The Ivy League has done a great job, but there is great quality around the country

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Hawkette--Of course there are many excellent schools out there. And if you look at the number of applications received by the likes of Georgetown, Emory, Wash U. etc., it is apparent that they are hardly secrets to the vast majority of high school students applying to competitive colleges. </p>

<p>I simply don't get the point of this thread. You stated the following:</p>

<p>"Re the schools selected, you may be looking at the comparisons more literally than they were intended." </p>

<p>These are silly comparisons, based on numbers of students (although USC is significantly larger than Cornell) and SAT scores. They have nothing to do with the academic strengths of the schools, the types of specialty majors available, the location of the campuses, religious orientation, presence of fraternities and the general feel of the campuses. For example, I think that both Dartmouth and Rice are excellent schools, but I doubt that many students apply to both of them--they have an extremely different feel. </p>

<p>If you want to promote schools that you feel are not as well-known, why don't you stop the Ivy comparisons and focus on the individual schools you feel are receiving short shrift and their strengths. You don't have to try and tear down one set of schools to raise up another set of schools--it's not a zero sum game.</p>

22

<p>Here's a little thought experiment: imagine that one of the Ivy League schools decided to make a radical step in admissions: it would randomly admit students from a pool that included anyone with a 3.0 GPA or better (unweighted) and a 1300 V&M SAT. No other requirements or considerations. Assuming that the faculty stayed the same, how much, if at all, would the quality of the education provided by that school decline?</p>

23

<p>Tarhunt: </p>

<p>Well, I don't know if it's enough to "make a case" one way or the other, but I was thinking of several parallels for the Harvard-Berkeley comparison. International prestige, research output, respect for graduate programs, general perception that UG ed is not the No.1 priority, a location near but not in a major city accessible by mass transit, an environment not known for handholding. Both providing a stellar but not necessarily perfect college experience, dependent on fit. Of course, this is simply a my-view-from-where-I-sit sort of exercise.</p>

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<p>"Assuming that the faculty stayed the same, how much, if at all, would the quality of the education provided by that school decline?"</p>

<p>This may depend on how the caliber of student changes. For instance, a big draw of some elite universities is the student body ... some want to be immersed in an intense intellectual atmosphere where they may learn just as much from a 2 hour midnight conversation with a friend as they would in a lecture. Also, if a student body is academically stronger on paper, the professors may hold students to a higher standard and thus expect more in exams, papers, presentation, etc. Just a guess...</p>

25

<p>"Obviously, people might not be interested in Cornell because of its somewhat remote location"</p>

<p>then i ask you to account for the record high number of applicants cornell gets every year. clearly there IS interest in cornell!!</p>

26

<p>In that they are excellent private universities with great facilities, programs, top-notch professors and extremely talented students, I think that Georgetown, Emory, WUSTL most definitely have an Ivy feel. I'd add Tufts too. Berkeley is too large imo to have an Ivy "feel" though it does have Ivy prestige. </p>

<p>I don't get how it's tearing down any Ivies to say that there are more than two or three legitimate rivals (the usually agreed upon Stanford, MIT and Chicago) that can and do provide a comparable education and UG college experience to the Ivies, particularly the non-HYP ones.</p>

27

<p>warblersrule,
I was trying to stick to colleges classified by USNWR as national universities but I agree that some of the Ivies, particularly Dartmouth, are possibly better compared to LACs. The same might also be true for a school like Rice.</p>

<p>Re your comment about "feel" and that Georgetown, Emory, Wash U, etc. don't feel like Ivies, would you mind elaborating on this? Is it actually something that they do or your view of the students that attend these colleges or their geographic location or their perception in the popular media or something else? </p>

