Stanford v. Oxford for prestige?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Nope, this is acquired knowledge. Its very likely you can do these because you learned it in school. I dont think poorly of people who lack an interest in science for example, and are only interested in learning their fields of economics and such. Each to his or her own. I for example love history (ignore my previous posts on the humanities) but definitely see no reason why I should be able to locate the countries I learn about historically.</p>

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<p>Obviously the thought process is important. But knowing how the questions look gives you an edge of confidence than going for something unknown. I personally think its illogical comparing the AP to the A-levels, but unlike most people here I strongly believe in freedom of expression. </p>

<p>Generally when I was talking about selectivity, I was comparing the fact that from experience people who I saw that got into ivies (excluding Cornell and sometimes Penn) were significantly stronger than students who got into Oxbridge. But obviously my perception is skewed because these students are international and not from the US. They are placed in a pool with a selectivity of about 5%. The average international student at such schools in the US had to beat out 20-30 people for 1 spot. It wuld make sense why maybe IvyPbear/rankingsaddict might not find Oxbridge impressive but to a British applicant Oxbridge is hard. Also most of these international students had no extracurricular activities so its an even battle for comparison.</p>

<p>However I cannot compare American or British applicants. I think most people think I am comparing students across countries though I do conflate them.</p>

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I believe in freedom of expression and in this case, I don’t think anyone in here is against the freedom of expression. </p>

<p>I also support the idea of AP and A Level not being comparable. A Levels is run by many economically strong organizations. The British Government helps A Level a lot.
In case of AP, Collegeboard keeps on saying that it is a ‘poor’ organization and has stopped teaching so many subjects during recent years showing the reason ‘lack of fund’. Well, we can at least guess, what would the standard of content be if there was no proper fund with the organization itself while designing the course.</p>

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<p>The CB does not teach Ap courses, confidential2015. It does not offer tests for courses which have very small enrollments because maintaining a standard curriculum and grading those tests is not economically feasible. So, for example, the advanced level CS exam, which was actually quite a decent test, was dropped because only a very small number of students took it. Finding and paying scorers cost more than the test fee brought in.</p>

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<p>“excluding Cornell and sometimes Penn”</p>

<p>oh how nice of you :)</p>

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<p>“excluding Cornell and sometimes Penn”</p>

<p>you do realize that the reason whythese schools acceptance rates are higher is becauseif their sheer size don’t you? It’s not that they have less requirements or anything like that but. Think of it this way:</p>

<p>School X and School Y have 20000 applicants each and they both have similar admissions processes and requirements but School X has 1000 spaces and School Y has 6000 spaces. Of course school Y will have a higher acceptance rate than school X but it is not necessarily an easier school to get in to in terms of what they look for. This is what happens with Cornell and UPenn hence why some people who use them as “safeties” are shocked when they find out they were rejected by these so-called “lower ivies”, but most people look and see that they have a 20% acceptance rate and immediately assume that they are worst schools than those with a 7% or 10% acceptance rate. </p>

<p>Cornell for example, has this “any major, any study” mission statement that they go by, hence the large school size and population. This certainly doesn’t makeitany less of an elite school than say, Columbia, just because they cater to more people’s interests. Even though it has more programs they are all still pretty much top-notch programs in their own fields and that is why the college is still prestigious.</p>

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<p>@nemom I was not trying to say that collegeboard teaches AP. My mistake, sincere apologies. You have told that CB does not offer tests for the subjects where student enrollments is low because the CB faces financial constraints in that situation. This is what I was trying to say for so long. CB is interested in money more than quality.
If you look at A Level, there are regional subjects like Bangladesh Studies, Pakistan Studies, Sanskrit, etcetera which have relatively very few students enrolled. It is not even sure about how many students take those exams every year. Still, A Level offering agencies(especially the ones who offer these regional subjects) keep on updating the content every two year.</p>

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<p>These comparisons are absurd. These top schools are MUCH more similar than they are different, and hardly ANY student stretches the intellectual limits of any of them. Sheesh,</p>

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<p>Oh, confidential2015, I know that there are tons more A level subjects than there are AP tests. The CB , although non-profit, does have to have a sustaining level of income, and so , of course, it cuts exams in areas that are too costly. But that says nothing about the quality of the exams it does offer. APs are also only one part of our system. IBs, honors courses and university/college courses are also often part of the transcript. The entire AP system is, in fact, a RELATIVELY new concept and was initially intended to serve a very small population of students taking a narrow range of courses.</p>

