What are Stanford's Peer Schools?

College Search & Selection
161

<p>"Assessing schools based on the quality of their recruited students is imperfect, and therefore, a narrow-minded and flawed judgment."</p>

<p>Joshua, lets not be so self-righteous. Because its "imperfect" its "narrow-minded"? Come on. You've never provided any empirical evidence to back up any of your view points. Every school tries to get the best students - those who get the best students are more successful and obviously have something to offer to those students. This is why it reflects on the quality of the school.</p>

<p>You instead point to things such as "graduate employability" and "academic facilities". How can you measure graduate employability? Using global corporate surveys, which rank Duke has a top 10 school, ahead of Mich and right behind HYPSM? Or how can you rank academic facilities? In terms of student:faculty ratios or resources per student, in which case again Duke beats out most schools aside from HYPSM? Or maybe "research output" - which completely depends on the absolute number of students and professors - many professors which have plenty of research output but don't teach many classes.</p>

<p>As usual, Joshua, it is very apparent that you don't understand what is important for an undergrad, and how to differentiate between a graduate ranking and an undergraduate ranking. And how you ignore everything that is contrary to your own unverified assertions. </p>

<p>And yet you continue to talk about the peer assessment (nicely correlates with graduate rankings btw, coincidence? obviously not) while ignoring every other category of the US News rankings - so utterly convenient (note that Duke is still top 15, tied with Mich despite having a faculty half the size).</p>

162

<p>There is a certain threshold you cross when all the schools are just outstanding institutions. You can use ratings to argue, primary sources from the schools them selves. But in the end of the day someone will pick Columbia over Stanford for whatever reason, or U Chicago because they like the cold... This thread has reached 12 pages and this argument hasn't really gotten anywhere.</p>

<p>When you define your peers you are generally referring to your class mates. And all the schools in the top tier are peers. Obviously there are different shades of gray, but what does it really matter. If I go to Duke am I really inferior to a Stanford or a Yale student.</p>

<p>I will end in a little story.
A teacher places a ball in the middle of a classroom and has 2 kids look at the ball from opposite ends of the room. One says the ball is white while the other says the ball is black. They argue on and on (equivalent of 12 pages on CC) finally they go up to the ball and see one side is black and the other side was white. They were both right.</p>

163

<p>duke isn't a peer school to stanford. according to the collegeboard.com numbers, duke's students have higher test scores.</p>

164

<p>lol my bad.</p>

<p>I am personally a hater of test scores. And because Stanford values something a little bit more than they numbers in admissions, you cant really fault them for it. You could even make the argument, that not percentage wise but in some senses they are more selective because they look for students that have more to them than numbers. We all know admissions are so selective and such a crap-shoot now that when it comes to a school that looks primarily at numbers, and that they get so many near perfect students in that regard, that as far as we know they flip a coin to decide who gets in. Yea it sucks but it isn't the implausible that things will come down to that.</p>

165

<p>
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because Stanford values something a little bit more than they numbers in admissions, you cant really fault them for it

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<p>No one is faulting Stanford for accepting students with lower test scores. In fact, I agree, it makes Stanford more selective because Stanford wants people with many more strengths than just test scores. But, this characteristic only makes it more accurate to say that Stanford and Duke are not peer schools. They have way different admission standards and therefore way different students.</p>

166

<p>you want me to use my "thought process" to argue with you? I've researched schools extensively and debated pretty thoroughly. Anyone who reads the posts I've made might not agree with me, but might at least think I'm trying to argue using facts rather than opinions. You, instead, just call everything I cite "narrow-minded" and "ignorant".</p>

<p>Joshua, my point is that - I believe student selectivity is an important factor, and I have a ton of "the right data" to show that Columbia's or Duke's students are more selective than Michigan's. </p>

<p>Your point is that things like "grad employability" and "academic facilities" are more important, even though you haven't even bothered to find any data regarding those. I have found data - such as global corporate surveys by THES, student:faculty ratios, endowment per student, etc. - and these all point to Columbia and Duke having a better level than Mich and more comparable to Stanford (though not there yet).</p>

<p>Joshua, I understand all of your points, but I think that you just don't do any research yourself and just deny all the facts other people bring up. </p>

<p>-Student Selectivity IS important - and I have facts to prove that Duke and Columbia are fairly more selective than Mich.</p>

<p>-Academic resources are also important - and I know that Columbia's and Duke's endowment per undergrad is greater, professor:student ratio is better, etc.</p>

