<p>Judging from its place in USNews rankings (I know it’s BS, but bear with me), it should be somewhere in the 30-40% range, but it’s more like 13%. I don’t understand this. Does Brown enjoy some kind of enormous amount of undeserved prestige that leads to an influx of applications? I don’t think so, since if it were not for The OC, many students wouldn’t be familiar with the school (at least not to the extent of HYP). Are they enticing many below-average students in order to exaggerate their low acceptance rate? Again, this seems highly unlikely since I’ve never heard of anyone accuse the school of doing so. I’m just perplexed by this incongruence between its admissions rate and annual ranking. And it can’t just be explained by the lack of grad programs because Dartmouth does very well for themselves and they’re not that different from Brown.</p>
<p>Why do you think 14th place = 30-40% acceptance rate?</p>
<p>Northwestern's is around 25%, as is Cornell's. WashU's is around 18%. If anything, one should expect Brown's to be around 20%. It is lower because Brown is a very unique experience that many people want to be a part of. Additionally, schools like Columbia and Dartmouth (also arguably peers) have slightly lower admission rates than Brown.</p>
<p>Actually, for the class of 2010, Dartmouth was at 15.4% and Brown was at 13.8% (Wikipedia). Maybe there was a reversal for 2011.</p>
<p>Duke, Cornell, and Washington are all at around 20-25%, so thinking logically, Brown should be at 25-30% since all those schools were ranked higher. But yes, my 30-40% estimation was too high.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm not sure about your logic in proclaiming Brown's admission rate is inflated. First, you state that Brown must be attracting unqualified applicants but based on your logic that Brown is less well-known wouldn't that mean that HYP attracts more unqualified applicants because they are much more well-known. Also realize that the US News is in no way an indicator of quality as shown by Brown. Brown is well sought after by many students, as indicated by its acceptance rate yet it is placed below many other schools like WashU and Penn who have "worked" the US News to climb their way up the ladder. Frankly, I think if this list had any sort of relevance to good schools for undergraduates Brown would be near the top of the list.</p>
<p>Your assertion makes me believe you value the US News' ranking more than you say you do, "I know it's BS, but bear with me". If the ranking is such BS in your eyes, why are you making an argument about the quality of a school based on its relative ranking?</p>
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Frankly, I think if this list had any sort of relevance to good schools for undergraduates Brown would be near the top of the list.
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<p>I agree. Brown is known for its primary undergraduate focus and several of those above it are the opposite or less so in their focus.</p>
<p>Actually, now that I think of it I have heard this question asked about all the ivies one time or another on CC. For HYP people assume its BS-applicants, for Upenn people assume its Wharton that brings down the acceptance rate, for Columbia people assume its because many people from NYC apply to Columbia. I've never heard anything about Dartmouth but I think most people agree that Cornell's higher acceptance rate is due to its size and specialized programs. So now that I think of it, many people have tried to explain why ivies are so selective but the best explanation is that they are just popular schools that are seen as the pinnacle of higher education.</p>
<p>What the OP is claiming would connote that people choose their college based on US News rank i.e. Brown should be as selective as the schools it is ranked near. But I think Brown works against that notion because students are starting to realize that the US News isn't revealing very much in its ranking. </p>
<p>I pray to god that I'm not coming off as a "posterx" type, because if I am then I'm done with CC for life.</p>
<p>I have seen my share of people drawing WRONG conclusions from looking at information, but the OP's is one of the most outrageous I have run into recently.</p>
<p>Brown is number 7 on selectivity (above ivies Dartmouth, Penn and Cornell). Brown is highly selective and desirable because of the quality of the education, the prestige, the curriculum and the overall unique experience that means being a part of one of the best undergraduate programs in the country. You seem to forget that the Peer Assessment (which counts for 25% of that ranking that puts Brown at 14 nationally) is based primarly on research which comes strongly from Graduate programs. It is also very subjective.</p>
<p>If you want to look at the credentials of the students who apply, just look at the SAT stats and GPAs. I seriously doubt that "below average students," who know those admission stats, would even bother applying knowing that they have NO CHANCE of getting in because of lack of competitiveness.</p>
<p>By the way, Brown ranks #7 in the TOP SCHOLARS RANKINGS (from 1986-2007) which include Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Udall and Golwater Scholars. Harvard, Yale and Princenton are the only ivies with more scholars than Brown. That is a clear reflection of the quality of the student body.</p>
<p>BTW, well said js416256.</p>
<p>Because selectivity does not define rankings, and selectivity and preference were the measure used, we'd never slip below the top 10 (which is where we probably belong anyway).</p>