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<p>sefago - you say
“I for example love history (ignore my previous posts on the humanities) but definitely see no reason why I should be able to locate the countries I learn about historically.”
How can you possibly understand a country without knowing where it is? Or what countries are on the borders? Geography is not quite destiny, but it strongly affects how a nation functions.</p>

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<p>Cornell is not that selective for international students st the undergraduate level. I never said Cornell was less elite, just easier. I seriously doubt Cornell is as difficult as Columbia is to get into. When I mean “not that,” I mean it accepts close to 15-18% who apply. Columbia is very very selective for internationals (< 8%).</p>

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<p>I know the countries around its borders, but if you give me a blank map I cannot place it. </p>

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<p>True, but those who need it would learn it, while those who are not interested would not. You would be hard pressed to find an IR major who cannot place any of the major countries on the map. But nothing wrong with a 14 year old who has not taken any classes to be able to do so. I dont believe Geography is useful enough to be compulsory in any high school curriculum. I took geography and I am not a big fan</p>

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<p>Sefago, are you ■■■■■■■■? The idea of any reasonably educated person being unable to locate, at the very least, the G8 countries on a map is unbelievable.</p>

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<p>^ No, I am not. I really cannot point several countries including the UK on a blank map. I could figure them out based on some help though. Guess what- I cannot fully name the G8 countries (I can name some but would have to guess the rest). Trust me, several people cannot either especially people who studied the sciences, and this is a world wide phenomenon. People in general dont look at maps lol except for classes or when they are hopping around countries. However, I can place the continents (I think).</p>

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<p>Having travelled extensively, I can very safely say that it is NOT a world wide phenomenon, and the only time I have ever encountered this limited knowledge of other countries is from Americans. This is reflected by how few Americans have passports.
Of the countries I know relatively well (UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, NZ, Australia, HK) I would feel safe betting that 90%+ of the population over the age of 10 could locate the UK and by the time they get to their teens locate certainly every G8 country and most likely every G20.
And as for shrugging it off as needless geography, there are an infinite number of reasons for know it’s location. Whether historical (where you all came from), the source of your language, financial (london’s the worlds biggest financial centre - although perhaps tied with NY now), sport (wimbledon)… I could go on for ever. And finally, the idea of you all saying Stanford is better than Oxford while knowing so little about it you can’t even place the country it is in on a map, suggests you probably don’t know enough to have a sensible opinion!
Now before everyone takes umbrage, I’m not saying Americans are stupid, nor ignorant hicks or whatever - this clearly isn’t the case, and I wouldn’t be applying to spend the next four years there if it were. But, there is an impression in many parts of the rest of the world that many Americans have little interest in the outside world and this certainly adds to it.</p>

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<p>^ I completely agree with bigboba.</p>

<p>@sefago- You are continuously trying to prove that things you don’t know are not important. Remember, THEY ARE IMPORTANT. If you don’t know things going around the world, it is your fault. It is not the fault of events that happen.
And if you think science students cannot locate countries in the maps, you are completely wrong. Science students tend to do better in all the fields. I was a science student in high school and I had a very good knowledge of geography and I was conscious about the things that were going on around me(I am still conscious). Not only me, everyone in my class (when I say everyone, it means EVERYONE) was very good at geography. You tend to argue without knowing the facts. You are just trying to create a hypothesis. I am not against the freedom of speech but I am against the negative information you keep on posting.</p>

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<p>At confidential2015:</p>

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<p>Try and improve on your critical reading. I am trying to show that there is really no intrinsic worth in knowing where a country is located. Map knowledge is acquired knowledge. The same way knowing certain things in the science is acquired knowledge. Most people are trying to pass knowledge of geography as a *general knowledge *. However this is not the case. The reason why people can place a country on the map is because they took geography or maybe did some travelling. </p>

<p>You have not qualitatively proven to me why these are important except based on “you feeling” that they are important.</p>

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<p>There are really no facts in this argument or in your assertion. What was true for your class, might not be true for another class. Ergo, its not a fact. The reverse was the case in my class. Good science students did not understand why they were studying igneous rocks when they wanted to be doctors lol.</p>

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<p>Exactly, if I can create a scenario that is remotely possible, and it refutes an argument, then that argument cannot hold. This has been the way of all logical thinking. Deal with it.</p>

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<p>Because I cannot place the UK or even most places in the US on the map does not mean I have not lived there extensively or cannot comment sensibly. You have not shown a correlation between knowing the location of a country on a geographic map and knowledge. I could live in a country, and really not have bothered with its geographical location.</p>

