<p>school, freshman class size, number apps, yield, admit percent
Harvard University 1686 22645 83 9
Yale University 1314 19451 70 10
Princeton University 1228 17564 69 10
Stanford University 1646 22333 67 11
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1002 11374 66 13
University of Pennsylvania 2336 20483 66 18
Columbia University in the City of New York 1360 19851 58 12
Brown University 1466 18316 58 14
Dartmouth College 1086 13938 49 16
Cornell University 3188 28098 46 25
Northwestern University 2060 16204 41 30
California Institute of Technology 214 3330 37 17
University of Chicago 1259 9016 33 40
Johns Hopkins University 1304 14697 32 28
Washington University in St Louis 1461 22251 32 21
Carnegie Mellon University 1424 18864 22 34</p>
<p>First off: yield and acceptance rates don't matter - these have more to do with marketing. What matters is the strength of students who actually enroll. Look at Columbia, which is in NYC and has tons of applicants, but statistically its students are not even as strong as Dartmouth students, which is in Hanover and thus has a higher acceptance rate as there are less applicants.</p>
<p>Anyways, in terms of student strength and placement, which is what really matters for undergrad (unlike Nobel prize winners):</p>
<p>1) H/Y/P are probably the top 3 schools in nation, with maybe 2 schools as strong (Stanford, MIT).</p>
<p>2) Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Columbia are definitely top 10 - 12, with about 4-5 total schools of similar strength or stronger (Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, maybe few others).</p>
<p>3) Cornell has about 8-10 schools as strong or stronger than it (Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, Wash U, Georgetown, JHU, maybe few others).</p>
<p>even when you include Cornell's hotel, ag, etc. it outranks Brown--how can you say that Cornell Arts and Sciences is not equal or better than Penn, MIT, Chicago, Duke as well as Brown..this thread is about the Arts and Sciences schools in the Ivies...</p>
<p>yea, that's what i don't get. many on this thread are bashing cornell (without really obviously thinking about what they're saying), but still can't explain why cornell outranks brown--and don't say that its simply because brown has a lower endowment than cornell because there are plenty of schools that have a lower endowment than cornell that outrank it (dartmouth, for ex); just as there are schools that have a higher endowment than cornell, but cornell is either solidly ranked with them or above them.</p>
<p>Yeah but on a per student basis Cornell significantly lags many of its peers. For example, Dartmouth is almost 4 times richer!!</p>
<p>1) What amount of endowment, at a typical endowment earnings rate, would throw off the same amount of cash that Cornell gets from New York State every year?</p>
<p>2) In virtually all of these "rankings" discussions, people obsess for pages about incremental difference in the aggegate stats of incoming classes, and virtually ignore what goes on once these students actually get to campus: ie what the colleges themselves actually provide academically. Which colleges offer the most courses? The most majors? Best student-teacher ratio in upper-division courses? Fewest TAs? Most opportunity to take grad-level courses, for those so inclined? Research opportunities? Special Programs, such as immersion language study? etc.</p>
<p>3) "It amazes me how, despite not having a single ounce of experience with most of the Ivies, people can so definitively rank them in terms of "quality of education." Wow. "</p>
<p>Yes, yes. But moreover,</p>
<p>4) Ranking can only be done by an individual, based on his/her own personal priorities and personal weighting of the various parameters. Outside of the priorities of a particular individual, this whole endeavor is pointless. Rankings depend on criteria and weights given, and what matters most to me may not matter most to you. What matters most to some aggregate of population is not that relevant if your priorities are different.</p>
<p>monydad - all of that common sense really has no place on a thread like this.</p>
<p>"how can you say that Cornell Arts and Sciences is not equal or better than Penn, MIT, Chicago, Duke as well as Brown"</p>
<p>Well, in almost every comparison (of aggregate stats and so on) Cornell does slightly worse. So, Cornell isn't significantly weaker than any of these schools. But when you are talking about such great schools, a small difference in certain stats is all you have to differentiate. Cornell definitely isn't stronger than any of these schools though. It attracts students slightly less stronger, places them to top positions at a only slightly lower rate. </p>
<p>For what its worth, in Finance (Ibanking), Cornell usually places better than Brown or Yale and is one of the best schools in the country for recruitment.</p>
<p>"when you are talking about such great schools, a small difference in certain stats is all you have to differentiate"</p>
