Reasons to reject Harvard, Yale, Princeton

College Search & Selection
1

<p>An anti-prestige-whore thought experiment: Suppose money was of no concern, for which colleges and for what reasons might you reject an acceptance from Harvard, Yale, Princeton?</p>

<p>Examples I can think of:</p>

<p>Army/Navy/Air Force Academies: enjoy the military culture, think freedom isn't free, patriotism.</p>

<p>Williams/Amherst: like a top-flight education, but can do without the grad-student instructors and big classes.</p>

<p>Notre Dame, Baylor, Wheaton, Furman: want a good education, but don't want a bunch of atheistic Commies as professors.</p>

<p>USC, UCLA, Miami (FL): want a good education, but like warm weather and palm trees.</p>

<p>U of Colorado, U of Utah, U of Vermont, Dartmouth, Middlebury: love to ski.
U of Minnesota, UC-Berkeley, Howard, U of Hawaii: have an overpowering attraction to people of a certain distinct physical appearance (blondes, Asians, Black, Polynesian, respectively).</p>

<p>U of Toronto, Penn State, Arizona State, Texas: like HUGE schools.</p>

<p>MIT, CalTech, GaTech: really really into science and technology.</p>

<p>Alabama, Texas, UCLA, USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin: like schools with schools with huge sports programs in numerous sports.</p>

<p>McGill, U of Michigan-Dearborn, UCLA : want to learn a foreign language from native speakers outside classroom (French, Arabic, Korean/Spanish/Mandarin), respectively.</p>

2

<p>A smaller, less "cut-throat" university such as Haverford. So you get the same environment without that mentality. If I had the stats, that is. :)</p>

3

<p>In my own experience, only for MIT or Caltech, Amherst or Williams, or the Armed Forces Academies.</p>

4

<p>Cornell for engineering
Penn for business
RISD for art
Julliard or Eastman for music
Northwestern for journalism
Vanderbilt for education
Caltech or MIT for sciences/engineering</p>

5

<p>Wharton, Chicago, Williams, Amherst, Swat and the really undergrad focused Dartmouth are the schools I've seen many turn the big 3 down for.</p>

<p>I also think it's a very certain type of student and background that are able to resist the big names. Students who attended elite high schools tend to be most comfortable making that decision from what I've experienced. The mystique is less for them.</p>

6

<ol>
<li><p>If you want to become a doctor, Northwestern HPME and Rice's medical program</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford</p></li>
</ol>

7

<p>Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Holyoke, Scripps</p>

<p>Really want to go to a women's college?</p>

8

<p>Flagship state school, because all your high school friends are going there...</p>

9

<p>Columbia because it's in NYC. U Chicago because it's in Chicago. If this counts, I would choose P over H&Y because there's probably a lot more focus on undergrad there. I would choose Harvey Mudd over HYP if I was interested in engineering or something.</p>

10

<p>In Soviet Russia, HYP reject YOU!</p>

<p>Oh wait, wrong country..same result though.</p>

11

<p>Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars. A.B. Duke Scholars.</p>

12

<p>HYP = "a bunch of atheistic Commies as professors"</p>

<p>Tell us how you really feel.</p>

13

<p>HYP are great names and great schools, but there are many places where you can get a great education. When you choose a college, you're also choosing a place to live for 4 years, and a community to associate with for life. You should choose a place that is not only a great school, but someplace that fits who you are, too (and HYP ain't for everybody).</p>

14

<p>There are many possible reasons to turn down HYP. I would guess that these are probably the most common:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>You would rather attend a private university in another part of the country. Possible examples: Stanford, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Emory, Rice.</p></li>
<li><p>You would rather attend a liberal arts college. Possible examples: Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Dartmouth.</p></li>
<li><p>You would rather attend a school with a specialized technical or professional focus. Possible examples: MIT, Caltech, Wharton, Juilliard.</p></li>
<li><p>You would rather attend a school with a particular religious focus. Possible examples: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Wheaton College (Illinois), Brigham Young (incidentally, BYU has a 77% yield -- higher than Yale or Princeton).</p></li>
</ul>

15

<p>While there are many legitimate reasons to prefer another school, very few admitted students actually turn down HYP to go elsewhere. H's yield is around 80% and Y and P are around 70%. If you add MIT and Stanford to the mix, the total number of students actually turning down these top schools to go outside of HYPSM most likely doesn't add up to 100 students annually. That is less than 2% of total students matriculating at these schools. </p>

<p>Other schools such as the military academies, ND and BYU have high yields but the actual overlap in admits between them and HYPSM is very low.</p>

16

<p>USC Film school - Hollywood or bust</p>

17

<p>
[quote]
While there are many legitimate reasons to prefer another school, very few admitted students actually turn down HYP to go elsewhere. H's yield is around 80% and Y and P are around 70%. If you add MIT and Stanford to the mix, the total number of students actually turning down these top schools to go outside of HYPSM most likely doesn't add up to 100 students annually. That is less than 2% of total students matriculating at these schools.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's hard to get exact numbers for cross-admits. A few years ago, the Dean of Admissions for Williams mentioned, in an [url=<a href="http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?section=news&view=article&id=5537%5Dinterview%5B/url"&gt;http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?section=news&view=article&id=5537]interview[/url&lt;/a&gt;], that their greatest admissions overlaps were with HYP, Amherst, and Dartmouth. He indicated that Williams was doing well to get 15% of the HYP cross-admits, and 50% of the Amherst and Dartmouth cross-admits. </p>

<p>Williams admits around 1,100 students annually. If HYP are among the most common cross-admits for Williams, then it seems reasonable to suppose that there could be a few hundred such cross-admits per year. If Williams "wins" 10-15%, based on the number cited above, then a few dozen of those might turn down HYP for Williams. That's not a big number, but since Williams is a small school, a few dozen would be 5-10% of the class. Amherst or Dartmouth would likely be similar.</p>

<p>It wouldn't surprise me if the Wharton School at Penn draws a significant number of cross-admits from HYPSM, but that's just a guess.</p>

18

<p>Another reason: You rather stand out in the crowd and excel in a lower tier school than blend in with tons of smarter, more motivated, more ambitious students.
However, if that were the case, you probably would've only applied to see if you could get accepted... if you applied at all.</p>

19

<p>Sabster - My impression of most of the HYP students I know is that they've stood out in the crowd all their lives and that the chance to blend in has a lot of appeal.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
He indicated that Williams was doing well to get 15% of the HYP cross-admits.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I believe that would be a very optimistic cross-admit number. It would only be possible if the actual number of cross-admits per year was very small. Even Amherst has never claimed more than a few cross-admits per year. </p>

<p>You don't need to have actual cross-admit data to estimate how many HYPSM admits enroll outside of HYPSM. Mathematically, the number is extremely small. </p>

<p>I only have actual data for MIT. Outside of HYPS, the number of lost cross-admits is minuscule and that includes CalTech. </p>

<p>The fact is that with very few exceptions, those admitted to HYPSM end up going, even when they get full rides elsewhere.</p>