<p>Thought that I would make a ranking of the science/pre-med reputation of the ivies and other top schools for all those interested. Feel free to give your own opinions.</p>
<li>Harvard (might be too concentrated on grad)</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Columbia (emphasis on engineering though)</li>
<li>Brown (I heard it has crazy med)</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Dartmouth (more liberal, eh?)</li>
</ol>
<p>you should look into how each places students into medical school (i.e. first choice medical school, national research medical school). then I think you're list would look more like (at least at Harvard Med when I graduated)</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Yale</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> the rest...</li>
<li> Penn</li>
</ol>
<p>I think Byerly might know of some sort of standardized list of how each school places its graduates, I don't. But if you come out of any of the listed programs, you'll get into a great medical school, that is, if you did well. Don't worry about that now, you should worry more about if you're going to bring a stereo to your dorm...</p>
<p>I'm referring to the undergraduate/pre-med statistics.</p>
<p>Interesting sn, btw</p>
<p>what statistic are you talking about? You're kinda vague. Ranking the pre-med reputation? by what?</p>
<p>I have a question. I was admitted to Harvard and planning to do Pre-Med. Does any alumni on this board (Byerly or NorthStarMom) or anyone else know how the courses are? Are they "impossible" and "way too study intensive" as other pre-med courses are at other ivies (such as Cornell)? I would like to know.</p>
<p>hey, what happened to Cornell in this ranking?</p>
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<p>how the courses are? Are they "impossible" and "way too study intensive"</p>
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<p>If you were admitted, chances are you'll either do fine or realize that you don't want to be pre-med anyway. The pre-med courses are not impossible, and you'll be able to find a study group to help you.</p>
<p>Performance in Harvard pre-med courses depends on the individual- some have a better secondary school preparation (ex: Exeter kids will do better initially than public school kids), some are just smarter. I think that if you did very well on your SATs and SAT II's (750-800), your performance will come down to how hard you work. My brother's told me of people who just shut themselves in their room for the entire day to study. It's just study, study, study. If you're ready for that, you should be fine. </p>
<p>Work your ass off the first semester and year. Take nothing for granted. If you get a good GPA to start off undergrad, you won't have to play catchup the rest of your years.</p>
<p>Cornell defininitely should be in the top 5; close to, or has, the strongest sciences in the Ivies. Well ahead of Columbia, Penn, Brown and Dartmouth as well as Duke.</p>
<p>first of all, Duke is not an ivy, (though its basketball team could beat any of those at other schools)</p>
<p>in terms of med school placement, At Harvard med school, the highest numbers of students come from HYP and Duke</p>
<p>I agree with corharcol.</p>
<p>I looked at Cornell and Columbia, and Cornell's seemed to be much better.</p>
<p>Then again, I'm going to Cornell in the fall so I have a bias.</p>
<p>I am just making an observation, but I don't think many posters on this board really understand what "makes" a pre-med program good or not good. First of all, many of these colleges do not have a "pre-med" track (like yale or harvard), but rather will counsel you as to the required courses to take to satisfy medical school requirements. Furthermore, the classes required by medical schools are uniformly on the extreme low end of a department, i.e. the intro classes to physics, chem, bio, math... classes which in no way are related to departmental strengths nor will really vary between universities. Thus perceived differences between the "science" strength of a university are not really relevant. Rather what people should look at is the track record of these institutions in getting their applicants into good medical schoools (i.e. top 20, since med rankings are probably the least accurate and are considered by professionals when applying to residencies as equivalent tiers, like top 10, top 20). There was a ranking a few years ago, which I don't have a link to, but it shows that HYP, in that order, are the best for getting their students into top graduate and professional programs. </p>
<p>Maybe someone has the link.</p>
<p>harvard<em>polo</em>08, I don't know how you placed Stanford 1st on that list. I've heard that one of its major weaknesses is its pre-med program.</p>
<p>Even the Wall Street Jounral feeder school rankings highlights this:</p>
<p>Why does everyone use the feeder school list?</p>
<p>I guess for the same reason everyone uses US News. . . .just because they have no other means of comparing schools effectively. Everything seems so subjective.</p>
<p>The report is seriously flawed!</p>
<p>It does not take into account how many students are on a preprofessional track.</p>
<p>For instance. . .they based their rating for cornell on a class size of 3,565. However, this number includes those in Hotel Management, Architecture (5 year program), the large group of engineers (most of whom won't go to med. law or business schools), or the people taking agricultural based courses at Ag and Life.</p>
<p>Just because some schools have less people interested in becoming lawyers, doctors, and business leaders does not mean that the school is not an excellent place to be for those that want to have these careers.</p>
