[universityguys]

This isn't true, it's a strange assumption often perpetuated online. Looking at cross-admit numbers actually published by Stanford's Faculty Senate, for example, Stanford's biggest overlap is with Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton, in that order. It's a matter of pedigree - for undergrad, where grad school subject-specific rankings do not matter, there are an high concentration of very good STEM students at HYP; Harvard likely has the biggest concentration of excellent STEM students out of any university in America based on Olympiad winner matriculants and grad school outcomes, other than MIT. HYPSM lose virtually no students to universities other than between themselves, looking at the cross-admit numbers.

Schools like CMU, Berkeley, UIUC, etc. have different overlaps.

edit: This is just cold, hard data. Undergrads do not choose CMU/Berkeley/UIUC and whatnot over Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Despite higher grad school rankings.

[colinmhayes]

Are you counting stanford and MIT as ivy? If so then sure, but at least based off my experience, cs students that were accepted to ivy as well as stanford/mit/cmu always choose stanford/mit/cmu.

I'd love to see your data about whether students choose ivy vs. top state. I wasn't aware that existed so was just speaking from my experience knowing > 10 people choose U of I over ivys, including harvard.

[CaptainNegative]

> cs students that were accepted to ivy as well as stanford/mit/cmu always choose stanford/mit/cmu

I got a full ride to both Princeton and CMU for CS, and chose Princeton because I preferred their program. I was not the only one to do so.

Blanket statements are dumb ... typically :).

[barry-cotter]

> Are you counting stanford and MIT as ivy?

Brown and Dartmouth and Cornell are Ivy League and few would choose any of them over MIT or Stanford. Ivy League and top are not the same.