<p>@sehui04
Yes, California has it the worst but there are many students who wait till the last minute to solve their problems and sign up for classes. I’m pretty sure that most UC’s have a first come, first serve basis were the first people to sign up for classes get that class. So if you wait till the last minute and the class you want to take fills up, tough luck. I know several people who stayed up till 12 AM the day of class registration just so they could get all the classes they wanted to. So if you are proactive and do everything you can, you can graduate in four years and get all the classes you want. Sometimes that may mean you have to improvise but like I said, anyone can graduate in fours years if they are motivated to.</p>
<p>I’m kinda disappointed GW didn’t crack the top 50 this year (51), we’ve been flirting with the top 50 over the past couple of years</p>
<p>Would someone please post the top 25 universities and LACs sorted by exclusivity and if possible including 25-75 sat ranges and percent of class in top 10 percent of HS class. Thanks</p>
<p>Also, I would like to point out that US News World Report College Rankings is their biggest money maker. That’s why they hype it up so much, they even had a countdown. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they manipulated their rankings to keep it fresh and interesting every year so people keep on buying it.</p>
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<p>Sarcasm doesn’t show through in posts – PLEASE tell me you weren’t being serious!!!</p>
<p>Brand name, just like in America.</p>
<p>is this data based on the highschool graduating class of 2010 or what?</p>
<p>“There are certain metrics that USNews would have to start including before I start to even remotely think about taking them seriously. For one, student happiness and contentment - preferably measured midway through their college career to avoid freshman euphoria or senior exhaustion - ought to be central in their measurements. Being at a highly prestigious college does not necessarily mean you are happy at that college.”</p>
<p>This, coming from a Brown student - how shocking. Look, next time you or someone you love needs heart surgery, feel free to select a surgical team based on how happy the patients are in different wings of the hospital*. See how that works out for you. </p>
<p>Look, we don’t judge the effectiveness of an army based on how happy its soldiers are, and we don’t measure the effectiveness of a government by rating the happiness of its bureaucrats. Neither do we rate the quality of institutions of higher education by how ‘happy’ its students are. Seriously, what a silly idea. I would wager that most party school kids are a lot happier than kids at pressure cooker schools - though, guess who will probably be having more fun in the long run? School is about preparation, growth, and access - building yourself and your future. Guess what? There’s a reason they call them ‘growing pains’. =(</p>
<p>*(if one can even accurately distinguish between ‘real/internal’ and ‘superficial/projected/imagined’ happiness… or if one could accurately account for all of the potentially present underlying factors that may produce said ‘happiness’…)</p>
<p>It seems like all the 3rd tier schools suddenly broke into the 1st tier.</p>
<p>Rutgers, Hofstra, Seton Hall, George Mason.</p>
<p>I mean *** is this or am I just reading something wrong?</p>
<p>Rutgers has been in the top 100 first tier forever. I think they did expand it to 200 but RU was in before that at around the low 60’s.</p>
<p>I haven’t looked at the table. But in the past, the lower UCs were so overrated because they all reported >95% students in the top 10% of HS. Does California have everyone in the top-10%? :rolleyes: </p>
<p>With so many crappy HS in California, it doesn’t take much to be in the top-10% in many of those schools anyway.</p>
<p>Well its settled I’m applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>Columbia above Stanford?</p>
<p>what is this?</p>
<p>lol are u kidding?!. why there is 6 high schools in California ranks in top 25 ?