<p>The real reason is because 99% of Brown students don't give a ****, something clearly not true of you.</p>
<p>I have another thought: Brown is under ranked.</p>
<p>I agree with js...if the OP truly thought that the rankings were BS, this question would not have been asked.</p>
<p>All of you have clearly misunderstood the intention of my post, which was not to undermine Brown but to find out exactly why its selectivity and ranking were not lock-step with each other. As you work down the rankings, the admissions rates get steadily higher until you hit Brown, when it absolutely plummets. Going by admissions rates alone, Brown should be the "fifth best" Ivy League school behind HYP and Columbia, but that's not a general consensus, and there are some who would put Dartmouth, even Penn, above Brown. </p>
<p>Look, I'm not saying that these rankings matter in any way, but I just wanted to know why Brown was so hard to get into if it was supposedly "worse" than even Duke (where 25% of people gain acceptance).</p>
<p>Well, if you read the posts above, I am sure you know now why that happens. Brown's yield is higher than Duke's also, btw (another good measure of the desirability of the school). If you want to look at more different rankings look at dcircle's thread. </p>
<p>There is no question that Brown is one of the best schools in the country. No rankings needed to know that.</p>
<p>Obviously, they don't base the rankings solely on admit rates. They must think that there are certain qualities in a school like Duke that make it "better" than Brown despite Brown's lower admit rate.</p>
<p>The subjectivity of the whole process is a major reason that I don't put too much stock into those rankings. But nbachris, no one has really mentioned it yet but I do think your comment about the OC was out of line. Sure, that may have influenced some kids to look into Brown, but how can you say with any reasonable degree of accuracy that Brown's presence on a TV show is the reason that MANY of the applicants know about Brown. IMHO, I think that assertion insults the university, its students, and the majority of the applicant pool that is comprised of intelligent kids who recognize Brown for what it is, a tremendous educational opportunity.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how my post will read, but I'd just like to clarify that there's no malicious intent hidden between the lines. Just discussing my point of view :-)</p>
<p>I think that nbachris is, as they say, "playing devil's advocate."</p>
<p>Interestingly played, if I do say so myself. </p>
<p>If I had to take a stab at this beast (and it's a pretty hefty one), I'd say that Brown's ranking is a consequence of the metric's used by USNWR, not its actual quality as an institution.</p>
<p>The comment about The OC was purely a joke that has some basis in my personal experience. Obviously, anybody who needs to know about Summer Roberts in order to know about Brown is an ignoramus.</p>
<p>Well, one thing you should consider is the nature of the US News itself. Universities like Upenn and WashU have worked their way from the bottom to the top and what do you think happens to other universities? They get pushed down. Unfortunately (or fortunately in my own opinion), Brown doesn't have a large grad program or large professional schools to use to its advantage in manipulating numbers like endowment and faculty/student ratio. I have a feeling if the US news actually prevented this gross manipulation you would find Brown in the top 10. Then again, if the US News actually ranked the quality of undergraduate education of national universities you would most likely find Brown in the top 10.</p>
<p>Like I said, Brown's selectivity and cross-admit success just strengthens the point that the US News rankings are flawed in predicting anything except how to generate a controversial, high selling magazine issue. I think Brown's selectivity is actually comforting to know that students aren't being fooled by this "sacred" ranking. </p>
<p>Let Brown fall to 1000 for all we care because students know that Brown is a highly regarded, quality institution that offers a type of education and environment that most schools cannot offer. I think Brown stands as a hopeful example that students are actually basing their college decisions on more than a random ranking. I predict that in 5 years even if Brown falls to #30 (and Upenn beats Princeton out for #1) students will still be applying to Brown in large numbers because they know Brown is more than just a name on a list.</p>
<p>Despite US News, I would say that Brown's undergrad program is about the same in quality as Columbia's or Stanford's. Quantitative data such as students' sat scores, grades, and the admission rate would point to a similar conclusion. I think that Brown is a tier above the schools it is grouped with by US News. Why this is so I have no idea..</p>
<p>For what it's worth, the real answer to this question is, of course, that Brown shoots for a class of 1450 and it admits the number of students that it believe will yield a class of approximately that size. The past few years, too many students have said yes essentially and our class size has been larger than that.</p>
<p>I guess where doing something right.</p>
<p>The truth is though, OP, that anyone who puts much stock in USNews rankings is an ignoramus.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>But even the biggest US News opponent would become curious if Harvard was outranked by UMich or something. That's all I was doing.</p>