<p>Holy Cross does meet 100% of financial need, but its SAT/1600 is closer to 1400 for the 75th percentile.</p>
<p>Well… if you are strictly talking about the undergraduate experience itself, I would then remove Harvard and Cornell from the equation in terms of comparing it to the other Ivies. In my opinion, the remaining 6 Ivies do offer a stellar undergraduate education. I would evaluate all of them… Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Yale and Princeton… as definitively Tier One. And if you choose to consider its graduate schools, then yes - of course - Harvard would be in the top 3 of all colleges and universities… but not, in my opinion, when it comes to the method and manner of how undergraduates are educated there. And that opinion is chiefly formed by relying upon direct conversations with students who attended Harvard as an undergrad. </p>
<p>In terms of the top non-Ivies, my list would include: (In no particular order)</p>
<p>Stanford, MIT, CalTech, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, UChicago, UVa, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Rice, Pomona, Amherst, Emory and Williams. I would actually add-in West Point, Annapolis and the USAF Academy in terms of the quality of their undergraduate education.</p>
<p>And then of course, you can keep going with others… but I would equate any others as Tier Two. Again, this is all just my opinion…</p>
<p>Good Luck</p>
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</p>
<p>More OPs need to do this on CC.</p>
<p>Here’s another data point: Schools the ivies consider to be peers:</p>
<p>Peer institutions listed by Harvard University: Princeton, Stanford, Yale
The Ivy League’s elite crew (institutions the Ivies listed as their peers, excluding other Ivies): Amherst, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Rice, Stanford, Rochester, WashU, Williams</p>
<p><a href=“The Air Space - Play beyond Reality”>The Air Space - Play beyond Reality;
<p>Rochester seems like a slight outlier. </p>
<p><a href=“Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are?”>http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/</a> indicates that Dartmouth and Brown listed Rochester as a peer. Princeton and Columbia listed no other schools as peers.</p>
<p>^appropriate that uphoenix considers wustl a peer</p>
<p>Another way to address the who do the pretty girls hang out with? question is from the student perspective.
Which schools stand up to the Ivies in cross-admit choices?</p>
<p>UPenn v. Stanford
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.; </p>
<p>UPenn v. Georgetown
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>UPenn v. Holy Cross
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>Cornell v. Chicago
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>Cornell v. Emory
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>Cornell v.Baylor
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>IMHO, the Ivies are more about reputation than actually delivering a better product. As many here have pointed out, there are literally hundreds of great schools. Depending upon the details of major choice, many far exceed the Ivies. If you want the ego boost of telling someone who is impressed by such things that you went to an Ivy, sure, spend that kind of money. If you want a good education, do the research on your major choice and find out where you can get a great education at the best value. Once you have a year or two of work under your belt, no one really cares what school you attended.</p>
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</p>
<p>Kind of a poor data point when some of the Ivies don’t even participate in said survey. Other prestigious institutions don’t either (e.g. UCLA and Berkeley IIRC)</p>
<p>I agree with beyphy:</p>
<p><a href=“Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are?”>http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/</a>?</p>
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<p>Hey, that is no fair! The very point of CC is to argue endlessly about which schools are better than other schools.</p>
<p>
Good one, rjk. </p>
<p>The Ivy League schools are all quite different. One thing in common is they are all excellent, wealthy and private.
You could look at it in more specific categories like monetary resources, undergrad selectivity, research/grad program strength, faculty strength and professional programs. If you did, you’d have different lists.</p>
<p>“The Ivy League schools are all quite different. One thing in common is they are all excellent, wealthy and private.
You could look at it in more specific categories like monetary resources, undergrad selectivity, research/grad program strength, faculty strength and professional programs. If you did, you’d have different lists”</p>
<p>Yes, an extremely long list as we already have…Amazing that people here still keep dropping names mainly based upon prestige and “what places consider X as their peers”. And sometimes “peers” don’t necessarily limit themselves to being defined as similar caliber, but also takes into account “structure” (like programs offered. This is why some Ivies may not necessarily include all 7 others as peers) and other issues that may not even be relevant to the undergraduate experience (which is normally the case when if they considered “caliber”). It’s rather easy to get an “Ivy League” education. Some of the networking, may be a different story (and that may not matter as much if you aren’t going into say, investment banking or something). Also, I really doubt that a school without a 1500 75% SAT, but instead say, a 1450, will offer a much different educational experience than the places with 1500+. The experience offered among those is not even the same…This age old idea that there are " schools that are exactly like these schools that we all hold up to be in the highest esteem " is specious simply because of the variance among even that group. But anyway, as Norcaldad said, we need to be “fair” and continue to argue over and figure out which other schools are like the “Ivies” (very vague almost). </p>
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</p>
<p>We haven’t suggested more than about 75 schools (out of the thousands in the USA.)
