Top Student Looking Beyond the Ivy League? Read on….

College Search & Selection
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<p>We have all heard many times about the difficulty of gaining acceptance into the Ivy League schools and especially now when the pool of qualified applicants has never been bigger. As a result, highly qualified students would be well advised to take into account a broader range of schools than ever before. So, if you're a top student and willing to look beyond the Ivies, then read on….</p>

<p>I recently compared the Division I colleges in the USNWR Top 20 to the lower Ivies, ie, those not named HYP. (I assign Stanford the same status as HYP and don’t include them in the comparison) The schools that I looked at were:</p>

<p>Ivy Group-Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, U Penn, Cornell </p>

<p>The Next 5 Division I Colleges-Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame</p>

<p>The point of the comparison is NOT to knock the Ivy schools, but rather to educate about schools that are less familiar, yet also of the highest academic quality. Traditionally, most observers would probably presume the Ivies as superior and with better students (although Duke now is accepted as a true peer to these lower Ivies). But over the past decade, as the demographics and matriculation patterns have evolved, the statistical differences between the lower Ivies and this second group of Division I schools have narrowed and, in some cases, reversed. </p>

<p>You might ask why I chose to concentrate on the Division I schools. This was a deliberate comparison as I believe that the full undergraduate package (academic, social, athletic) offered at these schools will have greater appeal to many students than what is available at the Ivy League schools. To many potential applicants, non-academic factors are important considerations in the search for the best undergraduate environment and IMO these 5 schools (Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame) can offer a superior overall experience. I also believe that these schools, all located outside of the Northeast, are underrated and would be excellent college choices for many top students from the Northeast and elsewhere. </p>

<p>So what are some of the facts? Here are some interesting comparisons:</p>

<p>AVERAGE NUMBER OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS:
7514 Lower Ivies
6452 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>ENDOWMENT PER CAPITA
$298,301 Lower Ivies
$429,326 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>% ADMITTED:
17% Lower Ivies
27% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>25/75 CRITICAL READING
654-752 Lower Ivies
644-742 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame
10 points Difference in favor of Ivies</p>

<p>25/75 MATH
672-768 Lower Ivies
664-760 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame
8 points Difference in favor of Ivies</p>

<p>25/75 COMBINED CR + MATH
1326-1520 Lower Ivies
1308-1502 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame
18 points Difference in favor of Ivies</p>

<p>% OF STUDENTS IN THE TOP 10%
90% Lower Ivies
84% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>FRESHMAN RETENTION
97% Lower Ivies
97% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>% FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS
56% Lower Ivies
64% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>CLASSES OVER 50 STUDENTS
10% Lower Ivies
8% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>CLASSES UNDER 20 STUDENTS
67% Lower Ivies
64% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>STUDENT/FACULTY RATIO
8/1 Lower Ivies
8/1 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>ALUMNI GIVING RATE
40% Lower Ivies
37% Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>AVERAGE COST
$35,499 Lower Ivies
$32,999 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>PEER ASSESSMENT
4.5 Lower Ivies
4.2 Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame</p>

<p>Statistically, the other Top 20 schools that are not Division I (U Chicago, Wash U, Johns Hopkins, Emory) also compare well to the Lower Ivies. Though to a lesser degree, so also do the top publics (UC Berkeley, U Virginia, U Michigan, UCLA, U North Carolina, W&M). However, for some students, the top publics have an undeniable appeal when the full undergraduate experience-academic, social, athletic- is considered.</p>

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<p>Where do you find the time to come up with this stuff every day.....</p>

3

<p>Amen to that, I'm looking at Duke, Vanderbilt and Northwestern as my top schools. Could care less about the Ivies</p>

4

<p>I think Hawkette has done a great job of assembling data for the purpose of comparing some "name brand" products to other, less publicized options. I don't see it as "anti" anything. Just data. As a person who will buy a Toyota instead of a Lexus if the functions served are objectively comparable, I like Hawkette's approach. I think she does a genuine service for the CC community.</p>

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<p>45 percenter,
Au contraire, mi amigo, no anti-Ivy thinking at all as I consider all to be exceptional academic colleges. </p>

