Why the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT are Different from Other Top Schools

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 2:10am

Two things: financial aid policy and yield.

All of the highest ranked “national universities” offer some sort of academic or special talent merit-based aid of some sort either to admitted freshmen or returning students. Despite this decision to offer financial aid based on merit, they still lose the yield battle to the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT. Whether it is Caltech, Duke, U Chicago, Northwestern, Washington U in St. Louis, Johns Hopkins, Rice U, Emory, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, etc. they still use merit aid to steal top students and STILL lose cross-admit battles with all of the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT. I think it is incredibly impressive that the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT still have the yield rates that they have despite these other institutions offer financial perks or packages to top applicants. While at some of these schools the scope of merit aid may be very narrow, it is not a matter of policy to outlaw it.

Stanford, unlike MIT and the Ivies, offers athletic scholarships, but that should actually HURT their admissions numbers not help them (in terms of freshmen class profile academic statistics like average test scores, class rank, etc.).

For people to say that there is no difference between the Ivies and its peer institutions I actually think this is a big difference that students enter the university being treated differently on the basis of their high school records when it comes to their aid, which I think is simply wrong and bad policy.

I would encourage people to read this article that discusses merit aid and buying students from the Washington Post: [No</a> Merit in These Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/AR2005052701734.html]No”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/AR2005052701734.html)

Again, I applaud Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, U Pennsylvania, Stanford, MIT, and Yale on their financial aid and admissions policies and their impressive numbers despite being at a disadvantage relative to their peers. These ten schools beat ALL OF THEIR PEERS when it comes to yield. Even Cornell, probably the least selective of the ten, beats all of its peers in yield, which I think is very impressive.

confusedboy · March 2, 2009, 2:37am

You’re either crazy about prestige…or a student at one of those 10 schools but feel so insecure about your own school’s reputation, hence need to prove it to yourself about its prestige.

First of all, the title should be “Why HYPCCPBD are different from other top schools?”
And the answer to that is just because of the Ivy League brand.

or the question can also be “Why Stanford and MIT are different from other top schools?”
And the answer would be because they are on par with HYP.

Those two reasons are enough to differentiate all those 10 schools from the rest of the top schools. But if you’re smart enough, you should know that yield isn’t the correct way to measure the prestige of a school.

Btw, if you think that just by going to one of those 10 schools, you’re better than others who attend other top schools, then you’re up for a big surprise after graduation.

nooob · March 2, 2009, 2:53am

I think most of it has to do with everyone’s hunger for prestige. everyone wants to go to an ivy where they can “hope” to graduate and beat a non-ivy leaguer to a job and make connections with future millionaires, doctors, lawyers, etc. But honestly, how often is that going to be true? How many of your college friends will you keep in touch with after graduation? maybe 20-30 a year after graduation? what about 5 years later? 10 or so people? what about 30 years later? one or two? I don’t know, i’m just saying that people are always looking at prestige, whether it be on the east coast or the west coast.

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 4:00am

confusedboy, you certainly are confused. I would suggest actually putting your thinking cap on and reading the post before commenting. Nowhere did I mention prestige, and what school I attend is irrelevant. I don’t even know what you mean by “Ivy League brand.” The reason why I chose to discuss the Ivy League was because of its financial aid and admissions policies, which differ from its peer institutions in a significant way. In admissions, they are at a disadvantage and yet outperform their peers in terms of yield without buying top students. I understand YOU on the other hand may be insecure about what school you attend because it isn’t in this group of ten which is why you had such a knee-jerk, sophomoric response. I wasn’t “measuring prestige.” Yield, and which schools win cross-admit battles actually is meaningful though not necessarily in terms of “prestige” but what schools are most appealing to top college applicants. All colleges are trying to get the best applicants to add to their schools and it is naturally a competitive process between the different elite institutions.

confusedboy · March 2, 2009, 6:40am

Well, first of all the Ivy League brand simply means “Members of the Ivy League”. That status alone can attract more students to matriculate when get accepted. Next, location, sport scene, and how well rounded a school is, also affect the yield. So, there is no use in comparing Yield rate as it is just something that people do when they have nothing better to do.

confusedboy · March 2, 2009, 6:45am

Btw, no where in that article did the writer mention Caltech, Duke, U Chicago, Northwestern, Washington U in St. Louis, Johns Hopkins. So don’t use that article to bash non ivies just simply because you’re an ivy lover. =)

maoskillskid · March 2, 2009, 8:16am

You contradict yourself.

