<p>hyeonjlee- re your post, "Another thing to remember: the T 20 on the rankings originating in the USA does not always reflect the similar order in the “international top colleges/universities” list -</p>
<p>I must have missed something- whose list is this? If true, it would make a big difference in D’s app list.</p>
<p>The most well known ranking of universities put together within China is the one done by Jiao-tong University.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_TopAmer(EN).htm]ARWU2008[/url”>http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_TopAmer(EN).htm]ARWU2008[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Regional
country World
Rank Institution Rank Country Rank
1 Harvard Univ 1 USA 1
2 Stanford Univ 2 USA 2
3 Univ California - Berkeley 3 USA 3
4 Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT) 5 USA 4
5 California Inst Tech 6 USA 5
6 Columbia Univ 7 USA 6
7 Princeton Univ 8 USA 7
8 Univ Chicago 9 USA 8
9 Yale Univ 11 USA 9
10 Cornell Univ 12 USA 10
11 Univ California - Los Angeles 13 USA 11
12 Univ California - San Diego 14 USA 12
13 Univ Pennsylvania 15 USA 13
14 Univ Washington - Seattle 16 USA 14
15 Univ Wisconsin - Madison 17 USA 15
16 Univ California - San Francisco 18 USA 16
17 Johns Hopkins Univ 20 USA 17
18 Univ Michigan - Ann Arbor 21 USA 18
19 Univ Toronto 24 Canada 1
20 Univ Illinois - Urbana Champaign 26 USA 19</p>
<p>I’ve been noting the differences in acceptance rates for males and females, since my S is interested in some LACs that have higher rates for males. </p>
<p>I happened to look at Carnegie Mellon and noticed a large acceptance rate differential going the other direction. Overall AR 29%, male AR 20%, female AR 44%. </p>
<p>Going all the way back to post #627, I wonder if the “hook” of the student who made it into CMU was being female.</p>
<p>I thought that “hook” could get a girl into RIT (67% male), Rose-Hulman (80% male), WPI (71% male), and RPI (72% male), too. But it turns out that their admission rates for males and females are not that different. (Higher for females, but not by much.)</p>
<p>Funny you should mention that. I was just looking at Caltech CDS and noted male acceptance rate 370/2791 = 13%, females 237/806 = 29%.</p>
<p>I think it is interesting that on this thread people are reasonably talking about various careers with international and national companies. Because over on the “What are my Chances” thread, the only thing more common than kids trying to get into Ivies are kids majoring in some biology related thing (which everyone knows means they all plan to go to med school). So these kids are going to be posting the same type of stuff about stats and chances on some med school board somewhere in another 4 years.</p>
<p>Once again they’ll be competing for the 15,000 or so spots in med school. But their odds will be little better - I think around 1/4 instead of 1/10.</p>
<p>Here is the QS.com World University Rankings 2009- which is a more accurate reflection of the international reputation of universities around the world- I have only pasted the top 20</p>
<p>1 HARVARD University United States
2 YALE University United States
3 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom
4 University of OXFORD United Kingdom
5 CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology (Calt… United States
6 IMPERIAL College London United Kingdom
7 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
8 University of CHICAGO United States
9 MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (M… United States
10 COLUMBIA University United States
11 University of PENNSYLVANIA United States
12 PRINCETON University United States
13= DUKE University United States
13= JOHNS HOPKINS University United States
15 CORNELL University United States
16 AUSTRALIAN National University Australia
17 STANFORD University United States
18 University of MICHIGAN United States
19 University of TOKYO Japan
20 MCGILL University Canada</p>
<p>[QS</a> Top Universities: Top 100 universities in the THE - QS World University Rankings 2007](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university_rankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/]QS”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university_rankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/)</p>
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<p>The reason why international recognition is meaningful, and the above analogy is not a good one is this:</p>
<p>The dry cleaner in central Wyoming has no power over your kid’s career prospect. However, senior executives at Toyota, SONY, Hyndai, and Samsung may just become your kid’s bosses. If you have a choice, wouldn’t you rather have a currency that is globally accepted, or a currency that is accepted only in a certain region? that’s why world’s financial institutions trade in dollars and Euros, rather than Shekels and Dinars. If you follow this logic, you may be better off going to Univ of Michigan Ann Arbor with great international currency accepted all over the world rather than Vanderbilt and Notre Dame whose currency is limited to USA, and it so happens that Michigan is much easier school to get in than Vandy and Nortre Dame that are currently within T 20. So, you get a “great discount” on a terrific product in this admission game - does this seem attractive to you? It does to me.</p>
