<p>Cubecul, I think you’re projecting a bit based on your own experiences. While it’s true that most students at NU probably did not get into HYP or didn’t apply because they didn’t think they could get in, nearly all non-HYP institutions (including 5 of the Ivy League schools) are made up of students that didn’t get into HYP. There’s nothing wrong with that. </p>
<p>Furthermore, because admissions to HYP schools are highly arbitrary and they turn away massive numbers of extremely qualified people (in part because of their athletics, development cases and whatnot), the rest of the top 20 national universities are filled with these people who were rejected at HYP but are still extremely impressive in their own right. As a result, there is virtually no or very little statistical difference among the students in the top 20 schools.</p>
<p>I have not found at all that Northwestern students feel inferior towards schools ranked higher. This is because students drawn to Northwestern tend to be socially well-adjusted and can’t be bothered about minute differences in rankings (I mean, how uncool and dorky is it in real life to be parsing out these differences? :)). Socially popular students in both the traditional and academic sense, in particular, tend to choose Northwestern for its social image/brand that goes along with its academic prestige. </p>
<p>I am shocked by the suggestion that Duke is considered above Northwestern. I respect Duke highly but I’ve always considered the two schools on par with each other. This is evidenced by rankings of undergraduate and graduate programs at the national and global levels. I would agree that HYP are obviously a notch higher, but I’m not convinced there is any significant difference in quality or prestige between Northwestern and other non-HYP schools.</p>