I’d expect that the majority of the US population has heard of MIT. However, I’d expect the majority wouldn’t be familiar with Caltech (not “Cal Tech”), such that California Institute of Technology would seem equally prestigious to Illinois Institute of Technology – both are tech colleges they haven’t heard of.
In terms of fictional media, Caltech appears in the Big Bang Theory universe. I can’t think of any other references among media that is well known by general population. The 1980s movie Real Genius is often credited as being Caltech. However, the university in the movie was named Pacific Technical University, so I expect few will make the connection.
However, MIT frequently appears in popular media. If someone is supposed to be smart and techy, they often are associated with MIT. Examples include Tony Stark (Iron Man), Will Hunting (I realize he was not a student), Benjamin Gates (National Treasure), Sam Becket (Quantum Leap), 21 movie (MIT blackjack team), and Fringe (Peter faked credentials as MIT grad and Walter was Harvard → Oxford/MIT). I could list dozens of others.
As has been noted in the thread, the general population having at least basic familiarity with the college is not the same as being “prestigious.” Instead different groups are going to find a different list of colleges “prestigious” and different people are going to care about some of these different groups and not others. If you want to be a top musician or actor, Julliard is likely to be quite prestigious. If you want to be a top pilot, I’d expect Embry-Riddle Aeronautical to be prestigious. When I was growing up, I was interested in Harvey Mudd and considered it prestigious. When I mentioned I was interested in the college to people in my upstate NY high school, literally nobody had heard of it – either students or teachers. With no standardized definition of “prestigious”, I doubt there the thread is going to come to an agreement about what colleges are prestigious.
Among the forum member population, I think Hunt’s prestigiosity rankings (see Ranking Colleges by Prestigiosity ) are as good a list of any. Hunt’s final ranking in the thread is copied below. The unit mH is mili-Harvards.