<p>IMO, the facts are that when students have more choices, they win in the college search process. Perhaps my reading of CC is different than yours, but I see a preoccupation with the Ivy League and the prestige that some students seek as they perform their college searches. That will probably never change, but reality in the form of top student demographics will necessitate that top students broaden their search and that will extend to colleges that heretofore have not been on many high school students radar screens. I am just trying to educate on some alternatives around the country that I consider of the same class as the Ivies but with less national recognition. </p>

<p>As for the lower Ivies comment, this is meant as a compliment to HYP which I do believe are the premier colleges in America (along with Stanford) and their yields indicate that most folks would agree with that view. However, for the other five Ivies, they benefit mightily from their association with HYP and, left on their own, are truly comparable to the five-pack that I have presented here. You probably don't want to hear that, but the data would say otherwise, even if those in academia would not. </p>

<p>In any event, your suggestion to compare each school on its own merits is right on the money and I join you in offering that advice to top students doing their college search. And I would add that a college visit will do even more to dispel any myths that are out there about any of these schools, Ivy or not. Go see the schools, kick the tires, and see the differences first-hand in academics, in social life, in athletic life, etc. I think students will be pleased to learn that there are lots of great schools all over the country.</p>

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<p>

If you're talking purely about admissions data, they're close, although in the cases of all except maybe Cornell, one or more of their admissions stats (admit rate, yield, SATs, GPAs, etc.) significantly best your "5-pack" except for Duke.</p>

<p>But more significantly, there is other data that you completely ignore. For example, in individual rankings of departments, respected statistical rankings by independent organizations (Center for Measuring University Performance, etc.), research budget rankings, faculty awards and academy memberships, faculty research output, etc., schools like Penn and Columbia far exceed several of the schools in your 5-pack. And it is these kinds of factors that also distinguish universities.</p>

<p>My problem in general is your lumping the top 30 "non-technical" universities into basically 2 groups: HYPS on the one hand, and all the rest on the other. That is simply not reality. To the extent you can rank universities in general (as opposed to on the basis of individual departments or attributes), there is a continuum of quality, and not a bright line that separates them into either group A or group B. If you want to say that Penn, Duke, Columbia, and Chicago are somewhat comparable in general quality, and perhaps a step below HYPS, that makes sense. But to try to argue that those schools are academically comparable to and on the same step as, e.g., Vanderbilt or Notre Dame, is unsupportable statistically, by reputation, or otherwise. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Penn and Columbia are in the Ivy League with HYP--their outstanding academic reputations stand on their own, and anyone familiar with the relevant facts and statistics is aware of that.</p>

<p>So yes, let's stop encouraging kids to lump HYPS, "lower Ivies", Hawkette 5-pack, etc. together into groups for purposes of their analysis, and instead encourage them to carefully examine each school on an individual basis, on its own terms.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I like Hawkette's approach. I think she does a genuine service to the CC community.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree. What I appreciate is that Hawkette is not on these boards to constantly promote, defend and herald one particular university in every possible thread. Her data-filled posts are either useful or not depending on where you're coming from, but it almost always offers a different perspective and sparks discussion. Often as a result of the discussion, I learn things about the numbers behind the rankings or about major/program offerings at colleges that I didn't know about before. And while I don't always agree with her preferences --- I'm not fan of big-hoopla sports programs --- I don't believe she has a narrow, self-serving agenda for being on CC. </p>

<p>If someone doesn't want to read Hawkette's posts, they can "ignore" them.</p>

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<p>45 percenter,
I think thee doth protest too much. You make good points and your statistical characterization of the ranking order of the ten referenced schools is likely in sync with my own (Duke on top, Cornell, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame on the bottom). Not entirely sure what you are objecting to unless it is the idea that these schools should be mentioned in the same breadth. </p>

<p>I agree that there is a continuum, but that its slope is much less steep than historical thinking might lead you to believe and even that some colleges along that continuum have changed their position over time. While academics may be slow (if not resistant for whatever reasons) to adjust their opinions of schools, students must reaffirm those opinions every year and IMO the students' choices are the real cutting edge of who is moving up and who is moving down. </p>

<p>For me, the most important drivers of what is happening with college admissions are matters of simple math. Consider the following:</p>

<p>1) 3.4mm high school students graduated in May. That number is expected to increase for the next several years. 340,000 of these students scored in the top 10% of their high school classes. </p>

