<p>I don't know why and I don't know how, but I've been accepted to both of these schools with basically the same financial package. I was set on Princeton, which I got accepted to through the Questbridge scholarship program, until I recently got a call from Yale saying they had picked me off the "likely" list. I'm going hysterical trying to decide which to attend. Which would you choose? I'm posting this on both the Yale and Princeton Forums and would appreciate any input.</p>
<p>Wow, what a wonderful decision to make.</p>
<p>Which school to attend depends on what you want, not what a bunch of internet users you will never meet say.</p>
<p>If I were in this situation, I would absolutely, no doubt choose Princeton but that's just me. </p>
<p>If you tell us more about what you want in a school maybe we could help you more.</p>
<p>Princeton is better than Yale, overall. Unless you want to be an actor but... NYEH.
Princeton's campus is way nicer - Yale is in the middle of ****bag no where.</p>
<p>Ok well I'm an African-American kid from Atlanta and probably want to do something in international affairs. I'd like a school with diversity, which may be hard to find in the ivy league (preppies). I would also like a school that offers kids a lot to do with any down time they may have. I guess that a little bit about what I'm looking for.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think you're going to get what you want at both schools. Both have a commitment to diversity. Both have a slew of extracurricular activities - you will never lack for something to do on a weekend, trust me. Princeton might be marginally preppier (having never spent time at Yale, I can't say), judging by reputation, but I don't think its a huge problem. Princeton is somewhat smaller, and has a much higher ratio of undergrads to grad students, which is one thing that convinced me to apply there ED back in the dark ages when that was still an option. There are also differences in location and aesthetics that will appeal to different students.</p>
<p>The one thing in your post that might give Princeton an edge is your interest in international relations. Princeton's Woodrow Wilson school offers a terrific, prestigious international affairs education, including opportunities for internships and help with job placement. It is a competitive major, with only abouy 50% of applicants getting accepted, but students who have shown a demonstrated interested in international relations in their first two years tend to get in as long as their grades are up to par.</p>
<p>Basically, while I love Princeton to bits, I'm sure Yale is a great school as well. Visit both schools, and see which one you like best! Congratulations! You have great choices!</p>
<p>Yale FTW!!!! :)</p>
<p>No one's even heard of Princeton.</p>
<p>(just kidding)</p>
<p>YALE!</p>
<p>Hey Nate,</p>
<p>I'm a junior at Princeton at the moment, so here's my 2¢, echoing ICargirl to a certain extent:</p>
<ul>
<li>International Affairs - Princeton is lucky enough to have the most well-resourced and prestigious undergraduate international affairs/public policy program in the country - the Woodrow Wilson School. I'm sure you've checked it out, this was my #1 reason for applying and choosing to go here.</li>
<li>Extracurriculars: There are, if it's possible, too many. Also, if you're not satisfied with the choice, the university (highest per capita endowment) will toss thousands of dollars at you to start a new one as long as it's not illegal.</li>
<li>Princeton is extremely diverse while being situated in a spectacularly beautiful location. I studied abroad last semester in Paris and was missing campus by my 2nd week, to give an idea of how attached you get to the place and the people, who are by no means all preppies.</li>
</ul>
<p>Both schools are great, congratulations on having this terrific choice. Hopefully see you at Princeton in the fall!</p>
<p>You might find this article by a well-known Princeton prof to be helpful. It appeared in the Daily Princetonian 2 years ago. He spent a little time at Yale and offered a number of spot-on observations regarding their differences. Though he sort of concludes that he prefers Princeton, the whole thing reads like a love poem to Yale. I am a Harvard sophomore, so am technically agnostic on the issue, but many of his points I have heard reiterated by other people. Some basic points i keep hearing:</p>
<ol>
<li>The atmosphere of ivy-tower privilege is even more distinct at Pton</li>
<li>Though there's tons to do at P, Yale's campus is much more vibrant </li>
<li>The in-the-classroom culture at Yale is more intellectually vigorous -- discussions have more spark at Yale ( I personally noticed that Yale's student body seemed more intellectual than Princeton's when I visited each school)</li>
</ol>
<p>Princeton by a mile! Best combo of UG education and location in the Ivies. Halfway between Philly and NYC with easy train service either way. The town of Princeton is lovely. Been to New Haven yet? :-)</p>
<p>lol the thing that he liked best about Princeton was the thing that students probably hate most.</p>
<p>If you think the schools are a toss up, then go by location. In that case it is not close, Princeton.</p>
<p>It's interesting to see someone in the same position as I am. I got accepted to Princeton through QB and got a phone call from a Yale admissions guy Saturday.</p>
<p>I've been to both, and they share a lot of the same experience.</p>
<p>It'll be easier to get a higher GPA at Yale though if you're looking to pursue graduate studies.</p>
<p>I can only hope I'm forced to make this decision come March/April.</p>
<p>That being said, I really don't think I could sway you either way. You just have to spend some time on each campus and you'll know which one is for you. Fortunately, you have the luxury of that option.</p>
<p>i have heard a lot about woodrow wilson, which was one of my top draws if not the top to princeton. I am worried though about what happens to people who dont get in.</p>
<p>I went to yale over the summer and was impressed by the campus, but definately not by the surrounding area. New Haven is blagh (and im a city kid) and the neighboring area where our hotel was was the boondocks.
