<p>I'm wondering, do people who get accepted to both schools tend to choose Princeton or Yale? and Why?</p>
<p>The "why" is hard to say, since it is an individual decision in each case, but it is likely that Yale wins the cross admit battle with Princeton narrowly, as it has been doing for some time.</p>
<p>See this story and the numbers provided by the Princeton admissions office at the bottom, from 20 yrs ago:</p>
<p>For a more recent discussion of the issue, see:</p>
<p>Princeton has retained a consulting firm to survey applicants - past and present - to see how it might improve its share of cross admits. A lot of the discussion to date has focussed on the "Eating Clubs" - rightly or wrongly - as an institution that makes some potential applicants uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Princeton certainly has the financial resources to make changes if it decides to make them</p>
<p>I'm class of '09, and I was admitted to Yale Early Action, and Princeton regular decision. I was really torn but I ended up choosing Princeton, and after being here for 2 months, it seems like I'm one of the few who did---most of the people I've met here were rejected from Yale so they came to Princeton.</p>
<p>I don't know about that - I know a few people who chose Princeton over Yale, although also some who were rejected from Yale.</p>
<p>half the class wasn't rejected anywhere - they applied ED.</p>
<p>Lucky for the yield rate those captives were denied options!</p>
<p>Half the RD admits said "no thank you" and went elsewhere.</p>
<p>There seem to be an abundance of students who indeed chose P over Y. Byerly, why reiterate the same information repetitively? You also must realize that many chose Princeton early, thus effectively say "No thanks" to Yale months in advance.</p>
<p>It also depends on your interests. Generally -- but with exceptions -- math, hard science, engineering, economics => Princeton, while studio art, architecture, music, drama => Yale.</p>
<p>yale also has one of the best undergraduate history programs in the country.</p>
<p>"It also depends on your interests. Generally -- but with exceptions -- math, hard science, engineering, economics => Princeton, while studio art, architecture, music, drama => Yale."</p>
<p>Really? I thought Princeton was heavy on literature and the arts and light on the sciences. :confused:</p>
<p>This facinating book covers the Ivy admissions picture from the 1950's though 2002 in great detail, with extensive reporting of yield rate and cross-admit numbers for Harvard, Princeton, Yale and sometimes Stanford as well. </p>
<p>The data is not tabulated, but it is all there in the last 150 pages of the book, which is exhaustively researched and heavily footnoted.</p>
<p>Wonderful, those statisically insignificant differences should sway one's decision. You always revert to the same thoughts, it's time for new material.</p>
<p>I urge one and all to run out and buy a copy ($28.00)</p>
<hr>
<p>(brief exerpt:</p>
<p>"At century's end, an intense preoccupation with competitive position had become, more than ever, a driving force in admissions policy at all four institutions. But at Princeton, the issue had become a genuine obsession. So it was perhaps not entirely coincidental that, in April 2002, an associate dean of admissions at Old Nassau was caught breaking into Yale's confidential online admissions system. Claiming that he only entered the site to assess the security of such systems, his real purpose seems to have been to snoop on several Yale applicants who had also applied to Princeton .... Not long before a magnet for the languid gentlemen so brilliantly portrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald, even Princeton had now become an institution on the make."</p>
<p>I haven't been to Princeton. I visited Yale and liked it well enough. Some of my friends have said Princeton campus was more welcoming, less patronizing than Yale. This might be on purpose to beat out Yale...IDK. I should probably go back East and see it myself before forming an opinion.</p>
<p>Byerly, you really ought to get out a little more. I'm amazed at the number (and tone!) of your posts. Most seem a bit mean-spirited and an attempt simply to beat down Harvard's competition. I'm assuming you're an adult and a graduate of Harvard. You really needn't be so defensive.</p>
<p>I haven't read the book to which you have repeatedly referred but I do know the true story behind the Princeton-Yale dust-up. Apparently, the author of the book does not and you may not be aware of the facts either. I know that I'll immediately be challenged to provide documentation to support what I'm about to write and, sadly, I won't be able to since this information was given to me by friends who are in a position to know and who are associated with the two schools in question but who (because they have been involved in administrative matters) would not wish to have their names or positions posted. If you do a little research in the archives of the Yale Daily News you'll be able to confirm some of the following.</p>
<p>Parts of Yale's on-line admission office notification system were designed and implemented by a Yale undergraduate. It was poorly done with not much more than simply a name and a social security number required to access the system. The undergraduate may not have felt that this lack of security was very important because there was no confidential information available once the system had been entered except the admission decision itself.</p>
<p>Princeton had resisted providing this information over the internet because certain officials in the admission office felt that it was both unnecessary and presented some confidentiality problems. They had spoken with Yale Admission Office staff about their system prior to the incident. After admission decisions had been posted by Yale and Princeton in 2002, some individuals (including the acting Dean of Admission) in the Princeton Admissions Office became curious and decided to check out the security on the Yale website. They chose some applicants to their school who were highly regarded and who, they suspected, might also have applied to Yale. Using the students social security numbers they logged onto the Yale site and were amazed to discover that there was virtually no security. (Social security numbers are, of course, available from a number of sources since they are so widely used as a kind of national ID number.) My memory is failing me here but the site might also have required a birth date.</p>
