"Princeton Number 1 in College Rankings" (ABC News)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
21

<p>I don't understand why everyone seems to be bashing Hargadon. I think he's one reason why Princeton remains so distinct in character and environment, even from its Ivy peers. Hargadon went after people who he knew would love and thrive at Princeton. In consequence? The most loyal alumni and unmatched school spirit.</p>

<p>As for the whole ED/EA debate, can't one argue that ED actually benefits Princeton in that it ensures students who genuinely love the school? People who aren't so sure Princeton is the right fit for them will wait for RD and decide later. I understand why ED helps boost yield rates, but don't you think the same people who love Princeton in the first place will hypothetically apply EA to Princeton and stick with it? I doubt Princeton's yield rate would suffer that drastically. I know few people who were accepted to Yale or Harvard EA who chose another school over it.</p>

<p>Finally, one comment about the US News Rankings. I think it's weird that endowment size isn't a factor in the rankings (or if it is, it doesn't seem to be a big factor). Even better, endowment per student ratio, which would show what loyal alumni (indirectly because of Hargadon) have done for Princeton.</p>

22

<p>Perhaps it's because endowment is largely a measure of a financial base built in the past and the quality of the investment management team. Endowment can also be affected by donations from non-alums. The US News alumni giving rate/rank reflect student satisfaction today, and the financial resources rank measures a school's current generosity in spending on its students.</p>

23

<ol>
<li>So, "Princetongrad 2000" - are you suggesting that longtime Princeton professor and administratot Katz is a lier who is not to be trusted because of a Harvard degree staining his record, and that other sources similarly demonstrating that Harvard "beats the socks off" its competitors with common admits are likewise perpetuating a myth?</li>
</ol>

<p>I'm sure the respected professor "would find your comments rather offensive, I would guess."</p>

<p>Have you read "The Chosen" - which provides a great deal of information about yield rates and cross admit rates over the years?</p>

<p>Incidentally, I'm not sure what your reference to Brown is based on; Brown has not "reverted to EA" - nor has Yale. Brown has stuck with Princeton as a binding ED school, while Yale switched to the allegedly "middle ground" practice of SCEA. </p>

<p>Yale, Princeton and Stanford all switched to binding ED in 1996 because they were all getting killed by Harvard with common admits (then as now) and were hoping to limit the size of the overlap pool. The change worked, to a degree, as all three schools "enjoyed" an immediate 5-6% increase in their yield rate - although still trailing Harvard in this respect by a wide margin.</p>

<p>Yale eventually found, however, that the smaller ED pool inhibited its ability to attract a class of sufficient "diversity" (the new watchword) and switched to SCEA, as did Stanford. Princeton - even with Rapelye at the helm, has feared to make a similar switch. Why? Because it has become addicted to ED as a yield rate booster. Princeton's yield rate on "regular" admits badly trails that of all its rivals - not only Harvard, but Yale and Stanford as well.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I have never <em>ever</em> asserted that Harvard is "superior institution" as you improperly claim, and I "find your comments rather offensive" in this respect. I merely report an unassailable fact: most of the top students who are admitted to both Harvard and other elite schools - including Princeton - opt for Harvard. This enables Harvard, year after year, to put together an academically stronger class and to meet its other goals more easily in "designing the class. Why? because it needs to admit fewer people to fill each seat, and must make fewer compromises.</p></li>
<li><p>Why do the top students, year after year, prefer Harvard when offered a choice? Probably a combination of reasons, according to studies. For one thing, smart kids want to associate with other smart kids, according to the Revealed Preference" study. For another thing, the attractions of the Cambridge/Boston setting are a powerful draw, and "location" is often cited as a factor in college selection in other studies.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, it is significant that USNews and other data collection outfits look to the 6-year rate as the definative measure of graduation rates. Why? Because many schools - prominently including Harvard - actively encourage admits to take a year off during their career - for academically sound reasons. Harvard explicitly advises every admit to consider this option. This is why Harvard - almost uniquely - has a higher eventual graduation rate than its rate for 1st year returns. I suspect that you understand this, but are simply hoping to muddy the waters.</p></li>
</ol>