I'll be going to Princeton in april and probably to Yale again too. But is grade deflation that bad in Princeton?
Im skimming thru the Yale vs. Princeton article as I type. Thanks for the links its pretty insightful.
Im loving the diversity talk regarding princeton too. And if you really were homesick while in PARIS then, well, wow.
I also love how Princeton is like 45mi away from nyc and philly.
I prolly sound princeton all the way but thats because I thought I was locked into Princeton until I found out I got into Yale like 5 days ago.
theguybehindyou, thats so cool we're in the same boat. What are you gonna do?
Thanks so so so much for all your input. And thanks for all the congrats 2.</p>
<p>The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices</p>
<p>Among students who were accepted to both schools and enrolled at one of them, 62% chose Yale. 38% chose Princeton.</p>
<p>I don't think grade deflation is a huge issue. In the sciences and engineering, it has changed almost nothing, since those departments were never giving as many As as the others. It has probably had the biggest effect on the humanities, which were arguably most inflated. But as an English major, I really haven't felt it and don't know anyone who believes he or she was burned by it.</p>
<p>For the most part, the policy is a recommendation intended to promote evaluation on the part of professors rather than a set in stone requirement. Based on professors assessment of Princeton students, about 35 % in your average class should be doing A level work. If you are in an upper level seminar, clearly that average will be higher - in an intro class, it will be lower. If a professor finds himself giving out way more As, he is supposed to think long and hard about whether or not all of these students are really doing exceptional work. Theoretically, if that answer is "yes," no grades are supposed to be changed because of pressure to conform to arbitrary standards.</p>
<p>In practice, there are some instances in which A-s become B+s because of deflation. This will be mainly limited to intro classes taught by younger professors less secure in their position than older colleagues. I think that the chances that any one student will have more than a couple of these experiences over four years are very low.</p>
<p>
<p>“Among students who were accepted to both schools and enrolled at one of them, 62% chose Yale. 38% chose Princeton.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here is the problem with the internet. Information, even when bad, circulates forever.</p>
<p>ChoklitRain, I’m afraid that the chart that appeared in the New York Times two years ago is both a misinterpretation of the data in the original study from which it was taken and, at least in the case of Princeton, is also wrong. The original study (which has been endlessly discussed here on CC) was done by Avery, Glickman, Hoxly and Metrick at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. The paper was entitled “A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities” and it was based on data that are now ten years old. The reported percentages are not the actual choices made by students but are statistical predictions of likelihood of outcomes. </p>
<p>The authors made two points very clear in their study: first that the statistical model they had created was the goal of their study and that the actual results and percentages seen in this particular study needed to be refined by having access to a much larger set of data and, secondly, that the model they had generated said nothing about quality of education at each of the schools. It was not the case that they interviewed 100 students accepted to both Princeton and Yale and found that 62 chose to attend Yale and only 38 chose Princeton. </p>
<p>Not being a mathematician, I’ll take no stand on the accuracy of their model in predicting these outcomes. I would, however, question some of their conclusions resulting from the model. They predicted, for instance, that students interested in engineering, math, computer science and the physical sciences were more likely to matriculate at Yale than at M.I.T. when given the choice. This may be true, but it runs counter to general wisdom and to what is regularly reported by students here on CC.</p>
