<p>I recently sent in my deposit to Georgetown after getting rejected from Columbia and turning down UChicago, Northwestern, and WashU. But I'm starting to get obsessed with the rankings and thinking maybe I traded down for Georgetown. I feel like I'm just going to a school for Ivy League rejects. Every now and then I'll see something that comforts me, like a cross-admit chart that shows that about a third of people getting into Columbia, Dartmouth, and UPenn end up choosing Gtown, and about half of people getting into Duke turn it down for Gtown. How should I really feel?</p>
<p>These stupid rankings should play only a tiny factor (if at all) in your decision - and certainly should not factor AT ALL into your 'self-esteem' about college.</p>
<p>You picked Georgetown for a reason.</p>
<p>You shoud have gone to Wisconsin where nobody worries about such crap yet they still go on to do great things.</p>
<p>bump bump munp</p>
<p>who cares really? i turned down cornell for a non-ivy and my friend who is obsessed with rankings tells me all the time i made a bad choice because EVERYONE knows/respects the ivy league and i will have doors opened for me for my whole life. what do i say back? "OK"</p>
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I feel like I'm just going to a school for Ivy League rejects
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<p>You're going to find that everywhere you could've also gone: UChicago, Northwestern, and WashU. You're also going to find people who ARE Ivy acceptees who still chose Georgetown or your other options over their Ivy option(s).</p>
<p>WashU is getting so much flak for waitlisting so many of its applicants, but it's because they're trying to protect their yield and shake off their increasing reputation as an Ivy reject school.</p>
<p>GROW UP! Seriously. Stop having a chip on your shoulder. Georgetown is a great school. Get over your prestige "inferiority" complex, jeez, and MOVE ON. Don't be a prestige whore dude.</p>
<p>Heck, if you went to Columbia you'd find people who were HYP rejects! You can find people with the inferiority complex everywhere you go with the possible exception of Harvard. Don't pay any attention to it. I stopped years ago.</p>
<p>Georgetown is chosen by 62% of cross-admits over Northwestern, and I'd imagine that they beat Chicago and WUSTL by a wider margin. If anything, you chose the most "preferred" school on your list. Georgetown also splits admits with Duke and Cornell pretty evenly, about a third of cross-admits turn down Penn or Dartmouth, and about a quarter turn down Columbia or Brown. Does all that make you feel better? :)</p>
<p>In any case, you'll find plenty of Ivy rejects at Northwestern, Chicago, and WUSTL as well, so why waste time thinking about it?</p>
<p>The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices</p>
<p>I love bagels that's a good point about how nearly every school is filled with rejects of higher ranked schools</p>
<p>This just shows how ridiculous the "rankings" are. Georgetown is a well-known, highly respected academic institution. Just be thrilled that you'll be attending such a great school.</p>
<p>Georgetown is just as good as any ivy. I actually think it is always underrated by U.S. News.</p>
<p>List</a> of Georgetown University alumni - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>I wonder how many of the people on that list feel "inferior"?</p>
<p>i know a student going to harvard this year that was rejected by georgetown</p>
<p>A lot of people will probably tell you to stop whining and grow some balls, but I happen to actually have a bit of sympathy for your position, since I recently felt a similar sentiment. It may comfort you to know that 25% of a school's USN&WR ranking is based on Peer Review, or how other universities perceive the caliber of the particular university in question. For Georgetown (your choice) and Notre Dame (my choice), both Catholic institutions, the Peer Review score is most likely going to be slightly deflated relative to what these schools actually deserve, since academia has a bias against and distrust of religion. As they are the only religiously affiliated schools near the top of the ranking list, the highly competitive standing of similarly-ranked universities undoubtedly causes the rankings of Gtown and ND to be lower than what they both really deserve. If you need any more consolation, take a look at the Revealed Preference Ranking of Colleges, which shows which schools students most often choose when admitted to several different top schools (skip to page 29 for the ranking list).</p>
<p>Rest assured that you are going to one of the most fun schools in the nation and will have a blast while also getting an amazing education. Try not to be such a prestige whore, too.</p>
<p>I'm the same... Except I turned down Georgetown for Tufts</p>
<p>im_blue,</p>
<p>The people who took the survey were not actual cross-admits. Your conclusion was incorrect. Please refer to the original study. By the way, the study had strong east coast bias, as one CC member pointed out:
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They surveyed just 3000 students and only students from a relative handful of "feeder" high schools with large numbers of students getting accepted to the "top" schools. The very nature of the sample, because it over-represents wealthy, northeastern prep and suburban high schools, is going to produce the same-old results. The methodology penalizes schools outside of the northeast, public universities, and any school that is not "old-money".
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<p>I seriously doubt 62% of NU-GT and higher % of Chicago-GT cross-admits would pick GT. Maybe if the person is choosing between SFS at GT and poli sci at NU/Chicago. But for econ, engineering, or anything in arts and sciences, NO WAY!!</p>
<p>Georgetown still has a higher revealed preference than NU</p>
<p>Why shouldn't it have an east-coast bias, if selective schools overwhelming admit and enroll east-coast students? The sample pool is representative of the actual students choosing between the schools, as it should be.</p>
<p>"The final sample contains students from 43 states plus the District of Columbia. Although the sample was constructed to include students from every region of the country, it is intentionally representative of applicants to highly selective colleges and therefore non-representative of American high school students as a whole. Regions and states that produce a disproportionate share of the students who apply to selective colleges are given a weight in the sample that is approximately proportionate to their weight at very selective colleges, not their weight in the population of American high school students."</p>
<p>I, too, seriously doubt that students are choosing Brown over Columbia, since Columbia is far better academically, but apparently that's what's happening. I don't think you can argue an east-coast bias there. Preference does not correlate perfectly with academic quality.</p>
<p>When I went to Cornell undergrad, I just knew it was the best school for me. I guess I hadn't been sucked into the rankings game yet. I've since studied at Harvard and thank my stars everyday that I went to Cornell. Even though people are always impressed with Harvard simply because it's the breeding ground of the ruling class, I would have been miserable at Harvard as an undergrad: the campus is awful, there's a horrible energy at the place, I couldn't stand Boston, and I personally did not find the education any better.</p>
<p>So, go with your gut. It's not like Georgetown's ever going to hold you back. I work with people from Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown and I've never heard anyone look down on the Georgetown folks as any less of a peer or as having gone to any less of a school. So long as people can hold their own professionally, those silly school rankings are most irrelevant. </p>
<p>indiejimmy - I'm not sure religion plays any factor in Georgetown or Notre Dame's peer assessment. I mean, those schools long ago moved on from any serious religious affiliation. They're not exactly Bob Jones.</p>
<p>You obviously made the wrong decision. You should have gone to the highest ranking school, that would have been the smart move, clearly.</p>