<p>I think some people just feel that 1 point was "stolen" because of the misrank in selectivity. Is it worse than the AXE being stolen by the bears? ;)</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>in US News' 2000 rankings. i still have a copy of the top 50 page haha.</p>
<p>Stanford Regional data:
Ca 41%
Wa 5%
OR 3%
Tx 7%</p>
<p>So about 100mm population account for 60% of SF admits, then you take 6% Int. So 200mm left over US gives 34% of the class. IVY get about 25-30% from 100mm(west tx), that is inline with USA.</p>
<p>Stanford gets 14000 applications( 70%) from west only. So it has regional appeal. It is regional school, but a world class research/academics.</p>
<p>I think the point Byerly was making about yield didn't have to do with the regional makeup of the class. Yes, if you compare Cali to NE, they're equivalent. Rather, it seems Byerly was suggesting that Stanford's yield is regionally variable: students from Califronia are far more likely to accept an offer of admissions than comparable students from the East. Harvard, in contrast, has an equally high yield nationally.
I can confirm this anecdotally: of my 10-15 friends who had to chose between Stanford and HYP, all but one chose HY or P (alas, :-( )
At Admit Weekend, it seemed far more cross-admits to HYP from California were planning to accept Stanford's offer than cross-admits from the east (and bear in mind that this was about two days before one had to come to a decision).
In composition, Stanford is then arguably no more regional than HYP. But in appeal, it seems to have stronger draw in the California Republic.</p>
<p>On a side note, I hope that Shaw can help broaden Stanford's draw on students from the East.</p>
<p>I would expect that improving Stanford's national appeal would be one of Shaw's first priorities. IMHO, going to the common app would be a key step to take, along with developing a system to conduct interviews nation-wide.</p>
<p>Stanford will always have a stronger regional appeal than HYP because of the fact that it has no real local competition. The only other school that can even moderately compete for the top CA applicants is Berkeley (I'm omitting Caltech because it has a small, highly self-selected applicant pool). In the Northeast, all the Ivies, MIT, and the top LAC's are in close proximity to each other, and so are able to divvy up the top applicants from the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions.</p>
<p>yeah now that i think of it stanford didnt do too much to attract me to the school. no info sessions and no alumni meetings or interviews. i had my interest beforehand on my own research but stanford did really nothing to help me consider it.</p>
<p>Perhaps another thing Stanford needs to do is to increase alumni participation in donations. Clearly, Stanford is a very well-endowed school, but that apparently comes from a small number of donors giving large amounts of money. There is something to be said for also having a large number of alumni donating even modest sums. Colleges do play trick with the alumni percentage statistic, but even discounting tricks that other insitutions play, Stanford seems to lag behind.</p>
<p>I like Stanford a lot, and I noticed after the Stanford regional information session in my town last year that international programs are in Stanford's DNA--a clear advantage of Stanford over Harvard that has Larry Summers playing catch-up. But I have to say, for whatever free advice value this has, that the Stanford admissions representative sent to my town last year was the least effective public speaker of any of the admissions reps I have ever seen in information meetings in my town. Maybe that person is better one-on-one that standing in front of a podium in a large room, but it's regrettable that Stanford made a worse impression than, say, MIT. I think every year different admissions officers go out to each particular town on the annual admissions tours, and maybe next year Stanford's speaker will be the most appealing in my town. But that is always something to improve. </p>
<p>Anyone who has actually visited the campus has got to love Stanford. (I have been to a LOT of college campuses over the years on business trips, and Stanford's is in the top rank for general all-around pleasantness.) But I would have to agree with Byerly that Stanford's athletic scholarships distort the admissions priorities of the university in a way that distinguishes it from the Ivies and from MIT/Caltech.</p>
<p>megodspeaking, have you heard of Baba by any chance? haha gotcha</p>
<p>I disagree that Stanford's athletic scholarships are a negative. Stanford looks for the best, and that includes athletes.</p>
<p>Stanford does give out many athletic scholarships but I am not sure if merit scholarships are offered by Stanford. By giving out athletic scholarships, you not only recruit the best, but it makes you national champions when you win 12 Sears Cups in a row. I think the only other school with close to Stanford's Sears Cups is UCLA.</p>
<p>I guess the question is whether it is appropriate for Stanford to be compromising its academic standards in order to do battle with the Ohio State's and the Texas's in using paid athletes to win athletic glory.</p>
<p>One would hope Stanford's reputation doesn't need this crutch any longer. Would applications really suffer if Stanford opted out of "big time" (ie, sleazy) athletics?</p>
<p>Many people may not know that Stanford actually spends more on salaries for athletes than any other college or university in the United States of America (over $12,000,000 annually at last reckoning.) </p>
<p>So this wins the "Sears Cup" .. so what? You get what you pay for, I guess. But its not a good message about Stanford's priorities, when it simultaneously professes itself unable to match HYP in need-based aid for poor but academically talented students.</p>
<p>If, for example, it's students had higher class standing, on average, by eliminating marginally qualified athletes - say by taking the Ivies' "A I" approach to athletic recruiting - then it might jump a notch or two in the USNews rankings.</p>
