<p>Which seems to counter the notion there is some absolute or universal hierarchy. Ie, it depends.</p>
<p>Beliavsky -</p>
<p>Weren’t you the one who was looking for objective measures of the worth of an Ivy education?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html[/url]”>Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners | Mathematical Association of America;
<p>also, here’s the Putnam list. I would say that for Putnam, your impression is still generally true although there are a couple of Yale folk on that list.</p>
<p>I think there is only one way to improve your odds in the elite admission lottery, and it can be seen in the percentages of acceptances, and that is to apply early action or early decision.</p>
<p>That is the only measurable way, in terms of on the ground strategy.</p>
<p>At some schools, this can give the applicant a significant edge, as long as the student is qualified to be applying to the school to start.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>Lookingforward -</p>
<p>I agree it does depend. Although I think what I was trying to say before is that even though there is no “absolute” hierarchy, there is some hierarchy…</p>
<p>and even if there are marginally fewer Putnam winners at Yale than Harvard, for most incoming students, the differences between Yale and Harvard are not that vast. And in terms of overall prestige I think there is not much difference (prestige being a result of some amalgamation of repute from all such tippytop lists).</p>
<p>The other interesting thing about that Putnam list is that there were a lot more Yale listings in earlier years. I wonder if reputation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>So, with admissions being so competitive, and having a low single digit acceptance possibility at so many places, don’t waste the early decision or early action on some place you have no shot at hell of getting in. Use it wisely.</p>
<p>To balance those mathies out, I suggest Yale start an auto admit policy for 10 applicants who meet QM’s criteria.</p>
<p>Tex, could you make a graph for that and post a link? Or at least could you do the equation? thank you.</p>
<p>Well, this could shake up some rankings of collegiate math prowess: </p>
<p>[Andy</a> Watkins, Harvard: Inside the biggest scandal in quiz bowl history. - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/04/andy_watkins_harvard_inside_the_biggest_scandal_in_quiz_bowl_history.html]Andy”>Andy Watkins, Harvard: Inside the biggest scandal in quiz bowl history.)</p>
<p>Novi, agree. Was referring to a more recent post.</p>
<p>Hi Poetgrl -</p>
<p>Also, I was looking back and thanks for your support about the video games. Yesterday we tried a new tactic - allowing games on weeknights but having him stay up until all his other work is done (as opposed to the previous strategy of disallowing games at all on weeknights and finding him going behind my back or playing at school before he is picked up). Seemed to work OK today and he got to bed at 9 which is not bad.</p>
<p>With respect to EA/ED and improving one’s chances at elite schools - I agree that EA/ED does confer some advantage. And if you are talking about strategy come junior year, that’s probably one of only a few ways to significantly change your application. But in terms of “strategy” I think there are other legitimate strategies - how you package your application, write your essays… and of course if you start earlier in your high school career, there are many choices a kid makes about how he spends his time that could count as strategy.</p>
<p>I think the 1939 Putnam winners are interesting. Good for Mississippi Woman’s College!</p>
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<p>Novimom,</p>
<p>You’re a lot generous than most parents of childhood classmates or my own. None of our parents allowed us to even think about getting video gaming consoles or video games period back in the '80s and early-mid '90s for 3 reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Too expensive to afford for most in my working-class NYC neighborhood. </p></li>
<li><p>The few kids who really got into them became dropouts and sometimes even arrested/convicted of burglarizing stores/apartments to feed their video gaming habit. </p></li>
<li><p>There was some peer pressure among the academic achiever kids against video gaming as something for “losers”. Something which was underscored by known gamers who ended up as junior high/high school dropouts in my junior high and old neighborhood during my high school years.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Then again, the 9 pm bedtime was much earlier than what I or most junior high/high schoolers had…especially considering many of us had evening/weekend jobs back then.</p>
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<p>They are higher, according to </p>
<p>[The</a> Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission
Thomas J. Espenshade, Lauren E. Hale and Chang Y. Chung
Sociology of Education
Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), pp. 269-293](<a href=“The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission on JSTOR”>The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission on JSTOR)</p>
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</p>
<p>The word of Espenshade is gospel :).</p>
<p>What, what, texaspg #1177? Somebody other than I is making fun of me?</p>
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<p>Novimom, all the kids who have even a shot of admissions are doing all of those things already. Then, once you get into the “shot at admissions” pile, applying early confers a statistical advantage. I believe RD admissions at Harvard were a bit above 3% this year. Higher in the SCEA round by a bit. Statistically meaningful only because admission percentages are so small at Harvard.</p>
<p>If you think they didn’t reject quite a few more who did everything you listed in the RD round than in the SCEA round, you haven’t read the articles.</p>
<p>ETA: GFG, very interesting link.</p>
<p>Hi, alh #1178: Stanford admitted Wheeler as a transfer from Harvard (where he had run into some trouble after enrolling and staying for a few years). At that point, he had a c.v. that looked as though it came straight from The Onion, if it were a college student’s c.v.</p>
<p>I am not sure Putnam participation is a good indicator of a math program quality. It looks like Harvard and MIT are competing for best results on Putnam. Their strategy is to admit students who are very good at math competitions, so they snatch IMO medalists from around the world. How does preparing for Putnam help to build a solid foundation in mathematics? This valuable time could be spent by working with mentors on meaningful research problems. I know a number of mathematicians, including some famous ones. They stopped competing early and focused on solving problems and writing papers. Thus, I have more respect for programs that don’t care for Putnam and instead invest resources into preparing students for math research and providing opportunities and mentoring to do research. I understand UChicago, Caltech, Princeton, and Stanford are more like that. However, I’m still investigating.</p>
<p>yolochka-</p>
<p>I’m not sure that Putnam and math research are mutually exclusive. I think if you look at Putnam winners, a fair number do eventually go on to meaningful math research. Even those you know that “stopped” competing - they did compete initially, correct?</p>
<p>I think Putnam rewards mathematical creativity and insight which are not bad foundations for math research. IMO probably does as well.</p>
<p>“What, what, texaspg #1177?”</p>
<p>Have you noticed the tag at the bottom of the thread?</p>
<p>poetgirl - I need to work on the graph. But now that Bel mentioned espenshade, we need to play the shots game.</p>
<p>Espenshade!
Tells us NOT to take his word as Gospel.</p>