<p>2) There are 13,300 entering spots for students at the eight Ivy League colleges. This number is not expected to change significantly going forward. </p>

<p>3) 1.46mm students took the SAT 1 last year. 60,000 of them scored at the 1400 level or higher. </p>

<p>Those three facts alone will do more to influence college searches and college admissions than anything else and the inescapable conclusion is that there are a lot of excellent students out there and many want to go to top schools. They have to go somewhere and many will choose schools outside of the Ivy League group. </p>

<p>The Ivies are great academic schools with great historical prestige that even a statistically comparable (or some would say even better) school like Duke has difficulty matching. So, I ask if there are other non-Ivy institutions out there that are also worthy of a top student's consideration? I believe that there are (and I will also state that the list is much longer than the five I have suggested). Making a general list is the first stage of the college search process and once that initial list has been created (probably 5-15 schools depending on the student), then the individual comparisons can and should take place. So, if a student asks about Rice vs Dartmouth, I will be happy to assist and provide the data comparison and recommend a visit to each. Likewise with all of these schools, but historically, many of these schools have not been in the public's mind and not on those initial lists and IMO more of them should be. </p>

<p>Sorry to go with this, but given your and other challenges, I thought it might be helpful.</p>

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<p>Hawkette is trying to give alternatives to Ivies, which is a good thing.</p>

<p>However, out of Duke NU Rice Vandy and ND...</p>

<p>I think only Duke and Northwestern are comparable to the non-HYP Ivies, as in students at Ivies would fit in just as well at them, and vice versa.</p>

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<p>"Lower" Ivies is an oxymoron if there ever was one. There isn't anything "low" about Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth or UPenn (either as a group -- non-HYP Ivies or individually) - they are amongst the best universities in the nation. Period.</p>

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<p>"to state over and over that Big hoopla sports programs are better than ivies and other schools"</p>

<p>Ramses</p>

<p>I think almost everyone will agree that Duke, Northwestern, and Rice are more than Big Hoopla Sports programs. All three are comparable to all of the non-HYP Ivies in terms of academics, placement, selectivity, and reputation, with at least Duke and Northwestern being equals in all these categories. I'm not sure why the close minded comment.</p>

<p>Hawkette is very clear on her goal - to give alternatives to Ivies that have larger sports programs but are just as strong academically. She does exactly that. Provides plenty of facts to back it up.</p>

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<p>thethoughtprocess,
We would disagree in our assessments of where students would fit in as the historical patterns are evolving to encompass a greater circle of top students and top schools and I would argue that Rice, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame all have students and environments that would fit in a fashion similar to those at Duke and Northwestern. </p>

<p>All of these schools (Ivy and non-Ivy) have different groups on their campuses and it is difficult and wrong to pigeon-hole a school as only having one type of student. For example, on a campus like your school, Duke, with 6500 students, I am sure that there are many, many personalities present and different social options for students. IMO, this would be as true as these five non-Ivies schools as at any of the mentioned Ivies. And I also believe that student satisfaction is excellent at all of these schools with freshman retention rates of 95% or higher at each. </p>

<p>In statistical terms, I would place Rice at the same level as or above all of the Ivies not named HYP and I am pretty certain that there is great overlap in their applicant pool. I also believe that the quality of this school's enrolled student body is now at a premium to Northwestern. </p>

<p>At a slightly lower level, the same is happening with Vanderbilt which IMO has been a large beneficiary of the enlarged strong student applicant pool and institutional steps to attract a more geographically and ethnically diverse student body. </p>

<p>ND probably has less overlap with the Ivies than the others due both to its Catholic nature as well as its Midwestern location, but it also has national drawing power among certain demographics that makes the Ivies immaterial and that universe of students is also growing. </p>

<p>I should also add that while this post only lists the data for Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame, I believe that other schools increasingly vying for top students include:</p>

<p>Division III: U Chicago, Wash U, Johns Hopkins, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, Tufts</p>

<p>Division I Private: Georgetown, USC, Wake Forest</p>

<p>Division I Public: UC Berkeley, U Virginia, U Michigan, UCLA, U North Carolina, W&M</p>

<p>and I am sure that there are others that I am neglecting here.</p>

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<p>hawkette, I agree with you in principle. But I think you should try painting with a narrower brush stroke, and not average together the statistics of schools that aren't really comparable.</p>

