The decade's 15 hottest colleges

<p>At the bottom of Elon it says - see also Davidson and Wake Forest. Is that laziness or are all 3 going after the same niche? It kind of makes sense that they would since they’re nestled in between a top cheap public school in UNC, and a school whose mission is to prove its own worth in Duke.</p>

<p>Elon, Wake Forest, and Davidson draw different pools, at least in NC.</p>

<p>Davidson is for the highly intelligent students who thought UNC and Duke were too big. </p>

<p>Wake Forest is for the better than average students who wanted a small school with a great social and athletic scene. Some are, to be politically incorrect, people who would’ve liked Duke but couldn’t/didn’t get in (definitely not all, though, one of my good friends at Wake turned down Duke for it).</p>

<p>Elon is for the more artsy and pre-professional people, largely drawing arts, journalism/communication, and business people. It often plays second fiddle to other NC colleges and is less selective than Wake and especially Davidson. It often gets trumped by UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Asheville due to similar academics but much lower costs. Has a reputation for fairly wealthy students and a skewed male/female ratio.</p>

<p>I totally agree with USC being #1 and overall it’s a good list.</p>

<p>Tufts and Wash U.–superb academics, superlative quality of college life.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>& super syndrome…</p>

<p>[Waitlisting</a> “Overqualified” Applicants - Ask The Dean](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000053.htm]Waitlisting”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000053.htm)</p>

<p>"Question: How likely is it that a school will waitlist or reject a student because he/she is overqualified and probably would go to a more prestigious school, so the school would “save” its acceptances for another candidate?</p>

<p>Waitlisting seemingly overqualified applicants is a factor at some colleges, but being able to pinpoint which ones in particular participate in that ploy is very difficult. One school that has been relatively famous for this in recent years is Washington University in Saint Louis (WUSTL)."</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Gamers like U$C and WU$TL need to pay their top admits cash (read: “merit scholarships”) to prevent them from heading off to greener pastures. Otherwise, their rankings wouldn’t be so “hot.”</p>

<p>

Agreed. Tufts in particular has really come into its own recently, and WUStL has some of the nicest dorms and dining options I’ve seen (I saw some of the Yale colleges pre-renovation…not impressed).</p>

<p>Tufts’ essay questions show they pay attention strongly on creativity which is a very valuable asset that a student can bring in to make Tufts students pool may be more interesting than “type A” hark working-class students at their Big Brother H. :)</p>

<p>northeastern!</p>

<p>For the incoming class for fall 2008 USC had 2766 enrollees. Out of that number only 128 were given Trustee Scholarships. </p>

<p>SC had over 35,900 applicants for this class. The university does not have to “buy” top students.</p>

<p>blaw,</p>

<p>San Diego State is not the school with the most applications–but they do rank #2 in that category. </p>

<p>UCLA had over 70,000 applications last year and has ranked number 1 in both freshman and transfer applicants for the past 20 years. Which private college gets the most applications? NYU would be tops in that category.</p>

<p>tk21769,</p>

<p>There are good arguments that the marketing aspect is what makes a school “hot”;–however, hiring top “name” professors or administrators can also lead to a school becoming “hot”. NYU has pursued this course–hiring many top name professors–as has William and Mary–which recently hired a retired Sandra Day O’Connor to run their law school–and Indiana University’s “hotness” ranking went up recently when one of their professors became the first female to win a Nobel Prize in Economics.</p>

<p>P.S. USC’s “hotness” started going up a few years ago not only because of their academics, but also because of their sports prowess (particularly in football). People do forget, however, that their school has one of the top professors in the field of Leadership–Warren Bennis. Along with Claremont’s Peter Drucker (now deceased) and Harvard’s John Kotter, Bennis was probably one of the top three professors in this field when he started at USC.</p>

<p>On the UCLA website the freshmen profile is posted. UCLA had 55,437 applicants for the freshman class for fall of 2008. That is a huge number, but it is not 70,000.</p>

<p>That 70,000 number I quoted includes transfer applications–and can be found here:</p>

<p>[UCLA</a> considering more than 55,000 applicants for 2009 freshman class / UCLA Newsroom](<a href=“http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/more-than-55-000-applicants-under-78627.aspx]UCLA”>Newsroom | UCLA)</p>

<p>Just a few quotes from this news report:</p>

<p>“55,636 freshman applications, 16,521 transfer applications” </p>

<p>Meaning MORE THAN 72,000 applications</p>

<p>and (third paragraph)</p>

<p>“UCLA traditionally receives more applications from potential freshmen than any college in the nation. This year, preliminary figures indicate that the number of applications is slightly higher than it was last year — 55,636 for 2009, compared with 55,437 for 2008.”</p>

<p>Here is the total from San Diego State:</p>

<p><a href=“SDSU NewsCenter | News | SDSU”>SDSU NewsCenter | News | SDSU;

<p>Note that they received 44,544 freshman applications and 17,088 transfer applications for a total of 61,632–about 10,000 fewer applications than UCLA.</p>

<p>What kind of deflates the theory that Tufts or Wash U. waitlists the kids with the most exalted data (RD) because of a belief that they will go to more “presitigious” schools is that many high data kids were/are deferred or rejected from ED at Tufts and Wash U–just witnessed this first-hand, myself, not from my kid (she got in) but from 6 other kids who were in the top 2% GPA, standardized test score-wise, and the rest of the stuff one needs to get in. My daughter is a candidate who was very competitive everywhere (2310 on SAT and 790 and 760 on her two Subject tests, high GPA (which are a dime a dozen, now, with a very unusual and impressive “hook”, and she chose Tufts, as did some of her other peers who were, objectively, amazing candidates).</p>

<p>It may be time to accept that Tufts and Wash U. are every bit as wonderful and selective as the Ivies and Stanford–it may be time to accept that they are really “hot.”</p>

<p>[Yield</a> protection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_protection]Yield”>Yield protection - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>“Yield protection is sometimes called Tufts Syndrome,[1], though Tufts University is certainly not the only school accused of implementing yield protection.”</p>

<p>why are Brown and NYU not on this list? Their growth in applications is too great to ignore.</p>

<p>interestingguy stop being such a hater</p>

<p>interestingguy,</p>

<p>Isn’t that the same post you made on another thread in this section on 12/7? What’s with your obsession?</p>

<p>

Read the thread. Post #37 answers your question. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>But post #37 is pretty inaccurate as to what is happening at Brown and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true at NYU. Brown has increased it’s applications from China over 5x in the last two or three years, and overall has tremendously boosted international applications. Our applicant pool has become significantly more diverse as we altered financial aid policies, began rigorously recruiting in some unique ways to get more students of color, more urban students, and more science students interested in Brown. We also changed our director of admissions and went to the Common Application. There has been near meteoric growth this decade–I’d be willing to bet Brown hits nearly 30k applicants this year representing a near doubling of applicants over the decade and nearly 50% growth in the last two years.</p>

<p>If that doesn’t qualify I don’t know what to does. Tk is right, but basically arguing that schools like Brown have always been selective and popular enough around the right groups of kids. However, some schools have simply become significantly more popular recently. I think a significant portion of the changes at Brown are permanent structural changes that will allow us to reach deeper into the potential applicant pool. However, some of this is just the ebb and flow in popularity and it’s quite clear that Brown is at a new peak in popularity.</p>