| Slipper, I never said Dartmouth was not a great school. It is. It's just that, for most talented students, and I am backed up by data(You aren't) supporting my position, as well as my observations on this, Brown gets better people. The Revealed Preferences Study is just one methodological research survey demonstrating, conclusively, that Brown is significantly more selective than Dartmouth. In the 80s, Dartmouth was slightly more selective than Brown. In the 90s, it was neck and neck, with Brown having a slight advantage. Since the turn of the century, Brown has distanced itself definitively from Dartmouth in acquiring the finest students. SATs really aren't relevant here. Dartmouth is a very SAT focused school. Brown can be but isn't. The last time the two schools utilized the SAT in exactly the same way was for the class of 1973, and in that year, Brown's overall SAT profile was higher. Dartmouth's mean SAT verbal that year was 650, and Brown's was 680(uncentered, of course). Brown's math median that year was 678, and Dartmouth's 700. The differences were small, but as you can see, the combined SAT for Brown was higher. If you add Pembroke in the mix, Pembroke's median that year was 700, a full fifty points higher. It may surprise you to learn that the founder of modern day consulting was Marvin Bower of Brown. Brown grads are at the apex of Investment Banking, Consulting, and business. It's just that it doesn't have the critical mass of people in these professions as Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, or Princeton because it is simply not as preprofessional as the aforementioned schools.
As for Columbia, which was the other Ivy I applied to and was accepted to the same time I applied to Brown, they have always played foot loose and fancy free with admissions statistics. Anyone who thinks that the 8.7% admit rate for Columbia represents a school as selective as HYP, or Brown for that matter, I want to sale you a bridge. It simply isn't true. Columbia has consistently used its numerous schools and the early admission program to artifically skew its admissions statistics to make it seem more selective than what it is as has Penn. That' just fact.
To reiterate. Both Columbia and Dartmouth are fine schools. The differential in quality for undergraduates between the two schools and Brown is miniscule. But Brown has better, smarter, students, and that is borne out in output measures of achievement. And, yes, fellowships won, Fulbrights won, and attendance, in quantity, at premier Law Schools is indicative of this. |