<p>For example, what good does it do to compare the average of the SAT CR ranges of Duke and Notre Dame with the same average of ranges of Dartmouth and Cornell? The Duke/ND average range is 645-745, and the Dartmouth/Cornell average range is 645-750, leading to the conclusion that these 4 schools are very comparable in this metric, with a slight edge to the 2 Ivies. But in reality, Duke has the strongest range at 690-770, most comparable to Dartmouth's range of 670-770, and Notre Dame has the lowest range at 600-720, most comparable to Cornell at 620-730. So the reality is that Duke and Dartmouth are really on one level with resepct to this metric, and Cornell and ND are on another level. But by lumping Duke with ND and Dartmouth with Cornell, one would miss that.</p>

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<p>I think that part of what Hawkette is after is stripping away the "brand name" mentality which surrounds the Ivy League. As several posters have noted, the League comprises eight very different schools, yet innumerable posts are seen here on CC asking indiscriminately about "my chances at Ivy's?" Selecting different ways to group different sets of schools (as opposed to focusing on the quirky historical athletic conference that is the "Ivy League") is a helpful step in assessing different schools on their various merits. And what is helpful is that Hawkette has striven to use actual data as opposed to anecdotal evidence, opinion, and the like. I don't see any basis for complaint with that, even if I disagree with some of Hawkette's apparent personal preferences.</p>

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<p>

But what she actually does in her first post is the exact opposite, by lumping the 5 non-HYP Ivies together. If you want to strip away the "brand name", you look at each school on its individual merits. You don't use a single set of average statistics for all 5 schools as if they're a monolithic entity. That just further encourages the kind of thinking you're supposedly trying to discourage.</p>

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<p>Yeah, even the non-HYP Ivies differ in quality, strength, and culture - agree with 45.</p>

<p>If they weren't in the Ivy League, they'd still be considered amazing schools and also not be made fun of for being in the Ivy league as they are now.</p>

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<p>"Lower Ivies" is a short-hand description used so widely on CC that it's ridiculous to criticize Hawkette for using it. She is not anti-lower Ivy and if that's what you're getting from her posts, you're seeing a tree or two and not the forest. </p>

<p>Okay, so the averaging of data for the Ivies-ranked-lower-than-HYP as compared to several other hand-picked top colleges did not "work" as a way to view the relative merits of different universities. Personally, I think it's a mistake to try to spark discussion about merit and rank by dividing schools into athletic levels or leagues. There will never be another Ivy League, so what's the point. Those eight colleges have had hundreds of years to build wealth and reputation and to create a label or "brand name" that is recognizable worldwide.
I don't think you can even begin to counter that advantage by trying to group another set of excellent universities into similar athletic groups. Doesn't work. </p>

<p>What Hawkette does that does work, imo, is to put out lists and posits that encourage people to look at the notion of rankings from a different perspective. What if PA had less weight? What is student selectivity and how much should SAT matter? What if the faculty component got more weight? Should research output matter more or less?</p>

<p>I don't think Hawkette is trying to attack Ivies, upper or lower. I think she is trying to get those students and parents (particularly NE-centric ones) who are so sure that their POV regarding ranking and prestige is the only right one, to see that it's a big country with a lot of smaller "power corridors" and to see that the rankings could be reordered from different points of view. (Not that that would ever happen IRL, of course.) People should not take it so personally, as though a suggested reordering of ranking priorities is an attack on their kid's college or their own alma mater. It's not.l</p>

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<p>Hawkette----</p>

<p>I think it's incorrect to lump HYPS --- and "lower ivies". As someone said, there is no "lower" Ivy, and that in fact it's a continuum.</p>

<p>Columbia, Penn, and Dartmouth strikes me as three that should not be lumped together with Brown and Cornell.</p>

<p>Columbia & Penn both have all their professional schools in the top 5-10, $5billion+ endowments, dozens of Nobel Prizes (Columbia has the most in the world with 83), and extremely low acceptances rates (Columbia 9%, Penn ~13%). </p>

<p>Brown and Cornell have much bigger student populations and MUCH less endowment per capita.</p>