<p>why do people HAVE to differentiate on menial stats though? Would you agree that breadth of applicable programs, location, or fit would be significantly more important to compare rather than a 1510 vs. 1530 SAT 75th percentile?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768%5B/url%5D">http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768</a></p>
<p>List of Summer Analyst at a Bulge-Bracket firm. Keep in mind the relative sizes of the schools (i.e Cornell and Brown both have 4, but Cornell has a significantly larger student body than Brown). </p>
<p>Thoughtprocess---- do you use a similar moniker on IBankingoasis?</p>
<p>"Keep in mind the relative sizes of the schools (i.e Cornell and Brown both have 4, but Cornell has a significantly larger student body than Brown)."</p>
<p>keep in mind this statement from the page:</p>
<p>"Also, Duke probably places more people at BB firms in NYC than any school other than Harvard, Princeton and UPenn Wharton. That is not to say it is a necessarily a better school than Yale, Darthmouth or Columbia but rather that more people there want to do Ibanking... although people on this board probably don't understand the difference between the two."</p>
<p>Last time I knew, most human development, agricultural sciences, architecture, and engineers wern't jumping out into the iBanking fields. Brown lacks all of these types of majors while they constitute a huge chunk of students at Cornell.</p>
<p>This whole side discussion is retarded. Brown and Cornell both do equally well in I-Banking (as do all of the Ivies).</p>
<p>the_prestige, yeah, you are right, I was just pointing out that "for what its worth" more people from Cornell tend to go to Wall Street than almost any other school, even though its sometimes thought of as a second-rate school compared to other top ones. </p>
<p>And yeah, gogamestar, there are more Duke, Dartmouth, Columbia people than Brown and Yale, but you are exactly right that not everyone wants to do IB after college. Again, I was just noting that for what its worth, Cornell has great placement onto Wall Street (no better or worse than other Ivies - save Harvard Princeton or Wharton - or similar privates).</p>
<p>re: monydad's comment-- Thank you!!! The OP expressed an interest in academic experience and quality of education, which has little, if nothing to do with other things that have been discussed on this thread thus far.</p>
<p>In terms of breadth of course offerings, I find Cornell incredibly exciting. Their course catalog is a textbook, and knowing that there's so much opportunity at Cornell makes me quite excited. It should not be overlooked as the "toilet" of the Ivies.</p>
<p>When I looked at Penn, I found it too lacking of a liberal arts experience and the influence of Wharton too looming. Maybe some people like that feel, but I didn't.</p>
<p>Yale seems to offer really excellent programs and the students I know there really engage themselves academically. Even by looking in their course catalog, I could tell that there was a lot of time and attention going into what courses were available to undergraduates and what they should know before leaving the college. If I had to choose one ivy based on quality of education alone, I would probably go with Yale.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has some really crazy and excellent programs that I haven't seen anywhere else, as well as meshed interdisciplinary programs. From what my friends have told me (they're doing econ, comp sci, and physics), Dartmouth kids work hard by love to let on otherwise. My friend is really excited about the Spanish Culture and Society major that D offers.</p>
<p>Harvard, from what I've heard, is inconsistent depending on department. My friend did her undergrad in linguistics there and insists that it was more challenging than her PhD program. My other friend, though, wanted to be a government major but was turned off by it because he said it was the "cop-out" major.</p>
<p>I don't know much about Brown's academics, but I imagine that it follows from Brown's liberal, laid-back attitude. I have a friend doing History/Classics there and he enjoys the education he's getting. I have a suspicion he's not working as hard as he would be at other colleges. (More than a suspicion on that one).</p>
<p>Princeton, like Harvard, is thoroughly intense and searing, if you want it to be. One of the brightest people I know is there on a big scholarship, and he was roasted his first year. I've heard similar things from other friends.</p>
<p>I don't know enough about Columbia's academics to comment, but some of the Columbia alumni I know said the best classes they took were through Barnard.</p>
<p>I think that about rounds up what I know of specifically the Ivy League.</p>
<p>
<p>When I looked at Penn, I found it too lacking of a liberal arts experience and the influence of Wharton too looming. Maybe some people like that feel, but I didn't.