<p>i really dont know if i would have liked stanford as much if it didnt have an incredible sports program. by having teams that are so good it brings about a source of school pride that i found lacking at HYP and maybe the other top schools other than duke. stanford's greatness in both academics and athletics is what makes it such an amazing school in my eyes because I have so much to be proud for and at the same time these things help to bond the school together.</p>
<p>So - not to put words in your mouth - Stanford <em>does</em> need the crutch of paid athletes in order to compete for applicants?</p>
<p>I take it, then, that you think any increase in academic rankings that might result if financial aid was need-based only (SAT score, % of grads in the top 10% of their high school class, etc.) would be offset by a fall in applications (from people who think like you do), so that the impact on "selectivity" would be a wash?</p>
<p>I think you underestimate the "pride" HYP students have in their respective schools without having to depend on the achievements of paid athletes to generate it. There are often other things to do besides sitting on your bum watching other people compete in sports ... like competing YOURSELF!!! (HYP all have more Div 1 varsity athletes than Stanford does, even though nobody pays them to play.)</p>
<p>Incidentally. I note that Stanford seldom fills its aging football stadium any more, and that the projected replacement will be considerably smaller. Perhaps Stanford students are getting more "Ivy-like" in spite of themselves!</p>
<p>Byerly has beeng bashing Stanford's athletics various threads. The following is what I wrote on one ot them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Now if only Stanford were willing to invest in top students to the same extent it is willing to invest in salaries for athletes. As it is, Stanford says it will be five years before it is able to provide financial aid to applicants of low income to the extent Harvard, Yale and Princeton have done through recent initiatives.</p>
<p>The shocking fact is that Stanford could easily provide adequate need-based aid if only it would reduce by half the staggering sums it pays to athletic performers. The Ivies award only need-based aid, and do not give athletic scholarships.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Byerly,</p>
<p>You assume that Stanford spends a lot of its operating budget for athletics, sacrificing academics (including funds for low-income students) in the process.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Unlike other campus departments, athletics raises all its own funds -- apart from the $4.2 million a year paid by the University to run physical education classes and recreational facilities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stanford will offer 33 varsity sports next year - 17 women's, 15 men's and one coed, funded by a $28 million budget which pays for scholarships that cover about $25,000 a year in tuition and room and board costs. </p>
<p>"Without using university dollars," Leland said. </p>
<p>"We're totally self-funded."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Looks like your accusation is unfounded. If you don't know where their money comes from, you are in no position to bash how they use it.</p>
<p>Picking Penn over Stanford isn't dumb. What if someone prefers the east coast to the west? What if we prefer places like Penn, Mass, NY to places like Cali? </p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Just in case some of you have trouble with the links, the following shows where the athletics money comes from:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Unlike other campus departments, athletics raises all its own funds -- apart from the $4.2 million a year paid by the University to run physical education classes and recreational facilities. The money comes from a variety of sources. Fund raising accounts for some $16 million a year -- $13 million of that goes toward facilities, endowment and the operating budget; $3 million is courtesy of Buck/Cardinal Club contributions earmarked for athletics scholarships. The football program kicks in about $8 million annually through gate receipts, television and the Pac-10's revenue-sharing agreement for post-season Bowl income. Proceeds from the Stanford Golf Course come to $4.5 million. The draw on the endowment provides about $5 million. And nonfootball gate receipts -- mostly men's and women's basketball -- total about $2.1 million. </p>
<p>The department's fund-raising success has fueled a $75 million construction boom in recent years. The result: new tennis and soccer stadiums, new department offices, improvements to Stanford Stadium and a refurbished track. A multimillion-dollar rehab of the swimming facility is in the works.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Byerly,</p>
<p>No matter how well the coaches at Stanford are paid, the money comes from the funds the athletics porgram raises on its own, not university's money. That's why Stanford professors don't compare their salaries with the coaches' and then complain like those in other schools do.</p>
<p>Eternity_hope,</p>
<p>Picking Penn over Stanford (or hypothetically Stanford over Penn) because one is ranked one spot higher than the other is dumb. That's what I meant.</p>
<p>All,</p>
<p>Extremist words aside ("paid athletes"), Byerly has his perspective that schools should only provide need based aid. No merit aid of any kind. It is an understandable position though it is one with which I disagree.</p>
<p>I believe that schools should provide for 100% of the financial need of all their students first. Then if they want to provide merit aid for athletics, the arts, sciences, paid internships, etc. they should. Particularly if these programs and scholarships are self funding, i.e. Stanford athletics.</p>
<p>With that all said I do not think athletic scholarships impact the rankings one way or the other. Though it would be interesting for USNews to ask the schools to break out the SAT scores and class rank numbers of all the athletes playing a varsity sport.</p>