[America’s</a> Best High Schools: Gold Medal List - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html]America’s”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html)</p>
<p>Bait&Switch, I found your unnecessarily smug rebuttal extremely hurtful. I never said that college ought to be 4 straight years of being completely blissed out. Of course everyone experiences growing pains going through school. I didn’t mention it because I assumed it was a given. And I apologize, I should have been more specific about what I meant by happiness. What I mean is, there should be a measure of how many kids, at the end of their four years, would choose the same school again. This might add an interesting dimension to the rankings. At elite colleges, many students who might potentially transfer out in search of a more satisfying experience (or for the more financially conscious, a school with a better ROI) might not because of that school’s purported prestige. There are always instances where kids will choose a school based on its prestige over the school that is likely a better fit for them, so these kids could provide valuable insight (or warning) to future applicants. </p>
<p>As for your contention that party school kids are happy that kids at pressure cookers, you’re probably right. But you are assuming, strangely, that parties are all it takes to make kids happy. I for one am happiest when I am most stimulated academically and extracurricularly. I think that educational fulfillment is central to personal fulfillment for most students attending top-flight schools, so it makes sense to include a happiness factor in rankings. Furthermore, I think students grow best when they are in a nurturing (not to be confused with coddling) and supportive environment, one in which they are unafraid to make mistakes, potentially unlike some of the higher ranked schools. I say “potentially” because no real measure of that is reflected in any ranking besides that one single Princeton Review ranking. And honestly, it’s been shown many, many times that happier employees are more effective employees, so I would hesitate before generalizing your argument to the professional world.</p>
<p>And if you had looked at any of my previous posts, you would see that I am not yet a Brown student. I transferred out of Stanford, so feel free to cast whatever dispersions about Brown you like. I am speaking as someone who truly values the educational experience, even at the expense of losing prestige (whatever that means) by switching institutions. I personally see no difference in the prestige between the two, and academically speaking Brown suits me better.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy Dartmouth :).</p>
<p>Now that I’m really thinking about it, I might just choose a hospital based on how happy patients in the hospital are. People don’t usually smile when they think they are going to die :)</p>
<p>Sparkeye7</p>
<p>I think you’re failing to distinguish between the stats of the incoming class and the stats of the admitted students. For nearly any school the number is going to be lower for the former. </p>
<p>I only mention this because a while back, when I was still looking at schools, my friend and I were surprised at how low the standard was in the middle states and 2 of the schools that popped up were Nebraska and Ohio. I don’t remember the exact number but I seem to remember that the SATs of the incoming class, for either Ohio or Nebraska, was really low for the kind of attention that it gets.</p>
<p>We were also surprised at the high admit rate, which gave us the impression that nearly every college educated person in the state of Ohio applied to and was accepted into OSU.</p>
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<p>I love the ignorance in your theory about how to solve the problem of getting the classes needed at a UC (see below). The reason why people KNOW (not merely think) that UC students can’t get the classes they want is because pretty much everyone in CA knows several friends and/or relatives who got shut out of needed classes at a UC. It’s all over the place. </p>
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<p>Getting up early and being proactive won’t ensure that everyone gets the classes they need. The real problem is that they have more students enrolled than they can accomodate in their classes. And in such a situtation getting a slot in a class means some other kid(s) are shut out of that slot. Thus the early birds may well get the classes they need, but all that means is that different kids get shut out and have to take 5 or 6 years to graduate instead of them. It does not mean that every kid can graduate in 4 years by getting up early.</p>
<p>@WhoFriend</p>
<p>Most Popular Colleges - Acceptance Rate / Yield</p>
<p>[Most</a> Popular Colleges: National Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html]Most”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html)</p>
<p>Profile of the admitted freshman class of 2010 </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://undergrad.osu.edu/domesticfreshman.html]Admissions[/url”>http://undergrad.osu.edu/domesticfreshman.html]Admissions[/url</a>]</p>
<p>With additional ~30% application increase, this year’s acceptance rate dropped to 50% at best. I think you are making the same mistake that I made when I first got here. “Acceptance Rate” really doesn’t tell much if anything!! (i.e. Case Western w/ ~75% Acceptance Rate!!)</p>
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<p>You’re ‘hard evidence’ amounts to hearsay. Which iisn’t very productive. As a student in the UC system who’s about to graduate, I can tell you that it’s quite easy to get the classes you want or need. Freshmen will always have a problem getting fun classes but I don’t know anyone who couldn’t get into Math 16 or Bio 2. Literally no one. The only time I’ve EVER heard that happen is when the timing conflicts with other classes, usually elective courses because the way classes are scheduled by the administration makes it so that required courses like Bio and Chem have time-slot alternatives.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you permit hearsay as legitimate evidence, then my ramblings trump yours. Because I have the hearsay accounts of several hundred friends and acquaintances.</p>