Well this would help their yield, wouldn’t it? Hence, rendering this statement (at least with regards to Stanford) meaningless:

maoskillskid · March 2, 2009, 8:20am

And regardless of what you say, Caltech, Duke, U Chicago, Northwestern, Washington U in St. Louis, Johns Hopkins, Rice U, Emory, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, etc are all EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT schools. Such minute ‘differences’ you point out should not be reasons why students there feel inferior to those at HYPSM etc.

hawkette · March 2, 2009, 9:03am

Davida,
Your claims on HYPSM are right on target. They are the cream of America’s colleges and seeing a high yield for these schools is fully expected.

For several reasons, however, your assumptions for the next tier of colleges are not quite as well-founded. The non-HYP Ivies are little different in student quality and desirability (yield) vs most of the schools that you mention. And your claims about their yields (and implicitly, their desirability) misses the mark and masks the underlying drivers of the comparatively higher yield for the non-HYP Ivies.

<ol>
<li>The geography from the southernmost Ivy (Philly-based U Penn) to its northern-most ((Dartmouth) encompasses the largest and densest population center in the USA. Seeing top schools in this region with high yields is hardly news. Most students want to stay in their home region when attending college. </li>
<li>The media of the Northeast are heavily intertwined and in bed with the major academic centers of the NE. Obviously, this reinforces positive impressions of these schools and aids their yields. </li>
<li>There are not any top public universities anywhere in the NE. This is highly different from what students have in places like Virginia, North Carolina, California, Texas, and several Midwestern states. Clearly, the yield of the Ivies benefits from the lack of highly-ranked, public alternatives anywhere in the region. </li>
<li>Given the higher preoccupation with prestige and the lack of public alternatives, NE high school students submit higher than average numbers of applications to top colleges than do students in other regions of the country. For example, a student may prefer to go to HYPSM, but realistically knows that the competition is stiff and puts in applications at many colleges, including many non-Ivies located elsewhere around the USA. The yields of the local colleges are again benefited from this. Frankly, I think it is more impressive how many non-NE colleges have improved their profiles and student quality and are far more competitive for top NE students than ever before. </li>
<li>As for your suggestion to others to put on their thinking caps, I suggest you do the same, especially as it relates to the non-HYP Ivies. The reality is that they do little better vs HYPSM than their non-Ivy peers. Furthermore, for students applying from outside of the NE and which have strong local alternatives (public and private), the non-HYP Ivy yields are worse than many of the colleges that you subtly denigrate.</li>
<li>The NE is, by far, the most prestige obsessed area of the country and your posts reflect this. I’m not completely opposed to prestige in college selection for it can have value in some circles, but that is hardly the case for the entire country and applying your template to the entire USA only perpetuates a fantasy and a sense of superiority that is neither healthy nor accurate. </li>
</ol>

For example, the historical prestige of the Ivies has been reinforced by Wall Street’s power and its predisposition to recruit heavily from the Ivies and other prestige centers of the NE. If I remember correctly, you have emphatically claimed that Ivy Leaguers dominate the migration from college graduation to the Street and that nearly all other less-prestigious colleges are not nearly as worthy. Still believe in that? If so, are you prepared to take responsibility for the complete mess that has been made of the world’s financial system and economic collapse? Also, can you cash in some of that prestige to help us replenish our trampled bank and 529 accounts?

<ol>
<li>Re financial aid, the de facto situation is that the Ivies offer plenty. It may not be explicitly called merit aid, but the result is the same as offering full aid to students under the $180k threshold produces the same financial result. Anyway, they are not the only top colleges that offer generous amounts of financial aid. </li>
</ol>

Below are the national universities which are committed to meeting 100% of financial need for attending students who qualify. I have also included average size of these awards and the degree to which financial aid is awarded on these campuses.