24

<p>so are we suggesting that all the reports about student dis-satisfaction at Harvard are just made up?</p>

<p>Harvard is ranked # 2. Learn to live with it.</p>

25

<p>Just wanted to congratulate everyone on the Princeton thread for the new ranking. I am just a mom of a HS senior, but I know all of you must be thrilled.</p>

26

<p>eh, we already knew we went to the best college in the US. They just verified it for us. :)</p>

27

<p>Byerly--I must say that I think that your incessant references to the Stanley Katz quotes are getting ridiculous. However, you have been unfair to PtonGrad2000. He was not stating that Katz is a liar; rather, he was stating that while Katz might believe what he's saying, Katz does not speak for Princeton and would have no way of knowing what the actual cross-admit rates are and whether they are increasing in Harvard's favor. </p>

<p>Byerly, it appears to me that you are the one attempting to be somewhat misleading, by repeatedly suggesting that Professor Katz speaks for the Princeton administration or has some inside knowledge. Interestingly enough, while the point you make over and over again--that Harvard "wins" the cross-admit battles--is correct, you rarely cite anything that speaks to the quality of the undergraduate experience or education at Harvard or Princeton. Your main point about Harvard appears to be that since most of the "better" students who have a choice chose Harvard, it must be better.<br>
However, I would argue that Princeton, with more small classes and more classes and precepts taught by professors, with a greater focus on undergraduate education and with a more satisfied undergraduate population, might well provide a superior undergraduate experience for many students. I am not saying that Princeton is better than Harvard or Yale or Stanford, however. Each school has its strengths and I continue to think that there is no "best" school. Rather, there are a number of schools that are terrific schools with wonderful professors and resources. I continue to think that your incessant puffery of Harvard is unnecessary and unwelcome.</p>

28

<p>
[quote]
Princeton is moving toward EA as part of its shift from the policies of the Hargadon era to a new emphasis on academic achievement and intellect.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And I see another screenname posting a prediction that Princeton will go EA. I think that would be a good idea; I think that would signal that Princeton is a peer institution to Stanford, Yale, and Harvard, as I think it is.</p>

29

<p>"Inside knowledge?"</p>

<p>It is no secret that Harvard enjoys a wide edge over its "rivals" - including Princeton - with cross-admits. </p>

<p>All elites keep close watch on their cross-admit numbers in order to gauge their success and to learn how to compete more effectively for the people they want. Faculty and staff at all elites have access to this information if they are interested.</p>

<p>Princeton, recently, hired a research firm to examine closely the basis for decisions made by those choosing the school and those going elsewhere. Rapelye commissioned the study to help her determine, in part, whether it would be in Princeton's interest to move away from binding ED.</p>

<p>You can rest assured that Princeton will make the move when it is determined that institutional self interest impells it - and not a minute earlier.</p>

30

<p>Byerly STOP *<strong><em>ING. Please. It's enough to make someone torn between the two opt for Pton. I know you already got me thinking "are all harvard students/alumni such *</em></strong><strong><em>s? I hope not". I don't care that you don't care what I just typed. We know you're as much a whining *</em></strong> as the French. No need to make it even more obvious please.</p>

31

<p>Watch your language, OVB... that's a **** uva lot of asterisks!</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
You can rest assured that Princeton will make the move when it is determined that institutional self interest impells it - and not a minute earlier.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's a somewhat na</p>

33

<p>Hi there everyone, I'm a member of the Princeton class of 2010. I just joined today but I've been lurking on these boards for about a year now.</p>

<p>I can't say I buy much into the US News and World Report rankings, and I definitely didn't choose Princeton because it was considered #1. I don't really think the rankings are that significant, and the only thing I really notice is if a school rises or drops dramatically in ranking over one year. That said, I was interested in the article that Byerly has quoted so many times, so I googled it. I'm sure this has been done before, but I just wanted to post the article in full, because it seems to me that Katz's remarks are being used somewhat out of context.</p>

<p>"Harvard. Just the name exudes superiority, if not smugness. From its "Veritas" coat of arms to the Georgian-era brick edifices that dot its campus, everything about this storied institution, founded in 1636, smacks of that most un-American trait, elitism.</p>

