<p>The Princeton football team was picked to finish in sixth place out of eight teams in the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll released Monday as part of the annual Ivy Football Media Day festivities at the Yale Golf Course.</p>
<p>Princeton's 57 points in the poll were well ahead of seventh-place Dartmouth (36) and eighth-place Columbia (24).</p>
<p>Harvard, last season's Ivy champion, and Penn each received eight first-place votes in the poll, but the Quakers finished on top of the poll with 120 points. Harvard was second with 119 points, while Brown was third with 91.</p>
<p>Yale (66) and Cornell (63) finished just ahead of the Tigers in the poll in fourth and fifth place respectively. </p>
<p>Byerly, yes. (Football=trivial obsession). But Your favorite school Harvard was ranked 28th out of 31 schools in the category of student satisfaction with their education.</p>
<p>not necessarily. princeton has one of the smallest undergraduate student bodies in the ivy league, yet year after year finishes as the ivies' (and indeed ALL non-scholarship schools') top performer in the director's cup rankings of college athletic programs. see:</p>
<p>Byerly, I applied to Brown because at the time it had the worst football team in the Ivies. And I would be surprised if it were the quality of the football team that drew most people to Harvard. But, hey, if it means that much to you...</p>
<p>I was under the impression that we were discussing football and not revealed preferences. But if you want to go there, than the dominance of Harvard's sports program would only prove my hypothesis that cross-admits, while perhaps the most desirable students, are not necessarily the strongest. Schools may want football players, but the fact that these players are more likely to choose Harvard does very little to convince me that Harvard is a better school.</p>
<p>The most desirable students are precisely that: students that both colleges have admitted and would very much like to attract. </p>
<p>Often these common admits are high academic achievers; sometimes they have outstanding EC's; sometimes they are talented URM's; and occasionally they are talented athletes.</p>
<p>In any case, when Harvard goes head to head with Princeton for any of these desirable students - admitted and recruited by both schools - it does very well in the competition.</p>
<p>If the truth be known, Princeton has a higher fraction of recruited athletes among its admits than does Harvard, in that it has nearly as many varsity athletic slots even though the freshman class size is 1220 vs 1635 at Harvard.</p>
<p>Princeton men's lacrosse was also ranked third nationally preseason last year. Princeton basketball and field hockey were also picked to win the Ivy league. The NY Yankees were picked to win it all this year. Pre-season rankings are usually quite meaningless. </p>
<p>And on the note of "prospective Ivy athletes." The best basketball and lacrosse players overwhelmingly choose Princeton (or Penn for basketball). Each school has sports that they traditionally do very well in and thats why atheletes choose those schools, not because of some revealed preference ranking. The vast majority of the time, a top-notch football recruit will choose Penn over Brown. The revealed preference rankings reveal nothing about the choices atheletes would make because those choices are influenced by the strength of a school's program and its coach. Of course, in the case of incredibly strong programs, ie Duke Basketball, such programs would influence non-athletes to pick that school and thereby increase its Revealed Preference rankings. However, none of the Ivy League programs are strong enough to have such an impact. If one makes the case that the choices athletes make and its impact on the strength of a school's athletic programs is correct (and therefore the strength of an athletic program is indicative of some general "Preference"), then Princeton would beat out Harvard. Princeton has traditionally dominated the Ivy League, winning more titles over the past five years than any other school. Sure, Harvard had the most last year, but one year says little when Princeton still holds an overwhelming lead over past years, indicated that atheletically, Princeton is the stronger school. </p>
<p>Clearly, Princeton does lose on the common admit battle with Harvard and there is no correlation between the strength of an athletic program and its "desirablity." And lets drop the "Revealed Preference" study as a means to further Harvard's reputation. Tout its faculty and resources and its city but not some dink study that claims to establish Harvard dominance over all colleges. Regardless of what that study says, Harvard is a world-class institution on the same level as Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT.</p>