% of Need Met, Avg Size of Fin Aid Pkg, % of undergrads on FA, Nat’l University

In the West:
100% , $ 34,600 , 43% , Stanford
100% , $ 32,720 , 40% , USC
100% , $ 29,533 , 53% , Caltech

In the Midwest:
100% , $ 32,239 , 44% , U Chicago
100% , $ 30,285 , 47% , Notre Dame
100% , $ 28,725 , 42% , Wash U
100% , $ 27,936 , 42% , Northwestern

In the South/Southwest:
100% , $ 36,257 , 41% , Vanderbilt
100% , $ 31,014 , 39% , Duke
100% , $ 29,143 , 38% , Emory
100% , $ 23,529 , 34% , Rice
100% , $ 17,492 , 27% , U VIRGINIA (public)
100% , $ 11,796 , 33% , U NORTH CAROLINA (public)

In the Northeast/East:
100% , $ 35,831 , 52% , Harvard
100% , $ 34,744 , 43% , Yale
100% , $ 34,195 , 41% , Cornell
100% , $ 33,289 , 52% , Dartmouth
100% , $ 33,064 , 47% , Columbia
100% , $ 32,866 , 63% , MIT
100% , $ 32,160 , 53% , Princeton
100% , $ 31,820 , 42% , U Penn
100% , $ 30,588 , 43% , Brown
100% , $ 29,600 , 40% , Georgetown
100% , $ 27,828 , 38% , Tufts
100% , $ 27,395 , 41% , Boston Coll

Sam_Lee · March 2, 2009, 9:15am

davida,

I am surprised you don’t know the Ivies actually give the most generous FA. Please look up data; students at schools like HYP have the lowest average debt burden. They may not give merit-based money but they certain give more money in the form of grants instead of loans for their need-based scholarships. Schools like Duke or WashU give merit-based scholarships to no more than 50 students or so while the Ivies give more generous need-based FA to a large fraction of their student bodies. Now I hope you can tell me which policy has higher impact on yield!

hawkette · March 2, 2009, 10:27am

Another contributing factor to the high yield levels for some of the non-HYP Ivies is the degree of their use of Early Decision for building their class. Using data that is a year old, I found the following for some of the colleges that you mention:

% of Enrollment via ED/EA , Yield , College

58% , 59% , Columbia
57% , 66% , U Penn
38% , 56% , Brown
37% , 52% , Dartmouth
36% , 47% , Cornell

67% , 56% , Notre Dame
36% , 33% , J Hopkins
28% , 42% , Duke
27% , 39% , Vanderbilt
27% , 34% , Northwestern

I suspect that these numbers go a long way to explaining the high yields for non-HYP Ivies like U Penn and Columbia as well as places like Notre Dame.

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 11:16am

“Well this would help their yield, wouldn’t it? Hence, rendering this statement (at least with regards to Stanford) meaningless:”

My point was very clear – that it has a negative impact on ACADEMIC admissions numbers (like test score averages, % of students in top 10% of class ,etc.). The impact is clear because Stanford’s numbers are more like Duke, Dartmouth, and WUSTL (though their numbers are dubious) than HYPM.

As far as yield goes, yield rates are typically very high among athletes that would have ordinarily not been admitted but are recruited for a particular athletic team at the Ivies as well, so the impact overall on yield would be negligible, especially because Stanford has to compete with other huge athletic programs that the Ivies don’t really have to compete with to the same extent. Also, it’s not just yield data but cross-admit data where Stanford outperforms its peers as well. Students who would not have been admitted had they not been recruited athletes don’t really overlap with Ivy cross-admits.

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 11:23am

hawkette, I’m sure the reason why non-BCCDP schools admit a smaller percentage of their class through ED is because they can’t get the type of students they want through the ED process (particularly in terms of ACADEMIC admissions statistics) so they have to wait for RD to get top performing students (statistically especially) that were not accepted by HYPSMBBCDP.

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 11:25am

hawkette, there is no data to support your comments on geography. It’s just speculation and baseless opinion. Also, your penchant to separate HYPSM from the so-called “lower ivies” is really a reflection of your own insecurities perhaps. There are many, many students that choose BCCDP over HYPSM. The differences are negligible in real terms other than lay prestige when you look at admissions statistics.