<p>As Harvard prepares to confer degrees on yet another batch of graduates Thursday, academic experts scratch their heads at how this institution maintains its reputational dominance in an era of academic parity. But a marketer would understand the Harvard aura in a nanosecond: It's the ultimate brand, at least in the academic world.</p>

<p>"There isn't any doubt that brand matters and that Harvard is the prestige brand," says Stanley Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. "It's the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place."</p>

<p>Never mind the price tag (upward of $40,000 per year for tuition, room and board), or the fact that guides such as the U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges and universities say the differences between Harvard and other top-ranked schools are microscopically small. The gulf that separates Harvard from the rest in terms of reputation remains enormous.</p>

<p>"It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard," Katz says. "It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases."</p>

<p>Why does Harvard continue to dominate its rivals, at least in terms of reputation? It's not as though its degrees guarantee great jobs. According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, the percentage of top executives at Fortune 100 companies who were Ivy League undergrads dropped from 14% to 10% from 1980 to 2001.</p>

<p>A study by Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm, shows that as of 2004, Harvard no longer owns the No.1 ranking as the university attended by the most CEOs of Standard & Poor's 500 companies (just under 4%). The school that caught up to it: the University of Wisconsin.</p>

<p>"The Ivies and other A-league schools have a lot of prestige because they're supposed to open doors and lead to successful careers. But people who believe that are fighting the last war," says Loren Pope, author of Colleges that Change Lives, a book that extols the virtues of small liberal arts colleges. "Parents who expect the Ivies to ensure their kids' success are going to be disappointed. The old-boy network isn't much good in an economy like this; it's competence that counts."</p>

<p>But George Bradt, a 1980 Harvard graduate who runs a consulting firm in Stamford, Conn., says his degree matters. "It's always been that little edge," he says. "Say you have two candidates for a position, and it's really close. One guy is from Harvard, and the other is from Podunk University. The Harvard guy is going to get the nod."</p>

<p>High school seniors seem to agree: 22,796 applied last year for admission to the Harvard College Class of 2009, a record. The school accepted only 2,074, or 9.1%. It's that kind of selectivity, says Katz (a 1955 Harvard alum), that gives Harvard a measurable advantage over other top undergraduate programs. "I firmly believe that the crucial things you learn as an undergraduate are through your peers and from your peers, and at that, Harvard is (unsurpassed)," he says.</p>

<p>A sampling of Harvard graduates from the Class of 1980 bears out his thesis. A quarter century after they left Cambridge, Mass., to embark on their careers, many say that the most important part of what they learned at Harvard occurred at the dining hall or in the dorms or on the athletic field, not in the classroom."</p>

<p>Basically, what I got from the article is that Harvard may have a reputation for excellence, but no one really knows why people continue to choose it over similarly excellent schools. As PtonGrad mentioned, the article specifically said that academic experts don't know why Harvard's reputation persists. This article is not praising Harvard's superiority. I don't think it's necessarily something to be proud of that people associate your school with smugness and elitism. Of course, I'm going to Princeton; I've been getting jokes about elitism since the day I got my acceptance letter.</p>

<p>I think one quote from the article really says it all:</p>

<p>"But George Bradt, a 1980 Harvard graduate who runs a consulting firm in Stamford, Conn., says his degree matters. 'It's always been that little edge,' he says. 'Say you have two candidates for a position, and it's really close. One guy is from Harvard, and the other is from Podunk University. The Harvard guy is going to get the nod.'"</p>

<p>I completely agree with this statement. However, there is a great difference between a top school and "Podunk University" and I don't think that someone who went to Harvard would necessarily have any great advantage over a similar candidate from Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Williams or any other top school.</p>

34

<p>
[quote]
Basically, what I got from the article is that Harvard may have a reputation for excellence, but no one really knows why people continue to choose it over similarly excellent schools. As PtonGrad mentioned, the article specifically said that academic experts don't know why Harvard's reputation persists. This article is not praising Harvard's superiority.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Byerly's (direct) point is that because of Harvard's reputation, whatever the reasons for that reputation are, it attracts most of the best and brightest students in the country. Thus the quality of the student body at Harvard is measurably superior to that of its competitors. Essentially, he's analyzing Harvard within the framework of economic signalling.</p>

