<p>This thread has thoroughly convinced me that CC is full of pretentious elitists who have little understanding of getting into the top 20 schools. How has it gotten to a point were we break down Ivies into tiers? Why does every other user here ride HYPS? As someone who was accepted to Stanford (with $1000 better financial aid package btw) I chose to decline and go to Brown. And yes I am a STEM-oriented student btw. Yes I understand the differences in acceptance rate and how much HYPS has public recognition, but to say they are in a tier above fellow schools like Brown, UPenn, and Columbia who are often times much older than these institutions is ridiculous. There is minimal difference in ability between the top guy at one of these “lower tier” places and the top guy at the other 4 many users seem to worship. So before you make absurd assumptions just because “only 2 out of the 30 that applied to HYPS in my school were accepted” it would do you some good to understand the educational opportunities available.</p>