With nearly 40% of its students majoring in business/marketing, UR would represent a stark contrast to the “learning for learning’s sake”, high Peace Corp volunteer, low fraternity/sorority membership stereotype of say, a typical small, New England college. It doesn’t have quite the same mint julep in the afternoon atmosphere of it’s closest rival, Washington and Lee; its architecture is more Gothic revival than southern plantation. So, yeah. It’s less scary than W&L to the typical LAC applicant. But, not by much.
Harvard = Ferrari. The sexiest, most-famous brand going. Decked out in its iconic red colors, it is guaranteed to turn heads wherever it goes. Known world-wide, it’s the top-dog brand that some folks profess to dislike and are eager to point out its flaws, but secretly they would still love to drive it.
Yale = Maserati. Just as good as Ferrari in many ways and even better in some ways. Been around nearly as long, but has just never caught on in the public’s consciousness the way Ferrari has.
MIT = Self-driving Tesla. Famous technical marvel. Lives in the future.
I’m a car guy, so I liked your description.
But all real car guys know that while Ferraris are beautiful to see and drive, they have a propensity to break, crash or spontaneously combust, so it is best left as a trophy in a garage (preferably after being drained of all combustable fluids). What car guys really drive hard are Porsches, because they will take abuse day in and day out and still deliver amazing performance.
So, which college is the Porsche? I nominate CMU.
So Princeton is a decked out Rolls Royce with all standard options and possibly extras not usually included like A/C, rocket boosters, and a portable gourmet food replicator?
And Stanford’s a Lamborghini?
Too harsh - deleted.
You guys have it all wrong. Harvard is a taco, because they both have two syllables. CMU is a burrito because three syllables.
So Columbia must be an enchilada?
And Princeton’s Nacho?
And Grey Poupon, but of course.
No, it’s thin-crust pizza because New York City.
Yale is William F. Buckley because he kept his sailboat in Connecticut.
Dartmouth is Canada because that’s close to New Hampshire.
Caltech is my cousin Joey because he grew up sorta near there and got 100% on a math quiz in 1984.
Tulane is Walking on Gilded Splinters because Dr. John/Louisiana duh
Deep Springs is Captain Beefheart because he lived in some weird inland part of California too
Cornell is corn because it sounds like corn
Grinnell is a drunk person trying to say something about corn but slurring a lot and there’s corn growing nearby and college students get drunk sometimes
Duke is tea because Duke of Earl → Earl Grey → that’s a kind of tea I think
Amherst is Donald Trump because he likes and totally misinterprets the movie Citizen Kane about William Randolph Hearst whose name sounds like 'herst.
Harvard is a girl named Mindy because Mork and Mindy and Mork was played by Robin Williams who was in Good Will Hunting which is…wait for it…set at Harvard! And Matt Damon had a Boston accent!
I’m super good at this!
And tea with cucumber sandwiches with the finest tea service promptly at 4 pm thanks to the portable gourmet food replicator. 
Bowdoin = portable gourmet food replicator because the only two things anybody knows about Bowdoin are that it’s in frozen Maine and it has good food and there’s no such thing as a portable gourmet frozen Maine replicator.
well now that our metaphorical gloves are off:
Harvard is the guy who wears a business suit to the beach and hands out cards while there. Once he runs out of cards, he changes into swim trunks, rents a small boat, and convinces everyone in the group to take up an oar and start paddling while he calls out the signals.
Yale is the best soprano in the world singing a gorgeous aria while frustratedly trying to figure out how to turn on her computer, which is unplugged.
Princeton is the rich geezer who makes the neighborhood kids audition for the opportunity to eat at his table.
MIT is R2D2 holding a cocktail.
Stanford is the athletic would-be entrepreneur who might body slam you onto a table if you don’t give him that angel money for his startup.
Caltech is the dude who is smarter than everyone else but can’t pry open a beer or speak to other humans.
Columbia is the Big Apple’s serious professor, hell-bent on shoving its core down everyone’s throat.
UChicago is the gal who corners you at a party and won’t let you go until you’ve thoroughly debated the impact of 14th-century Genovese commerce on 15th-century Florentine culture.
UPenn is the guy who wears a suit to the beach but instead of handing out business cards, he slams a beer and yells, “Parrrtyyyyy!”
Dartmouth is the hung-over couple waking up in the forest with togas on.
Brown is the guy with the dreads and Birks lying down on his lawn and staring up at the sky, wondering if he’s going to take a class requiring effort this semester and, if so, whether he will take it Pass/Fail.
