<p>Since Brown ranking 15th on USNews (behind Cornell) seems to make no sense to a lot of people (just an example)…what would you all consider the top 10 universities in terms of what the general population considers them?</p>
<p>I’d say…
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford</p>
<p>BREAK</p>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
</ol>
<p>BREAK</p>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>
<p>BREAK</p>
<li>Upenn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>
<p>Caltech and UChicago are also incredible schools, but not generally well-known by the public (yet…)</p>
<p>How does a ranking like this even matter at all? Honestly, this is just prestige driven and runs off the idea that the American public has that the Ivy Leagues are the only place where intelligent people attend. Seriously, I despise these kind of rankings with a passion.</p>
<p>I think once you move away from the northeast Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and UPenn can move down (many people don’t know those members of the Ivy league). Berkley would probably be up there.</p>
<p>The general population is too stupid to rank the top 10 schools. They don’t even know what the hell Columbia or Caltech is. Try and ask your regular old average Joe. No idea what Columbia is. They’ll think its in another country.</p>
<p>The average person will give you this kind of list:</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
MIT
Princeton
Notre Dame (only because of the name)
Stanford</p>
<p>I really don’t think they’d be able to name anymore after that. They’d probably start naming Football schools, or local schools that they saw smart kids go to.</p>
<p>Yea, I completely agree with what MLEVINE07 said, it also sort of agreed with what I said earlier.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is an outstanding school (even better than some Ivies one would argue), yet A LOT of people (even people who are not average) have not heard of it. This goes for a lot of the LACs (Amherst, Williams, etc). </p>
<p>If you ask an average person the Top 10 schools, they will give you a very stereotypical answer, and it will be from what they have picked up from in popular culture.</p>
<p>People just assume Harvard is the best out there, but it is not. No college is the “best”. Some have prestige and what not, but ranking is just stupid. Every college out there has strengths and weaknesses and almost every college has a very knowledgeable and intellectual faculty. Naming one college simply “better” than another one simply disgusts me.</p>
<p>I am a professor at a well-known Midwest university must inform those of you who like to spend time ranking the highly ranked schools that when it comes to the rest of the world, the University of Chicago is much more highly regarded than almost any other U.S. institution of higher learning. I despair when I see these type of posts that like to turn college rankings into spectator sport.</p>
<p>Kind of annoying how Liberal Arts Colleges are completly ignored on these lists.</p>
<p>When my friends say that they are going to University of Washington(which is a good school, by all means), people in my town will be like “wow, that is incredible, great job”. And when I say I’m going to Carleton College(6th best liberal arts school in the country), they are like “ohh, are you going to go there for two years, then transfer to UW?”</p>
<p>spaceball519 ~ Congrats on your acceptance to Carleton. There are about 70-80 other native Washingtonians waiting for you there, including my junior D who was born and raised in the Puget Sound burbs. So, don’t worry too much about the general opinion here in town - relish your experience that will be sooo different from your friends’ at the UW.</p>
<p>“The public’s positive perception of Penn State also was driven home in a nationwide survey recently conducted by the Gallup Organization. Gallup did a national poll in which they asked the public what colleges or universities in the United States they thought were the best. To no one’s surprise, Harvard came in first. But I am happy to report that Penn State was tied for 11th in this national poll. And among respondents who live in the northeastern part of the United States, Penn State tied for fourth among the nation’s universities. Northeastern residents ranked Harvard first, followed by Yale, Princeton, and then a tie with Penn State, Stanford, MIT and Penn.”</p>