Not so much a reach/attainable pairing but I think UW (Seattle) and U Minnesota have a similar feel.

UVA : Miami (Ohio) (beautiful, preppy)

UNC: Indiana U (basketball crazy & no engineering)

Michigan : Wisconsin : Iowa (great college town, wide range of good academics, bigtime sports)

Penn State : Nebraska : Oklahoma (pleasant city, football crazy, most people in state love it)

Northwestern : Boston College (mid-sized school, Div I sports, in swanky suburb, very close to big city)

Va Tech : Texas A&M

Anonymous wrote:Michigan-->Indiana, Wisconsin

PSU is comparatively weak in Liberal Arts and Humanities and is Engineering dominated.

I have attended both and spent a week at Indiana at a conference and also visited Wisconsin's campus.

Maybe I am wrong, but most of the kids that I know aren't picking a large state based on the strength of a humanities program but rather on the overall ranking of a school. Some programs punch above their weight but that is an exception not the rule. An example of this is Kelly at IU. But I bet most kids are still picking Wisconsin over Indiana. I'm not even sure if they would pick Kelly over Smeal. Smeal isn't easy to get into.

Michigan - Wisconsin - Penn State - Indiana

If you love Oberlin, you might love Ithaca.

Hippie liberals, happy theater kid energy ...

I always thought Georgetown and Emory were sister schools one prefers medicine the other law. Both in similar cities and similar locations within said city. Both religious but not overly, lots of private school kids etc.

Anonymous wrote:
Penn,Harvard,Columbia: UChicago,Vandy,WashU

Yale, Dartmouth: Amherst, Bowdoin

MIT: CMU

Uchicago > Upenn> Vandy > WashU is a better order

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand people putting 4 in a row.

Yale: Rice
Oberlin: Lawrence
MI: MN
Georgetown: Macalester
WashU: Rhodes
CMU: CWRU

Good list except for Yale & Rice which I don't understand.

Vanderbilt: SMU

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame : Vanderbilt : St Andrews

Interesting.

What about Georgetown/University of St. Andrews ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colby: St. Lawrence.
Haverford: Bates.
Brown: Skidmore.

Wrong on Haverford / Bates. First of all they have the same admissions rate (13%.) Second of all, Bates is outdoorsy, sporty kids and Haverford is lefty/intellectual. (Have a kid at one of the 2 schools and just went on a tour of the other.)

Ditto on Haverford vs Bates. I also have a DC there.

Anonymous wrote:Northwestern = Boston University

Interesting pairing.Worth further investigation.

Northwestern's overlap schools are Stanford, Duke, Harvard, U Penn, Yale, Michigan, WashUStL, & Princeton of which only WUSTL & Michigan are easier admits.

Seems like a lot of NU students applied to Stanford.

Theater majors at NU also applied to or strongly considered Yale.

Engineering students at NU often also applied to Michigan, Stanford, Duke, & Penn.

Michigan-->Indiana, Wisconsin

PSU is comparatively weak in Liberal Arts and Humanities and is Engineering dominated.

I have attended both and spent a week at Indiana at a conference and also visited Wisconsin's campus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colby: St. Lawrence.
Haverford: Bates.
Brown: Skidmore.

Wrong on Haverford / Bates. First of all they have the same admissions rate (13%.) Second of all, Bates is outdoorsy, sporty kids and Haverford is lefty/intellectual. (Have a kid at one of the 2 schools and just went on a tour of the other.)

Acceptance rate represents just one component of selectivity, however.

Low LAC acceptance rates are not the barriers that one might think at first glance due to ED1 & ED2 options.

Anonymous wrote:UChicago: Johns Hopkins: Emory

Disagree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colby: St. Lawrence.
Haverford: Bates.
Brown: Skidmore.

Wrong on Haverford / Bates. First of all they have the same admissions rate (13%.) Second of all, Bates is outdoorsy, sporty kids and Haverford is lefty/intellectual. (Have a kid at one of the 2 schools and just went on a tour of the other.)

Acceptance rate represents just one component of selectivity, however.