Several methods have been suggested that don’t depend on ad hoc lists based solely on personal opinions.</p>
<p>Of course it would be desirable to systematically examine every course at every college for rigor, creativity, or some other set of relevant (but hard to measure) criteria. Unfortunately, that does not easily scale up to a comparison of hundreds of colleges. The National Survey of Student Engagement did attempt to assess many participating colleges with a somewhat similar (but more comprehensive) approach. It used student surveys to assess reading loads, number of assigned papers of varying lengths, number of 1-on-1 meetings with professors, and many other factors. None of the Ivies participated. No rankings were published. USA TODAY for some time published composite scores, but the site apparently has been taken down. </p>
<p>So, it is very tempting to just use simple heuristic proxies for quality, such as average SAT scores, that don’t really tell us anything directly about the quality of classroom instruction. Nevertheless, many of these measurements do tend to be mutually corroborating. For example, if you listed the set of ~50 schools with the highest endowment per student, most would be schools that also cover 100% of financial need. Most also would be schools with very high average SAT scores, high 4 year graduation rates, high PhD production rates, and relatively low admission rates. I think the problem with these measures isn’t so much the false positives as the false negatives. Some schools with some excellent programs, which might be perfect for many students, don’t necessarily score so highly on these criteria.</p>
<p>75 is extremely long in my opinion. It’s pretty good, as in, there are a lot of schools that are considered “Ivy like” (again, I don’t know if I like this term). If you are in the US, you are very lucky if you hold the “Ivies” up as your standard of great schools. However, I actually wonder how countries such as Britain compare (as in, they have much less “great schools, or much less schools in general”. I have to wonder how their “best” outside of say ICL and “Oxbridge” compare. Even though, secondary education works differently over there, I still can’t help but wonder). </p>
<p>As for SAT scores: What is considered “very high” now, could that still be around a 1350-1400 mean or median, or have we moved that bar even higher because of the ridiculous increase in scores at say , most of the top 20 privates (who are near 1500, with exception of Emory, Georgetown, Berkeley, and maybe Hopkins and Cornell). Because when you think about it, even 1300 is well above the national average. There will soon be many schools that hit this mark. Also, I agree on the endowment, but it would be nice to look at the endowments of the undergraduate entities of the universities in question, because it would give an idea of how much is dedicated to facilities, instruction, staff, etc that could be associated with handling undergraduates. I would expect that this correlates well. However, you have places like Duke and Washington University that do extremely well even for a top 20 and they have lower endowments than other similar schools.
Clearly some places spend money differently than others.While I can only speculate, it appears that many places known for really strong undergraduate programs/training have moved beyond the “build it and they will come” or “select perfect students” phase and indeed have moved on to spend at least a little more money enhance the undergraduate educational experiences. And I’m not necessarily restricting such speculation to top 20 privates. There just seem to be phases of growth at all the “major” universities (especially some of the privates) and these phases tend to not all emphasize the academics. Some may focus on building better recreational facilities and amenities for students more so than anything else (you know what I mean. Instead of building a say, new “insert academic department that is thriving” facility, you’ll be in a phase where you focus on a new football stadium, athletic facility, dorms, or student union). Some places are doing both equally or are kind of in between I guess (as in transitioning from the “immature” phase to a more “mature one”. It appears that a lot of the very old schools, including some LACs and Ivies beefed up academics first, and then worked on the “build it to impress them” phase)</p>
<p>“What is considered “very high” now, could that still be around a 1350-1400 mean or median, or have we moved that bar even higher because of the ridiculous increase in scores at say , most of the top 20 privates (who are near 1500, with exception of Emory, Georgetown, Berkeley, and maybe Hopkins and Cornell)”</p>
<p>A lot of the top 20 privates: Duke, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Hopkins, Rice, Northwestern</p>
