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Penn Nursing accepted over half of Early Decision applicants this year, and nearly half of applicants overall. This may be a method that guys would be embarassed to use, with the stigma (if one still exists) about male nurses... but for every gal with Ivy aspirations, apply early decision to Penn Nursing (or just apply at all) and then you can transfer after a year. Or, if you decide you want to be a Nurse, then there you go.

Cornell isn't as easy to get into as it seems... New York residents get preference in half of the schools.

So gals (and guys) -- if you want to go Ivy but don't have a 1600 SAT, go Penn Nursing!

http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/11/3e96273e5574e

By Rosarosaef (Rosarosaef) on Friday, April 11, 2003 - 05:52 pm: Edit

great post!

By Breeze (Breeze) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 11:00 am: Edit

Also, here's some admissions stats I put together about the Ivy League. If you order the schools from largest to smallest, you get the order of schools from highest acceptance rate to lowest. There are only two outliers, Harvard (good) and Dartmouth (bad).

Cornell---------13,700---31.0
Penn------------9,900---20.5
Harvard---------6,600----9.8
Brown----------6,000---14.9
Yale------------5,300---11.4
Columbia--------5,200---10.8
Princeton-------4,600---10.0
Dartmouth------4,100---17.5

If you take it step further, and divide the number of students by the admissions rate, you see that all of the Ivy League schools are in the 460 to 480 area (a very tight range) of students per point of acceptance rate. Again, you have Harvard as a very positive outlier and Dartmouth as a very negative outlier. Brown is a slightly negative outlier, but much closer to the Ivy average than Dartmouth.

Harvard---------673------9.8----6,600
Penn------------483-----20.5----9,900
Columbia--------481-----10.8----5,200
Yale------------465-----11.4----5,300
Princeton-------460-----10.0----4,600
Cornell----------442-----31.0---13,700
Brown----------403-----14.9----6,000
Dartmouth------234-----17.5----4,100

Cornell's higher acceptance rate can be mostly explained by its larger size. Harvard's selectivity appears to be truly above the rest of the Ivy crowd, whereas Princeton and Yale fall back to Earth a little bit when one sees that their selectivity is closely related to their smaller size.

So when looking at the Ivy schools and how selective they are, keep in mind also the ratio between their size and selectivity. Students per selectivity can give a sense of a school's overall "power" quotient... a large, powerful mass of brilliant minds. It's interesting that Penn and Columbia come out slightly ahead of Princeton and Yale in this "power" comparison.

Of course, Harvard blows everyone else out of the water. It is big and it turns down 90% of applicants. And Dartmouth... well, their selectivity doesn't seem to coincide very well with being the tiniest school in the Ivy League and the obvious selectivity advantages that should have gone hand-in-hand with such a dynamic.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 11:07 am: Edit

Here are the "power" scores relative to Princeton.

1. Harvard--------/+213 !!!
2. Penn-----------/+23
3. Columbia-------/+21
4. Yale------------/+5
5. Princeton-------/0
6. Cornell---------/(-18)
7. Brown----------/(-57)
8. Dartmouth------/(-226) !!!

By Qwer (Qwer) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 05:20 pm: Edit

breeze,

you mentioned in your first post that cornell has tons of state (statutory schools)...which affect size and acceptance rate. its true that cornell accepts students from NY state at a much high percentage and they represent a good portion of the school...something to the tune of 34% (http://dpb.cornell.edu/irp/pdf/FactBook/Admissions/Undergraduate/profile.pdf).

thus, if you're not from NY state, your acceptance rate dips to 18.6 and the number of spaces isnt really 13700...rather, its only 9050.

thus, if you're OUT OF STATE, cornell's power score is 487...2nd in the ivy league. BUT if you're from IN STATE, cornell's power score would compete with dartmouth for last place.

which is more representative? depends on where you live. but, to be fair, the majority of the students (66%) are from out of state.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 08:24 pm: Edit

Qwer, that's a good point (and complex, as is Cornell). I did think about that sort of thing, but I really don't think Cornell functions as two schools but rather more as one combined entity.

For instance, I don't think that because it is much easier for New York residents to get into the state colleges of Cornell that they end up with a significantly altered degree than those in the endowed colleges. Since the colleges are integrated for eating and living and social purposes, I think they get the same advantages of Cornell as any other students. And both degrees say "Cornell" on them. The state colleges benefit by being part of an Ivy League school, and the endowed college students get an ever-so-slight "watered down" effect by being surrounded by 1/3 state college students.

I do think that the power of Cornell is accurately reflected by their being 2/3 private and 1/3 public in the rating just as it is in real life... it would be slightly higher (at that 487 I'd bet) if the entire school was endowed and not state, as the admissions situation of the now-state colleges would look much like the currently endowed colleges.

Since it's not that way and the entire school isn't private today, I feel the power rating has to reflect both the 2/3 private and 1/3 state schools and students to give a true rating of the combined school as it functions today.

