<p>^^ The funny thing is, China would be a richer country than the USA (overall, not per person), albeit briefly, if the government would allow the RMB's value to rise higher than 8 RMB per US dollar :p</p>
<p>or maybe I have no concept of economics and what I just said was completely false.</p>
<p>Here are some overall ivy stats:</p>
<p>Midpoint SAT (based on 25th and 75th percentile):</p>
<p>Harvard 1490
Yale 1485
Princeton 1480
Dartmouth 1455
Brown 1440
Columbia 1420
UPenn 1420
Cornell 1410 endowed</p>
<p>Big difference? Not really. Biggest is Cornell v. Harvard at 80 points on the SAT midpoints.</p>
<p>To bash Cornellians based on their academic strength seems ridiculous given these numbers. How are you going to split hairs between a 10, 20, 30, 40 point differences on the SAT? To put Ivy rankings like so</p>
<p>HYP
Columbia Brown Dartmouth Penn
Cornell</p>
<p>is laughable and insulting. This list implies Cornell is a level lower than all of its other Ivy counterparts. And based upon previous arguments, this has been based on Cornell's "lack" of students' academic strength. Wow... so really a 1410 is that much worse than a 1420? Not so. Keep in mind that the 1410 figure includes Architecture students (with lower SATs).</p>
<p>And, once again, all of this just pertains to certain charactersitics of incoming students.</p>
<p>It is purportedly a ranking of colleges, yet there is no evaluation of what those colleges themselves provide beyond their function in screening applicants- a task performed before students even matriculate. The "invisible hand" guiding student matriculation decisions is only indirect evidence, possibly influenced by a number of extraneous factors beyond program quality (e.g, location) that may not pertain to you as an individual. If you want to rank colleges, for yourself, suggest focus on the direct evidence and your own priorities.</p>
<p>Does a college offer program of studies in fields that interest you? How many courses does it offer? Are those programs considered strong? How many fields of study are available there? ?What are class sizes? Research opportunities, if you care? Does it attract recruiters in fields you are interested in, such that, if you are personally good enough, you will have a fair shot at the jobs you would reasonably qualify for? Coming out of that college, do you have a good shot at getting admitted to the graduate or professional programs you deserve to be admitted to, based on your abilities?</p>
<p>Thank you, monydad. At the beginning of my college search process, I too thought I'd end up at an ivy league, but after asking myself similar questions to the ones that monydad raises, I realized that the best schools for me were not in the Crazy 8.</p>
<p>FWIW, my kids are legacies at two schools that play sports in the Ivy league, and the first two, after evaluating their own priorities, have matriculated at liberal arts colleges; did not choose to apply to either of our alma maters. It's all more complicated, and personal, than these "rankings" whose priorities apply to no single individual.</p>
<p>However, I see now that the OP's concept of "ranking" in post #1 was merely difficulty of gaining admission. And post #2 said just look up the stats.</p>
<p>Not sure, then, why this thread has 105 posts, and I apologize for my own contribution to it.</p>
<p>monydad, while you make excellent points, I am here to argue against some people who seem to want to denounce Cornell as much as possible. I am not here to attempt to push forward the Ivy craze. I am here to defend myself and my classmates from assertions that we are academically weak when compared to Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.</p>
<p>They wanted to compare middle SAT scores to show Cornell was inferior, I gave them middle SAT scores and proved otherwise.</p>
<p>looks like it was just a dream to enter the ivies for me. damn this is so tight!!!</p>
<p>the_prestige-
I think proportions, averages, and percentages are tantamount to comparing freshman classes in their entirety without taking size into account. Say, for example, that China and the US had the same median income and the same range of incomes. Say that in both China and the US 1% of the population were billionaires. This statistic would not capture the fact that China has 4 times as many billionaires as the US. Which country has more wealth in absolute terms? China. </p>
<p>hawkette-
I think the use of the "1000th SAT score" statistics has already had some utility insofar as it has shed light on the process of comparing schools. Ideas are practical things. I would say that the "1000th SAT score" statistic has great POTENTIAL utility. It would give applicants another peice of information: the size of the community of top scholars at each school. It reveals things that are different, surprising, and meaningful. For example, the Cornell freshman class contains the Dartmouth freshman class plus a freshman class of nearly the same size that is much better than the Dartmouth freshman class. </p>