<p>If the quality of the student body were the only important factor in selecting a college, then Harvard would indeed be the college nonpareil. What Byerly fails to mention or discuss is that students, even the top students, can and should judge schools on other measures as well. Student quality is important, but so are location, campus, culture, undergraduate education and opportunities, size, and many other determinants. It all depends on the individual and what he's seeking to get out of college.</p>

<p>The bottom-line is not that Byerly distorts or manipulates information: he tries his best to avoid doing that. The bottom-line is that Byerly analyzes only a single factor in college choice--one that has only the subjective value each individual student places on it.</p>

35

<p>Thank you for your analysis GR Elton. That is what I was trying to say in my last post. Byerly has rarely posted on any reasons why Harvard provides a superior undergraduate education, other than to incessantly repeat his point about cross-admit preference. I think he would be a more interesting and valuable participant on these boards were he to mention other reasons why Harvard provides, in his opinion, a better education than similar schools.</p>

36

<p>You obviously have not enjoyed the "privilege" of reading my numerous posts on this general topic.</p>

<p>I have never <em>ever</em> stated that the entering quality of the student body is the <em>only</em> factor on which selection of a college should be based.</p>

<p>What I have said, rather, is that many applicants who are admitted indeed <em>do</em> base their choice on this factor - all other factors being even <em>close</em> to equal. Other have acknowledged the importance of this factor. See: <a href="http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/&lt;/a> - where it is written that: </p>

<p>"The Laissez-Faire Ranking identifies quality with selectivity. It takes
the historical and etymological view that a college is a "chosen company"
and attempts to rank colleges by the membership they attract. It lets the
best applicants point to the best colleges. Bright kids pay attention to
selectivity when they look at colleges because they want to go where their
peers are going. With their matriculation, they help compose a superior
community, thereby confirming received opinion."</p>

<p>Others, as studies have shown, base their choice on "quality of life" issues such as (1) nearness to a big city, (2) nearness to home, (3) weather or the like.</p>

<p>The "Revealed Preference" study does not generally attempt to analyze the <em>reasons</em> why students tend to pick college A over college B, but merely notes that such choices are in fact made - and according to a fairly predictable pattern.</p>

<p>What is happening here, like it or not, consider it fair oir unfair, is a graphic demonstration of the "winner take all" theory: if people perceive, for whatever reason, that college A is "better" in their eyes than college B by a margin of - say - 3%, then fully 80% of those with a choice may opt for college A as the place to spend their (or their parents) $150,000 on a college education.</p>

<p>I invite you to read these two papers:</p>

<p>"Winner Take All in Higher Education" by professor Frank of Cornell ....</p>

<p><a href="http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0001s.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0001s.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>... and "Higher Education As An Associative Good" by Professor Hansmann of Yale.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp9901.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp9901.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

37

<p>Wow, I leave for a couple of days only to come back and find that a thread about Princeton’s ranking has been twisted into an essay on Princeton/Harvard cross-admit statistics. Okay, Byerly, a few responses to your comments about my earlier responses to your comments. (How’s that for a linguistic flow chart?) </p>

<p>First, of course Stan Katz is an honorable man and I think you know that that is not the point. As a couple of other posters have already stated, I’m simply pointing out that it’s a little odd for you continually to cite this article both because a) Prof. Katz has never been involved in Princeton admissions and b) the point he is making is quite opposite to the one you’re implying. Let’s be very clear. Prof. Katz was pointing out that Harvard has had an edge over its rivals in terms of reputation for many years. Prof. Katz (and others) are just puzzled as to why this is so, in, as he put it “an era of academic parity.” By the way, knowing Prof. Katz, I can safely say that he is highly likely to agree with me, including chuckling that his words are being taken as an authoritative statement on Princeton’s competitiveness, and being called on to prove your point.</p>

