Whats up With Emory?

bernie12
Thu, 31 Dec 2015 02:54:11 +0000

@bud123

Some of that just isn’t true and many of the points overlap and/or are repetitious.

1. We already mentioned that....certain marketing strategies clearly worked and Chicago is the prime example....I would even claim that Vanderbilt had a more gradual upward trend

2. Not necessarily true.......this was mitigated by Emory getting national news attention. If this were the case, it simply was not possible for Emory's application numbers to be flat (except during the recession when it dropped some) and then spike last year when it fell outside of the top 20. Also, Georgia Tech, for example, gets much more applications after it went to Common App. so ease of application and having certain programmatic options (like engineering in a "meh" economy) helps. 3.Not really, not if you market well. Berkeley, Harvard, Chicago, Yale, Princeton, etc. compete well without really emphasizing their sports programs. In fact, Often the top Ivies often show off more "white-bred" sports like crew which in the American context are not ultra important to drawing applications. Also the fact these schools draw the most intense students means that those types of students see past a lot of BS and are indeed aiming for the best academic experience for them, even if it is technically tougher than attending a more laid back school like Emory, Vandy, places like that for example. 4.Again, no way Emory would have spiked by 2.5k last year based on that theory (SAT's have been flat for like 5 years and they kept them flat despite the spike last year.....certain schools would have just used the spike to pump up the SAT range more). Marketing, Marketing, Marketing/media attention.....also, lower application numbers vs. peer schools hasn't impacted the quality of Rice's students whatsoever. They are pretty much in line with the other elite schools. You also have schools with similar or better numbers than say WUSTL and Vandy like Duke and Stanford who appear to intentionally select at a lower SAT range, but have students at the same level and it shows in terms of their output (where is WUSTL and Vandy's Rhodes Scholar this year? Should be there because the last graduating class was maybe the first to surpass those two score wise). Duke and Stanford should basically be sunk if that were the case. Vanderbilt and WashU have kind of leveled off and yet they increase their range regardless of the number of apps increasing dramatically or not. Other schools just don't care as much anymore as their range and rank are already really good. They want to keep their range and simply get students who will go on and win prizes to make them look good and deal well with their academic environments (also, notice how Duke students are kind of getting more "nerdy" in the good way.....they didn't need to increase their range to do this. Emory is doing the same just within a lower score range-basically shaping the class differently to change the feel of campus some).
5.That sounds dumb.....which major school hasn't gone that direction? Basically all of the top 10 (and a significant amount of the top 20) have similar numbers to Emory. 6.Not true, schools like Berkeley are more ridiculous when it comes to this and many other elite privates are similar (Duke's and Rice's numbers look very similar for example: demographics that is). 7.Absolutely 8.Meh, but I get this feeling that people applying to Chicago know better. Either that, or we were very sheepish as HS seniors, which I will admit some possible truth there. But that is again, a marketing thing. Also, Harvard and Princeton are known to be extremely intense academically and not have the "happiest" of social environments (more like a nerdy/intellectual type of fun mixed with "traditional" social outlets) and still do quite well. Also, schools like Emory, Rice, and Vanderbilt have traditionally done well in both the quality of life and happiness categories but performances are different. If you use the D-1 theory and exclude Emory, you can't really explain Vanderbilt over Rice (whose SAT's are actually in line with everyone else)

3. Honestly, basically every top school offers that (its about how effectively you tell students that you offer that). I feel as if this isn't true and that a lot of students going to schools below the top 10 actually expect a more intellectual environment but more or less just fall in with the culture of whatever school they land at, whether its because they chose it because of finances or because they did not get in anywhere else (higher ranked than that school). Often students who could not attend such schools for whatever reasons will mention how those or some more intellectual schools "vibed" well with them. Also, you cannot explain the good showings of schools like Brown, Rice, and even Emory. Chicago was doing "decently" before it changed its strategy, was in the top 10, but did not reach the level of its HYPS peers application wise. This makes your argument inconclusive. In addition, Hopkins does very well no matter how much students at the "work hard play hard" schools put it down. Hopkins was not always top 10-12. It had a message, stuck to it, delivered excellent academics, and their work has paid off. What you say is myth. What you should say is: "students are more willing to settle for much less intellectual schools if they have a vibrant social life and solid academics".

If they could go to a school that had the “balance” (honestly most non-STEM oriented research universities have this) you speak of plus the intellectualism, most probably would. I think you are confusing cultural patterns that develop at certain schools versus what ALL of the schools actually offer. Most non-STEM top privates offer balance, some just simply draw a greater share of more academically intense students. Students merely choose the culture and level of academics they want. However, it helps to be clear and honest about what type of culture is existent at what the school offers. Like…if you can sell the student body that is both happy and intellectually engaged (like Brown, Hopkins, Rice, Chicago) and your environment actually lives up to it, tons of students interested in that will bite (which are a huge amount of students considering elite schools). Also, your argument fails again as Duke students always wish for a better intellectual climate (though I imagine it has improved significantly since they initially started complaining about it). Even at Vanderbilt, which has a very strong “work hard play hard” culture that it has sold and lives up to (part of its success), there always appears to be a solid amount of students who do wish it were more vibrant intellectually. That fervor is just typically much stronger at a place like Duke however (makes sense as these are the folks who compare themselves more to HYP and thus expect a more similar “feel” over time). Duke has “it all” but yet its students always desire more than what you mentioned.