Cornell is the four-year-old following his older siblings around the mall, telling them how smart he is and generally being annoying.
Harvard - Believes he knows everything about computers and technical matters solely because he can turn on his PC and boot into Windows 10. Runs into issues if the icons/apps have been switched around by Cornell, and Columbia when they feel in a prankish mood.
Yale - Is the dude in business suit who is like Harvard, but has issues even turning the Mac on because he forgets to check to see the power adapter is plugged in or the battery is fully charged. Tends to also regularly spill his $10 coffee drink onto the mac with disturbing regularity.
Princeton - Actually very technically adept, but prefers to not only hide this from others, but also organizes others in bullying techies to prove coolness/non-nerdy cred. Delegates actual bullying to others. Root of this impulse to bully is deep-seated resentment at siblings like MIT, Caltech, and Stanford being much more technically adept and with the exception of Caltech…being able to pull it off while being just as/more popular at parties.
MIT/CMU - Twins who proudly runs BSD and Gentoo Linux to proudly show off hardcore techie nerd cred. Teams up to infect HYP with viruses which causes their computers to play Vanilla Ice, Yanni, NKOTB, and the Meow Mix song endlessly at 120+ decibels unless they hire someone to come back up their data and wipe/reinstall their entire computer setup.
Stanford - Runs Slackware and Debian Linux to show he’s not “too nerdy”…but no one believes him despite always wearing full football gear and him giving the appearance of being a hardcore slacker. .
Berkeley - Same as MIT and Stanford while maintaining the appearance of being an average non-techie joe.
Caltech - Same as MIT and Stanford while also deciding to cook up a new operating system completely from scratch, encourage everyone else to download it, and then gleefully proceeding to access their private data and proceed to get them to pay him a hefty weekly retainer in order to avoid him releasing their data to wikileaks. This is one reason why Princeton and HY hate Caltech and spread rumors he’s anti-social. MIT’s a bit miffed and jealous that Caltech managed to come up with the scheme first.
Columbia - Technically adept enough to turn on computer and use some basic applications in Windows and to a limited extent, Ubuntu/Fedora linux, but always annoys MIT/CMU/Caltech with endless questions when problems occur.
Brown - Like Yale except turns to picketing Apple and PC manufacturers whenever there’s a computer malfunction…even if it’s self-inflicted as is usually the case.
Dartmouth - Only 50% odds of successfully turning on the computer due to exhibiting a mix of forgetting to check power cord, accidentally spilling beer and ice cream on computer du jour, or accidentally sitting on/smashing the computer accidentally due to enthusiasm/excitement of watching/listening to Dartmouth sports teams play. Is actually more adept with computers than Columbia and Harvard if in the unusual state of being sober or calm whenever Dartmouth sports are playing.
UPenn - Knows enough about computers to turn them on and to boot into windows. Obsessed with running stock/bond/options trading software, but annoys MIT/CMU/Caltech whenever the software crashes with a blue screen of death or causes the CPU to overheat because UPenn was too impatient to start tracking the market to bother with reading customer reviews of software before using it.
Cornell - Technically adept, but focuses use of computers to maximize market efficiencies in Hotel/restaurant side business, stock/bond pyramid schemes, and creating mutant plants to facilitate separating HYP and everyone else from their cash. Schemes work far better with HYP on average, but Cornell also sometimes manages to snag the others…including Caltech.
Amherst is a goldplated zip car. Williams is a goldplated camper. Wesleyan is a zip car pulling a camper.
@marvin100 funny and true about Brown. The quirky label needs to go. They are independent types, but not necessarily odd.
Being wealthy is not a character flaw.
Swarthmore is a bowl of honey-nut Cheerios that someone meant to eat but forgot and left on the counter when he or she went out. Or passed out.
Davidson is that funky smell when someone else uses your towel.
Occidental is a hair found in an old book by a bald reader.
Pomona is a volkswagon pulling four zipcars.
Continuing the automobile analogies:
Stanford - a gold-plated station wagon
Harvard - a lot of Lincoln Continentals vying for showroom space.
Yale - that Cadillac parked under a street light in a bad neighborhood.
Princeton - that Stutz-Bearcat at the head of the parade with Jersey license plates.
Columbia - a New York City metrocard
Dartmouth - a one-horse open sleigh
Brown - a Prius
Cornell - the party bus
Penn - the party bus that’s just been painted gold.
MIT - not sure what it is, but the warranty is measured in light years.