<hr>

<p>On the issue of early decision, I would have expected you, of all people, Byerly, to be aware of this bit of history regarding Brown and early action but, rereading my comments, I realize that I was less than clear. Brown currently has an early decision policy. However, before that, it had an SCEA policy. Before SCEA is had an open early action policy and before that it was SCEA . </p>

<p>When Brown switched from SCEA to the far less restrictive open early action (this was the switch to which I was referring) it saw a 62% surge in early applications. It has always been the case that reducing the number of restrictions on early programs will increase the total number of applications. See the following article from a Brown publication:
“The College Admissions Office experienced a dramatic 62 percent increase in early action applications to Brown [for the Class of 2004].
“One reason for the increase was a change in Brown's early action policy, which now allows prospective students to apply to other universities as well as to Brown, as long as the universities don't require a binding decision. In previous years, Brown's early action policy allowed prospective students to apply solely to Brown, said Michael Goldberger, director of admission. “</p>

<p><a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol24/24GSJ12c.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol24/24GSJ12c.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>By the way, Harvard made this same change for one year and also saw a significant increase in applications.</p>

<hr>

<p>Now, as for Princeton’s and Yale’s reasons for switching to binding early decision, you are buying into a self-serving conspiracy theory here, Byerly. You seem to believe that all actions taken by the admissions offices at any of Harvard’s peer institutions are taken as part of some imagined competition with Harvard. I’ve quoted this before, but here is it again. History and the statements of leaders at both institutions clearly show that the reason for the shift was to reduce the number of “trophy-hunting’ applications in the Ivy League. At the time, this was widely-seen as a problem.</p>

<p>Yale moved from early action to early decision following Princeton’s lead many years ago. It was only more recently that Levin decided to switch back to early action with its predictable significant increase in applications. At the time Princeton made the change it was for the express purpose of cutting down on the number of common applications across all selective schools so as to make students think more deeply about their reasons for applying to any one school. Yale was convinced of the arguments and followed Princeton’s lead. The effect at that time was just as anticipated. Instead of applying early to multiple schools, students applied to just one or at least fewer and the total number of applications declined slightly. </p>

<p>After Princeton publicly stated its intention (and reasons) for switching to early decision, Yale’s then Dean of Admissions Shaw (who has since become Stanford’s admissions dean) requested a copy of the paper that had been written by Fred Hargadon at Princeton. Fred sent it very willingly to Yale and Shaw made the decision not long after that to make the switch as well. </p>

<p>As Hargadon has written, (excerpted from his response to Karabel printed in a recent issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly):</p>

<p>“As far as Early Decision vs. Early Action admissions programs are concerned, my suggesting that Princeton should change from the latter to the former had absolutely nothing to do with “competition” with other schools, improving yield, attempting to appear more selective, or any other ulterior motive attributed by Mr. Karabel, albeit his imaginings are very similar to the opinions of other critics that have appeared in the media from time to time over the years. No, I had simply reached the conclusion that Early Action didn’t make sense to me for Princeton. </p>

<p>“For my first 20 years as an admissions dean (five at Swarthmore and 15 at Stanford), we had no early admission program of any kind. In fact, the only time I was aware of such programs in the Ivies would be when a Stanford applicant who had received a positive early nod from one or another Ivy would send a letter to that effect for inclusion in his or her Stanford application, presumably in an effort to impress us and maybe improve his or her chances for admission to Stanford. Of course, when I arrived at Princeton, an Early Action program was already in place. Well, after a few years of stopping everything on Nov. 1 to devote all of our time to reading and evaluating and making decisions on early applicants in time to let them know of our decisions the first week in December, I questioned the rationale for such a program. I asked myself why the admissions staff should drop everything on Nov. 1 to read and evaluate and make decisions on one group of applicants, so that they could be notified of our decisions a mere five weeks after the deadline for submitting their applications, those being offered admission then being given four and a half months to let us know whether they’d be enrolling or not, while the bulk of our applicants would not learn of our decisions until at least three months after the deadline for submitting their applications, those of that group being offered admissions then given about three weeks in which to let us know whether they’d be enrolling or not. </p>

