Ranking Ivies and such schools

Applying to College
1

<p>Could someone rank these schools in terms of what they think is hardest to easiest to get accepted to? haha sorry I know it's tedious, but I think it'd be interesting to see what kind of results there are. I understand that it's easier for certain people to get accepted in terms of locations/state schools, but try and generalize.</p>

<p>Feel free to add any schools you think should be up here:</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Caltech
Brown
Stanford
Dartmouth
Columbia
Cornell
UPenn
Notre Dame
Rice
UChicago
Johns Hopkins
Georgetown
BC
NYU
WashU
Northwestern
Vassar
Tufts
UMich
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
William and Mary
Emory
Middlebury
Carnegie Mellon
Wesleyan
Amherst
Lehigh
Williams
Swarthmore
UNC-Chapel Hill
UVA</p>

<p>(and by the way these aren't ranked from what i think)</p>

2

<p>Move MIT somewhere around the top...and add Caltech next to it</p>

3

<p>Cornell, NU, JHU, Tufts are all about as competitive, I'd say in order: Tufts/Cornell, NU, JHU.</p>

4

<p>Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Princeton
Caltech
Columbia
Dartmouth
UPenn
Brown
Cornell
WashU
UChicago
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Georgetown
Rice
Carnegie Mellon
Notre Dame
Emory
Tufts
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
UVA
UMich
BC
Lehigh</p>

<p>Don't know enough about to make a determination: Wesleyan, Williams, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Amherst, Vassar, UNC-Chapel Hill, William and Mary.</p>

5

<p>I'd say Stanford is actually more difficult to get into than Harvard, at least for California residents, from what I've seen. Yale I'm a bit iffy about in terms of get-in-ability, but basically everyone I've heard of who applied there early decision was deferred...maybe that's just for early decision though and not overall acceptance.</p>

6

<p>The Ivies:</p>

<p>Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Cornell
Penn
Dartmouth
Brown</p>

7

<p>vanderbilt should be on there.</p>

8

<p>wait, on second thought, everyone should stop. this is going to be a bad thread</p>

9

<p>lol, since when was Notre Dame better than any of these schools?
UChicago
Johns Hopkins
Georgetown
BC
NYU
WashU
Northwestern</p>

<p>Tufts
UMich
Berkeley
UCLA
USC</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>Amherst</p>

<p>Williams
Swarthmore</p>

10

<p>Re-read the first post. Specifically: </p>

<p><a href="and%20by%20the%20way%20these%20aren't%20ranked%20from%20what%20i%20think">quote</a>

[/quote]
</p>

11

<p>For sure Notre Dame is better than Tufts, NYU, BC, UCLA, USC, Michigan.</p>

<p>It is on par with Gtown, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley and Northwestern.</p>

<p>Just check student profile (1340-1470) and undergraduate experience. This year ND is having a 13% increase in apps as well. </p>

<p>Just a reminder, we are talking about undergraduate school, not graduate departments.</p>

12

<p>Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Caltech
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
Cornell
UChicago
Berkeley
UPenn
Brown
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins
UVA
WashU
Northwestern
Georgetown
Rice
Carnegie Mellon
Notre Dame
Emory
Tufts
UCLA
USC
UMich
BC
Lehigh</p>

13

<p>here you go:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/lowacc_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/lowacc_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

14

<p>Dam julliard school is where it's at.. Imagine being accepted.</p>

15

<p>huskem:</p>

<p>Thanks for posting that list, but note that one of the hardest colleges to get into in the US is the College of the Ozarks, and Morgan State isn't too far behind.</p>

<p>Obviously, selectivity numbers without student-body stats can be misleading.</p>

16

<p>i wonder why some of the lesser known schools, such as college of the ozarks, tougaloo college (??), are so selective?</p>

<p>[ok, i just looked a few up, and a bunch are historically black colleges, i guess they get a huge influx of applicants looking for that specific environment?]</p>

17

<p>Selectivity has nothing to do with quality of the program. Look at California State University - San Bernardino. It's more selective than CalTech. I highly doubt its better than CalTech.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
Selectivity has nothing to do with quality of the program.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wrong.</p>

<p>Selectivity is a very strong indicator (though not the ONLY indicator) of school quality. Simply put, most Top 10-15 schools are extremely selective (if not the MOST selective, at least amongst the most selective schools in the US). There are, of course, notable outliers (e.g. UChicago, with a self-selecting applicant pool and subsequently a relatively higher acceptance rate, and then schools noone has ever heard of like College of the Ozarks and Wizards which enrolls less than 250 freshman yet gets over 2,500 apps --> driving their acceptance rate down to "Ivy"-like levels.)</p>

<p>So, let's use our heads here. There absolutely is a very high correlation between acceptance rates and quality of a program (for instance, there is an undeniable positive correlation between high SAT rates and low acceptance rates). So while an acceptance rate in a vacuum doesn't tell you the entire story (what single number does?) and there will, of course, be outliers -- one can't simply say that "selectivity has NOTHING to do with quality".</p>

19

<p>Hrm. That came out wrong. Disregard what I stated earlier =D.</p>

20

<p>I know that it is pretty simple to generalize which schools are harder to be accepted to and which are easier, but I must say it also depends on the person. MIT according to the Princeton Review is the hardest school to get in to, yet I was accepted EA. Now I doubt I would be able to get in to U Chicago because of the different emphasis the schools place on certain aspects of their applicants. So it really depends on the person who is applying</p>