Only older people (or people not in the college “business”) would call USC U of Spoiled Children. It died down in the 90s I think.
I agree with WashU not being in the same grouping as GWU except for political science and international relations. Wahs U did get into the “elite” group though. USC would be now be seen as a peer to UCLA (although there’s bitter rivalry). Both used money to get to where they are, but they used it to strengthen faculty, resources, undergrad offerings, etc.
NEU is actually a “better” school in that it’s preprofessional with co-ops and does preprofessional very well. NEU and Elon are both examples of institutions that completely changed category (from third tier to first tier, from no-name to brand-name, from local-kids-mostly to sought-after-by-uppermiddleclass-applicants.)
And things have changed A LOT for “non historical” institutions.
In the 80s, UIUC was ranked about as high as Cornell in many scientific fields (which explains its pull in India or some parts of Asia, even though it’s not considered an Ivy-peer in the US anymore.)
WUSTL, Vandy, Duke, USC, BC, GW, NYU, BU, Penn, etc. are all playing the exact same game. Each of those schools has bumped up their USNWR ranking over the past few decades by 50% or more.
Same game but different starting points. Everyone wants to be associated with and considered a peer of the schools that are a rung or two above them. That’s why school #25 refers to itself as “a top 25 school” but never a top 30 or top 50. School #10 is a “top 10 school” never a top 15 or top 20. The idea is that #10 is just as good as numbers 1-9, but much better than numbers 11-20.
WUSTL used to be low 20s and got all the way to #9 in 2004. USC went from 44 to mid 20s. Vandy 24 to 16. Penn 19 to 4 at one point. And so on.
Northeastern though is the champ and GOAT at this. #162 to #42 this year.
@MYOS1634, UIUC is still considered a peer of Cornell in many STEM fields by the people in those fields. Maybe not by people outside those fields, but I don’t think those people ever considered UIUC a peer of Cornell anyway. And my experience is that STEM people generally aren’t the ones who go gaga over the Ivies; they know of too many strong schools in their field outside the Ivy League.
I think he may have referring more to WUSL’s rise up the rankings ladder from a regional school to national one. I’m not sure he felt it was on par with GW, but I agree it’s not clear from what he wrote.