Stanford vs. Ivies

<p>Stanford is THE BEST for pre-MBA work.</p>

<p>^ How so? I've heard this from a number of people, but I'm not sure why. Stanford doesn't have an undergraduate business program, so what makes it so good for pre-MBA's? It has a top-notch econ department, but so do many other schools. What makes Stanford stand out?</p>

<p>Here's why:</p>

<ol>
<li>top econ department</li>
<li>emphasis on technology & innovation</li>
<li>strong business "atmosphere"</li>
<li>excellent graduate business school (top-three with Wharton and HBS)</li>
<li>business types tend to pick Stanford for undergrad, maybe?</li>
<li>the "Management Science & Engineering" program, which seems to be geared toward MBA and I-banking types</li>
</ol>

<p>Unless this is just an exercise in confirmation bias, I suggest you pose the same question to those who chose the Ivies over Stanford (for example, me) and ask why.</p>

<p>Which Ivies? I know plenty of people who chose HYP over Stanford, but none who chose the others except for the occasional person who chooses Wharton over Stanford.</p>

<p>I chose Penn's College over Stanford. </p>

<p>So now you can say you know someone.</p>

<p>And you know what, there are people who choose Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, even Cornell over Stanford.</p>

<p>Even Harvard's yield is only around 80%. That means 20% of them end up elsewhere and I assure you it's not all Yale Princeton and Stanford. One of my friends at Penn (College) got into Harvard but chose to attend Penn (again, College, not Wharton).</p>

<p>^ I'm sure that there are some people who, for one reason or another, choose the lower Ivies over Stanford. But those people are the exception, not the norm. In terms of winning cross-admits, Stanford is surpassed only by Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>Penn is selective in a way that it does not throw around admissions to all the best and brightest. It wants to be pursued and chased by good students. Key things Penn looks for good grades high SATs along with strong interest in attending PENN. Remember PENN started professional schools like Business and medicine. Penn knows what is life outside. Those who show initiative get far ahead in life. That is one extra thing penn looks for. Penn does not want to play safe IVY game. There are many who got into HYP and others good schools but got rejected by PENN. There is low cross admit among PENN and HYP for the same reason. It has overall yield around 66% Which is similar to Pton and Stanford. Stanford has 90% yield among CA kids which is 50% of the class. Sford plays game for cross admits to associate itslef with HYP. Gets HYP types in RD and loses them. Yield at SFORd ex CA will be around 25%.</p>

<p>^ You bring up an interesting point (for once) that Penn may practice strategic admissions. The adcoms definitely consider how strongly applicants are interested in Penn (as shown by the essay prompt). If there's any statistical evidence that shows Penn practicing strategic admissions, I'd certainly like to see it.</p>

<p>Now, once again, your data is all wrong and your assumptions are unsupported. First of all, Penn's yield is around 61-62%, not 66% as you stated. Also, Stanford is currently 40% Californian, not 50%. Finally, it's erroneous to say that Stanford purposely accepts HYP admits and loses most of them. If that were true, its yield would be quite low, which is not the case. There was an article posted on CC some time ago (written in 2000, I believe) which stated that Stanford was winning more cross-admits with Yale than it was losing. If someone has a link to that article, I'd appreciate it.</p>

<p>some of you guys said chicks yet i've read that stanford has the ugliest student body in terms of girls</p>

<p>I saw a fairly good mix of girls at Admit Weekend. Some had more brains than body, some had more body than brains, but most had a lot of both. :)</p>

<p>Don't bring UPenn into a discussions about Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. We're talking about GOOD schools here not safeties and backups. It's quite emabarassing to read such pathetic stories about Penn. Keep such talk to Penn's own board where that stuff is the norm.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley and UC Palo Alto.</p>

<p>Thanks for defending nearly half of the people who chose to go to Stanford, ForeverZero... :)</p>

<p>I mean, seriously. Do we think there's some gigantic conspiracy on the part of Stanford University to only admit hot guys and ugly girls? Something makes me doubt that...</p>

<p>I saw some pretty hot girls at Admit Weekend.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Don't bring UPenn into a discussions about Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. We're talking about GOOD schools here not safeties and backups. It's quite emabarassing to read such pathetic stories about Penn. Keep such talk to Penn's own board where that stuff is the norm.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well as long as you're trying to be a name-whore elitist, you may as well include Princeton...</p>

<p>Hearing people like you makes me glad I chose Penn over Stanford. At least Penn people are nice.</p>

<p>I think most people who are relatively knowledgeable in the matter of college admissions will agree that the elite universities in the US are Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. </p>

<p>Universities such as Penn, although excellent, are not in the same league as the aforementioned due to a variety of reasons.</p>

<p>Columbia's acceptance rate is lower than Princeton's.</p>

<p>Acceptance rate by itself is meaningless. Columbia is very appealing to the general applicant due to its location in NYC. However, I doubt that Columbia's applicant pool is stronger than Princeton's. By your logic, MIT, with an acceptance rate of 14.3%, is much easier to get into than HYPS. Not true, because it has a highly self-selected applicant pool, which is why it's considered the most selective college in the US.</p>

<p>Anyway, it's a shame that this thread got to Penn-bashing. I personally have nothing against the school (my best friends are going there next year). I don't think that it's quite HYPS quality yet, but it very well may be in the future. After all, it's been rapidly improving in the past few decades.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Stanford is THE BEST for pre-MBA work.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If this were true, then logic dictates that there should be more Stanford undergrads in the top B-schools than there are undergrads from any other school, normalized for the number of undergrads at that school. I am not aware that this is the case. I haven't seen the data, but I would suspect that at the top B-schools, even the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the undergrad school that is most represented is NOT Stanford.</p>

<p>However, if you want to prove that you're right, it's simple. Show me the data that demonstrates that Stanford is the most represented undergraduate program at the majority of the top B-schools. If the data shows that, then I will concede that you are correct. However, if the data shows that, then I think you need to withdraw your claim.</p>