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<p>I beg to differ on this. All the fields that are considered a strong career prospect are becoming RAPIDLY INTERNATIONALIZED. I used consulting as just an example of many, many international business communities. High tech, bio tech, finances, medical sciences are ALL globalized industries. Any industry sector that has any promising presence in the lives of our kids will be essentially a global game. If anything, show me an industry sector that is not globalized, I will show you a declining industry.</p>
<p>This thread had made me consider more seriously the worldwide reputation of the schools on my S’s list. My S is strongly interested in international affairs and one of the factors on the plus side in his review of colleges is a high percentage of international students. Now I’m thinking that may be a useful proxy for a school’s reputation outside the U.S.</p>
<p>Another thing I’m noticing is the year-to-year changes on the QS list. For example, these are all schools that have moved up 10 or more places on the list since the previous year:</p>
<p>• UCLA
• Dartmouth
• Wash Univ. SL
• Emory
• Rice
• UVA
• UC Santa Barbara</p>
<p>Granted, one year does not make a trend, but it’s something to watch.</p>
<p>In case any of the parents with high score/low GPA kids are interested, there is a CC post about a report that supports the value of SAT scores in predicting college GPAs. It says it removed the effects of self-selection in order to quantify that SAT scores have a better correlation with college GPAs than high school GPAs do. This new information may not help our kids in the application process, but it may make us more confident of our kids chances of succeeding in a competitive college environment.</p>
<p>The report is blogged by Po Bronson, a co-author of NurtureShock, the new bestseller that shatters many myths about the conventional wisdom of raising children. I am itching to get that book, but Im afraid it will be added to the big stack I already have of books that I start but dont finish.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/781754-defense-sat.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/781754-defense-sat.html</a></p>
<p>One thing I would say about both those international lists is that it’s pretty shockng how low Dartmouth is on them.</p>
<p>But that could be explained by the size and nature of the university. I think universities which are larger and specialize in the sciences are more likely to rank high on these lists. Why? </p>
<p>Granted, I only glanced quickly at the methodologes but the ARWU seems to rely more on the production of the university in terms of things like Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, etc. Since a lot of these things are “sciency” I think it is natural for more technical universities to rate high on this list.</p>
<p>The QS rankings are based more on peer recognition. This is where my theory is not as strong, and sort of based on my perception. It is my perception that academics in the sciences just naturally cooperate and are more aware of the top univerisites in the world than their colleagues in the social sciences and humanities. I think a lot of this is due to the natural language and cultural barriers, which have a greater influence in the non-technical areas. These are just my guesses here.</p>
<p>If this thread is now just becoming “let’s substitute a slightly different top 20 list for the USNews top 20 list,” then I will respectfully but sadly bow out of this thread because my objective was never to slavishly chase a school based on its rating, but rather to get and share advice on how a certain caliber student should approach finding his or her sweet spot in a long list of excellent colleges. These international prestige lists always favor unis over LACs, favor math/science/business over humanities, and are just as shallow IMO as the US lists. </p>
<p>Might as well dress myself by surveying what designers are most prestigious and then buying their clothes, regardless of whether they suit me. I prefer the discussion to start from quality rather than prestige. Of course the circles overlap, but they aren’t the same.</p>
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<p>I worked in Asia quite often. What’s happening is a much greater interest in US colleges due to globalization and the efforts of colleges to make themselves known there. So people are doing research, books are being written and their knowledge of colleges in the educated circles is no longer based on sports.</p>