<p>Do I think it will become mainstream? Probably not, but you never know. Perhaps US News could add it to its ranking methodology and give it a 5% weight. It has to be more meaningful than alumni giving. It would be a way to factor in the value of absolute numbers in addition to relative numbers.</p>
<p>how can you seperate Cornell's endowed and state supported schools. The state supported schools comprise like 1/3 to 1/2 of Cornell. That is like saying School X has a SAT average of 1450 if you exclude half of its students. Perhaps, we should say that Penn would have a 1450 average if you exclude its legacy and athletic recruits?</p>
<p>as an example to illustrate my point, Northwestern has many undergrad schools like Cornell. The School of Ed, communications school, and the music school to name a few do not emphasize test scores like some of the undergrad schools. YET, Northwestern still has a 1410 SAT median. If you exclude these specialty schools like the poster wants to do for Cornell, I am sure that Northwestern would have a 1430 or 1440 SAT average as those schools comprise almost 1/2 of Northwestern.</p>
<p>Did I ever compare any ivy school vs a non-ivy? No.</p>
<p>Am I here to argue that Cornell is better than Northwestern? No</p>
<p>I am here to argue against the "Cornell is the worst Ivy" crap. In the past, this would have never bothered me but things change after a year or two.</p>
<p>I can separate the endowed vs. contract colleges when doing intra-ivy comparisons. How many ivies besides Cornell have schools like ILR, Agriculture, or Hotel Administration?</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>Granted, the other ivies may have similar majors... but Cornell is the only university that has different admissions standards varying between schools. The other ivies don't give a rat's @$$ what major you put down on your app.</p>
<p>If you put Cornell University on your resume, get a degree from their, attend classes there, and interact with other students there, then you count as a student and your scores count towards University averages...IMO</p>
<p>I'm not saying that Contract college students' averages aren't part of the university average (like you eloquently stated, they are!), I'm saying that intra-ivy comparisons should only take place between similar types of students.</p>
<p>How do you compare a Cornell Hotel student with a UPenn Engineer? You can't if you go solely on SAT scores. You'd have to take a UPenn Hotel student (which don't exist) or a Cornell Engineer.</p>
<p>Your thought process implies that we can compare, let's say, Amherst's English program against Carnegie Mellon's Electrical Engineering program.</p>
<p>Aren't we just comparing the average student? In that case it doesn't matter what the major is. </p>
<p>But the fact that Cornell has more majors is a positive in itself.</p>
<p>Yes, we are comparing the average student, but the Cornell haters out there are apparently hellbent on proving Cornell to be an inferior school (one thing they cite are SAT scores). Fact is, most of the ivies only have Arts and Sciences and Engineering. Cornell's endowed colleges cover those and add architecture and so is the best estimate when doing cornel-other ivy comparisons.</p>
<p>And yes, the fact that Cornell has so many majors is positive :)</p>
<p>But the problem is that Cornell Haters like to turn that around. Sure, ILR, Hotel, Agriculture all bring the SAT down, but it's also important to note that all three are the top (or very close the top) programs in the nation of their kind (In the case of Hotel it's number one in the world!). Regardless of the apparent lack of competition relative to fields like engineering, they are the best of the best, and it's something that some people simply don't get. They use those school's SAT averages and compare them to completely different fields of study all in an attempt to denounce Cornell. I'm just trying to level the playing field.</p>
<p>"how can you seperate (sic) Cornell's endowed and state supported schools."</p>
<p>(Then on about Northwestern, Penn, etc,)</p>
<p>It all depends on what your purpose is.</p>
<p>When I was applying to colleges, the stats for each college of a university were listed individually in the guide books. No aggregate of them was even printed. </p>
<p>If an applicant wants to assess his/her odds of being admitted to a particular college of a university, then I believe the stats for the individual college are much more instructive. IT really doesn't matter what the Nursing school stats are like if you are shooting for Wharton.</p>
