<p>My son preferred MIT to Harvard, but applied to both as I thought he’d have a better chance of getting into Harvard. (Our school seems to do well at Harvard and he’s a legacy.) Indeed it turned out that way - even though in our eyes he was a classic MIT candidate - computer nerd, highest AMC and AIME score in our school etc. MIT under Marilee Jones seemed to be looking for well-rounded candidates while Harvard has always had a foundness for pointy ones.</p>
<p>That’s interesting information, cellardweller. It makes me think that, to some extent, my impressions are influenced by local factors. Where I live, very few privileged kids are interested in engineering, and only privileged kids apply to Stanford or Princeton. In all my years of knowing college applicants, I know of only one (something of a computer science nerd) who applied to Stanford, Princeton, and MIT, but not Harvard. Also, the draw of Wharton for business is so strong that I don’t know of anyone who applied to MIT out of business interest. But I would say that about 70% of the MIT applicants I know also apply to Harvard, and that constitutes maybe 25-30% of the Harvard applicants I know. From that group, there has been a very substantial correlation of outcomes – most of the time either both accept, or both reject – and I have yet to see anyone turn down Harvard for MIT.</p>
<p>As for the Revealed Preference Study, I thought the size of the study was plenty big to have generated meaningful actual data on pairs like Harvard-Yale and Harvard-MIT, and it’s far beyond my abilities to figure out how the methodology of the study would have produced a preference rate that was significantly different than that implied by a meaningful number of actual choices. It’s also beyond me to figure out how MIT and Harvard can possibly have the yields they do with MIT winning more than half of the cross-admit battles.</p>
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<p>Even the authors do not claim the data can be used to support any actual ranking, especially among highly selective colleges. </p>
<p>Some useful data from the survey:
-There were 3,240 completed survey.
-The student were not randomly picked but selected by high-school counselors among the top 10% of the class. (20% for private schools).
-35% dropped out of the survey between the initial survey before students submitted applications and after they were admitted.
-Less than 17 schools had more than 50 students enrolled. Notable schools missing were MIT, Chicago and Caltech.<br>
-The average SAT was in the 90% percentile with a 1350 score (out of 1600).
-The standard deviation was 139 which means less than 160 students in the survey had an SAT score over 1,500.
-Median SAT of the colleges at which the students in the survey were admitted was in the 81st percentile of SAT scorers nationally, hardly a very selective group of colleges.
-The average school in the survey participated in only about 50 total matchups, either as a losing or winning school. (What the survey calls a matriculation tournament). If a college only appears a total of 50 times, how many times does it appear against a specific school? Once? Twice? Never?</p>
<p>You don’t need a degree in statistics to conclude that you can’t derive anything from such a limited study: non-random selection, huge drop-out rate, relatively poor selectivity of applicants, very low number of matchups between schools. As far as we know they may have a total of 5 kids admitted to both Harvard and Yale in the survey, maybe none admitted to both Harvard and MIT. Again, this does not even start to address the methodological issues with the survey. The authors do touch on the problem with the inclusion of colleges with strong self-selection such as Caltech and MIT. Caltech is listed as preferred to schools such as MIT and Princeton, which is immediately contradicted by a yield less than half of both of these schools. If Caltech was truly preferred by more applicants to MIT, its main competitor, how could it have a yield of less than half that of MIT? Where else would it lose its admitted students, as the study itself confirms Caltech has very little overlap with HYPS?</p>
<p>Because of the very strong self-selection of the CC crowd, I believe the annual compilations of cross-admitted students to top colleges on these boards are vastly more representative than the NYT chart.</p>
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<p>Where I live, which is in one of the highest income counties in the US, there is no shortage of MIT applicants from wealthy backgrounds. The vast majority of male applicants are interested in engineering. I also get about as many female as male applicants which is a more recent phenomenon and largely the results of girls excelling in math and science in high school. They tend to be more evenly split between engineering and science. As far as demographics, there is very little difference between the MIT and Harvard student populations. While MIT has always had a larger percentage of students from public high schools, this is largely due to the fact that top math and science talent overwhelmingly hails from such backgrounds.</p>
<p>S turned down BC to participate in the honors program at Rollins college and play a varsity sport. S qualified for no financial aid at BC but received a huge academic scholarship at Rollins which made the cost of attending 1/3 that of BC. He is now in his second year and couldn’t be happier, he loves the size of the classes (average 17), the florida weather, the honors experience and playing a varsity sport at a small liberal arts college. He is thriving academically, socially and athletically. He will now be able to use the money I had budgeted for BC to attend professional school after graduation rather than going deeply in debt. As a dad I would have supported emotionally and financially his decision to attend any college he chose but I can honestly say that I am very proud of his sense of fiscal responsibility.</p>
