Is there a difference between Columbia,Penn and Dartmouth,Brown,Cornell ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was speaking with DC's GC last week and she seemed to insinuate that somehow Columbia and Penn are better ivies than Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell. Maybe I find this ludicrous bc I am a Dartmouth grad, but I have always been under the impression that people think of all the ivies outside of HYP as roughly the same. Or at least all of the non-HYP ivies other than Cornell are seen as roughly the same. Is this accurate or is the GC's perception more accurate?

Just curious about what people think nowadays, I know this has no practical significance whatsoever.

Outside the US few people have even heard of the last 3, in case that's relevant.

[Anonymous]

^ You're cherry picking data favorable to Penn. Penn has a top 10 medical school, and Wharton is favorable to returning Penn grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ You're cherry picking data favorable to Penn. Penn has a top 10 medical school, and Wharton is favorable to returning Penn grads.

So what? Penn has top 10 law, business, and medical schools and all three give a sizable advantage to Penn undergrads who apply, so that is essentially a benefit for Penn students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale Law School Undergraduate Representation

Brown: 13
Dartmouth: 16
UPenn: 9 (class size 2x bigger than B and D)

Any links to that? It is pointless measure anyway, there are other schools and fields were Penn does better.

Top 10 Medical school representation (you need to go on the respective websites and compare):
Penn: 44 out of 177 matriculants
Brown: 27 out of 123 matriculants

Top feeders to HSW b-schools (students in class of 2013):
Penn: ~132 students
Dartmouth: ~53 students
Brown: ~39 students

In any case, Penn performs better in practically every ranking out there, it has overall stronger departments, more renowned faculty, stronger research output, higher RD yield rate, and according to the CDS documents Penn admits have a bit higher SATs/ACTs and GPAs/ranks than Brown and Dartmouth admits.

These stats are meaningless without taking into account class size. All these comparisons are meaningless - just apply to where your kid will thrive. GC's comments - I am surprised GC would make such a comment.

And if you guys see how many of these elite schools take kids who got in due to $$$$, connections, legacies, sports, etc over more qualified kids, you won't be that impressed.

[Anonymous]

Penn is twice the size of Dartmouth and Brown.

correct me if I'm wrong, Brown (and WashU) send a higher % of their class to medical school than any other colleges?

Brown and Dartmouth are full of filthy rich prep schoolers who don't give a shit what you think.

[Anonymous]

To all those bickering about the relative status of lower ivies, here is some historical context.

The only constants throughout the past century or so have been HYP at the top and Cornell at the bottom. The fortunes of the ivies in-between have fluctuated quite a bit.

During the early 20th century and until about the late 50s/early60s, Penn was seen a a distant fourth choice after HYP for the WASP elite.

Starting in the mid to late 50s and until the early 70s Columbia gained ground over Penn.

Throughout the mid-70s to mid-80s Dartmouth was seen as the best ivy after HYP.

The late 80s to early/mid-90s was the hot period for Brown.

Since the late 90s until today Columbia and Penn have been gaining ground over Dartmouth and Brown.

Some might say the trend is to stay , but given the history of ups and downs who knows what it will look like in 20-30 years from today. The only bet I would be willing to put money on is that HYP will continue to be on top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In terms of prestige the order now clearly is as follows:

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Penn
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell

I'm an academic, and while some of the ranks are field-specific, this list largely holds true in my field, though I would switch Penn and Columbia. Non-ivies I would insert are Hopkins and Stanford, but my field is broadly under the medical umbrella. Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell barely register.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My kid went to Columbia, I went to Penn and I have other family members at Cornell and Dartmouth.

Wow, are there actually families like this, where everyone goes to an Ivy League school? Is it something that’s expected or just a happy coincidence?

Most of the families I know are like this, including my own. On my side it's a class thing, on my husband's it's because they're all very hard workers and brainy types. My husband thought SIL was slumming it bc she went to Wellesley and her husband went to a lesser ivy. Our children have legacy options, though they're also very bright on their own and may or may not apply to the legacy schools. Son may prefer MIT, for instance.

I realize this sounds extraordinarily stuck up, but you asked. If you can't be honest on an anonymous message board, when can you be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To all those bickering about the relative status of lower ivies, here is some historical context.

The only constants throughout the past century or so have been HYP at the top and Cornell at the bottom. The fortunes of the ivies in-between have fluctuated quite a bit.

During the early 20th century and until about the late 50s/early60s, Penn was seen a a distant fourth choice after HYP for the WASP elite.

Starting in the mid to late 50s and until the early 70s Columbia gained ground over Penn.

Throughout the mid-70s to mid-80s Dartmouth was seen as the best ivy after HYP.

The late 80s to early/mid-90s was the hot period for Brown.

Since the late 90s until today Columbia and Penn have been gaining ground over Dartmouth and Brown.

Some might say the trend is to stay , but given the history of ups and downs who knows what it will look like in 20-30 years from today. The only bet I would be willing to put money on is that HYP will continue to be on top.

