There is a long tradition of pranking between MIT and Caltech. Not intended seriously, as the two schools have a lot of back and forth between undergrads going to grad school, etc. Also lots of large research projects with shared administration between the two Institutes, such as LIGO.
This remains my favorite article on college rivalries. The original Iink does not exist anymore, but lucky I kept the texts:
Rivalries are created by weak teams
http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2008/09/rivalries-are-created-by-weak-teams.html
Also note that the article was from 20 years ago, and a lot of things happened since then, but the truth is still there …
^^ Yup, the truth is still there…
See end of column 1 on page 4 of this one:
http://caltechcampuspubs.library.caltech.edu/2035/1/2007_04_19_108_24.pdf
@DeepBlue86: Intriguing, but the flaw in your analogy is that the revealed preference of (potential) customers does not affect the quality of the food at the restaurants. Either the restaurants’ food is good or it isn’t; whether or how many customers eat there doesn’t determine the food’s quality.
But undergraduate institutions don’t work the same way that restaurants do. Revealed preference of (prospective) students (in the form of cross-admit battles) does indeed determine the quality of (undergraduate) education; it does so thru the differential acquisition and accumulation of talent. The idea is that there is a real and causal connection between talent and quality of undergraduate institutions insofar as (talented) peer interaction plays a primary role in the college decision process.
Actually, this would be the logical extension of your analogy provided its flaw is accounted for.
I think the flaw in your argument, @stanfordfoodie, is that you believe the cross-admit population, and the Manging of victory, is large enough to be relevant. As the Stanford faculty senate proceedings note, the overlap is 200’students or fewer per school. Harvard and Stanford both have 80% yields, so both pretty much get who they want, and there can’t be much of an overlap. A 10% swing in winning of cross admits is a shift of 20 kids. I really don’t think that makes a noticeable difference in a class of well over 1,600. If there were a 200-student overlap and Stanford were winning every one, you might begin to have a case, but we’re not nearly there. Furthermore, some of those cross-admits, no doubt, are choosing to enroll at Yale, Princeton, MIT and other places.
Finally, as I’ve shown elsewhere, the major determinant of cross-admit decisions is likely to be geography. If a few more kids from New England are choosing to go to Stanford these days, and the number of Californians choosing to cross the country to go to Harvard is modestly decreasing, I don’t believe it’s altering the talent mix in any significant way.
^^^“margin”, not “Manging”…
Thinking about this further, I go back to how these schools choose those they admit. I wrote a pretty extensive post the other day reasoning back from the disclosed numbers of students in the various subgroups actually enrolled at HYPSM, and taking account of the Stanford faculty senate numbers on cross-admits (which I have some questions about, but whatever), to try to understand how these schools could have similar admissions processes but also high yields and relatively small numbers of cross-admits; you can find it here (see also my follow-up post below it): http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20623381/#Comment_20623381
S and H each year admit about 2,000 applicants and expect to lose 20% of them, principally to YPM but also to a wide variety of LACs, state schools, specialized programs at other top-twenty unis, etc. I believe only a small minority of students are admitted for sheer brilliance, and therefore that those most likely to be cross-admitted are a mix of high-performing URMs, athletes and other kids with particular attributes that make them institutional priorities (which might be anything from being the President’s daughter to being a published author to being the star student in an underrepresented state to being the child of a fabulously wealthy oligarch, and any number of other things), plus some number of kids with interesting personal stories (e.g., the quadruplets who were on the Today Show the other day, all of whom were cross-admitted to H and Y and at least one of whom was also cross-admitted to S). And then, of course, there are some who are great students and leaders, who wrote essays and got recommendations that impressed more than one of HYPSM.
Also, bear in mind that each school admits many kids who fail to get into any of the other schools, either because they don’t apply there or they’re denied. Maybe one year only one school needs a tympanist (who is therefore denied at the other schools), or maybe that S legacy didn’t make the cut at HYPM. Or maybe that kid who got in early to H called it a day and didn’t submit any other applications.
So let’s say 200 kids are cross-admitted to H and S, and many or most of them come from the groups I cited above. If 120 of them go to S and 80 of them go to H, as opposed to 110 and 90, or 100 each, does anyone really believe that it affects either school to a significant degree? Particularly when a lot of them are choosing on the basis of geography? And, big-picture, when each of these schools is admitting 2,000 kids per year, 80% of whom are going to accept their offers and only 10% of whom are cross-admits with the other school in the first place? I don’t.
So, to return to my restaurant analogy, the largest group of Stan’s customers come from the western part of the city, while most of the customers of Harry’s, Yvonne’s and Peter’s come from the eastern part. All the customers of all the restaurants are either very diligent in speed-dialing to get their reservations, or they’re preferred customers known to the maitre d’. As groups, everyone in any one of the restaurants is very similar to everyone in any one of the others. They’re all very much the same kind of people, in other words, but a lot of them greatly prefer to eat in their local restaurant, or are partial to some dish that they believe is prepared best in one of the restaurants. Some of them are willing to drive across town to go to their preferred place.
A small number of them get reservations at multiple places and choose among them. If many people were getting multiple reservations, and everyone were choosing Stan’s, then Harry’s, Yvonne’s and Peter’s would have a problem that could affect their business. People would say that the crowd was much better at Stan’s, and there could be a cascade effect wherein all the devotees of the restaurants in the eastern part of town would try to defect to Stan’s. Nothing like that is happening, though - there are lines out the door, the food’s great and the conversation is sparkling everywhere.