<p>hausdorff,
Impressive information about the history and faculty at Columbia, but much of the historical comment relates to events and movements as long as 60 years ago. The faculty awards are nice, but does that necessarily translate into better undergraduate instruction. You may be aware that in 1995, USNWR did a survey on best classroom teaching. That year, Columbia ranked 9th overall, but it did not even place in the top 25 (that's all that were ranked) for quality of classroom instruction. For someone making a college choice, what good are faculty awards if the undergraduate students don't benefit from them? </p>

<p>Columbia has a strong history, but in the last five years, how is the undergraduate experience at Columbia producing better graduates than those at Wash U? Do you really think that the Columbia student is any better/smarter and/or better prepared than the Wash U student? I don't. </p>

<p>midatlmom,
I fail to see how pointing out that there are great schools around the country is tearing the Ivies down…unless you believe that I am tearing them down by pointing out that the Ivies don't have a monopoly on smart students, excellent faculties, and strong undergraduate academics. </p>

<p>As far as the comparisons that I have made, these are useful for some readers that use the Ivy colleges as their benchmark because they have a higher familiarity with them. Great for the Ivies, but I believe that this higher familiarity blocks out other, equally good schools. Rice is an excellent example of this as this is a college that I strongly believe would be a fixture in anyone's top 10 if they were located in a major city in the Northeast rather than in Houston. There is a very low awareness among NE students (and mid-Atlantic too) with Rice. Who benefits from this lack of visibility? Not the student, but the default choice of the well-known and well-publicized Ivy-branded colleges. IMO, the top student at a school like Hotchkiss or Exeter or even LA-based Harvard-Westlake has a great recognition of the Ivy colleges and, in many cases, has never even heard of Rice. For that student, adding Rice to his/her college search could open a new world up to him/her and have a profoundly positive impact on his/her life. How is that a zero-sum game?</p>

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<p>To gomestar, chill out man, no one is saying cornell is a bad school, what I mean is the following. Cornell's rep is largely based on its hotel/engineering schools as well as some other majors. Other majors do rank well, but there are also other schools that rank consitently higher on most programs, and consistently lower on some of the programs cornell exceeds at, yet I feel that cornell does receive more recognition than other schools that are on par with it (UChicao, WUSTL, Emory, Rice, etc), because of its ivy league title. No one said it needed to drop in rankings, calm down.</p>

<p>And yea I'm clueless, does that make you sleep better at night? Lol, only on cc.</p>

29

<p>so, which programs at Cornell aren't rated very high? </p>

<p>"but there are also other schools that rank consitently higher on most programs"
Hence why Cornell is usually considered top-15 but not top-5. </p>

<p>I don't doubt that Cornell does receive extra attention thanks to its ivy league status, but to say a select few programs inflate Cornell's prestige reputation just isn't accurate. There are strengths, there are weaknesses - but overall the school is very well rounded.</p>

30

<p>There is great quality around the country. And playing a match-game between ivies and non-ivies is a pointless waste of time. The question is how good a match Bennie (plug in your name) is with Harvard, or the University of Idaho, or Chapel Hill, or BYU, or . . . .</p>

31

<p>

That wasn't what I meant at all! :eek: :eek: :eek:</p>

<p>What I meant was that some schools seem to be more like the Ivies on an individual basis than other schools do and thus attract similar applicants. For example, Colgate has the emphasis on athletics (hockey), strength in sciences, and upstate location of Cornell. USC is into football and social sciences and is in the middle of a major metropolitan area. As a non-Ivy example, I would say that Duke is closer to Davidson in feel than it is to Penn, to which it's often compared on CC.</p>

<p>I did NOT mean that any of the other schools are in any way inferior to the Ivies or that they wouldn't be a good fit with the preexisting eight. In fact, I voted for Hopkins and Georgetown on TourGuide's thread about adding new Ivies.</p>

32

<p>Nope. Brown and Georgetown have completely different vibes. Brown-Vassar, maybe; or, Brown-Wesleyan. The methods of teaching and the kinds of students attracted to these schools (Brown, GT) are vastly different.</p>

