Papa Chicken

I found this interesting report on influence of US News rankings on matriculation at Colgate, with a table containing a ranked list of other schools that Colgate applicants apply to split into "full-pay" and "aided choice"....top 26 in each category...data set is from mid 90's to 2004, so its a bit dated.

here's the report's link (see table 1):
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp76.pdf

Ivy X-applies dominated by Cornell, followed by Dartmouth, and LAC X-applies dominated by Colby, Bucknell & Middlebury.....have at it gellino!

Aided Choice Set / Frequency (in student surveys)
Univ. Rochester 356
Cornell Univ. 327
Bucknell Univ. 298
Boston College 262
Hamilton College 238
Middlebury College 194
Holy Cross 158
Tufts Univ. 154
Boston Univ. 149
Colby College 148
New York Univ. 143
SUNY Binghamton 134
Dartmouth College 133
Lafayette College 116
Union College, NY 116
Vassar College 114
Lehigh Univ. 105
SUNY Geneseo 104
Williams College 103
Bowdoin College 97
Syracuse Univ. 97
Wesleyan Univ. 97
Franklin & Marshall 94
William & Mary 92
Georgetown Univ. 91
Univ. of Notre Dame 91

Full-Pay Choice Set / Frequency (in student surveys)
Colby College 388
Middlebury College 353
Bucknell Univ. 285
Boston College 269
Cornell Univ. 246
Tufts Univ. 190
Univ. of Michigan 184
Vanderbilt Univ. 179
Georgetown Univ. 171
Bates College 167
Bowdoin College 164
Trinity College, Conn. 155
Hamilton College 152
Washington Univ. 143
Emory Univ. 138
Dartmouth College 125
Holy Cross 118
Wesleyan Univ. 100
Williams College 100
Vassar College 91
Univ. of Pennsylvania 88
Univ. of Richmond 86
Lafayette College 83
Brown Univ. 81
Connecticut College 78
Union College, NY 74

Papa Chicken

important clarification....the data for the listing is NOT based on schools where the applicants applied, but where they were ADMITTED. See section 3 of the linked report for details.

gellino

Thanks, PapaChicken. That's very interesting. I probably personally knew more who applied to Dartmouth, Cornell, Williams than Colby, BC, but the vast majority of the former group that are accepted at those schools aren't going to be people that I would end up knowing at Colgate. The list does kind of confirm that Middlebury and Colby are the most comparable schools to all the naysayers claiming Middlebury is so much better than Colgate.

It would be really interesting to see what the breakdown was on where these acceptees chose to attend. Probably something like 124 Dartmouth 1 Colgate; 164 Cornell 82 Colgate; 220 Colgate 168 Colby. However, the fact that these figures could represent one person who was accepted at Middlebury, Colgate, Tufts and Bucknell would further complicate things. I would also be curious how it has changed over time (i.e. Colgate vs Middlebury win rate in 1994 compared to 2004). I suspect that the latter would be much lower for Colgate.

I also wonder how different the overlap would be for applications to these schools versus acceptances to these schools. Do the ones who get into Princeton know they're going to get in and don't bother applying to Colgate or not?