<p>Actual cross-admit statistics are almost never released by universities. I can, however, tell you (without, unfortunately, being able to provide details) that I have personally been in a meeting within the last two years in which the university official speaking (who was not the Dean of Admission but was in a position to have all the facts) flatly stated that there is only one school in the country to which Princeton loses more cross-admits than it wins and that is Harvard. Against Yale it splits evenly (winning more on the math and science side and losing more on the arts side). Against Stanford it has a slight advantage.</p>
<p>To Stanford’s credit, it is more open about these numbers and reported them last summer in a faculty meeting, the transcription of which appears on the internet. </p>
<p>Stanford (like Yale) kept its early admission program and increased its matriculation rate this year. The interesting change, however, occurred in the overlap pools. Princeton’s overlap with Stanford increased and Princeton was second only to Harvard in the choice of Stanford admits who chose not to attend. At the same time Stanford did better against Yale and MIT in the battle for common admits. The following was reported by Stanford’s Dean of Admission in June of 2008:</p>
<p>“Then Dean Shaw showed a table for this year's group. The percent of non-enrolling students choosing Harvard remained at 27%, rose to 18.2% for Princeton, but dropped to 12.5% for Yale and 11% for MIT. [Note that what the Dean means here is not that only 27% of cross-admits chose Harvard and the other 73% chose Stanford. He simply means that 27% of the entire group that turned down Stanford ended up at Harvard.]</p>
<p>"This is not official yet, but I think it's important. Remember that Harvard and Princeton eliminated their early [admissions] programs. So we're seeing more overlap [now] with Princeton. Harvard is still first, [now] followed by Princeton. Yale, then, is next. I don't know why I take some joy in the fact that now it's 80 (going to Yale) vs. 80 (going to Stanford). That's substantially changed over the last couple of years. We're making real headway in terms of our competition with the best institutions in the world." </p>
<p>(Stanford</a> Faculty Senate minutes - June 12, 2008 meeting = June 2008 Stanford Faculty Report ) </p>
<p>This year, Stanford drew even with Yale in the cross-admit battle. It did not do as well against Princeton or Harvard since the overlap pools of admitted students this year contained so many more for whom Harvard or Princeton were actually their first choice schools. Of the approximately 640 admitted students who decided to turn down Stanford and go elsewhere, Stanford’s losses were as follows:</p>
<p>173 = chose Harvard
117 = chose Princeton
80 = chose Yale
70 = chose MIT</p>
<p>While, these numbers don’t allow a simple extrapolation of actual cross-admit decisions they suggest what I have noted above. Knowing that Stanford and Yale split their common admits 50:50 and that Stanford lost nearly 50% more students to Princeton than it did to Yale, certainly suggests that Princeton draws more from Stanford than Stanford does from Princeton (assuming about the same number of students apply to each of these competitive schools). This outcome is also counter to the predicted results of the Avery study which suggested that Stanford should draw more students from Princeton than the other way around.</p>
<p>To be fair to the authors, it’s possible that their ten year old study is now simply outdated and that were they to gather similar data and run the same analysis today, the outcome would be different. There is no way to know. Unfortunately, the fact that the New York Times badly oversimplified the results of the study and then misunderstood them will mean that the link posted by ChoklitRain will probably still appear here on CC for at least the next ten years.</p>
<p>By the way, I also take no position on the choice between Yale and Princeton. They’re both fine schools and their students are very similar. I too had the option of choosing between them and opted for Princeton but in the oft-repeated words of wiser posters here on CC…”you can’t go wrong with either.”</p>
<p>Not an easy decision. One student recently had the same dilemma & ended up at Dartmouth College. Yale University has a reputation of friendliness, while Princeton has issues with elitism. The best suggestion is to try & meet some African American students on your own at each school & engage in candid conversations about the campus culture at each school. If I had to make a recommendation to you, I would abstain. (Not really--but this is the Princeton forum.)</p>