<p>"How did someone get absolutely no money from Harvard and a full ride at Caltech?" Harvard has only need based financial aid.</p>
<p>^ yeah. Got a merit scholarship at Cal Tech. Not exactly sure if it was full ride of just full tuition, but either way, you're looking at turning down 150k.</p>
<p>Look, no matter what you say about Cal Tech, you're not gonna convince me that it has more prestige than Y/S, and no matter what I say, I'm not gonna convince you. We have our differences- end of debate.</p>
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Caltech very closely topped MIT.
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In reality, (as opposed to computer models) cross admits choose MIT over Caltech by more than 3 to 1. Without the merit scholarships offered by CalTech the ratio would be even greater. MIT's yield is around 70% and only loses on cross admits to Harvard and not by much.</p>
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MIT's yield is around 70% and only loses on cross admits to Harvard and not by much.
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<p>I'd wager MIT loses quite a bit to Stanford. The "revealed preference" ranking had a northeast bias, and MIT and Stanford were split 50/50. So if you remove the bias, Stanford would probably win.</p>
<p>MIT also loses to Yale. Sorta weird, but true.</p>
<p>Thanks for putting JHU in there everyone. :-), however there has been some tension, first off liberal art schools don't count as universities.....duh. Secondly, UofC is ranked 9th in the nation, and princeton review said tehy were #1 for undergraduate studies, not mention their a powerhouse that exceeds half of the Ivies. Thirdly, I think he means national universities, not international. Owell.</p>
<p>It depends on what you want to do also, a school can be ranked by sooooo many variables, so many studies, so many different sources, and so many different things in general. US News ranks them by the overall quality of the school, as well as endowment and education. Princeton review focuses ONLY on the quality of academics ranking schools only by the academic scores they give them, other rankings depend on which ones have most notable alumni, and of course the one that gave me the biggest laugh by businessweek and Forbes, they ranked schools by which one had the most alumni billionaires..... I don't think that's even directly relevant.</p>
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MIT also loses to Yale. Sorta weird, but true.
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<p>Maybe, just maybe, some people consider fit over departmental rankings once they've been admitted to HYPSM (ALL of which are peers). <em>gasp</em></p>
<p>It depends TourGuide446, yes if we're talking medical, medical, biological, chemistry, and premed than JHU defeats Columbia, unless your talking about Liberal arts, Social sciences, business, economics, then Columbia is the winner. As far as overall, Columbia out ranks them, but when it comes to the individual, overall doesnt matter, because what if their going to medical field lets say?</p>
<p>^^ Yeah that is pretty obvious...</p>
<p>The huge gap between H and everyone else is explained by fit right? All those people just fit at H. </p>
<p>Yep, sounds good to me.</p>
<p>^^ Okay, then how would YOU explain how Yale wins in cross-admits with MIT if MIT is so superior in the sciences?</p>
<p>Don't mock me, especially when you fail at it. My statement was not ridiculous in the least. And yes it is obvious that SOME people consider fit over departmental rankings. Why don't you actually try to read my statement instead of making ridiculous extrapolations that I never implied.</p>
<p><em>rolls eyes</em></p>
<p>Prestige + Opportunities + Depts seem to be the deciding factors.</p>
<p>Haha, I'm sorry if I offended you. I agree with you somewhat -- I just think you're overplaying that whole fit thing a bit too much.</p>
<p>MIT is superior in the sciences, but its fin aid is not up to par with Yale's, and not all cross-admits want to be scientists...</p>
<p>danas -- sorry I missed your post. Your link is to the preliminary 2004 publication of these data. It is a working paper which was updated. Check the date on the cover page of your link, which is Sept. 2004. The Dec. 2005 publication tightened it up. My link is to the 2005 publication. It dropped Stanford a spot, ane elevated Caltech two positions.</p>
<p>Danas, in the updated publication: SSRN-A</a> Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities by Christopher Avery, Mark Glickman, Caroline Hoxby, Andrew Metrick</p>
<p>Caltech:</p>
<p>wins vs. Harvard 30%
wins vs. Yale 66%
wins vs. MIT 81%
wins vs. Stanford 82%</p>
<p>Getting back to the most important part of this thread...my good friend Sam Lee asked why Marines have short hair rather than no hair. It's good to have a little hair, as the sun will scorch the top of your head if you have no hair at all. That's why you always see old (bald) guys wearing hats in the summer.</p>
<p>Its all discipline. You wake up in the morning, don't give a damn about how your hair looks or whether or not it needs grooming because it looks fine. Its saves you so much time in the morning, its awesome.</p>
<p>Since so few apply to Caltech, and so few get in, and so few choose to attend, Caltech is pretty insignificant in cross-admit data. How do you think schools like, say, Deep Springs and BYU match up? They probably win quite a bit. Very specialized.</p>
<p>That paper is based on surveys of people who were never admitted, not actual matriculation decisions. Caltech's yield, according to its Common Data set (<a href="http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2005.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2005.pdf</a>) is 36.5% (207/566, it's the '05 CDS, but unlikely to have changed much). It would be impossible for Caltech to win actual cross-admit battles with every school save Harvard and yet still only have a 36.5% yield. What I've seen indicates that it is almost certainly losing to, at the least, all of HYPSM (I know that for Yale specifically, in reality it only loses the cross-admit battle to Harvard - based on real numbers, not on surveys of people who were never even admitted in the first place).</p>
<p>Now why is this, given that Caltech is so strong in the sciences? Perhaps because people care about aspects of a school other than pure academic rigor. Maybe they want to be sure they'll graduate (Caltech has far lower freshman retention and graduation rates than its peers because it's so hard - Caltech students, based on prior credentials, should have any trouble graduating, and they wouldn't at any other school). Maybe it's because they don't want to be at a school with a Male:Female ratio of over 3:1. Maybe they have non-science related interests as well that would be far better developed at another school. Maybe they like, at least occasionally, interacting with people who aren't science majors. </p>
<p>Anyhow, DunninLA, try not to rely on the revealed preference study data - it and reality have a few differences of opinion.</p>
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I know that for Yale specifically, in reality it only loses the cross-admit battle to Harvard - based on real numbers, not on surveys of people who were never even admitted in the first place
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<p>While I agree with all your other points, what are these "real numbers" you speak of? To my knowledge, no scientific study has been done detailing real cross-admit data. Any data that a college collects is typically skewed toward that college. (I believe I read in an article from Yale that it loses slightly to Stanford, too. Not sure how true that is or how old the article was.)</p>
<p>There's no need to do scientific studies - admissions officers know the numbers. In the past, Yale has crushed Stanford on cross-admits according to Stanford's Dean of Admissions. Apparently this year, however (ie, class of 2012), Stanford and Yale split cross-admits down the middle (or at least that was the preliminary data). See Faculty</a> Senate minutes - June 12, 2008 meeting and search for "Yale" to find the relevant section. Regardless, it remains fair to say that Yale's only definitive loss in cross-admits is to Harvard, and certainly not to Caltech. In fact, according to Yale admissions officers, Yale loses very,very few admits to any schools other than Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and MIT.</p>