How would you rank the Ivies?
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Anonymous
No they don't. No one chooses Swarthmore over Princeton. Get real. 
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Anonymous
Maybe you wouldn't but it does happen. Then there's the people who could get into Princeton but don't bother applying because they value things other than US News rankings (and Swarthmore doesn't even do badly in that). |
Anonymous
Maybe this has changed, but when I was there, Princeton artificially deflated its grad student numbers by counting PhD candidates as enrolled only during their first 4 years of study. Mean time to a Princeton PhD at that time was 7.9 years IIRC. Basically, about half the actual grad students went uncounted in Princeton's statistics. Even as a first year grad student at Princeton, I precepted (aka taught sections in) an upper division course. And, in my department, fifth-year grad students routinely advised senior theses. We were classified as faculty (hired as adjunct instructors or lecturers), but we were all ABDs. Actually, compared to Harvard, the grad students teaching at Princeton were less advanced. In each school, some grad students were great teachers and others didn't know WTF they were doing. Abstractly, I agree with what PP is saying (Princeton may be a better choice for a really smart but shy or not so self-confident student than Harvard would be), but I also know that I had close relationships with a number of my Harvard profs and small classes with many others. And I was surprised and put off by the undergrad social scene at Princeton when I arrived. It was really alcoholic and not very intellectual. Harvard's social life and student body seemed much more diverse by comparison. Maybe that's changed too, but it's definitely worth having a DC visit both places, talk to friends/former classmates at each, and ask questions about instruction in specific majors. |
Anonymous
| FWIW, for me at least, getting to know faculty at Harvard was less about self-confidence than about where I ate and studied. My House -- aka residential college -- happened to be near the departmental offices for my major. And I think Harvard offered free food to faculty who affiliated with a House. So profs would come over for lunch regularly and then look for a familiar or friendly faces near an open seat. I also ran into faculty in the library fairly frequently and some would stop to chat. Basically, shared interests, the geography of the campus, and some deliberate social engineering worked to bring people together across status lines. I didn't have to make an effort to get to know profs -- it just sort of happened. |
Anonymous
I would imagine that there are plenty of ivy admits who were also accepted elsewhere w full scholarships, and they find themselves in the position of choosing full pay (loans, if their parents can't cover it) for an ivy vs full-ride at a lower tier school. In that case, I could understand choosing a different school. Frank Bruni (NYTimes) has been on a book tour and discussed how he made that same choice (full ride over Yale, I think). So I imagine it happens. |
Anonymous
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HYP
The rest -- signed double Penn grad |
Anonymous
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Princeton
Harvard Yale Columbia Dartmouth ('03 grad for a previous poster who wanted to know) Penn Brown Cornell For me personally, Yale was a no go as it was 20 minutes from my parents' house, I don't think I would have been accepted to Princeton, I didn't want to go to school in a big city so Harvard and Columbia got scratched off my list, Brown appeared to lack structure to me, and I didn't want to go to school in Ithaca. Never looked at Penn to be honest, it wasn't really on my radar for whatever reason. I applied ED to Dartmouth and was done. On my list at the time had I been rejected ED were Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Middlebury, and Bates. When kids throw applications to many or all of these schools it makes me think they are simply interested in going to an Ivy League school, which has never made any sense to me. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, all are very good schools, but all do not strike me as being a good fit for the same student. |
Anonymous
Ivies are among the most generous with need based aid, so this is bogus. It's a nice way for ivy rejects to save face, but seriously, everyone who gets in chooses princeton over swarthmore. |
Anonymous
In situations where you don't need aid (and thus none is offered), a family might appreciate saving 50-60K a year by sending their kid to a non-Ivy, especially in situations where the non-Ivy has programs (e.g. film school) that the Ivy can't compete with and/or the student in question is unlikely to be a standout academically at the Ivy (or would prefer to do grad work at the Ivy in question) and it makes sense to see this as a two-stage process where saving money or racking up honors during undergrad positions you better for grad school placement. And that's before we get to the "where would you be happier?" question (which parents may be more willing to let determine the decision if they answer means they don't have to lay out tons of money and DC clearly has a long-term plan that sounds viable). |
Anonymous
I'd put it slightly differently. There are some people who are interested in Swarthmore, but not Princeton. They want something quieter and less preppy. But people who do apply to both schools and get in will almost always go with Princeton. |
Anonymous
Again, this isn't true. There are people who'd choose Swarthmore over Princeton, Harvey Mudd over Stanford, Williams over Harvard, etc. I know this because I have met these kids. Not everyone solely makes decisions on the name. I want to see your source for 100% of the people who get into Swarthmore and Princeton go to Princeton. Even Parchment's data has 1/3 choosing Swarthmore. |
Anonymous
Hard to believe there is much application overlap in the two given how completely different they are but to the extent there is I can't imagine picking Swat over Princeton. |
Anonymous
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I have to agree that anyone applying to both Princeton and Swarthmore is likely to choose Princeton. But I don't imagine there's much overlap between those two schools. Swarthmore and Haverford, maybe.
I used to live in Princeton. It's such a nice town, the nicest place I ever lived. So there's that. I would never have gone to Princeton, too preppy for me, and too big. I would choose Swarthmore, but that's me. I'm that type. HYP, Dartmouth Cornell Brown Penn |
Anonymous
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oops! Forgot Columbia
So it's HYP Dartmouth Cornell, Columbia Brown Penn |
Anonymous
I didn't say 100%. But, again, if you've applied and been admitted to a top SLAC and get into one or more of HYP as well, it's really hard at decision time to pass on HYP. It's not just the name - it's the whole package. |