<p>have scores that are close to one another with medians that are not 1500.</p>
<p>Compare the following math+verbal ranges from the enrolled class of 2017 from collegeboard.com:</p>
<p>Cornell (1310-1520)
Hopkins (1340-1520)
Dartmouth (1360-1560)
Duke (1360-1550)
Brown (1320-1530)
Penn (1360-1540)
Northwestern (1380-1540)
Rice (1370-1550)
Notre Dame (1340-1520)</p>
<p>Pretty tightly bunched with medians likely around 1430-1440 or so (based on CDS of schools in the past with similar ranges).</p>
<p>Compare these to other top 20 schools mentioned:</p>
<p>Berkeley (1250-1500)
Emory (1280-1470)</p>
<p>Georgetown is actually closer to the other schools at the top with a range of 1320-1500)</p>
<p>Ok: I see what I’m doing. I think I’m looking at The admitted students’ data at many places. Georgetown used to be exactly the same as Emory is why I said that, but I guess it went up some. Also, where did you get Emory’s from. I don’t think we make the CDS public anymore. However, even without that, I would assume that it’s the same as it was the year before, because we’re one of the few where the SAT scores don’t change. </p>
<p>Also, I thought that sometimes, Collegeboard isn’t accurate. For Berkeley for example: <a href=“http://opa.berkeley.edu/statistics/cds/2012-2013.pdf”>http://opa.berkeley.edu/statistics/cds/2012-2013.pdf</a>
The middle 50 is 1220-1490.</p>
<p><a href=“https://gushare.georgetown.edu/PlanningAndInstitutionalResearch/Public%20-%20Website/CDS_2011-2012.pdf?uniq=-wv5gve”>https://gushare.georgetown.edu/PlanningAndInstitutionalResearch/Public%20-%20Website/CDS_2011-2012.pdf?uniq=-wv5gve</a></p>
<p>My guess is that Georgetown did not add 30 points to its bottom 25% though it isn’t totally implausible.</p>
<p>Hopkins:
<a href=“Registrar - Homewood Schools (KSAS & WSE) | Office of the Registrar | Johns Hopkins University”>Registrar - Homewood Schools (KSAS & WSE) | Office of the Registrar | Johns Hopkins University;
<p>Given that I don’t imagine enrolled data for the current class has been completed or submitted, I would hold off on the numbers from collegeboard, which appear to shift the 25% more than anything else. </p>
<p>For some reason I do find the ones where there is only a 10 point difference on one of the ends more believable, but I guess a school is allowed to have a good or even great year in admissions. </p>
<p>Also, I think Emory has always been one of the places with a higher median than average. In addition, sometimes the median is apparently higher (or lower) than what you would get if assumed that numbers were “evenly” (maybe guassian) distributed within the mid-50. For example (this is an extreme and unlikely situation). It thus assumes that people who have 1370 and 1380 at Emory fall right in the middle of the distribution. So the middle number may not actually be the median, but it would be the median you expect. There could instead be 50% below 1350 (people tightly packed between that and 1280, as in 25%) or 1400 (people more widely spread between that and 1280 and tightly packed between it and 1470). </p>
<p>Collegeboard is actually extremely accurate.</p>
<p>See Princeton CDS (1410-1600) <a href=“http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2013.pdf”>http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2013.pdf</a></p>
<p>Collegeboard reports the same (1410-1600) <a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search;
<p>WUSTL and Vandy have the following scores from collegeboard:</p>
<p>WUSTL: 1420-1550</p>
<p>Vandy: 1410-1570</p>
<p>Collegeboard even shows Chicago’s astronomical (and artificially inflated) scores: 1440-1590</p>
<p>Emory has had lower scores since the new dean of admissions John Latting (from JHU) exposed the suspect admissions reporting there:</p>
<p><a href=“Emory University Acknowledges Incorrect Admissions Data - The New York Times”>Emory University Acknowledges Incorrect Admissions Data - The New York Times;
<p>Bernie12, your info is incorrect.</p>
<p><a href=“http://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx”>http://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx</a> shows 1410 to 1570 for the enrolled class of 2017. This is an exact match to collegeboard.</p>
<p>The common data sets you are pulling are from the enrolled class of 2016 NOT the class of 2017 (data shown by collegeboard).</p>
<p>“Given that I don’t imagine enrolled data for the current class has been completed or submitted, I would hold off on the numbers from collegeboard, which appear to shift the 25% more than anything else.”</p>
<p>Again, the data reported by collegeboard is for the class of 2017 (admitted last fall and freshman currently in college) and not for the current class of 2018 being admitted. Obviously, the enrolled averages have been compiled by now.</p>