<p>By the way anecdotally, I have met tons of Europeans who dont know anything about their fellow Co-EU countries or even that they exist. Stop this bullcrap lol you are not the only one who has travelled extensively. </p>

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<p>Cool, you mention former EU Countries, Former British Colonies but can they, (1) Locate all 50 states in the US (2) Locate all the countries in latin america or maybe Africa? </p>

<p>Of course not, because this is not important to them. Moreover, I think 90%+ is quite an exagerration.</p>

<p>However, not being able to locate Texas on the map is an insult because its one of teh main centers for oil production. And not being able to place Caracas on the map could also be an insult to a Venezuelan. Or placing Mumbai on the map or say Jakarta would be an insult to an Indian or Indonesian respectively considering the fact that these are important cities in their country. The large majority of Americans can definitely locate Canada and Mexico which is close to them. </p>

<p>Moreover they likely gained this knowledge from geography than an innate thirst for locating countries on a map.</p>

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<p>Crikey Sefago, you seem to have taking all this rather personally. </p>

<p>Anyway. </p>

<p>To say that knowledge of a country’s location has no intrinsic worth is just ignorant - unless any knowledge about that country is also worthless. Like someone mentioned earlier, the location of a country complete controls and determines it’s nature. </p>

<p>For example: UK is an island - thus its history has been dominated by its navy, it’s near France - thus its history is littered with wars with France, again it’s an island - so was the one major power in Europe able to keep the Nazis/Germans in WWII and WWI out of its borders… The list goes on.</p>

<p>Not knowing the location of a country while learning about it is like trying to learn about an animal without knowing whether it lives in the sea or in the desert. It doesn’t make any sense.</p>

<p>“I could live in a country, and really not have bothered with its geographical location.”</p>

<p>Perhaps you could, but to me that is completely alien. That said, I can’t imagine many people who can’t place their own country on a map.</p>

<p>“Stop this bullcrap lol you are not the only one who has travelled extensively.”</p>

<p>Perhaps not, but then I have lived in the UK, Spain, France and NZ, so that certainly gives me quite a large basis for qualified opinion, and I imagine larger than meeting “tons of europeans” gives you.</p>

<p>"Cool, you mention former EU Countries, Former British Colonies but can they, (1) Locate all 50 states in the US (2) Locate all the countries in latin america or maybe Africa? </p>

<p>“Moreover, I think 90%+ is quite an exagerration.”</p>

<p>You may think it an exaggeration, but that’s your call. However I can state to a certainty that if any of my friends didn’t know where all the G8 countries were (As well as Texas if you like) I would be extremely, extremely surprised. And that, like I said earlier is because, unlike the US which is a very insular country in many ways, most western countries are not. Just look at the passport figures - US is something like 25%, UK 75% and similar in France. Of course there are reasons for this - the US is far bigger the those countries and there’s much more variety in it so less immediate reason to other places and also the cost of travelling abroad for you guys is lot more than Europeans for whom it may only be a car ride away, etc. But it is still the case. Do you not accept this point at all?</p>

<p>"Cool, you mention former EU Countries, Former British Colonies but can they, (1) Locate all 50 states in the US (2) Locate all the countries in latin america or maybe Africa? </p>

<p>Of course not, because this is not important to them"</p>

<p>I’ll respond to this just by focusing on the UK to save time. To compare the UK which has done more to shape the modern world than other country to Venezuela is like comparing Federer to the 1000th ranked tennis player in the world. Especially for an American to whom their entire culture, language, laws, sports, etc are either the same as those in the UK or slightly modified versions. Beyond that, like the rest of the G8 (which Venezuela is not) and perhaps more specifically the UN Security council, it has much more international important than Venezuela. </p>

<p>And why are you mentioning cities now? A country is one thing, but a city is certainly a big step further. However, I would suggest that before I could declare to know anything about a city, I’d certainly want to be pretty sure of its location first.</p>

<p>Anyway, to sum up. You’re being silly. I imagine you probably know it as your arguments are becoming less and less rational.</p>

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<p>Pardon my pedantry, but the UK (short for “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”) isn’t “an island”. Its land consists of one large island, part of another large island, and many smalller islands.</p>

<p>Carry on.</p>

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LOL. Agree with ya.</p>

<p>@sefago- Come up with some strong provable facts. Don’t create your own baseless ideas.</p>

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Well, we have seen your level of critical reading and critical thinking already. Someone who always talks about baseless self created hypothesis is telling me to improve on critical reading. I feel sorry for people like you who try to overreact in issues out of their mental capacity and knowledge.</p>

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<p>Greybeard, that’s incredibly clever of you.</p>