Is Princeton really the best Undergraduate school?

[hippo2718]

<p>

When you’re in a school like Harvard which has more graduates than undergraduates, it’s easy to be overlooked and harder to maintain good relationships with faculty, who are more concerned with their graduate students. At a school like Princeton, faculty are more involved with student life.

Harvard College: 6660
Harvard Grad Arts & Sciences: 3870
Ratio: 1.72:1</p>

<p>Princeton Undergrad: 5173
Princeton Graduate: 2610
Ratio: 1.98:1 </p>

<p>Translated, for every 12 undergraduates, Harvard has 7 graduate students and Princeton has 6. Totally negligible difference. </p>

<p>

Selectivity is a meaningless measure of student quality.

If that’s true, why does Harvard demolish Princeton when it comes to award production? Harvard has produced triple the number of Princeton’s Rhodes in the last 20 years and more than double its number of Marshalls. Despite Princeton’s vaunted engineering programs, it has produced about half as many NSF scholars as Harvard. </p>

<p>The same pattern holds true for graduate admissions. Harvard and Princeton have 80 and 39 students at Yale Law, respectively. Harvard and Princeton have 39 and 12 students at Johns Hopkins Medical, respectively. This is despite Harvard having top law and medical schools and Princeton having neither. </p>

<p>So…if it’s not selectivity, what is it? Apathy at Princeton toward these things? Superior preparation at Harvard?</p>