<p>The US News lists now trips off the tongue of my Asian colleagues. Trust me, they all know Dartmouth–I’m a good barometer because I have a kid there and I get lots of calls asking how to get in. I’m getting asked a lot of questions about Amherst too. I’d say at this point those in influential positions are almost as fluid in reciting the T20 as we are here, and in a decade it will be second nature.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, the main reason I follow this thread, mainly as a lurker, is that it has taken lots of interesting, informative and unexpected twists and turns, to wander back to the original intent and then wander off again. Who knows what beyond post #900?</p>
<p>I am waiting for Dec 15 and Mar 30th. This could be invaluable for next year’s seniors.</p>
<p>I agree with Pizzagirl. Very interesting discussion about the international prestige of certain US universities but not every kid is going into a career field that is global in nature. Most people end up in careers that are more regional. Even the vast majority of ‘business’ positions are more local than global unless you’re going to work for an international firm.</p>
<p>So, in the interest of moving the conversation in another direction… I’m curious as to how many on this thread are going to apply EA or even ED to their top 20 school? I’ve been following this thread from the beginning but can’t remember whether we have discussed that here. I known there are numerous threads on the advantages of doing this but I’m particularly curious about our little gang of ‘under 3.6 GPAs’ here.</p>
<p>I’m encouraging son to apply to the one Top 20 that has EA but the other 2 only have ED and he’s still not ‘committed’ to just one school. Several of our in-state U honor programs have very early deadlines (11-15), so he will get those out of the way as well.</p>
<p>I’m a little torn on the EA thing. It’s possible he will bring his grades up a notch this first semester but then again, they could go down! 
Feels a little bit like a gamble either way.</p>
<p>Momlive, good turn to the thread. The current plan is two EAs and a priority decision to our flagship. Once we have some decisions (up, down or deferred), we’ll see where to go from there.</p>
<p>S’s first-year roommate came to the US on a “visioning trip” before applying to colleges. Did the quick round of campus tours at much of the USNWR T10 without concerning themselves with dorms or meal plans. He said the expectations from his teachers was clear. Said roommate arrived at Chicago last fall having never seen the place, but by golly, he knew its ranking. I knew it would be a long year when he asked us “if it really gets cold in Chicago.”</p>
<p>It was another reminder to us that there are students around the world who want to attend top US colleges, period. The T20 had a big red bullseye drawn around it. Fit was irrelevant.</p>
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<p>Same here. I’m glad our two flagship universities have earlier deadlines than most of the private schools. It will be a relief to get a few acceptances under his belt. It’s weird because these are his two safeties (meaning we know with 100% certainty he will get in to the schools) but he would also like to get into the honors programs -which also makes them reaches for him because they are both very competitive honors programs.</p>
<p>As far as ‘fit’ my son (so far) seem indifferent to that. One particular school hasn’t ‘clicked’ with him yet. I’m hoping he will eventually have an epiphany during one of his college visits and I’m hoping it will be at a school he can get into.</p>
<p>We are going to visit Chicago and Michigan in a few weeks. Since we are deep in the south (but I grew up in the NE) we keep asking son ‘do you have any idea how cold it gets up there?’. He seems nonplussed about it but until you live in that weather, you really don’t know what cold is!</p>
<p>I think it’s important to note that the international lists of universities are focused on the university as a whole, and not just on the undergraduate eduction (that probably explains why Dartmouth isn’t rated as high as others; same for Princeton). Choosing a school for undergrad based on its graduate reputation is like choosing it for its football reputation if you play baseball.
It seems to me that what this thread is (or at least should be) about is kids who are looking for strategies to get into schools that are tough reaches for them, but where they want to go because they want the education that’s available there.</p>
<p>We just sent in the first part of the first applicatoin (Georgetown) and my son got a bit of a deer in the headlights look when he already had to decide whether he was applying EA - I didn’t see any reason not to, and told him he could always change his mind before the deadline. For my older son EA was invaluable in getting him started on applications before December 30. I’m sure son would benefit from ED, but he doesn’t have a clear first choice.</p>
<p>The discussion about worldwide reputations etc. has been interesting to me, since neither my husband or I or for that matter my son who is already in college thought that way. We just don’t have that business outlook on the world. (Sometimes to our detriment, I’ll add.)</p>