<p>-Grad employability IS important - and I know that Duke and Columbia both rank highly on global corporate surveys and WSJ professional feeder school rankings.</p>

<p>Joshua, all the right data is available, but I guess its convenient to just ignore everything, and to call opposing view points "ignorant" and "narrow-minded", while instead I try and actually work with your argument and prove you wrong with facts.</p>

<p>I can't wait to hear your reply. </p>

<p>BTW, for everyone annoyed by this thread, I'm arguing that Columbia, Duke, etc. should be considered top 10 schools behind HYPSM, and are somewhat better undergrads than Michigan. No one's arguing that Columbia, Duke, etc. are better than Stanford.</p>

167

<p>

I'm confused. If Stanford does have lower test scores (which I doubt, regardless of what College Board says), exactly how does one leap to the conclusion that they value factors other than test scores more heavily? Surely you can't be basing that assumption on admit rate alone, unless you would assume that the College of the Ozarks (with low test scores but a 13% admit rate) is "more selective [than Duke] because it wants people with many more strengths than just test scores." :confused:</p>

168

<p>True, true, warblers. Stanford just has a stronger reputation than Duke, so if anyone provides any evidence of Duke's relative superiority, people go nuts because it goes against common knowledge (or lack thereof).</p>

169

<p>b4nnd20 - Stanford might use ACT scores more, and also might have more international students? More athletes? I guess having comparatively low median scores when compared to Harvard and MIT isn't that bad.</p>

170

<p>No one said it was bad. It's just true. Anyway, here are the numbers for anyone who cares:</p>

<p>Harvard - admit rate 9% (freshman class ~1690)
Middle 50% of First-Year Students (Percent Who Submitted Scores)
SAT Critical Reading: 690 - 800 (99%)
SAT Math: 700 - 790 (99%)
SAT Writing: 690 - 780 (99%)
ACT Composite: 31 - 34 (18%) </p>

<p>Stanford - admit rate 11% (freshman class ~1650)
SAT Critical Reading: 660 - 760 (96%)
SAT Math: 680 - 780 (96%)
SAT Writing: 660 - 760 (96%)
ACT Composite: 28 - 33 (25%)</p>

<p>Duke - admit rate 21% (freshman class ~1680)
SAT Critical Reading: 690 - 770 (95%)
SAT Math: 690 - 780 (95%)
SAT Writing: - (95%)
ACT Composite: 29 - 34 (32%)</p>

171

<p>
[quote]
On that note, I don't think a few dozen merit scholarships a year would skew the SAT scores by a significant amount, since its still percentiles, and 25% of the student body is still 400 people

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<p>
[quote]
stanford has almost exactly as many varsity athletes as duke as a percentage of its class

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</p>

<p>These differences in nos. of higher no. of shollie athletes (on the part of Stanford) and merit scholars (on the part of Duke) are enough to account for the small diff. in range of SAT scores.</p>

172

<p>Those stats are for just ONE year. If I remember correctly, in the past, Stanford had higher test scores than Duke until maybe the last couple years. But these days, we have so many kids with high scores and a lot of HYPSM rejects score just as high on SAT/ACT as (or even higher than) the admits do. They fill the spots of other colleges; so I am not at all surprised that Duke's scores are slightly higher <em>for last year</em>. Even Northwestern's ACT is higher than Stanford's (29-33). WashU has higher numbers too (though their numbers need some validation and I have found that they superscore ACT). Anyway, Duke does have comparable students in terms of average IQ (if SAT is a good measure of IQ). But that doesn't mean Duke is as difficult to get in as Stanford. In terms of selectivity, Stanford's peers are HYP.</p>

173

<p>NU's ACT scores are higher than a lot of the schools on the East Coast.</p>

<p>% of ACT scores over 30 (2005)</p>

<p>Northwestern - 69%</p>

<p>Williams - 67%</p>

<p>Penn - 66%</p>

<p>Amherst - 64%</p>

<p>Duke – 61%</p>

<p>JHU - 59%</p>

<p>Georgetown - 58%</p>

<p>Cornell - 56%</p>

<p>Brown - 55%</p>

<p>And oh, here's Stanford's % - 66%</p>

174

<p>H,Y,P, and Duke.</p>

175

<p>minus Duke</p>

176

<p>Duke is really similar to it...</p>

<p>Comparing Dartmouth to Princeton is like comparing Duke to Stanford...a fair comparison in terms of similarity</p>

<p>In terms of how difficult it is to get in, Stanford's peers are Harvard Yale and MIT. In terms of culture/atmosphere I think Duke is the most similar out of the top schools.</p>