Differences in admissions at H, Y, and P

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Yes, engineering is one area with significant differences between the 3 schools that can impact admissions. When I was looking at schools, Harvard only offered a general engineering degree without specialty majors like EE, ME, CE, etc. The program was quite small and didn’t cover the key areas that interested me at the time. For similar reasons, my techy classmates and I didn’t consider applying. If I had applied and had been accepted, I would almost certainly have chosen to go to an alternative college instead. As mentioned above, now they have more of a “real” engineering school with more majors. Prior to 2007, 1-2% of students enrolled in engineering. In contrast, 13% of the current admitted class says they plan to study engineering. Growing to a ~10x larger engineering student body in a short time likely involves recent admissions decisions. I’ve read that the program is more liberal arts focused than is common for engineering schools. I understand that Yale also increased engineering staffing, facilities, and portion and student body at a similar time to H, but to a small extent; making it the smallest of the 3. This change likely also impacted recent admissions to Yale. In contrast Princeton has a larger engineering program with a longer history. For decades, a good portion of students at Princeton have studied engineering. Like the others, the number has grown recently. ~22% of the current class says they plan to study engineering. USNWR ranks P as #17, H as #23, and Y as #34 (grad rankings since only top 10 listings available for undergrad). This is far below many common cross admit schools, like MIT and Stanford, which are ranked #1 and #2.</p>