<p>Clearly, this was poor behavior on their part. Not only should they not have checked in the first place, they should have stopped after one test. They might also have simply called the Yale Admissions Office and inquired about the nature of the security. Human beings are curious, however, and different employees in the Princeton Admissions Office ended up trying it themselves. In total, there were about a dozen records that were accessed. </p>
<p>It has been charged that this was an attempt by their Admission Office to gain some strategic advantage, a charge which is obviously false since all admissions decisions had already been made. (Its interesting and ironic to note that a large percentage of the students whose records were checked ended up coming to Princeton.) Furthermore, had that been the motivation they certainly would have kept quiet about it. In fact it was the Princeton Admissions Office employees themselves who told Yale about it after the fact! It occurred at a meeting of officers from Admissions Offices. The Princeton representatives casually mentioned to their Yale counterparts that they had tested the system in this way and wanted to know if Yale was planning to make the site more secure in the future.</p>
<p>At the time, there was no objection from the Yale representatives. When they returned to work, however, they apparently brought the issue up with the undergraduate who had designed the system and asked him to make improvements. The student did not take kindly to the criticism. Whether out of embarrassment or anger, he decided to go on a witch hunt to document the break-ins and take some of the attention away from his poorly conceived programming. According to my contact at Yale, there were actually many instances of apparently unauthorized access including at other Ivy League Schools. Princeton, however, became the target of this students ire. Whether this was out of a sense of rivalry or simply anger at Princeton for having criticized his work is a mystery. </p>
<p>The Yale Admissions Office wanted to keep the security issue quiet as they made upgrades. The managers of that office didnt particularly want the bad press that would come from publicity regarding the lack of security. The student who designed the system had other ideas and went straight to the undergraduate student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, which broke the story and presented it not as an issue of poorly written software on Yales part but as a nefarious trick by an underhanded collegiate competitor.</p>
<p>Apparently there were some heated conversations in the Yale Office of Admissions after the news was made public. President Levin of Yale felt that his hand had been forced by the sensationalist tone of the article that now appeared in the student run newspaper. Instead of dealing with the matter by simply making a private call to President Tilghman of Princeton, he elevated the issue and went public in the national news even calling on the FBI to investigate.</p>
<p>Apparently, this way of handling the matter was out of keeping with the normally polite and collegial interactions to which Presidents of Ivy League universities are accustomed and the story is that Tilghman now has a rather colder relationship with Levin who has come to be seen as a little excessive in his promotion Yales interests. At any rate, Princeton very publicly chastised the individuals responsible in their Office of Admissions. The Dean of Admissions offered his early retirement and there was a significant staff shake-up. These individuals who are my sources say that there was even some remorse on the part of the Yale Admissions Office officials about the way the whole thing turned out.</p>
<p>Thats it, or at least the way the story was told to me.</p>
<p>Hey Rational, he's putting his Harvard degree to good use.</p>
<p>I am well aware of the party line about the "Yale/Princeton dustup", and the carefully orchestrated coverup as well.</p>
<p>I find it noteworthy that the author of this well-researched book, who - to double-up on the cliches - has been around the block a few times and didn't just fall off the turnip truck - finds the in-house party line less than convincing.</p>
<p>He seems to have been granted extaordinary access to sensitive files at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and not to be the sort who levels reckless charges.</p>
<hr>
<p>By the by, I find particularly amusing your assertion that President Tilghman has permanently wounded feelings because Yale "went public" with its outrage!</p>
<p>Tilghman herself had no qualms about "going public" with a denunciation of Larry Summers about 3rd hand press reports that he had been musing about "innate differences" between the way the male and the female mind worked!</p>
<p>There are those who felt her gratuitous and smarmy press release was "out of keeping with the normally polite and collegial interactions to which Presidents of Ivy League universities are accustomed" - to borrow your phrase!</p>
<p>Byerly, the violence of your comments and your pugnacious attitude doesn't reflect well on you or your (okay, I'll admit it...our) alma mater. You simply don't know what you're talking about in this instance and apparently, though I haven't read the book to which you refer, neither does your favorite author. Knowing the individuals who provided me with this information (from both schools, by the way) I have great confidence in its accuracy. There was no "party line" and no "cover-up" on Princeton's part and to their credit they investigated fully and took action. </p>
<p>As for Tilghman's public comments about Larry Summers, I agree that they too seemed unnecessary (though I suspect most alumni would agree that Summers has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth and has a reputation as a boor). But please, tone it down a little and try not to come off as so paranoid in your defense of the Harvard reputation.</p>
<p>B. was not an undergraduate at Harvard. It's kind of a mystery to everyone on cc what he gets out of his posting on Yale and Princeton boards but so be it. Take his data for what it's worth and the rest as sound and fury.</p>
<p>byerly WAS an undergraduate at harvard. it was just a LONG time ago, so long ago that any personal experiences would be of little value to harvard prospectives today.</p>