In conclusion, I hope the management of Stan’s, cheered by the number of reservation requests, doesn’t get complacent and start under-investing in food, decor and chefs. They may not fully realize how fortunate they are to be the only great restaurant in their neighborhood. Also, the other restaurants prepare many kinds of excellent food, and are working hard to raise their seafood game…
“If 120 of them go to S and 80 of them go to H, as opposed to 110 and 90, or 100 each, does anyone really believe that it affects either school to a significant degree?”
The answer is, of course, no. But I’d even go further by asking the question: if any of HYPSM suddenly lost the entire class of 2021 just admitted due to an alien kidnapping or whatever, would it have truly lost something by replacing the original class with the next batch of student body given today’s depth of outstanding applicants knocking on its gates of entrance?
@DeepBlue86 I am a badger with previous life in the mountains in China.
One day on a mountain, there were two monks trying to cross a river. One big fat guy and one skinny guy. For them the rule was that they were not allowed to think about girls.
Right about they were trying to cross the river, there was a girl trying to cross the river too. So, the big fat monk volunteered to carry the girl to cross the river. So he did. Then, the two monks and the girl went on to different roads afterwards.
After a while, the skinny monk said to the big fat monk: “hey, we are not supposed to think/carry girls.”
The big fat monk said: " No, we are not. I did not carry her , but you have been carrying her, mentally."
P.S., BTW, sometimes things are becoming extinct not due to competition but due to the change of time, like the typewriter, for example.
@TiggerDad IMO the answer to your question is aside from around 5% ~ 10% of the original class who are exceptional even among top students, probably no difference. My kid probably is not in that top 10%. Lol
@websensation - I even question the top 5% - 10%. I’m pretty sure, by any standard, Ted Kaczynski belonged in the top 5-10% when he was accepted to Harvard at the age of 16. Who would have predicted that once a child prodigy would have grown up to be educated at Harvard only to be the Unabomber. How many kids belonging outside of the top 5-10% like yours and mine, on the other hand, have gone on to fill the Congress seats, business board rooms, etc. There’s no way you can predict with any degree of surety that a particular top college IS getting the best of the best just as surely you can’t predict what life has in store for all of us. In fact, I can tell you with absolute surety that I don’t know what “best” is. I’ll leave that up to all the regular Stanford zealots here to tell us. ^:)^
For those who have not seen these videos, I would recommend watching, Very interesting interview. I knew some of this, but it was still interesting to watch. Had a lot of interesting stories that I was not aware of.
The History of Discrimination at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WaBLn4gbHQ
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiGUqDeBqcY
You confused me, so I did a little Google searching and found your parable, @ewho: http://www.kindspring.org/story/view.php?sid=63753
It’s a nice story, but I’m still confused…also wondering about the typewriter… :-?
No problem. Let’s continue the journey in Mt. Stanford . 
If you insist…it’s a lot quieter on the HYP forums, though, where there isn’t the same need to assert that they’re #1. But you know what someone wrote about the schools that think they’re in rivalries… 
@DeepBlue86 another thing I don’t see on he HYP forums is Stanford people trying to assert Stanford’s dominance over HYP and going into lengths to insist hat Stanford is just as good/prestigious as HYP. On the other hand I can’t say the same about the Stanford forum, especially when it comes to Yale and Promceton proponents.
Spell check, please.
^^^
If by “going into lengths” you mean making a case with facts as opposed to confident but fact-light assertions about relative prestige, I think we can use more of that on all the forums. As I’ve said elsewhere, though, I think all arguments about relative prestige should be removed to a “Prestigiosity” sub-forum to which all the cheerleaders can migrate if they like.
And, btw, having recently seen at least one unwelcome intrusion by a certain fake Stanford student on the Yale forum, I can confirm that your first statement isn’t accurate either.
@Penn95 - Actually, the only reason why I came on this Stanford forum was because of YOU and one sbballer’s posts on the Princeton forum making all kinds of claims about Stanford uber alles. Again, fact check, please. Here’s JUST ONE of your posts on the Princeton forum:
“Yes I think Stanford is more prestigious than Princeton (and Yale). Some of the reasons why I think that: Stanford is ranked top/near the top in pretty much all fields, it is in the top 3-4 in almost every international ranking, is extremely desirable by college applicants (huge number of applications) and also its yield rate (admits who choose to enroll) is quite higher than Princeton or Yale’s (82% vs 69%- 70%). Along with Harvard it also comes on top in terms of fundraising every year. It has the biggest number of nobel laureate for this century as well as the biggest number of successful entrepreneurs. Stanford is in the heart of Silicon Valley, which is the future.
I would put Stanford neck and neck with Harvard for the top spot, ahead of Princeton and Yale. But I will not be surprised if in the next few decades Stanford even surpasses Harvard in terms of prestige.
Also just an interesting trend I have noticed, in the past when there would be articles about elite schools they two prime examples that would be almost always mentioned were Harvard, Yale. Nowadays Harvard, Stanford are more often mentioned in that context.”
AND you make the following statement?!?!?!? “another thing I don’t see on he HYP forums is Stanford people trying to assert Stanford’s dominance over HYP and going into lengths to insist hat Stanford is just as good/prestigious as HYP.”
That’s funny and embarrassing at the same time, wouldn’t you think?
Is @Penn95 a Stanford person? I thought they went to Penn in which case making a case for Stanford in the Princeton’s forum wouldn’t be a violation of what they said. Anyway, this is all more than a bit silly. It feels like we’re trying to determine whose father can beat up whose.