By Bn37 (Bn37) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 11:10 pm: Edit

Remember, 31 percent admit rate for Cornell is all the schools combined. Arts and Sciences only took 17 percent of applicants last year...the numbers haven't been released yet for this year.

By Gooble (Gooble) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 12:27 am: Edit

I'm not sure if anyone is still following this, but I thought I should point out an important factor not considered in Breeze's "study:" the number of applicants each college gets.

Let's take two colleges on opposite sides of the spectrum of Breeze's lovely list: Harvard and Dartmouth. Breeze, you have ignored the fact that Harvard gets nearly twice as many applicants as Dartmouth does. Since Harvard and Dartmouth admit roughly the same number of students for their freshman classes, Harvard has to turn down twice as many applicants as Dartmouth does. Hence Harvard's lower acceptance rate.

Next time you put out a ranking like this, make sure you consider all the factors involved. Please don't pollute this forum with sloppy research. There's enough of that already.

By Admissioner (Admissioner) on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 06:27 am: Edit

Selectivity, according to most admissions departments and US News and World Report, is primarily a function of two input factors:

1) acceptance rate and
2) enrolment yield.

Enrolment yield is the percentage of accepted students who eventually matriculate.

From these two key inputs, one can recognize that the lower the acceptance rate and the higher the yield, the more ‘selective’ a school is. Other factors include percentage of admitted students in the top 10/25% of their HS class, and average SAT/ACT scores. This is how US News and World Report calculates selectivity.

Having worked at two different Ivy League admissions offices in the past, I can confirm that this is how the colleges consider their selectivity – not based on the number of students per percentage of acceptance, which is fundamentally flawed as you will see a few paragraphs down. US News, nor any admission department I can think of, would calculate selectivity based on numbers of students enroled that represent 1% of the acceptance rate.

In reviewing Breeze’s homemade selectivity calculations, I have found this major flaw in his work. In his calculations, Breeze overcompensates for the actual size of the school, and gives it far too much emphasis – the size of a school is NOT a critical input to true selectivity calculations: rather, it is an output of selectivity, as it is dependant upon acceptance and yield rates.

Let me use an example to illustrate the error in Breeze’s approach…

If we imagine a school, let’s call it State U., we can test Breeze’s selectivity index for its incredible bias towards large schools. State U is in a large state, and receives 100,000 applications each year, as anyone who receives a diploma can apply to attend and receive automatic admittance. Therefore, the acceptance rate is 100%, or 100,000 accepted students. Now, since State U. does not compare to the quality of other colleges, including the Ivies, only a small number of the auto-accepted persons actually enrol – let’s say a 15% yield. Therefore, 15,000 students enter State U. each year. Since the college programme is approximately 4 years long, there are approximately 60,000 State U. students.

Using Breeze’s calculation, we would calculate selectivity as 60,000 divided by 100 (for the acceptance rate). This creates an index of 600, which makes State U. more selective than all of the ivies, except Harvard. Now, given that State U. has a much higher acceptance but much lower yield than any of the Ivies, I am confident that it is NOT more selective, but Breeze would argue that it is using his approach.

Now let’s use a real example – comparing Penn and Brown. Brown received approximately 15,000 applications for the Class of 2007, and accepted about 2,200 of them – or just under 15%. The historical yield for Brown – those enrolled vs those admitted – was about 64% since the introduction of Early Decision. Therefore, Brown expects that about 64% of its 2,200 admits, or about 1,400, will enrol. This would give Brown around 5,600 undergraduate students, its actual full enrolment for the college.

As for Penn, it receives a few more applications – maybe due to it being in a larger state, maybe due to its historical ‘safety school’ reputation, maybe due it simply being larger and thus HS seniors believing that it will be easier to get into. Which it is we know – the acceptance rate was around 20% this past year. I do not know the exact numbers, but let’s say Penn had 20,000 applicants. If so, then it would accept around 4,000 students or so. We know that Penn has around 9,900 enrolled students, or about 2,475 per class. If this is so, then Penn’s yield would be 2,475 divided by 4,000, or about 60% (higher than reported past yields from Penn).

Therefore, Brown has a lower acceptance rate than Penn, and a higher yield – thus beating Penn on both main factors that contribute to selectivity. However, Breeze’s index being weighted inappropriately indicates that Penn is more selective simply because it is bigger. As we saw from the State U. example above, this is ludicrous.

I appreciate Breeze’s attempt to cast Penn in a better light in terms of selectivity. It is a great school as are all of the ivies. And no one outside the Ivy League really cares which one is more selective. What people do care about is the quality of the education in the college. And if Breeze’s Penn-sourced mathematical and quantitative reasoning capabilities are anything to go by… well, you can make your own conclusions.

By Cornell06 (Cornell06) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 01:23 am: Edit

Dude, get a life.

By Argus (Argus) on Friday, May 02, 2003 - 12:54 pm: Edit

Brown's enrollment is 5500 students, not 6000.
(see: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/stats.html) Where did you get those numbers, Breeze? Are you postive they're correct?