And, you totally ignored the buying students element. The fact that a lot of top schools give a lot of aid is stating the obvious. Some schools though give certain applicants merit aid, which I think is wrong and gives them an advantage in cross-admit battles while these institutions still fail to beat out even the lower ivies.

davida1 · March 2, 2009, 11:35am

Sam Lee, the endowments for the lower ivies DO NOT make them able to give out more generous non-merit aid packages. Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice U, U Chicago, U Notre Dame, WUSTL, Grinnell, etc. have huge endowments or endowments per student – often greater than the lower ivies. They choose to give merit aid as an admissions strategy to steal top students that they lose cross-admit battles with.

bluebayou · March 2, 2009, 11:59am

david:

The recruited athletes at Stanford are so few as to barely move SAT scores, if at all. There are plenty of 700+ swimmers and golfers and volleyball players, among many other sports. Unlike the Ivies, Stanford doesn’t do hockey, so football and basketball are its likely low SAT scores and the actual allowable scholarships are capped by the NCAA.

Similarly, the big merit money offered by Duke and some others is not statistically meaningful since the numbers are so small. Plus you assume that an Emory Scholar also applies and is also accepted at the Ivies which, while logical, is unfounded. (btw: Caltech is dropping its merit scholarships for entering frosh.)

The Ivies do in fact give out much more generous need-based aid than Duke & Northwestern; Dartmouth has gone completely no-loan for example, reducing the student’s self-help component to just work study. Several Ivies are also need-blind and meet full need for Internationals.

Stanford’s cross-admit data is a geographic outlier. It does very well on the west coast, but loses on the heavily-populated east (since kids would much rather attend college close to home).

hawkette: re your point #6 – the Street’s recruitment is somewhat of geographically self-fulfilling. In a former life, I knew the head recruiter at Goldman Sachs and she used to come to California all the time on recruiting trips. Her problem as that her west coast yield wasn’t very good as the kids out west tended to prefer local hedge funds and VCs (or google) as opposed to the NYC. Just as we know that kids prefer to attend college close to home, perhaps college graduates also tend to prefer jobs close to home…

Sam_Lee · March 2, 2009, 12:12pm

david,
Please look up the data Hawkette provided (post #11). You were assuming schools with larger endowment would necessarily give more FA. Schools spend their endowment DIFFERENTLY. “the endowments for the lower ivies DO NOT make them able to give more generous non-merit aid packages”? Do you actually know if their endowment can substain certain level of FA? As far as I know, there’s risk and uncertainty built-in in offering FA and it depends on how conservative or risk-aversed the school is. Schools with smaller endowment per student may offer better FA if the schools are more aggressive in using their funds. When HYP have new FA policies, the rest of the Ivies would try to match. Just because John makes more money than Peter doesn’t necessarily means John would spend more!

newprov29 · March 2, 2009, 12:18pm

I believe davida has been out-matched here. Hawkette’s rebuttal is absolutely spot-on (especially 3-5 and 7) and I agree completely with the assessment of the NE mindset regarding the Ivy League. Second, davida, as has been stated, you grossly underestimate the pure prestige factor for the Ivies… I say this because I am an NE student who is going to WashU this fall, and had I applied (and I truly believe I would have been accepted into a few Ivies) I would have chosen WashU over any Ivy League school. Trust me, there are no insecurities here and furthermore, no reason for any. I am ecstatic to be going to WashU despite not qualifying for financial aid, so it’s not as if they are stealing me. I think some Northeasterners are begining to realize the merits of going to non-Ivy League schools, yet there will always be the overachievers who only apply to all the Ivies because they are, for some reason perhaps related to blind ignorance, bent on having the Ivy League prestige. I don’t know how you aren’t grasping that concept.

Hunt · March 2, 2009, 12:19pm

This whole thing comes up again and again, and people go around and around. I think it’s pretty simple: The Ivies and a couple of other schools are viewed as the top, and therefore top students want to go there, and do go there. Because top students go there, those schools stay at the top of the list. Furthermore, because those schools are viewed as the top, and because the top students go there, they are also able to attract top faculty to teach there. As a result, they are very, very good schools. A number of other schools have caught up substantially in recent years, and if you come back to CC in seven years, this conversation may be exactly the same except that people will be talking about why the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Duke, and Rice are different from all the other schools.

Sam_Lee · March 2, 2009, 12:38pm

To summarize:

The Ivies have impressive yields and their generous need-based FA is part of their winning receipe. While merit-based scholarships help to some extent, other schools are still at a disvantage in “financing their yields” until they decide to match Ivies’ need-based FA.

Why the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT are Different from Other Top Schools

CONNECT WITH US