<p>Lol! You obviously have little understanding of the way Ivy sports work.</p>
<p>"The most highly regulated sport is football. Rather than centering around a median, every Ivy League football team is capped at 30 recruits and broken down into four bands, ranges of AI scores determined by standard deviations from the median for the class. Each team is allowed no more than two recruits in the first band, no more than nine in the first and second band combined, no more than 22 in the first, second and third bands combined, and no more than 30 recruits total. Last year, the bands at Harvard, Yale and Princeton were 169 to 186 (first), 187 to 193 (second), 194 to 206 (third) and 207 and above (fourth), while Cornells first band consisted entirely of 169s and 170s and its second band ran from 171 to 178. The lowest weve gone is 175, and its really 180-186, Westerfield says. And we only get two of those kids, they have to be unbelievable players. Penn might get two unbelievable players at 172, and we cant get them because they cant get in. And at other schools, the second band is 173 to 180, which would be first-banders for us. So they get nine kids who would be great, and wed only get two.</p>
<p>The only reason Harvard stays competitive, according to Westerfield, is that its Harvard. Three out of four students who get into Harvard and either Yale or Princeton choose Harvard, and its no different with high-scoring athletes. Typically, if I want a kid, I get him, Westerfield says. I didnt lose any kids last year. Our best player, [quarterback] Ryan Fitzpatrick [05], is a fourth bander. Youll get excellent football players in the fourth band.</p>
<p>I know exactly how Ivy sports work Byerly. You've proven your "point" in football. Even that does not refute my point that athletes base their decisions on the strength of a school's team and the coach. Harvard and Penn have had the best football teams in the league in the past few years and it is therefore natural for Harvard/Yale and Harvard/Princeton common football admits to pick Harvard. For your "point" to be valid, it would have to be true for Basketball, Soccer, Lacrosse, Baseball, Squash, Ice Hockey and every other sport which it simply is not.</p>
<p>Way to stay on topic, Byerly. As soon as someone points out that <em>gasp</em> Princeton is better at something, out comes those dumb revealed preference rankings and everything goes to pot.</p>
<p>Excuse me, prettyfishy, but I believe that, as the OP here, I've been staying very much on topic, despite the efforts of others to muddy the waters!</p>
<p>they may have, but majority are now regretting their choice...rank of 28/31 is pathetic.
...........
"But right now, students can go through four years on campus with limited contact with (Harvard) professors. They often take large lecture classes, divided into sections headed by graduate student ''teaching fellows." Small classes are frequently taught by temporary instructors instead of regular, tenure-track professors. And in many cases, advisers are not professors, either, but graduate students, administrators."</p>
<p>"Harvard Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby recently said that Harvard's ratio of students to tenured and tenure-track faculty is 11-to-1, compared to an 8-1 ratio at Princeton University."</p>
<p>"Many students are pessimistic that the curriculum review is going to change what some call ''a culture of mutual avoidance," where students and faculty often don't make an effort to meet. Professors and students alike also say there's a hurried and stressful atmosphere on campus that can get in the way of building mentor relationships. After all, Harvard has been trying to improve teaching and advising for years, long before the current administration.</p>
<p>Matt Glazer, president of the student government, said it's hard to have much confidence in the administration's commitment to fixing the problems.</p>
<p>''When the system that has dismal advising is giving recommendations on how to make advising better, the question is why aren't they doing that right now?" Glazer said.</p>
<p>Harvard has the nation's highest graduation rate. </p>
<p>Harvard students are demanding, and have high expectations. </p>
<p>But its not as if they want to be anyplace else. </p>
<p>Transfers out can be counted on the finger of one hand, while a thousand or more top students from other schools clamor to transfer in every year.</p>
<p>rank of 28/31.....rest doesn't matter, and look at the quality of graduates they put out. 9.3% can't find jobs, more than 10% believe that what is taught has no real world meaning. Average salary lower than Stanford, MIT, Princeton.....</p>