<p>But I do agree that aside from HYP, while the other schools in the Ivy League are phenomenal, they are no better academically than the others in the top echelon. In fact, I am not so sure that HYP corners the market on academic excellence, albeit, they do have that extraordinary allure. Beyond this, however, is probably where students ought to strip away the "Ivy" name, in their minds, and take a look at what the other schools have to offer, that may in fact be better for them. I have consistently encouraged my kids to do this, even one who could have gone to Princeton, but chose not to. Not a single word from me. Happiness and fit are most important, as long as the schools are well thought of, academically, and can provide an appropriate challenge.</p>

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<p>I think the point Hawkette is making is that people on this boad won't really consider other schools outside of the Ivy's because their perceived superiority. In a narrow sense, it is a zero-sum game.</p>

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<p>Midatlmom: I agree with your comments about Cornell. I think that the problem in terms of number of apps is its location, making it almost a last resort for kids consumed with the idea of going to an ivy. My daughter went to the law school, and it is cold and gray in Ithaca for most of the year,which she really disliked...The summer, however, is glorious. So my son, seeing all of the gloomy weather, was accepted for undergrad school, but turned it down for another option (Hopkins) which appealed to him more. The location and the weather played an enormous part in this decision, something I hear from lots of kids. The same was true for him with Dartmouth, which I think has a similar, if not worse problem with location (travel is very difficult) Fewer apps=less selectivity. But in principle, I think that Cornell has some of the best undergrad programs, bar none.</p>

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<p>Oh, hawkette: There you go again. Believe me, students, parents, and administrators at Hotchkiss, Exeter, and yes, even Harvard-Westlake have all heard of Rice. Are you kidding??? They have even heard of Rice at Dalton!!! Can you imagine that????</p>

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<p>Gabriellah,
I think you and others are misinterpreting the comparisons made earlier. They were not about whether the paired colleges offered similar academic programs or had similar vibes. The comparison was of the size and their relative selectivity as measured by SAT scores. I am challenging the mindset that immediately accepts the non-HYP Ivy as the superior school and does not properly or fully understand the quality of the other institution to which it is being compared. </p>

<p>Provincialism as it applies to colleges is practiced all over the country, both by students in their college search process and by employers four years later as the students go about their postgraduate employment search process. It is a fact of life as we all naturally know the things that are closest to us and we learn from and are bombarded by the media in our home markets which provides an accepted local perspective. The error (and the accompanying conceit) is the belief is that this worldview (or collegeview) is accepted by all and that it is exclusively correct. My view is that where we sit in the country profoundly affects our perceptions of quality both near and far. And that these perceptions are often wrong or at least not fully informed.</p>

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<p>About the USC-Cornell comparison...</p>

<ol>
<li><p>USC is much larger. About twice as large, if you include graduate students for both.</p></li>
<li><p>If measuring solely by SAT scores, Cornell was significantly higher, but I'm pretty sure that USC had a lower acceptance rate.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Hawkette - thank you for introducing new ways of looking at the college admissions process. Your posts always result in people examining the way they have looked at the process in the past. I, for one, certainly appreciate the time and effort you contribute to these posts. Keep up the good work.</p>

39

<p>
[quote]
the quality of the undergraduate education that they provide...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
...to illuminate the quality of other great schools around the country....they have compelling undergraduate offerings.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>As one of the "others" that has misconstrued. Actually, no, we are just reading the actual words in your first post which do not mention either "selectivity" nor "SAT scores".</p>

<p>If your goal was just to go back and compare SAT scores, wouldn't it have been easier to bump one of your earlier threads?</p>

40

<p>proletariat2,
According to collegeboard.com, the undergraduate populations and SAT scores of USC and Cornell are as follows:</p>

<p>USC: 16,729 students, middle 50% SAT scores of 1280-1460, acceptance rate of 25%</p>

<p>Cornell: 13,562 students, middle 50% SAT scores of 1280-1490, acceptance rate of 25%</p>