<p>[…] I also suggested some additional positive effects of an Early Decision program. One would be that of reducing the multiple application pipeline, since those admitted ED would be withdrawing any applications they may have already submitted to other colleges and/or not submitting any other applications at all. In other words, if we admitted 500 students ED, that would reduce the multiple application pipeline by anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 applications, assuming applicants at that time were filing, on average, anywhere from four to six applications (an average that has jumped considerably in recent years, in part because of how easy it’s become to apply to a larger number of colleges by using the Common Application). And if one further added the number of ED admits of the group of similar colleges with such programs, the number of applications by which the multiple application pipeline would be reduced would not be insignificant. I also suggested that it was even likely that a school like Princeton having an ED program might make life better for those colleges who frequently were spending a lot of staff time and effort dealing with applicants who were treating them as a backup in the event they did not gain admission to, in this case, Princeton. </p>

<p>[…] The fact that Yale requested, and I sent them, a copy of my position paper on this issue before they, too, decided to move from EA to ED at the same time, should have made it obvious to Mr. Karabel that I was not even remotely proposing ED as a means of competing with Harvard and Yale. Nor was I persuaded by the various criticisms leveled at ED, not all of them completely disinterested. For instance, I have seen no evidence that EA applicant groups or EA admit groups are significantly more heterogeneous than ED applicant or admit groups. And if I’m not mistaken, some EA schools fill the same percentage of freshman class slots with those admitted early as Princeton does with those admitted ED.”</p>

38

<p>(part 2)</p>

<p>Yale’s stated reasons for switching to early decision (announced shortly after Princeton had made its announcement) echo those made by Hargadon. See Shaw’s comments in the following Yale Daily News article. </p>

<p><a href="http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:vGRcOjirHQgJ:www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp%3FAID%3D7911+%22early+action+option%22+shaw+Yale+%22boon+to+students%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:vGRcOjirHQgJ:www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp%3FAID%3D7911+%22early+action+option%22+shaw+Yale+%22boon+to+students%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"We are never quite sure how many of our early candidates are really serious about coming here," said Richard Shaw Jr., dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. "This early decision procedure allows us to be fairly absolute about how many students will be coming."</p>

<p>“The early action option had been a boon to students but a hassle for admissions staff.</p>

<p>“For students, early action provided a risk-free way to ease senior year stress. But for admissions officers, having large numbers of undecided accepted students meant constantly hedging the number of other students they admitted.</p>

<p>[…] "We find that a large number of students continue to collect acceptances even after they have been admitted early," Shaw said. Under the early decision system, that's not a possibility.”</p>

<hr>

<p>Ah, yes, now to the issue of Harvard’s oft-cited victories in cross-admit decisions. I don’t imagine there is anyone on CC who hasn’t now heard this innumerable times. I happen to agree that it is almost certainly true that, even today, Harvard takes more of these common admits than does Princeton or any other school. (Personally, I and many of my friends at Princeton turned down Harvard but there were apparently more who went the other way.) Two points should be made, however. </p>

<p>First, this information is far from exact. These admit lists are not shared by the Ivy League schools among themselves. (Of course they know where one of their admits ended up matriculating based on first year class lists. They do not know what other schools accepted that same student.) </p>

<p>Furthermore, any one school can only gather this information through voluntary responses from those who decide not to attend. The most accurate information comes from the “Revealed Preference” study to which Byerly refers. Its statistics are, however, from a single year and are now nearly seven years old. (The analysis was modified in 2005 but it used the same year 2000 survey statistics.) It would be interesting to see this study repeated today, especially given the fact that Princeton has now been ranked the top National University (by U.S. News) for each of those seven years since the original data were gathered.</p>

<p>Finally, you give as an explanation for Harvard’s winning these common admits that “smart kids want to associate with other smart kids.” While there is a certain amount of truth in this, it is as equally true for Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT and others as it is for Harvard. In fact, it comes across as rather insulting to all of Harvard’s peers for you to give this as a reason for common admits to prefer Harvard. All of these schools have a tremendous overlap in the types of students they attract and approximately the same range of SAT averages. In fact, were you to measure “smartness” on the basis of SAT scores alone, MIT and CalTech would always win every cross-admit battle with Harvard and every one of its peers under your theory that “smart kids want to associate with other smart kids.”</p>