<p>IF an applicant wants to assess the academic level of fellow students he will encounter in the classroom, the individual college stats are still the most critical, but with some bleed-through which might well be taken into account somehow. In the cases I'm familiar with students typically take at least 75% of their credits at their own college. But they can take free electives, up to a point, elsewhere in the university.</p>
<p>If an applicant wants to assess recruiting opportunities, well in the case I'm most familiar with this is largely done by college as well. With some bleed-through, which only enhances opportunities.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you want to assess what kind of bozos you'll be living with in the dorms, then perhaps combined stats are most useful for that.</p>
<p>But for most purposes one would be using stats, I think the way it was done "in the old days" is a lot more instructive. The colleges operate largely autonomously. If you want to apply to Northwestern's College of Communications, then look at stats for Northwestern's College of Communications. Not it's engineering school. To me, the key where they should be separated is where they are run relatively autonomously, have separate admissions, and largely separate courses. It's not a matter of being a different major, it's a matter of being actually a different college, with separate admissions, that happens to share dorm space and, mostly, some freshman intro courses. With, in most cases, a smattering of courses thereafter.</p>
<p>But where there is more synergy between colleges than is frequently the case this can also be considered. For example I know of one case where two liberal arts colleges share courses. This is the exception though, not the rule. Generally the separate colleges have distinctly separate missions and programs of study and are truly, and often appropriately,segregable.</p>
<p>I think the reason this is much more apparent to me than to some of you, perhaps, is because when I was going through this the stats were not shown aggregated. So to me, I never thought about these colleges as aggregated, and the whole notion seems strange. You can only apply to, and attend, one of the colleges of a university, not some fictional composite that doesn't exist. Each college has separate admissions, separate faculty, separate courses, separate requirements, separate buildings, etc.</p>
<p>And I have lived through the life at two multi-college universities, and as a result had the opportunity to realize just how completely segregated and segregable the different colleges were, in those two cases. You could have lopped off most of the other colleges and people attending the others would barely have known the difference. Except in the dorms.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Say, for example, that China and the US had the same median income and the same range of incomes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But this is precisely the point. China's median household income is a fraction of the US. GDP per capita, same thing. Even if you look at the more equalizing GDP per capita via Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China still ranks way below other OECD countries. So while China's richest 1% may have more billionaires in absolute numbers than the US (is this really true btw? and are you talking USD billionaires or RMB billionaires?) it still doesn't capture the fact that the large majority of the PRC population are relatively poor (and frankly, dirt poor) -- esp. when compared to a similar proportion of the US population.</p>
<p>For illustrative purposes, let's put it this way, say you had a choice of spinning two wheels: each wheel representing either the US or the PRC -- now each wheel is divided by the number of people (slots) of the PRC or the US, respectively. Now wherever each wheel stopped you'd become a random citizen of either the US or the PRC, which wheel would you spin? You'd be a fool to choose the PRC wheel, particular based solely on the fact that the PRC has more billionaires than the US.</p>
<p>[edit] pls refer to this link: [edit]</p>
<p>when you normalize for USD (US Dollar) billionaires, the US outstrips every country and dwarfs the PRC.</p>
<p>hey guys, havent read through all the posts, but i thought you might find this interesting.</p>
<p>to help my brother with the college process, i used princeton review "quality ratings" to come up with averages to rank the different colleges. i wont go into the methodology (not thats it's complicated), but here are the ivies and their score averages (based on selectivity, quality of academics, quality of campus life, and rankings)</p>
<p>Dartmouth (97.3) [2nd overall on the list behind Stanford]
Harvard (97.0) [4th]
Princeton (96.8) [5th]
Columbia (96.3) [7th]
Yale (95.8) [9th]
Brown (94.0) [11th]
Cornell (91.5) [20th]
Penn (90.8) [22nd]</p>
<p>Interesting huh? Dartmouth just has great ratings I guess. If you're curious about any other schools, I would be glad to let you know what averages I have.</p>