<p>A real shame.</p>
<p>And yet we perform very well in the Revealed Preference Rankings.</p>
<p>Does it really matter what US News says? Come on, if someone gets admitted to Stanford, they should be mighty damn proud to have the chance to go to a school that is equally ranked to Harvard and Yale. </p>
<p>Being a Berkeley student (yes, Stanfurd rivals), I do respect Stanford for what it offers and has accomplished since it's founding days. But please don't over react just because some dumb ranking ranks your school one position low.</p>
<p>I see nothing wrong with being ranked behind</p>
<p>HYPP. Those are REALLY great schools.</p>
<p>And to be tied with Duke...gotta be very happy about that!</p>
<p>In fact this is the first time to see something like the "HYPP". Hasn't is always been "HYPS"? I still believe that the USNews ranking is far different from the reality and what people actually think about those universities. HYP are certainly great schools better/as good as Stanford. However, UPenn is both academic and prestige-wise not equivalent to Stanford or HYP. After all, USNews ranking is the only ranking that ranks UPenn so highly. This suggests that there must be something seriously wrong with this particular ranking. UPenn is certainly a great school but unfortunately not as good as USNews ranking indicates.</p>
<p>Stanford can at least top Penn if it makes some long-overdue reforms in the admissions operation - putting as much effort into recruiting top students as it does into recruiting top athletes.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Adopt the common app. When Yale and Princeton, respectively, adopted the common app, the number of apps received rose 15%.</p></li>
<li><p>Recognize that Stanford is not as selective as some may think, since its stats are skewed by the relatively high app numbers and yield rate in its home territory. Outside the California, Stanford's yield rate is very ordinary.</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford must mount a <em>national</em> recruiting effort to match that by Harvard and - to a lesser extent - Yale, Princeton and Penn.</p></li>
<li><p>By not conducting interviews - and specifically alumni interviews - Stanford misses a prime opportunity to sell the school.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Byerly, do you have the figures for suggestion 2?</p>
<p>Byerly, what is the percentage of students at Harvard that come from the Northeast?</p>
<p>Well, hopefully Richard Shaw can alleviate some of those problems.</p>
<p>Harvard may have a high percentage from the north east, but we all know that their yield is high no matter which region the admitted student comes from. I'm not saying this isn't so for Stanford, i dont know if it is or not, but just pointing out that your question is misguided.</p>
<p>Well as far as UPenn vs Stanford goes, check this out: UPenn's selectivity is 6th whereas Stanford is 8th!?!?!?! (there's no #7; Stanford ties with Duke in this category). Stanford has higher SAT range and lower (quite significantly) admit rate! Only problem is Stanford has lower % of students in top-10% of their HS. Before I knew this, I was curious how UPenn got above Stanford with lower peer assessment and lower selectivity. So I was surprised and Stanford/UPenn are separated by only one point--meaning if they ranked selectivity the right away, UPenn wouldn't rank above Stanford. This just shows how bad US News is.</p>
<p>Massachusettes has a population of 6.5 million people and Harvard takes around 17% of its students from there.</p>
<p>California has over 36 million people and Stanford takes 50% of its students from there.</p>
<p>I'd like to see Harvard's Northeast numbers before I come to the same opinion as Byerly.</p>
<p>Also, seeing that 3 people got into UPenn and only 1 got into Stanford from my school, simply based on my personal experience, UPenn is by no means harder than Stanford. I think many people have the similar sort of experience, so the common perception is probably far different from what USNews ranking considers to be the "common perception".</p>
<p>I see from Harvard's web site that Harvard gets 44% of its students from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Hmmm</p>
<p>Here's Penn's geograhic distribution.
<a href="http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php</a></p>
<p>I was wrong about Stanford. It's down to 44% Californians an declining. </p>
<p>I get the impression that Stanford admits much more based on essays than numbers, which would hurt it in rankings because things like SAT and people from top 10% aren't as strong as they could be.</p>
<p>However, I don't have anything to back that up other than observing the people I know and their admission decisions.</p>
<p>I agree that the common perception is quite different from what the data shows. However, i think it's sorta like cars. There is a perception that Korean cars are bad, however, there are numerous reports about how dramatically they have improved over the years. Still, people tend to neglect and push aside the idea that Korean cars might actually be just as good. (I'm not korean btw)</p>
<p>Anyway, i personally think objective rankings based on data are more reliable than purely subjective data based on waht people "think" are good schools.</p>
<p>These ranks change from year to year, which is stupid for people to base their college selection on them. By the time they graduate, the school that is ranked #5 may drop all the way to--gasp--#15. The only exceptions it seems is that HYP are always top three.</p>
<p>actually, not too long ago caltech was ranked number one!</p>
<p>(im not too sure if it was in us news, but i think it was)</p>
<p>I turned down some higher-ranked schools for Stanford.</p>
<p>Now read that sentence. Doesn't it sound ridiculous?</p>
<p>That, right there, indicates the senselessness of even bothering to talk about the ratings.</p>
<p>It's just one freakin point, and if some dumb **** picks Penn over Stanford because it is one point higher, then so much the better for Stanford!</p>