<p>Princeton's acceptance rate in the figures used to formulate this ranking (based on the 2004 admissions season) was 13%. Yale's was 10%. The differences between per student endowments at Yale and Princeton are nominal.</p>
<p>Anyone who makes the blanket statement that "princeton is better than yale" or indeed that "yale is better than princeton" doesnt have much of an understanding of higher education at all. Yeah, Yale outdoes Princeton in terms of revealed preference rankings and is marginally more difficult to get into. Yes, princeton has stronger physics and math faculty. You could go back and forth endlessly. The point is that, because of the purely mathematical and not at all qualitative reasons princeton came out one spot ahead of yale. Does it mean that you will get a better education at princeton than at yale because of this ranking? </p>
<p>No, and you would be a fool to think so. Yeah, you'd get a better education at princeton than a school ranked 40, but first place versus second-dont kid yourself.</p>
<p>i had my knee-jerk angry/bewildered moment last night when i posted, but then i read the rest of the list, had a good laugh (and felt sorry for brown and georgetown, which are so bizarrely ranked it makes your head spin), and realized it wasn't worth worrying about at all.</p>
<p>Well we certainly can't use RSI as an indicator of anything now can we? </p>
<p>Then it would be massive MIT/Harvard dominance at the top with Stanford trailing far behind in third. And we just can't have that.</p>
<p>Yale and Princeton both lose badly in terms of attracting the top science and math students, mainly to Stanford, MIT and Harvard. Bickering about being the 8th best science school or the 7th really matters not.</p>
<p>Why would you want to go a school filled with RSI-type kids anyway? They are only going to ruin the curve, hog all the top research opportunities, and steal faculty attention...</p>
<p>Because then you can brag to the illiterate punk bagging your groceries, hey look at me! I go to a school filled with the most Rickoids!!! that should definitely show him his place...</p>
<p>US News and School Report rankings are utter crap, and people who choose their schools based on them should be beaten about the head and neck with a blunt object.</p>
<p>Those numbers you cite, besides the WSJ rankings, are irrelevant.</p>
<p>Duke is ranked #19 or so in the Revealed Preference Rankings...which are what really count. Moreover, Duke is the "regional diversity" school--grad schools need Southern kids and take them from Duke most of the time. </p>
<p>Students will pick Penn over Duke most of the time. </p>
<p>That being said, Duke deserves a top 10 spot. But so does Penn.</p>
<p>you should also care about having less putnams than princeton. that's why princeton is better. Though I'm not so sure about academy members... 104 for yale, 86 for princeton... Truly, yale is a wasteland of science compared to princeton. Right...</p>
<p>Crimson, please account for size differential. If you would like to consider preeminence in the math and sciences, Yale will certainly lose time and time again. Wiles, Feynman, Nash, Bhargava and others dominate Yale's nonexistent departments. Biological sciences are probably the only category in which Yale and Princeton are equivalent, it is fruitless to challenge Princeton in Physics, Math, Engineering and others. I hate to be a dissident in such a warm Yale community, but I have great disdain for those who distort facts. (Crimson Bulldog in particular, in both the harvard and princeton boards as well)</p>
<p>well, I really wonder how misleading this statement really is. Its hard to ascertain exactly how many science/engineering/math faculty there are at each institution without alot of work. Do you know? You must since you attacked me for being so misleading. If you subtract out schools like woody woo and achitetcture from princeton, and law, managment, divinity... and the like at yale, I would hazard that there is not a large distance between yale in princeton in terms of academy members/faculty ratio if that's what you are looking for. I personally think that if you are going to do some sort of comparison that is going to be pertinent to applying students, a better measurement might be academy members per student - especially if all you are looking for is the research aspect. In that case, they are again about the same, and considering princeton is increasing its size to about that of yale over the next few years, yale will outpace soon enough. All in all, I think this sort of measurement like how many merit scholars and how many rickoids are in the class or how many nobel laureates are on faculty is a superficial and naive basis to compare undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>I have noticed that (like others, perhaps) you tend to reject any test, measure or ranking that doesn't make your favorite school look good - or even to use the rankings relative to "lower" schools, but reject their significance relative to "higher" schools.</p>
<p>You suppose Yale will outpace Princeton soon enough? Hardly. The new addition to the yearly class size will be nearly all "academic admits", as opposed to the baseline number of athletes and others Yale and other schools must admit. This will only increase the gap between the two in terms of quality and sheer absolute numbers of top students. While I too don't agree that the number of NMSF or other scholars isnt a perfect correlator of undergrad school quality, the adage "what you can't measure you can't manage" certainly rings a bell. In the immeasurable categories, Princeton focuses much more on undergrads. I was merely reiterating the measurable tools that, along with the more ethereal qualities, solidify Princeton's place over Yale in the math/sciences</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with the inner ivy squabbles above, but I have a hard time believing this list is legit when University of Texas at Austin is not even in the top 50. That would make it the biggest loser, about 5 spots, disappearing from top 50.</p>
<p>I reject anyone, especially you Byerly, who uses such rankings to predicate such ludicrous comparisons between institutions whose difference is far too complex to measure in any sort of magazine. I also, you will note, never accept or tout or spew on other boards, like you do, rankings which favor yale or harvard medical school. It goes both ways. </p>
<p>As for the increase in the student body Prefontaine, I have a strong suspicion from the results of Rapeleye's more meritorious admission scheme (at least in comparison to her predecessor), that Princeton will have a tough time competing with harvard and yale for top admits - a finite pool of which princeton has its fair share, but might encounter dilution if it needs to get larger, an effect that is already seen by a decrease in its yield and its reliance on ED. Just doing the math...</p>
<p>Let's assume that athletic recruits lower the average SAT of all Ivies. (Statistically a given, the facts aren't on hand though) Princeton currently has some number x of recruits and y number of students. As y increases over the next few years with x remaining a constant, the SAT average will surely rise. The number of recruits will be constant, even with the addition of students because these new students will be predominantly academic and/or artistic in nature. Just doing the math. On the other hand, there have been several occasions in this thread and others where you proclaim "numbers aren't everything" or something to that effect with regards to quality of undergrad education. Yet, you proudly spout out a nominal yield advantage in Yale's favor. A yield differential so small that it shouldn't be considered nor does it affect the quality of the undergraduate education. Moreover, I'll give you a suspension of disbelief and assume those numbers are significant. I thought "numbers weren't everything." Doesn't look like you are just doing the math bulldog, looks more like you are just doing the rhetoric. (I can't fault you though, other prominent Yalies have taken heat over the past few years for indecisive and misleading proclamations)</p>