How to pick between Columbia, Cornell or Princeton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

Columbia students never venture down town for the purpose of classes at NYU. I don't even think there's a way to do that.

But the important point about having location preferences is a good one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Let's help you out again; per the OP "Did not apply to Harvard, Yale, Brown or Dartmouth. Waitlisted at UPenn."

Let's help you out again: The argument is regarding isolated suburban colleges and non-isolated urban colleges. Do I need to connect the dots for you or are you a big enough girl to get it now?

Such a shame you can't articulate your argument either clearly or consistently. You aren't helping yourself, much less the OP.

My position has been rather clear and consistent, however at some point the conversation needs to be at a high-school level, not a kindergarten one as you might prefer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

I would pick Harvard over Princeton because:
1) location
2) you get to say you went to Harvard. Actual education is overrated. I don’t remember most of what I learned content wise in classes but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

[Anonymous]

Judging from the evolution of the thread, OP's child is both fortunate in her college admissions and wise in deciding not to apply to Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

I generally agree. In the extreme I certainly do not (e.g. if my kid was accepted to Harvard and wanted to attend University of Party Hardy to coast for 6 years I'd pull my hair out). Ratings have been a disaster for U.S. higher education in many ways. But that Harvard name persists despite not being at the top of USNWR ranking. Same with Stanford. It is like there is a class of people who still have their own unpublished ranking. The perception persists that if you attended Princeton, you probably weren't admitted to Harvard. If you attended Dartmouth, you probably weren't admitted to Princeton. Only at Harvard and Stanford and perhaps MIT does that perception stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

Rutgers is not close to Princeton.
Columbia and NYU definitely for both undergrads, grads and professors.

Rutgers is pretty close. A few times we went to something there, including once just to hit up the food trucks (much less of a common thing when I was in school). And there are other closer universities.

But none of these things should factor into whether you would choose Princeton or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

I generally agree. In the extreme I certainly do not (e.g. if my kid was accepted to Harvard and wanted to attend University of Party Hardy to coast for 6 years I'd pull my hair out). Ratings have been a disaster for U.S. higher education in many ways. But that Harvard name persists despite not being at the top of USNWR ranking. Same with Stanford. It is like there is a class of people who still have their own unpublished ranking. The perception persists that if you attended Princeton, you probably weren't admitted to Harvard. If you attended Dartmouth, you probably weren't admitted to Princeton. Only at Harvard and Stanford and perhaps MIT does that perception stop.

MIT is a different animal. There is more self-selection at work, and MIT gets considerably fewer applications than any Ivy except Dartmouth. Few would draw an inference that a student attending an Ivy probably wasn't admitted to MIT.

[Anonymous]

I'm not seeing this rush towards urban schools that PP posited, at least within the Ivies.

If you look at the percentage change in applications for the Class of 2018 vs. Class of 2024, the increase at Princeton (23.3%) was lower than at Brown (27.1%), but greater than at Columbia (21.6%), Penn (17.7%), or Harvard (17.4%).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

I would pick Harvard over Princeton because:
1) location
2) you get to say you went to Harvard. Actual education is overrated. I don’t remember most of what I learned content wise in classes but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Undergraduate education does matter, and if you have large classes or professors focused on other things, then its difficult for students that would succeed with more support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

I generally agree. In the extreme I certainly do not (e.g. if my kid was accepted to Harvard and wanted to attend University of Party Hardy to coast for 6 years I'd pull my hair out). Ratings have been a disaster for U.S. higher education in many ways. But that Harvard name persists despite not being at the top of USNWR ranking. Same with Stanford. It is like there is a class of people who still have their own unpublished ranking. The perception persists that if you attended Princeton, you probably weren't admitted to Harvard. If you attended Dartmouth, you probably weren't admitted to Princeton. Only at Harvard and Stanford and perhaps MIT does that perception stop.

MIT is a different animal. There is more self-selection at work, and MIT gets considerably fewer applications than any Ivy except Dartmouth. Few would draw an inference that a student attending an Ivy probably wasn't admitted to MIT.

What I meant was that for students at schools other than for Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, there tends to be a presumption that the student was not admitted to another school they would have preferred attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

I would pick Harvard over Princeton because:
1) location
2) you get to say you went to Harvard. Actual education is overrated. I don’t remember most of what I learned content wise in classes but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Well, I’d pick Princeton over Harvard because

1. Location
2. The actual education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I hate to say it, but Princeton is the easy choice here.

Too bad Penn is not a realistic option here. I think it has the best of all worlds!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I hate to say it, but Princeton is the easy choice here.

Too bad Penn is not a realistic option here. I think it has the best of all worlds!

+1 Penn or Duke would be perfect for this kid. Too bad he/she got waitlisted at Penn. Should have applied to Duke too.

[Anonymous]

Princeton and Columbia are better options than Penn and Duke.