<p>I agree with the premise that Duke, due to historical or whatever reasons can not, whether rightfully or not, despite a 28% acceptance rate, be compared with Cornell or Brown. But realistically, Duke loses the cross-admit battle with every Ivy League school and there's a prevalent Ivy-inferiority complex among Duke students (most of whom where rejected from an Ivy league school). But Duke yes-- for the sake of this argument can be compared with the "lower" Ivies. </p>

<p>BUT, this does not give the leeway you give to some other schools like Vandy, northwester, notre dame etc. There's simply too much discrepency between the objective factors and the abilities of the student body. </p>

<p>Prestige, Intellgence, Selectivity is something like this among the ivies:</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Columbia/Wharton</li>
<li>Penn CAS/Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>

<p>Duke I'd say realistically can only compare to Cornell and Brown. Anyone disagree?</p>

<p>I'd just like to add that among the "lower Ivies", Columbia, Penn, and Cornell are research POWERHOUSES and absolutely, uneqivocably blows Duke, Northwester, Notre Dame, and Rice away in this respect. Columbia has graduated dozens of Supreme Court Justices, two United States presidents, dozens of Fortune 500 CEO's, 3 of the richest 25 Americans, 83 Nobel Laureates (graduated ~30 of them, most in the world), and many, many more prominent alumni. Additionally, it's business school, law school, journalism school and medical school are perenially among the top 5 in the countries in each. The same argument can be put forth for Penn and Cornell. Can anyone do this for Duke, Northwestern, Rice? I'm not bashing D,N,R, but I'm just saying it's unrealistic to unequivocably state that ''lower'' ivies = Duke, northwestern, rice. Admit rates are dictated by market demand, and as long as people recognize the intrinsic value, rightfully or wrongfully, of an Ivy League Diploma, any of the Ivies will be better than these schools.</p>

<p>P.S--> If you don't believe that Ivy League schools, specifically HYPColumbiaPennDartmouth degrees are particulary useful, go to <a href="http://www.ibankingoasis.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.ibankingoasis.com&lt;/a> and search Target schools. You will see that BB firms (Bulge bracket investment banking-- think Goldman Sachs) hires a VAST, VAST majority of their analysts from Ivy League + MIT + Stanford + Duke.</p>

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<p>TruAzn, </p>

<p>"Duke I'd say realistically can only compare to Cornell and Brown. Anyone disagree?" <--I disagree, along with almost all available data. I'm not sure how little you know about Duke, but it does indeed seem like a small amount. </p>

<p>-Duke's enrolled student body has higher average SAT scores and more National Merit Scholars than any Ivy besides HYP and Dartmouth proportionally. Columbia has 70 National Merit Scholars while Duke has 120. This is a significant difference. The average SAT score at Duke is also 20-30 points higher than Columbia. </p>

<p>So, Duke has twice as many National Merit Scholars and an average SAT score 30 points higher than that of Columbia - Duke's student body is a bit more high achieving. </p>

<p>-Despite being the South, look at the one-year snapshot of professional school placement by Duke (note that many of the survey schools are Northeast Ivy league schools, with a definite NE bias:
<a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Duke placed more students than any Ivy aside from HYP. Yet you insist Duke cannot be compared? Even though, despite being located 500 miles away it places more students into top Ivy professional schools than some Ivies themselves. </p>

<p>-Duke also has the same or higher Peer Assessment score as Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown, though Peer Assessment is garbage in my opinion. So, even though Columbia, in your words, is a research POWERHOUSE!?! Duke is pretty much equal.</p>

<p>-Duke also has the same Wall Street presence as any Ivy, aside from Harvard and Princeton. You mentioned IbankingOasis. Here is a snapshot of one summer analyst class posted on that forum:
<a href="http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Duke placed in the same range or more than Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, and Cornell. A higher absolute number than Columbia, in particular, is striking as Columbia is located in Manhattan, while Duke is located in North Carolina.</p>

<p>-Regarding cross-applicants, Duke also, without much surprise, splits applicants evenly with Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, and Columbia. In fact, Duke has the same or better placement, academic strength, and student quality while also having nicer weather.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
But realistically, Duke loses the cross-admit battle with every Ivy League school and there's a prevalent Ivy-inferiority complex among Duke students (most of whom where rejected from an Ivy league school).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh, brother. Care to take a page from Hawkette, and provide us with some factual data supporting this statement, most especially the "Ivy-inferiority complex among Duke students." Good grief.</p>