both have since expanded their endowments by roughly 2-fold and their budgets have surely grown apace. Facilities have also expanded (between 1999 and right now, a dozen buildings have been added and more still renovated), and Philadelphia/University City are nicer (or at least significantly less crappy) than they were. I am sure Brown has made similar improvements, but the two schools have certainly changed.</p>

[gellino]

<p>

You cite evidence of Brown’s previous academic. That’s very nice, and totally meaningless. All that matters is what’s true TODAY, which is that Penn has at least comparative SAT scores and HS GPA, etc.

</p>

<p>Most people in hiring positions and grad school admissions graduated from college more than five years ago and are not tracking yearly fluctuations in class profiles or USNWR rankings.</p>

<p>

Also, while it’s true that US News shouldn’t be as meaningful to the public, it most certainly is. Take it or leave it. But don’t deny that Brown is absolutely suffering as a result, nor that Penn benefits hugely.

</p>

<p>If that is really the case, the current generation of high school students is even more mindless than I was giving them credit for. You would think someone smart to stand a chance of getting into a school that is ranked #7 or #11 would realize how meaningless that distinction (by one insignificant magazine) really is in comparison to more important attributes.</p>