<p>I'd consider someone turning down HYPSM for Columbia, Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, or Brown stupid...but not that stupid, the tiers are fairly close</p>
<p>Unless they didn't really consider the schools thoroughly, then it'd be dumb</p>
<p>i'd call that pretty ignorant thethoughtprocess...why should someone who fits in perfectly at brown go to princeton? do you honestly think that the quality of education is different????</p>
<p>replying to the original topic, i know a kid who turned down jhu med for nyu med because he wanted to be in the city..</p>
<p>i would say turning down columbia for duke would be seen as an "ignorant" decision</p>
<p>that is just my opinion</p>
<p>i would definitely go to duke over columbia, brown, harvard, dartmouth, penn, yale, and most likely cornell. probably not over princeton though</p>
<p>IMO HYPSM is a stupid acronym. I could totally understand someone's choosing Duke, Brown, Dartmouth, etc. over 'HYPSM.' Admissions rate shouldn't dictate your college decision.</p>
<p>Why would going to Duke over Columbia be stupid. Duke is 10 times more fun IMO and has just as good name recognition and grad placement. bball your comment is stupid.</p>
<p>slipper, calling someone stupid for his opinion means you're stupid.</p>
<p>Columbia in my opinion is the better choice. Where I am from, everyone who goes to Duke are the kids that didnt get into any of the ivies. There has never been one kid from my really ritzy area in the NE that I know of that has turned down an ivy (other than cornell) to go to Duke, except for one kid for bme engineering.</p>
<p>and someone from my hs is transferring from Duke to Columbia</p>
<p>and another is going from Cornell to Columbia</p>
<p>I dont see why anyone would go to Columbia and suffer through that crazy core :(</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>bball your comment is stupid. slipper, calling someone stupid for his opinion means you're stupid.</p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>I said your comment was stupid, not you. So now what are you?</p>
<p>Is turning down Columbia for Duke out of place at all? I don't think so.
Similar grad placement and student selectivity, the two most important factors for undergrad in my opinion. People accepted to both are split evenly between the two. I guess everyones entitled to an opinion, but calling the decision to turn Columbia down for Duke "ignorant" is dumb when the schools are so similar in terms of prestige and academics. </p>
<p>Anyways, just because you know someone who turned down one school for the other doesn't really mean much...I know lots of people who turned down all sorts of schools for others, but that doesn't mean anything. For example, someone who turned down Harvard for Duke or Yale for Brown (as mentioned earlier in the thread) isn't going down that big a notch on the college totem pole, and just because you know one person who did such a thing doesn't mean everyone does. Thats extrapolation. In reality, the majority of the kids accepted to Harvard or Yale turn down Duke and Brown.</p>
<p>On that note, I really do think the majority of cross applicants going to HYPSM over Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Penn is going to be pretty standard practice for a while to come.</p>
<p>This HYPS thing is a pretty stupid topic and has NO right answer.</p>
<p>Many very intelligent students decide to go to "lesser" ranked schools because they get merit aid. I think this is a GOOD decision, especially when they are able to get into the same grad schools as those attending higher ranked schools, including ivies.</p>
<p>Wow, I lost track of this thread! Anway, what I was saying about my dad (on the last page) was, hey, ***, why didn't he just go to Harvard in the 1st place if he got a full ride? Why did he apply if he didn't want to go? If he had wanted to go, though, he wouldn't have stayed out for two years, so the revocation of the scholarship wouldn't matter.</p>
<p>And now he's telling me he think's I'd like it there :). (Not that I disagree.)</p>
<p>Well I consider myself to be a smart kid (even though I don't think half the people here would...didn't do any of the right "do this to get into a good college, not because you actually LIKE it" things). </p>
<p>Anyway while I was searching for colleges I pretty much didn't have much of a clue what I was doing or what I should be looking for, so I stuck with evaluating the things that were most apparent to me: whether the school had my major, whether or not it was in the middle of nowhere, and what the weather was like there. The first two are relatively good ideas, the last one, not so much. I think I pretty much ended up with 4 safeties and 1 reach, none of which I was particularly excited about the prospect of going to.</p>
<p>I also decided that since I did well enough on the SAT without studying, I could do roughly the same for the SAT II...not a good idea, too late to cancel my scores, good thing they only went to one place. I also didn't quite grasp the concept of wait lists and I thought that if I wanted to stay on the wait list for my #1 choice, I woudln't be able to accept any of the other college offers and if I ended up getting rejected, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere that year and I'd have to start over again. Don't think I would have gotten in, but you never know.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I have a friend who just finished 2 years of community college (had a scholarship, got to go for free) and doesn't want to transfer to a 4-year college to get an actual degree, despite the fact that her parents would pay for all of it (free, again). Her main reasons are that she doesn't like having to do homework anyway, and her parents' condition for paying for her other 2 years is that she live in the dorms, and she refuses to do this because it would mean she can't live with her boyfriend.</p>
<p>Well color me stupid and ignorant.</p>
<p>I turned down Harvard, Yale, and Stanford (among others)</p>
<p>for Duke.</p>
<p>And I've never regretted it. Presitge is important, but there are more important things than that.</p>
<p>And to those who have annointed me stupid and ignorant - where do you go to school?</p>
<p>that is not necessarily stupid</p>
<p>is it a popular choice, NO</p>
<p>that's all.</p>
<p>Ppl turn down a lot of places for places that ppl wouldn't even imagine</p>
<p>i know a ton of kids at cornell that got into other ivies/duke, etc...</p>
<p>on these boards, they would be berated. In the real world, no one would even care.</p>
<p>Sometimes a decision is made for a better environment overall. Our child decided against Claremont McKenna for Whitman in Washington state. Claremont McKenna is much more difficult to get into, but Whitman is a much more beautiful environment, and equally rigourous curriculum. More to do overall with a better balance overall of academics, leadership opportunities, incredible outdoor sporting opportunities (skiing, kayaking, etc.) and a new swimming/sports facility. You have to remember that extremely gifted, bright kids are everywhere, but they are still teenagers entering a new environment; they know how to excel at school, but need an environment that is conducive to growing. After all, a lot of these kids are graduate-school bound, and the undergraduate experience should be meaningful as well as challenging, not burn them out! The stress at some of the competitive schools can be demoralizing for some young kids, and ultimately not healthy.</p>
<p>My friend Shannon was Val of our public High School, despite his less then stellar SAT" he still got into every school he applied to. April his decision was between Middlebury and Penn State. He chose Penn State. Most of the faculty at my school was really disappointed in him. My school's one of the worst in the city and they put a lot of effort into getting as many of their top student into top schools. In the end I sided with Shannon. Even though Middlebury is ranked better he like the atmosphere of PSU. He’s there now in PSU leap program and still loves it.
When it comes to colleges a lot of us are programmed to go with whatever school is ranked higher. When I applied for college I felt the pressure and apply to school's other people wanted me to. Because I had the highest score on every standardized test among my graduating class, (SAT's, AP's, ACT's and Subject Test's) everyone had an opinion on where I should go. Ultimately I’m happy with my decision, and in hindsight I wish I had stuck up for myself and not wasted anyone’s time by applying for schools I didn't want to attend. The worst mistake anyone could make is going to a school they hate because it’s ranked better.</p>