Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Prestige is always subjective. Wharton is certainly extremely prestigious. Beyond that Penn is a fine institution. It's no more nor any less prestigious to the layman on the street than Brown or Dartmouth. There are many who'd think more highly of Brown or Dartmouth because of the theoretically stronger undergraduate focus and a campus environment that is a bit more traditional than the large urban university campus. A graduate school admissions committee or hiring manager isn't going to see that an applicant went to Penn and think him/her more impressive than a similar applicant from Brown or Dartmouth.

The way it works in real life among "those in the know," ie those who have a general awareness of the elite American colleges through family, occupation and education, is that the pecking order is as follows: HYP+Stanford/MIT/Caltech in group one, the rest of the Ivies plus Duke and Chicago in group two, and beyond that it's a bit murkier but the Vanderbilts, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, JHU are in the top of Group 3 along with Berkeley, Michigan, Chapel Hill, UVA, and so forth. They really don't differentiate between colleges within the broad groupings, with one exception and that is I'd even argue that H is in a group unto itself.

H is only in a group by itself with respect to the arrogance of its graduates. Its reputation for undergraduate teaching is lower than many other schools.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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.

And this is how legacy shut out the non whites/recent immigrants....

PP here. I agree that the legacy game is bad. But neither this poster nor anybody in my own family used the legacy advantage. The bigger issue is more the whole cornucopia of advantages that come with starting out at a high SES. Like knowing how to navigate the admissions process and where to find help in targeting the essays. And the ability to apply ED.

Don't u have to say somewhere in the applications if u had relatives attend the school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Prestige is always subjective. Wharton is certainly extremely prestigious. Beyond that Penn is a fine institution. It's no more nor any less prestigious to the layman on the street than Brown or Dartmouth. There are many who'd think more highly of Brown or Dartmouth because of the theoretically stronger undergraduate focus and a campus environment that is a bit more traditional than the large urban university campus. A graduate school admissions committee or hiring manager isn't going to see that an applicant went to Penn and think him/her more impressive than a similar applicant from Brown or Dartmouth.

The way it works in real life among "those in the know," ie those who have a general awareness of the elite American colleges through family, occupation and education, is that the pecking order is as follows: HYP+Stanford/MIT/Caltech in group one, the rest of the Ivies plus Duke and Chicago in group two, and beyond that it's a bit murkier but the Vanderbilts, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, JHU are in the top of Group 3 along with Berkeley, Michigan, Chapel Hill, UVA, and so forth. They really don't differentiate between colleges within the broad groupings, with one exception and that is I'd even argue that H is in a group unto itself.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1, especially the part about Dartmouth being the party ivy. You can't possibly ignore all the recent media coverage about Dartmouth's frat scene.

Animal House. enough said. Dartmouth is the party ivy.

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Anonymous wrote:Brown is the hottest college in the country right now. It's hilarious to read clueless strivers obsessed with college rankings debate this.

LOL in your imagination maybe. In the real world, surely not.

Penn is huge, chock full of Asian and Jewish strivers. Dartmouth and Brown offer the classic "college" experience; it's where all the prep school money wants to go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brown is the hottest college in the country right now. It's hilarious to read clueless strivers obsessed with college rankings debate this.

LOL in your imagination maybe. In the real world, surely not.

Anonymous wrote:Brown is the hottest college in the country right now. It's hilarious to read clueless strivers obsessed with college rankings debate this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1, especially the part about Dartmouth being the party ivy. You can't possibly ignore all the recent media coverage about Dartmouth's frat scene.

Anonymous wrote:Brown is the hottest college in the country right now. It's hilarious to read clueless strivers obsessed with college rankings debate this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

And this is how legacy shut out the non whites/recent immigrants....

PP here. I agree that the legacy game is bad. But neither this poster nor anybody in my own family used the legacy advantage. The bigger issue is more the whole cornucopia of advantages that come with starting out at a high SES. Like knowing how to navigate the admissions process and where to find help in targeting the essays. And the ability to apply ED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

And this is how legacy shut out the non whites/recent immigrants....

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Anonymous wrote:

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.