By Aetherfox (Aetherfox) on Friday, May 02, 2003 - 06:07 pm: Edit

I was just looking over the thread and I noticed something that may not be accurate but I'll post anyway.

what breeze is calculating is the total population of the school (TP) over the schools admissions rate (AS).

since the TP is about equal to the total accepted(TA) * yield(YD) * 4 and AS is equal to TA over total applied (TL):

breeze's number = (4* TA * YD)/(TA/TL)

now if I am doing my math correctly TA cancels out

breeze's number = (4 * YD * TL)

maybe I have over thought this but it seems as though the number breeze comes out with has nothing to do with acceptance rates and everything to do with the total number of people who applied and the yield.

By Macbeth (Macbeth) on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 04:04 pm: Edit

Why don't we just rank the Ivy league among overselves?

This is mine:
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Columbia, Cornell, Upenn (tied)
Dartmouth, Brown (tied)

I don't understand why Cornell continues to fall in the US news rankings. It's an excellent school and it produces some of the best students in the country (for example, Harvard medical school's valedictorians for the past 3 years have been Cornell students). Why does it suffer in the US news rankings now? It used to be 6th only 3 or 4 years ago and now it's 14th. Upenn and Dartmouth were in the 30s less than 5 years ago and now they are in the top 10. What's up with these rankings? Do you think Cornell will fall again in the 2004 US news rankings? The only schools that truly deserve to be above Cornell are Harvard, yale, princeton, mit, stanford, and caltech. Cornell should be around 9th or 10th. What do you people think?

By Hurried (Hurried) on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Harvard
Yale
Princeton

The US news rankings are helpful, but by no means absolute. I would rank Cornell more highly as well.

By Localmooer (Localmooer) on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 09:37 pm: Edit

"Selectivity per student" only has theoretical implications; in other words, it shows how selective a certain college would be if it were the same size as some other school.

However, the concept is flawed, as the number of applicants and the yield would greatly change if the size of a school was changed...

By Wanksta33 (Wanksta33) on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 10:36 pm: Edit

This whole conversation is flawed...it isn't valuable to compare universities, but only programs within the universities. Yeah, Yale is a fine school and all, but their engineering is 40-something in the nation, a sadly low rank for its "prestige". Again, I wouldn't go to Penn if it wasn't for it's amazing business program. It's funny that this "prestige" factor doesn't translate into either success or increased salaries since recent graduates from any school will not even approach 100k, especially in this lackluster economy. I fail to see how minute selectivity differences will change any real variables...therefore, I would call it a moot point. After the first employment, employers won't even care where you went to school...that advantage is done and gone, unless impression is what you're aiming for. Just my two cents, peace.

By Hurried (Hurried) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 12:17 am: Edit

Good post.

By Evekendel (Evekendel) on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 04:18 am: Edit

oh my god. i think i'm going to throw up. no matter how many different "authorities" you use or ways to crunch the numbers, it simply DOES NOT MATTER. hyps all have the same prestige/name value followed by other ivies/top fifteen schools.

so when you're up there, what really matters is choosing a school that works for you, taking into account diversity, campus life, individual departments, professors, and gut feeling.

i just visited a house in the projects with kitchen shelves covered in two inches of roach carcasses and crawling with rats. and i'm not even talking about the rest of the f-ing world.

i'm glad you guys are having fun, but i have to wonder about the point of all this.

By Marsic0839 (Marsic0839) on Thursday, August 28, 2003 - 04:26 am: Edit

I don't agree with the suggestion to compare "only programs within the universites". For one, the universities you are discussing are terrific. Unless they simply dont offer your major, they are excellent places to study. We arent talking about Grad School here, this is undergrad- whether its Princeton or Brown, it makes little difference. That brings me to my second point: as ridiculous as it sounds, you should probably be thinking most about the "vibe" or "feeling" you have for the college. Seriously consider location, size, and social life. This is your life! Make the most of it! (aka have fun)

By Upenn03 (Upenn03) on Monday, May 03, 2004 - 09:37 am: Edit

To the original poster about Penn Nursing -- there are a few things you need to understand about the admissions process in Nursing.
1) Interviews are required to be admitted to the program. The program is very small and intimate, and your personality counts. That makes sense -- personality is arguably what matters most for the profession itself. It's not just "easier" overall to get into Nursing than another Ivy League undergraduate school. If you have a 1600 SAT but you don't interview well, you will not get in, period. They also weed out people who probably truly want to be premed.
2) Not only are interviews required, but applicants are unofficially rejected early in this interview process, before the application process is done. That is, you can get an interview before your application is complete and if they don't like you, they will suggest that you don't apply on the spot. This makes the official acceptance rate seem a lot higher because people are withdrawing their applications once they realize they won't get in or that the program is not suited to them.

So, the statistics are misleading.
While they are misleading, I do think that overall Nursing is easier to get into than the other undergraduate schools at Penn. However, it's a really stupid way to get into the Ivy League. If you want a liberal arts education, don't apply to Penn Nursing!! It's harder to transfer between undergraduate schools then you'd think, and the Nursing courses themselves would probably kill your GPA in the process because they are no joke.