<p>MIT and Caltech are a different applicant pool.
Harvard is almost certainly harder to get into than Yale or Princeton on average.</p>
<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Princeton *</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Yale *</li>
<li>Harvard *</li>
</ol>
<p>The ranking criteria used by PR to produce the ranking above is as follows:
Admissions Selectivity Rating
Academic Rating </p>
<p>Admissions Selectivity Rating
This rating measures how competitive admissions are at the school. This rating is determined by several institutionally-reported factors, including: the class rank, average standardized test scores, and average high school GPA of entering freshmen; the percentage of students who hail from out-of-state; and the percentage of applicants accepted. By incorporating all these factors, our Admissions Selectivity Rating adjusts for "self-selecting" applicant pools. University of Chicago, for example, has a very high rating, even though it admits a surprisingly large proportion of its applicants. Chicago's applicant pool is self-selecting; that is, nearly all the school's applicants are exceptional students. This rating is given on a scale of 60-99. Please note that if a school has an Admissions Selectivity Rating of 60*, it means that the school did not report to us all of the statistics that go into the rating by our deadline.</p>
<p>Note to Mensa: You have always been aware of this study. Despite being warned however, you continue with posts intended to fan flames. Shame on you!</p>
<p>Those are proxies for estimating "selectivity." But they are not selectivity. Selectivity is a simple question: If I have X GPA, and XXXX SATS, where am I least likely to get in. Among HYPS, the clear answer is Harvard. That doesn't mean it's the best of the four, but it is the most selective. Ask any knowledgeable guidance counselor at the schools that feed the Ivies. It's not even a debatable issue, except in your dreams, alpha.</p>
<p>Your the one dreaming Mensa. Now you profess to know more than the research staff at PR? For someone who has never supported an argument with a fact, this is interesting. The PR's college rankings above, carefully incorporate a number of factors to determine difficulty of acceptance. The explanation is not quite the same as the horsemanure you tend to spew here.</p>
<p>The PR selectivity ranking studies have been out there for years. I challenge you to find fault with its methodology. PR is the most widely respected College Guide publisher there is, bar none. They have the industry's largest research staff.<br>
Rather than spend your days fanning flames with (childlike) provocative threads, your time may be better spent doing some research and helping others with their college questions.</p>
<p>Mensa, just stop. Honestly.</p>
<p>I agree with EncomiumII all the way:</p>
<p>Princeton
Yale
Harvard
Columbia
Brown
Dartmouth
UPenn
Cornell</p>
<p>I think that Princeton/Yale/Harvard are virtually identical. The major difference is that while it may recieve slightly fewer applicants, Princeton is the smallest, while Harvard is the largest and there is significant crossover. For the others, I think UPenn and Cornell are definitly lowest (still VERY selective, though), and the others are significantly lower than Harvard and Princeton (both in the number and stats of the Applicants who apply to mid-ivy schools).</p>
<p>I agree with enconium and nickelby.</p>
<p>Toughest colleges to get into...............</p>
<p>and the point is?</p>
<p>(oh, I just realized this was a Mensa thread, lol)</p>
<p>I don't see his name anywhere...</p>
<p>Harvard University (MA) 10%
Princeton University (NJ) 10%
Columbia University (NY) 11%
Yale University (CT) 11% acceptance</p>
<p>Living in Ithaca, Cornell from what I hear is mad easy to get in (well relatively, I live here, and I don't think I'll get in.. :P)</p>
<p>Xanatos,</p>
<p>check out the OP</p>
<p>Acceptance rate does not equal seletivity. Plain and Simple</p>
<p>Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Dartmouth
UPenn
Cornell</p>
<p>I'm surprised Penn is placed almost last in most of the posts. Referring back to the Princeton Review info, after the top 5 of MIT/Princeton/CalTech/Yale/Harvard, Penn is #6. <em>shrugs</em> In any case, there's much more than acceptance percentages, since class size and promotional recruition play big roles in those. And, of course, overall prestige for the names of schools, whether deserved or not.</p>
<p>The PR top 20 "Toughest Colleges To Get Into" this year are:</p>
<p>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2 Princeton University *
3 California Institute of Technology
4 Yale University *
5 Harvard College *
6 University of Pennsylvania *
7 Stanford University
8 Swarthmore College
9 Duke University
10 Columbia University - Columbia College *
11 Georgetown University
12 Brown University *
13 Pomona College
14 Amherst College
15 Dartmouth College *
16 University of California-Berkeley
17 Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
18 Harvey Mudd College
19 Emory University
20 University of Virginia</p>
<ul>
<li>IVY Colleges</li>
</ul>
<p>all depends on how many kids apply :/</p>
<p>All depends on the kid, don't you think?</p>
<p>PR claims to take self-selectivity into account, but they pretty clearly do not.</p>
<p>Penn is not in the common app.
U Chicago, Penn, & Harvard are not in the common app.
With the low acceptance rate getting worse, people apply to more schools
now.
Through the common app is the easiet way to apply.
Especially, Dartmouth and Wash U- St. Louis.
For example, If I want to apply for Wash U, I just sent a copy of common app
and 70$ and I am done. Dartmouth is a common app + peer recommendation.
For Penn, U Chicago, Havard, you need to fill up different forms and write different essays, it is not worth the time for some people who just want to boost up thier chance.
I think only more serious applicants apply to those kind of school which are not in the common app.
In other words, for those schools, higher acceptance rate is not equal to
"eaiser to get in". Especially, U Chicago.</p>
<p>Why? Did you read the article? Your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired.</p>
<p>"Brown (16,835), Columbia (18,236), Cornell (24,114), Dartmouth (12,615), Harvard (22,717) and Princeton (16,077) all received a record high number of applications.</p>
<p>Yale received 19,430 applications, 245 fewer than last year.</p>
<p>"I think all of the Ivy League schools are recruiting more actively," Stetson said, although he did acknowledge that Cornell's increase of 16.2 percent and Princeton's increase of 17 percent were partly due to those school's decision this year to join Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth by accepting the Common Application."</p>
<p>Schools like Dartmouth and Harvard have a lot of "What the heck" type of applications. Penn has MUCH less of those. I myself had a "what the heck" application to Dartmouth, as did a lot of my friends. Its application is so easy, it's the common app + peer rec (which you don't do). Next to Wash U, Dartmouth has the easiest application. Penn's application has a couple of essays and requires much more time. That's why it has not increased: People have to think about the time they have to invest in Penn's application.
Report Offensive Post</p>
<p>I'm sorry!! Harvard is in the common app.</p>