<p>So, the ranking is good if you want to see how many of the class get into pretigious professional schools, but does not reflect the quality of the program.</p>
<p>It's partly because there aren't better alternatives to use, and partly because the feeder school list has its merits. The only systematic bias that I see in it is an arguable east coast bias, which would suggest that California schools should be bumped up a few notches apiece. It should not matter too much which five excellent professional schools were chosen as the "top 5" in each field, because for the most part they all have a national draw.</p>
<p>Edited to add:</p>
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<p>So, the ranking is good if you want to see how many of the class get into pretigious professional schools</p>
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<p>This is all that the ranking is INTENDED to show. So the fact that it only does what it's intended to do isn't much of an insult. Further, the number of schools that are affected by the preprofessional/non-preprofessional bias you mention is likewise pretty small, and can easily be corrected for by an informed person using the list.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that the feeder schools list doesn't identify great schools, I mean all the schools on the list are fantastic. I don't see where the east coast bias comes into the feeder list rankings, because it's all based on simple numbers.</p>
<p>I was just saying that the only way to really compare the opportunites available at each school for those who want to go onto a professional school, you really have to compare only those who are on a pre-professional track. </p>
<p>They divide by the total number of students in the graduating class in order to get a percentage rating for the school.</p>
<p>So, schools that have strong programs to train students for jobs which do not require professional school are at a disadvantage in the feeder school list.</p>
<p>so yeah. . . .haha, sorry if this sounds like I'm in heated debate. I'm just bored at the moment, and trying to prove my point.</p>
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<p>I don't see where the east coast bias comes into the feeder list rankings, because it's all based on simple numbers.</p>
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<p>One often-cited criticism aimed at them is that because no Stanford data were available, Michigan Law was included in the "top 5" instead of Stanford Law (which is actually in the top 5) and students from California colleges are arguably more likely to choose Stanford, so they would be underrepresented on the list.</p>
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<p>you really have to compare only those who are on a pre-professional track. They divide by the total number of students in the graduating class in order to get a percentage rating for the school.</p>
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<p>Well...that would be tough, because then schools like Cornell would end up with inflated rankings. Here's why: some Hotelies and architects and engineers DO end up going to professional school, so if you just divided by the number of students in Arts & Sciences, Arts & Sciences would get credit for alumni of the other colleges.</p>
<p>The only way to control for this factor would be to determine WHICH college at Cornell (or Penn, or wherever) the law, med, and business students graduated from, and then compare arts & sciences at one school to arts & sciences at another. But that's impossible to do, because the data don't exist -- the professional schools do not record which part of a university their students graduated from. So the WSJ interpreted the data available as well as they could...and people reading the list should bump Cornell up a few notches because so few students in some of its colleges are interested in law.</p>
<p>Excellent point on Cornell. Law students overwhelmingly from Arts and Sciences (about 900 or so in a graduating class) and ILR (I think maybe 3-400 or so) My Harvard Law class had 39 Cornellians, second only to Harvard College.</p>
<p>It does matter. Students at colleges that have top professional schools tend to apply to these schools. Thus, the best Stanford undergrads, who would be top candidates at Harvard, are more likely to go to Stanford for medicine, law or business. This means that they are not counted as attending "top" schools in those fields, although I think most people would agree that Stanford belongs in the top 5. So Stanford gets a lower rating. The same thing happens to Duke and Penn medicine, lots of their top premeds stay at their universities, and a few other examples. </p>
<p>But the real problem is the assumption that these people are going to top professional schools because they went to HYP undergrad. In fact, they went to HYP undergrad because they were top students coming out of high school. HYP, and the others on the list, have been selecting the best high school students they can find for a very long time. They are good at it. A large part of what they are doing when they fill their classes is selecting people who will get good grades and test scores in college, and go to prestigious professional and grad schools. So it is hardly surprising that this is exactly what happens.</p>
<p>For this reason, it makes no sense to say that a given student planning to major in engineering should go to Harvard (at the top of the list) instead of Cornell (lowest of the Ivies) because "Harvard is better". The student will be the same person, same talent, same energy, same work ethic, at either place. Harvard does not get kids into top professional schools. Kids who are headed for top professional schools are just fairly likely to go to Harvard, and the others on the list, for undergrad.</p>