USWNR Statistics Rankings

[bayessays]

4 hours ago, harry_stats said:

Thanks @icantdoalgebra and @bayessays. Is there any reason to believe it is harder to get into Penn than say a CMU/Michigan other than the cohort size? What sort of things would make an applicant get into one and not the other?

The prestige of the Ivies, and the desire to live in big cities on the coasts, are big factors.  Especially for international students, school name is important to a lot of people.  Penn also has one of the more theoretical departments, and they require the math GRE, so they are getting a very high caliber of applicants.  

I imagine the above factors and the small cohort size has other effects that make their yield rate extremely high as well and thus make admissions harder.  Penn has a LOT of very good professors - just as many as Michigan and CMU, even though there are many fewer students.  That personal attention and reassurance that you'll get to work with top people, that your cohort mates will be top-tier,  etc really differentiate the department and probably draw a lot of people there. (This is all complete speculation, but the department has a great reputation and the name and size are the large factors)