It's odd that you got that impression, given that Penn's College of Arts and Sciences has a much bigger undergraduate population than Cornell's (over 6,000 vs. 4,200) and offers more undergraduate courses (over 2,000 vs. 1,800).</p>
<p>Because of Wharton's name and reputation, people often assume that it dominates the Penn undergraduate experience, but that's not the reality on the ground (if for no other reason, then because of sheer numbers--CAS has 6400 undergrads, SEAS has 1500, Nursing has 500, and Wharton has 1800).</p>
<p>"It's odd that you got that impression, given that Penn's College of Arts and Sciences has a much bigger undergraduate population than Cornell's (over 6,000 vs. 4,200) and offers more undergraduate courses (over 2,000 vs. 1,800)."</p>
<p>Cornell CAS students aren't limited to their own college though, they can take classes in all 7 undergrad colleges (same goes for students enrolled in the other schools)</p>
<p>It is funny to see how one grows up some after having experienced CC for a while. I am guilty of having participated myself in some of these obsessive compulsive discussions about rankings, early on. However, as someone said earlier, ranking only makes sense to an individual based on that individual's preferences!!. It is laughable to see people having the audacity of ranking a group of universities based on...... what?? ... mostly biased, inaccurate, anecdotal comments, stereotypes and misinterpretations of published data...(for those who think are sophisticated enough and attempt to do that)</p>
<p>It is impossible for anyone to have a first hand experience at any of these places with the necessary degree of depth required to make a meaningful assessment. Even the infamous US News rankings are WIDELY recognized to be flawed and known to be intentionally manipulated by those universities who feel the need of having something to gain. (There are plenty of excellent research articles published on the topic )</p>
<p>What can we talk about?...Preferences..individual preferences..... that's all!</p>
<p>While doing my college rounds, I found the academics in all these universities to be awesome. To compare academics among them is ridiculous!! As long as they have your concentration majors there is nothing to question. I fell in love with Brown and Dartmouth because I got a more intimate feeling than at most of the other schools. However I did not like the isolation of Dartmouth. I loved Harvard and Cambridge but most of the students were stressed out and seemed unhappy (i was there for one whole week ). I loved the atmosphere at Yale and the Residential housing but hated New Haven and the surroundings. Philadelphia needed some clean up in my opinion and Penn was huge for me. Columbia remains in a very depressed area of Manhattan and I just did not want to live there. Cornell, was huge also and in the middle of nowhere, for me. I liked Princeton University but again did not like such a small town atmosphere.</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to have won the lottery by being accepted to all the schools that I applied to. I turned down Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale's offers of admission and I will be attending BROWN.......the university that is ranked NUMBER ONE on my world list of universities.</p>
<p>
<p>Cornell CAS students aren't limited to their own college though, they can take classes in all 7 undergrad colleges (same goes for students enrolled in the other schools)
The same is true for Penn. In fact, Penn pioneered the interdisciplinary approach, and strongly encourages undergrads to take courses in more than one school, pursue interdisciplinary majors and minors in different schools, and pursue joint and dual degrees in 2 different schools. Penn has touted its "One University" brand/philosophy for over 30 years, and it's long been one of the school's biggest selling points:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/mission/%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/mission/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.upenn.edu/about/welcome.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.upenn.edu/about/welcome.php</a></p>
<p>MovieBuff, great post, and best wishes at Brown.</p>
<p>"The same is true for Penn. "
but we're debating the total #'s of courses available for undergrads, not the ability to take classes in other subjects across schools. </p>
<p>Movie Buff - fantastic post! If only others shared your same mentality (ahem** Columbiahopeful, Mr. 3 schools in 3 years**ahem). I hope you do well and that you love Brown ... it's your #1 choice, I can't see why you wouldn't!</p>