Very true. Dartmouth class of 1979 here . At that time Dartmouth was the hot ivy after the perennial top dogs (HYP.) Sadly when DC attended Dartmouth about 10 yrs ago Dartmouth didn't have the same status as in the 70s. I think the big movement away from LACs and liberal arts and towards more pre-professional research universities and STEM has hurt Dartmouth (and Brown) quite a bit. Still i think you d get a better undergrad education at Dartmouth than any other ivy apart from Princeton and Yale.

[Anonymous]

^ Brown sends a large % of kids into tech. I don't think you all are giving their engineering / cs / entrepreneurship dept. enough credit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After HYP, i think everything else is both a crap shoot and based on what the kid wants. I would never, for example, think, "Oh, they went to xx Ivy because they didn't get into xx Ivy"...or if that were the case, I wouldn't interpret it as one being better than the other. It really is such a crap shoot in the decisions process. I would regard all of them as about the same.

I would think that when looking at HYP vs the others. Lets be real. Most kids at the other ivies wanted to go to HYP and either applied ED to a lower ivy to maximize their chances so they didn't even apply to HYP or just applied and didn't get in. But I would never think for example that a Brown kid definitely didn't make it to Columbia.

I'm the PP with the kid at Columbia. Not every kid wants to go to HYP: my Columbia kid refused to apply to HYP. We did the college trip up I-95 and stopped at Penn, Vassar, Boston College, some more colleges, and of course Columbia. But my DC refused to set up interviews at HYP and when we drove past Princeton and then past New Haven I suggested just "driving through the campuses to get a vibe", but I got a vehement "no" both times. In Boston we ate dinner in Cambridge and didn't walk over to Harvard. Lots of DC's friends felt the same way--that even applying to HYP was pretentious or something. I disagree, but we left the decisions to DC.

Another PP already answered the question addressed to me, about families with multiple Ivy members. I didn't mention the Harvard undergrad and the two Harvard Law grads in my family, but I'll do that now. In my family's case, it's a certain WASPY love of education. One of my grandfathers was a university president after teaching at an Ivy (but note: he died long before he could have helped DC, not that we would have asked). Lots of Classics majors in my family. The British relatives tend to do Cambridge not Oxford, although the youngest generation hasn't gone there so far. So the environment growing up fostered an appreciation for good education.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Columbia has the best football team.

Wasn't that a fun and unexpected thing to write!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After HYP, i think everything else is both a crap shoot and based on what the kid wants. I would never, for example, think, "Oh, they went to xx Ivy because they didn't get into xx Ivy"...or if that were the case, I wouldn't interpret it as one being better than the other. It really is such a crap shoot in the decisions process. I would regard all of them as about the same.

I would think that when looking at HYP vs the others. Lets be real. Most kids at the other ivies wanted to go to HYP and either applied ED to a lower ivy to maximize their chances so they didn't even apply to HYP or just applied and didn't get in. But I would never think for example that a Brown kid definitely didn't make it to Columbia.

I'm the PP with the kid at Columbia. Not every kid wants to go to HYP: my Columbia kid refused to apply to HYP. We did the college trip up I-95 and stopped at Penn, Vassar, Boston College, some more colleges, and of course Columbia. But my DC refused to set up interviews at HYP and when we drove past Princeton and then past New Haven I suggested just "driving through the campuses to get a vibe", but I got a vehement "no" both times. In Boston we ate dinner in Cambridge and didn't walk over to Harvard. Lots of DC's friends felt the same way--that even applying to HYP was pretentious or something. I disagree, but we left the decisions to DC.

Another PP already answered the question addressed to me, about families with multiple Ivy members. I didn't mention the Harvard undergrad and the two Harvard Law grads in my family, but I'll do that now. In my family's case, it's a certain WASPY love of education. One of my grandfathers was a university president after teaching at an Ivy (but note: he died long before he could have helped DC, not that we would have asked). Lots of Classics majors in my family. The British relatives tend to do Cambridge not Oxford, although the youngest generation hasn't gone there so far. So the environment growing up fostered an appreciation for good education.

PP said "most kids" and he/she was right. Some kids have an urban sensitivity and won't consider Y or P, and some may dislike H's reputation for arrogance or simply believe their admissions odds are too low. But not very many will turn down HYP for C. I went to an HYP for undergrad and C for grad school and the undergrads at C did not get nearly the same level of attention.

[Anonymous]

Penn gamed the rankings - they're the party Ivy. Brown and Dartmouth are much smaller and much more prestigious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn gamed the rankings - they're the party Ivy. Brown and Dartmouth are much smaller and much more prestigious.

Delusional. Penn is a much stronger and more prestigious school than Brown and Dartmouth. Of course it deserves to be ranked higher. Besides, they outperform Brown and Dartmouth in almost every ranking. They can't possibly be gaming every ranking out there. Btw Penn is the social ivy, Dartmouth is the party ivy.