<p>For starters, I'm an international student who is likely going to end up returning home after college. As much as I'd love to debate the finer points about what makes these schools great in their own right, I need to know which will serve me best outside of the US when I'm done with my education. </p>
<p>Which of the two has more prestige/brand power globally? Stanford or Yale? I'm finalizing my RD list and need to choose one of the two (since my school places limits on the number of institutions we can apply to). </p>
<p>It’s not a question I enjoy answering… but if you want an answer…
I would say it sort of depends on the place… sort of. Within the US, on the West Coast Stanford is apparently much more desirable than Yale, and on the East Coast, Yale is slightly more well known although Stanford is rapidly climbing. This parallels globally: In Asia Stanford is undoubtedely much more well known. In Europe… Yale wins out slightly. Overall in the world as a whole I would say Stanford wins out. But that’s just me. </p>
<p>Apply to one, apply to both, apply to none. Unless u are a development case, your chances of getting into either are so remote that u might as well be debating “how many angels can dance on a head of a pin?”</p>
<p>I think it just really depends. They’re both really strong and you practically can’t go wrong choosing either or. Yale is a top Ivy, and only slightly lesser known than Harvard. It’s strong in many departments, having a great Humanities program and reportedly sending ~95% of its (premed) students to Medical school. </p>
<p>Stanford is growing rapidly. Now claiming the lowest acceptance rate and having top programs in all departments across the board, its quickly becoming the dream school of millions of students. If you want to go into things like programming or engineering, I strongly suggest Stanford. </p>
<p>It really just depends on what you want to do. I can (almost) guarantee that Stanford will be more and more known in just a short amount of time. Both schools have powerful connections, which I’m assuming is what you want.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, of students who are admitted to both Stanford and Yale 58% choose to attend Stanford. That number has climbed over the 50% mark in recent years. Yale could always contend that the only school that they lost the cross-admit battle to was Harvard. Now it is Harvard and Stanford. </p>
<p>Interesting question . . . can’t go wrong either way and as noted above I think it comes down to field of study, geography and how much a student cares about other factors like residential college system and all that goes with that (Yale), being in the heart of Silicon Valley (Stanford), etc.</p>
<p>@cba, I’m curious where you got the 58% choose Stanford number? If there’s a good source out there that would be great to know about. </p>
<p>The Parchment.com cross-admit tool shows it as a 50/50 tie between Stanford and Yale. The data from Avery and colleagues (link below for one article on this) shows Yale 60/Stanford 40. From what I can tell, Parchment is more current (to the point about what is the trend recently) but Avery et al seem to have a more representative sample. </p>
<p>It’s not clear that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and MIT are the only schools that win more than 10% of cross-admits with Stanford, but the report suggests they are the only schools whose admitted pools have significant overlaps with Stanford’s that win more than 10% of cross-admits with Stanford.</p>
<p>I’ll say that Stanford has the “bigger brand,” but cross-admit results are not the best measure. </p>
<p>@Exodius, thank you! That’s the kind of data that’s very hard to come by for anyone who’s not an admissions officer or university administrator.</p>
<p>If I understand the chart on page 20 correctly, it says it was 50/50 Stanford/Yale for the most recent year shown (2010) with a Stanford win rate ranging from 30% to 57% depending on year. </p>
<p>I’m assuming the number of cross admits is low, thus the huge range in win rate . . .if there were 100 per year I don’t think we’d see that kind of variation.</p>
<p>A low number of cross admits makes sense to me given the high percentage of total admits at both schools that come from the early round - 735/1,935 (38%) at Yale last year and 748/2,138 (35%) at Stanford. My guess would be that many early admits don’t even apply to another school unless they need to compare financial aid offers.</p>
<p>It certainly makes sense that the major overlaps in cross-admits for Stanford would be HYP and MIT. As of now, HYP are the only Ivys with non-binding early programs (not sure about MIT). At the other five Ivys a student has to withdraw other applications and go to that school if admitted early, so they definitely won’t be cross-admitted with Stanford.</p>
<p>Bluewater, there can be cross-admits with Stanford and all the Ivies in the RD round. There are students deciding among Ivies and Stanford in April and that is where they get a lot of the cross-admit data from. The last cross-admit data from Stanford is from June 2014 from a Senate Report. It shows that for the 2013 and 2014 the Stanford-Yale cross-admit percentage was 59% and 58% in Stanford’s favor. </p>
<p>Exodus and cba, thanks for clarifying about the two links/reports above and sorry I missed that before.</p>
<p>Cba right, there can be cross admits in the regular round with any school. I was just trying to understand the volatility of those win rates, particularly in the 2002-2010 report, and small cross admit numbers seemed like one explanation. I guess another is schools dropping/adding an early option and the effects of that on applications and yield across the ecosystem. I believe both Harvard and Princeton dropped EA then reintroduced it in 2011.</p>
<p>Those report are a great source of information.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to which school has the bigger name–Yale and Stanford are both amazing schools–but as a student at Stanford, I can definitely say that students feel like it’s the school the present and of the future. Regardless of what school has higher cross admit rates, and regardless of what school has a lower acceptance rate, I don’t think any school in the United States is on an upward trend more than Stanford is. There’s a reason that Harvard is being called the Stanford of the East (<a href=“Riding Technology Wave, Stanford Rises to Top of Some Measures - The New York Times”>Riding Technology Wave, Stanford Rises to Top of Some Measures - The New York Times); there’s a reason the Crimson (Harvard’s newspaper) is feeling the pressure and trying to defend Harvard’s honor against Stanford, not Yale (<a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/30/stanford-vs-harvard/</a>); and there’s a reason that Stanford is all over the news. Like I said, they’re both amazing schools, but if you want the chance to go to the school that’s indisputably going to be known as the “best in the world” in five or ten years, apply to Stanford.</p>
<p>I just checked parchment… as of right now, of students there who are accepted to both, 50% chose Yale and 50% chose Stanford. Not much help, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>First apply to them and get accepted. Then, you will think. Trust me. Go apply for every single good and ivy school. Dont just think “Stan. or Yale??”</p>