<p>My son chose a guaranteed spot in the professional program at a lower ranked school. The higher ranked college would have meant competing against 49 classmates for 2 years for a chance to be part of a 30 student program.</p>
<p>^^^^'</p>
<p>I know a couple of kids who chose to attend a mid-ranked university because it guaranteed entry into med school. They gave up schools such as Vandy and Duke. I can kind of see their point…much less stress.</p>
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<p>Exactly what a friend’s daughter who just got into medical school was told by the school. The medical school doesn’t care where you did your undergraduate work (although you might get a tiny bump for prestigious/rigorous school) nor does your major matter as long as you take the required science courses. What they do care about is GPA and MCAT scores. That is what you’re really competing against.</p>
<p>This particular girl went to a much harder college and had a B+ average. She was turned down three times before being admitted because she was competing against students who went to the State U and had 4.0 GPAs.</p>
<p>It sounds like a lot of students on this thread gave up a higher ranked school for the University of Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>two reasons:
- COST
- son much preferred the study abroad program at the ‘lesser’ school than the study abroad program at the ‘better’ school. The ‘better’ school didn’t have a good study abroad program for his major. </p>
<p>He chose the lesser school and had an incredible study abroad experience.</p>
<p>Cost, opportunities, atmosphere, location are major reasons. Friends going to the school is often a reason too. I know of a number of cases where that occurred.</p>
<p>My son was a double legacy at Yale -actually more, he would have been 4th generation on one side of the family. He’s at Duke because he just fell in love with it, liked the campus, big time sports, going to live in a different part of the country, etc.</p>
<p>I can’t say he turned down Yale as he applied to Duke early, but his grades and SATs were excellent (all scores over 750), and he knows he would have had a really good shot. He had spent summers at both Universities and he just felt that while they are both great schools, Duke suited him personally better.</p>
<p>DD, an amazing student and a good but not great swimmer, wouldn’t even APPLY to a college unless she (1) thought there was a good chance she would make the swim team and (2) liked the swim coach! </p>
<p>This was the major factor that crossed a large number of colleges off her list. Well, it made the process easier and FWIW, as a senior in college, she is still happily swimming on her college’s varsity team.</p>
<p>location
a program in Engineering Physics which the higher ranked schools did not have.</p>
<p>He is at a 3rd tier large Public and I am impressed with his friends and the high achieving academic atmosphere he has found.</p>
<p>He has chosen wisely</p>
<p>btw he is now in computer engineering and not engineering physics LOL</p>
<p>On facebook, I saw 3 freshmen who got into Harvard but chose Rice-Baylor, and another 27 who chose UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t the real question be: “Why would you go to a college because some newspaper says it is better?” Reducing amazing professors, diversity, and bad food down to numbers is what is strange…</p>
<p>[Exposing</a> the Hypocrisy of the College Rankings System - FastWeb](<a href=“http://www.fastweb.com/college-search/articles/1501-exposing-the-hypocrisy-of-the-college-rankings-system]Exposing”>http://www.fastweb.com/college-search/articles/1501-exposing-the-hypocrisy-of-the-college-rankings-system)</p>
<p>My son actually turned down Pitt for the Univ of Alabama. Money played a small role, he gets to bank his college money. His sister went to school 1300 miles from home, and I don’t think he wanted it to be so difficult to get home, so in that sense, fear was a reason. GF played a role. The incredible dorms at Alabama were a big selling point. He didn’t have the best grades in high school, and I think he was a little worried about how hard the academics would be at Pitt (fear again, of a different sort). UA does a tremendous selling job, I can only imagine what they would do for an OOS high stats candidate.</p>
<p>DH was a little disappointed that he turned down Pitt, and I was disappointed that he turned down LSU. All his life he said he wanted to go to college out of state, and that he wanted to go to an urban school. I think, though, when he was actually applying, other things became more important. I do think he made the best decision for him at the time, we’ll see if that holds up.</p>
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<p>Did they show scans of their Harvard admission letters?</p>
<p>If cost was the factor in turning down a higher ranked colleger. I’d think some families would try to negotiate the finaid package before making the decision. </p>
<p>So, did you negotiate?</p>
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<p>Wow. That is definitely a local phenomenon. Many, many privileged kids I know are interested in engineering.</p>