<p>Thank you for taking the time and effort to post this article. I found it interesting to note that Brown was listed over Yale as most difficult for accepted admissions.</p>
<p>This article really hurts its own credibility by writing things like Brown is harder to get into than Yale or U Penn is harder to get into than Columbia, or that WUSTL is more difficult to get into than either two above. Yale is definitely harder to get into than Brown, Columbia college is definitely harder to get into than U Penn (except Wharton in which case it's arguable) and WUSTL has a nasty habit of waitlisting tons of students to make itself seem more selective. Anyway it's somewhat accurate but questionable in some aspects.</p>
<p>I agree vic. That article is whack.</p>
<p>i take it the general rankings dont change for international students (no fin. aid) ?</p>
<p>I don't know, doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. Colleges go in and out of fashion. My school has a bunch of people with at least an outside shot at Yale who would rather go to Brown. Obviously that's just anecdotal, but the "best" school, or even the school with the most qualified student body, isn't necessarily the most difficult to get into if relatively fewer people want to go. There's also the fact that schools like yale and harvard get a bunch of applications from people with no shot at all at getting in, which can skew numbers. I'm not saying this list is accurate, it may be completely wrong. I just don't think the conventional wisdom that one school is better than another means that this article is automatically wrong.</p>
<p>Here's the complete list of the top 20.</p>
<p>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
2 Princeton University<br>
3 Harvard College<br>
4 Brown University<br>
5 Yale University<br>
6 California Institute of Technology<br>
7 Stanford University<br>
8 Washington University in St. Louis<br>
9 University of Pennsylvania<br>
10 Columbia University--Columbia College<br>
11 Duke University<br>
12 Williams College<br>
13 Pomona College<br>
14 Middlebury College<br>
15 Swarthmore College<br>
16 Georgetown University<br>
17 Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering<br>
18 Amherst College<br>
19 Dartmouth College<br>
20 Haverford College </p>
<p>I agree that some do seem sort of strange (Brown being so high seems to be the most noticeable).</p>
<p>these articles are a dime a dozen online. i suspect you could search any major newspaper in the country and find their take on admissions- probably heavily based on generalization garnered from pre-existing ratings (ie us news, etc) b/c noone has time to seriously research a topic of this scope.</p>
<p>The article is not random. It was produced by PR. They have a research staff. They do it annually. You might want to look at their criteria (at the PR site) before reaching a hasty conclusion.</p>
<p>just a caution, pr is extremely outdated look at their ranking on food, etc O.o</p>
<p>No way that Brown is harder to get in to than Stanford, Yale, or CalTech.</p>
<p>Similarly, there is no way that WUSTL is more difficult to get in to than Columbia.</p>
<p>Is Brown overrated? I kind of think so... The campus sucks</p>
<p>Olin should be higher up there, I mean they only accepted about 80 students last year. The Olin rejects go to MIT and CalTech.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Olin students are engineering genius' and if admitted, each student receives a full scholarship and a free laptop, and are guaranteed a 6 figure salary on their way out to college.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if Princeton Review renews their Rankings ? If so when ?</p>
<p>Difficulty to get in is NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to even rank. It is far more than acceptance %, average accepted stats, etc. It is also the strength of the applicant pool, combination of legacies, URM's, athletes, extracurricals, etc.</p>
<p>To be honest, I would say MIT is the hardest to get into for an odd reason. The average applicant to MIT is really intelligent of course, but with an intellect of that caliber often comes a lack of social skills and possibly some introvertedness--MIT rates the interview JUST as important as tests, grades, etc. You must kick ass AND be able to present yourself well. Few, if any, other top colleges consider these two factors on equal grounds.</p>
<p>I can see why rankings actually end up this way. "Difficult" is not necessarily a vertical descriptor but a horizontal.</p>
<p>Lots of people have previously mentioned that Brown has quirky admissions tendencies which may be less "patterned" than, for example, some other Ivies. I know someone who was rejected at Brown but accepted at H., & I think that other people on CC have similar examples. MIT is also looking for not just specific interests & abilities, but broader characeristics (esp. in recent yrs.) It is not difficult to believe they're ranked "hardest." Lots of people who qualify for Penn & Colulmbia would so prefer the climate at Stanford, where you have not only the national but the in-State (very large, very spoiled-by-climate) applicant pool.</p>
<p>This actually looks like a very accurate list to me.</p>
<p>epiphany: I concur with your assessment and you description about what is now happing at MIT.</p>
<p>Regarding Olin. This year the appplicant pool is up to about 1060. They offer about 110 for a class of 75. It may climb in the rankings.They select top academic candidates who must have non-science strenghts such as in the arts, and they must be good at collaboration. It will be interesting to see how this new school climbs the ranks in the next few years.</p>
<p>I concur as well. Olin and Cooper Union have been flying under the radar for some time.</p>
<p>Middlebury and Georgetown more difficult than Amherst?????? Middlebury abuses the admissions process to raise their perceived selectivity.</p>
<p>Brown more difficult than Stanford or Yale????</p>
<p>Etti, if you are still reading this: Where did you get the information about the salaries of Olin graduates, esp. since they have only had one class graduate?</p>