goldtx

No, that's not the way of interpreting the percentages. The correct inference would be: Harvard was preferred over Yale by 9 out 10 of the respondents.

But you are right, preference is based on many factors, and not only quality of education. In other words, Yale might offer the same or better education, but taking all other factors (e.g., location, weather, even sports teams) into consideration, most people would prefer attending Harvard.

profanity

What I am saying here or trying to say is that if most of the cross-admits decide against your school, how would your school attract the best student. I have no doubt nor challenge against the quality of education of each schools. But students in general, like what goldtx had mentioned, generally look beyond that when choosing school.

gomestar

"if most of the cross-admits decide against your school, how would your school attract the best student"

well, do you think that ONLY the 10% of the class that harvard accepts is qualified? Do you think that Yale could completely throw out the current class of 2010 and create a new class based on the same applicant pool that is just as qualified? Yes.

goldtx

Yes, there is enough pie to share.

profanity

i know... i understand that there is. but school that is more preferred would have gotten the 'first pick', which means that they get to select the slightly more qualified of the qualified. well..i am not v sure if that actually makes sense. in either case, i am sure there're ppl who're extremely qualified and were rejected. i hope you see the 'logic' behind what i am trying to say here.

quynh2007

i don't know how you can get to that POV profanity. getting into a very prestigious and competitive school is very much a crapshoot sometimes. there could be people whom you believe is not as qualified (based on grades, tests) who get in over someone who has better grades and tests. futhermore, because there are SOOO many great applicants, universities must sometimes choose based on the little things...a trombone player gets in because they don't have many as opposed to someone who plays the piano/violin (for example). because of things like this, you cannot say just because the majority decided to choose H over Y means that Y doesn't get as quality students as H.

FrankieY

some one should finish the saying - "Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into, BUT THE HARDEST ONE TO GET OUT OF"
many people know that, and to me, knowing that i could succeed at the hardest Ivy league school in the country would make me feel pretty good regardless of any ranking

maryjulia75

If we claim that upenn is much much much better than cornell, how come when we say, "i'm going to upenn" people either say:
-Oh is that the same as penn sate or
-Are you going to wharton?

In my opinion and from what i've read in critiques, upenn went up in rankins with "wharton as it's backbone" (quoting from i don't remember what article)

Putting that aside,
I don't know why: perhaps everyone in this country knows the 8 schools of the ivy league but when you go outside of this country (exculding Europe maybe), most people don't know the 8 schools of the ivy league. In fact when I was applying to clgs including penn and cornell, ppl say: Cornell, I know that school while penn: i've never heard of that school...And my friends including family friends are not some uneducated ppl rather ppl who are top executives of their companies.

Don't attack me...I'm merely expressing my point of view, not creating some battle between the ivy leagues or a fight like i did with one of the threads i made regarding statistics.

Cough cough...figgy i think ur aware of this

chessgeeksam

cornell is also a LAND GRANT COLLEGE

three of the schools are state funded you idiots, obviously there's gonna be less selectivity there

odyssey

I find preference studies to be the most flawed of anything. I wouldn't want to choose an undergraduate experience based on what other high school kids think, especially when so many choose a school based on prestige.

Prestige is the type of PR thing that is self-perpetuating. Another school could be truely the "best" undergraduate in academics, quality of teachers, location, blah blah, but Harvard is so well known, has highest prestige, and believed to be the best that it doesn't have to do anything to be at the top of preference rankings except continue to reject the most students. It is so hard to get into, then it "must" be the "best," and kids desire even more to go there.

gomestar

MIT is also a land grand school.


for what it's worth, the state only funds a marginal amount of the total cost of a Cornell education. NYS pays about $12,000 of the $60,000 total estimated cost.

Figgy

Whyyy won'ttt thisss threaddd diiie? Leave it please...what good ever comes from this damn thread?

ilovepeople712

aside from wharton, penn is the easiest and worst ivy league.

sorry thats imo, you're welcome to state yours.

half the kids are legacy, seriously. and half of them are very one-tracked in the sense the school is so pre-professional. it does not stimulate an intellectual environment like for example brown, princeton, cornell, or even columbia.

cornell2011

Here's the problem with the logic that those saying Cornell is easiest to get into - you look at sheer numbers and not the quality of the applicant pools. Selectivity isn't just based on the percent of applicants admitted but the competition each applicant faces in being admitted. This however is something that can't be quantified thus people feel the need to just ignore it. Cornell has over 30000 applicants, meaning there is ridiculous competition to get into a lot of its colleges. Additionally, Cornell's methodology is a lot different from the other ivy league colleges because of its charter of inclusiveness. I'm not going to ramble on but I will conclude with this. Those who determine the quality of an institution by the percent of applicants admitted seriously have issues. Get beyond the numbers and you'll quickly realize just how sweet Cornell is.

One final plea - please stop making threads like this.

Kyt

Stop necroing. This thread is from 2006.