<hr>

<p>Okay, last comment. The choice of six years (as opposed to four) as a measure of graduation rates is rather arbitrary (you’ll notice that U.S. News also reports the four year figures and the “freshmen retention rate” (in effect, a one year graduation rate measure). On all of these scales, the differences between Harvard and its peers is very small. Harvard does slightly better on a six year scale and slightly worse on a four year scale.<br>
I would continue to argue that it is silly to dismiss the four statistic as meaningless.</p>

39

<p>What a lot of horse manure! How can you possibly mouth these party-line rationalizations with a straight face?</p>

<p>To reduce "trophy hunting" my foot! The "trophy" Freddie wanted to stop them from "hunting" was admission to Harvard or Yale! </p>

<p>Then, as now, anyone with two "trophies" in hand - one a letter of admission to Harvard and the other a letter of admission to Princeton - was overwhelmingly likely to prefer the former.</p>

<p>Ditto for Yale. Each wanted to goose its yield rate and cut down the cross admit pool with Harvard. The strategy worked for a while. Both enjoyed an immediate 5-6% boost in yield. The Princeton yield rate, in fact, rose as high as 74% at one point, as it filled half the class with captive ED applicants.</p>

<p>The rate also rose nearly as high at Yale, but unlike Princeton, where Freddie was primarily in search of the "Princeton Man" (ie, the sort who, in his view, was likely to "fit in" there, ie, to apply there rather than to its competitors), Yale remained in direct competition for the top students. It not only continued to lose them, but found them declining to apply ED rather than losing any chance at Harvard. The smaller ED pool was thus hindering Yale's ability to compete, rather than enhancing it. (See "The Early Admissions Game" and its facinating analysis of Princeton's apparent policy of avoiding applicants who it feared were ticketed for Harvard or Yale based on their academic achievements or SAT score.)</p>

<p>Thus Levin was desparate to get out from under the ED yoke. It didn't help that the national media was beginning to bash ED and its adherants on the ground that it disproportionately benefitted the wealthy and privileged (as it still does.)</p>

<p>Levin candidly acknowledged, however, that Yale wanted to avoid a move to EA, since it feared its ability to maintain its yield rate thereunder.</p>

<p>Thius the whole SCEA scenario played out, and Harvard (unwisely, IMHO, but deciding, upon reflection, to avoid an anti-ED "war" with its fellow Ivies - a war which might well have brought down that whole monsterous policy like a house of cards) enabled Levin's exit policy by sacrificing the open EA policy which it had long asserted was superior and better from the applicant's point of view. SCEA is a phony "reform."</p>

<p>Then, as now, Princeton couldn't risk it, even to pursue to students. It knew its RD yield rate - far the lowest among the top elites - would ptresent a hazard. </p>

<p>Now to her credit, Rapelye, (with the support of a new president who seized upon the "Yalegate" scandal as an opportunity to broom Freddie out the door) announced the end of the exclusive seach for the "Princeton Man". She also reversed Freddie's stern and unrelenting opposition to the common application.</p>

<p>Now Princeton would go head to head for top students with Harvard and Yale, and announce a new openness to the "green-haired people." The result was a sudden drop in the yield rate of 5% - even with the retention of binding ED.</p>

<p>This so shook the Princeton administration that any thought of a move away from binding ED was shelved - at least tempoirarily. Here is hpping that Rapelye has the courage of her convictions and eventually brings the rest of the Princeton establishment around.</p>

<p>Princeton by now should be ready to compete without the ED crutch. Perhas, one day, it will be able to convince more applicants that a Princeton "trophy" is perfectly worthy, and stop the practice of preventing applicants - insofar as it is able to do so, from seeking other, possibly more valuable, "trophies"!!</p>

40

<p>Sheesh. What is your beef against Hargadon, besides the fact that he liked ED??? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think Hargadon was an asset to Princeton. In fact, most Princeton students loved - and continue to love - Hargadon!</p>