What % of student accepted to Harvard and Yale choose Harvard?

Applying to College
1

<p>I've heard anywhere from 25%-75% but I've never seen any real numbers. Anyone have any idea?</p>

2

<p>I think that the Wall Street Journal published a chart a few years ago that published what percentage of students at each top 20 school chose another of the other top 20 schools.</p>

<p>Maybe some one can find it.</p>

3

<p>Hillary, that would be awesome. Sounds very interesting.</p>

4

<p>2006:</p>

<p>[The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]The”>The New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices)</p>

5

<p>Thanks, entomom! That’s a great chart. </p>

<p>Most of those numbers make a lot of sense, but some of those numbers seem pretty surprising. Would 90% of people admitted to both Penn and Yale really choose Yale?</p>

6

<p>That chart makes me angry because it leaves off the comparison I am by far most interested in: MIT vs. Caltech.</p>

7

<p>It’s a statistical prediction based on surveys of HS seniors. Hardly a reliable source, since it doesn’t differentiate between the preferences of people who get in to the respective schools, and people who didn’t. There is not reliable cross-admit data anywhere.</p>

8

<p>Yeah, it’s a BS chart, but interesting to look at. </p>

<p>Fortunately for the vast majority of you all, this isn’t a dilemma you’ll be having to consider in life.</p>

9

<p><a href=“http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf[/url]”>http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Outdated, but see page 29. It’s fairly accurate in identifying the most desirable schools among the best students.</p>

<p>Tier One (2738-2800): Harvard, Yale</p>

<p>Tier One and a Half (2608-2694) Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Princeton</p>

<p>Tier Two (2325-2433): Brown, Columbia, Amherst, Dartmouth, Wellesley, UPenn</p>

<p>Tier Two and a Half (2197-2279) : Notre Dame, Swarthmore, Cornell, Georgetown, Rice, Williams, Duke, UVA</p>

<p>Tier Two Point Nine Nine Nine (2096-2140): Northwestern, Pomona, Berkeley, GA Tech, Middlebury, Wesleyan, UChicago, Johns Hopkins</p>

<p>Tier it however you want.</p>

10

<p>Gryffon: Doesn’t sound particularly fortunate ;-)</p>

<p>kwu: That’s a fascinating paper. The data is from 1999. I’m gonna look for newer studies like that. Why doesn’t US News rank like that? Seems awesome.</p>

11

<p>There is a 2005 version:
[SSRN-A</a> Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities by Christopher Avery, Mark Glickman, Caroline Hoxby, Andrew Metrick](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105]SSRN-A”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105)</p>

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<p>To answer your question, jeffson, (“Why doesn’t US News rank like that?”) these papers rank the schools according to how likely an exceptional student would enroll. The U.S.N.W.R. doesn’t care about students: it cares about selling copies to helicopter parents, and it considers the opinion of institutional presidents and deans to be more important in determining a school’s prestige.</p>

<p>Thankfully, these data tell us that students are capable of looking beyond USNWR rankings and Peer Assessment scores, and the schools that deserve to be on top ultimately are.</p>

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<p>Let’s hope you’re wrong ;)</p>

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<p>@johnwesley - The 2005 paper looks like it still uses the 1999 data, right? I wonder why some of the schools shifted rankings. </p>

<p>@kwu - No kidding, right? They like students only inasmuch as students can buy their product.</p>

<p>I also found this list of college rankings that apparently uses data from this year instead of 1999: [2009</a> College Rankings: All Colleges](<a href=“http://■■■■■■/2009-college-rankings]2009”>http://■■■■■■/2009-college-rankings) </p>

<p>I’m hoping people keep publishing these on an annual basis instead of every 5 years!</p>

15

<p>What a stupid question, why would anyone choose Yale over Harvard…they’re the same school but one is more prestigious</p>

16

<p>************** rankings are BS.</p>

<p>University of Florida is ahead of UChicago?? How does this make sense?</p>

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<p>Why the ****s? Yeah, I agree there is no way that UC is below UF. Williams looks too low, too. I wonder if there was an error somewhere. But, when all is said and done, the majority of that list looks pretty legit to me.</p>

<p>Looking over the 2005 paper, they have Brigham Young ranked higher than U of Chicago. It looks like you’ll always get some strange outcomes when you rank based on student preference… but like the 2009 list, it seems mostly legit.</p>

18

<p>Notre Dame’s rank is probably artificially high. Of course it has a lot of students who have Notre Dame as their first choice; it is a school bound by tradition and is unique in that way. But those who are uninterested in that tradition will probably be misguided by that ranking.</p>

19

<p>I wonder what’s up with Fordham’s extremely low rank? I suppose that it’s because it so often acts as a backup for students applying to the very top schools that it ends up getting hammered.</p>

<p>Same sort of thing with UC Riverside. When you’re usually competing with UC Berkeley and UCLA, you’re likely to look pretty bad in this type of ranking. Either that, or Riverside really is considered pretty undesirable.</p>

20

<p>I don’t like rankings at all. I kind of wish schools boycotted them- but oh well, more applicants and publicity for the schools I guess.</p>