Rank the top 20 national universities in terms of lay prestige (based on your region)

JamieBrown · January 20, 2012, 4:43pm

I live in one of the five boroughs of New York, and I attended high school in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. **This is my “ask average Joe New Yorker what’s what,” **not: “hey, wealthy socialite, what do you think?”

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Cornell </li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT
etc.</li>
</ol>

I’m not listing them all, and the order isn’t that important. My point is that Harvard is indisputably number one in lay prestige. Followed by the sports schools. Then, some of the Ivy League schools. Then, Johns Hopkins, because its research representatives are so commonly cited in articles.
CIT, Chicago, Dartmouth, NU, WUSTL, Rice, Penn, typical people won’t know about.
Especially Rice and CIT.

good one

so now you are claiming that the “average joe new yorker” is involved in significantly reading research articles where Johns Hopkins is cited?

What is wrong with this picture?

austinareadad · January 20, 2012, 4:53pm

So this old thread was resurrected, and I have never contributed to something like it, so, on a lazy Friday afternoon, I will add my 1 1/2 cents.

I couldn’t even begin to assess “lay prestige” in my area, as that encompasses so many disparate opinions from so many varied people that expending any effort at combining those into one ranking would not be prudent. As a stab at contributing something of non-zero value, though not optimistic about success, I would say that in my world, lawyers and others in the legal field in central Texas, the prestige ranking of the 2012 USNWR top 20 undergraduate programs might go something like this:

<ol>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> MIT/Princeton/Stanford/Yale</li>
<li> Caltech/Columbia</li>
<li> Brown/Dartmouth/Penn</li>
<li> Cornell/Duke/Rice</li>
<li> Chicago/Johns Hopkins/Northwestern</li>
<li> Vanderbilt/WUSTL</li>
<li> Emory/Notre Dame</li>
</ol>

By the way, I do not have a dog in the fight.

nordqvist · January 21, 2012, 7:24am

England:

Oxford=Cambridge>>LSE = Imperial>UCL>>Durham>Warwick>Bristol = St Andrews

mathstarftw · January 21, 2012, 7:40am

A perception of English universities to American laypeople:
Oxford=Cambridge >>>>> ???

Dubblebubble898 · January 21, 2012, 8:01am

Virginia:
For me:
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Columbia
Caltech
Brown/dartmouth/penn
Northwestern
Chicago
Duke
Rice
Cornell
Others

Alexandre · January 21, 2012, 12:10pm

Nordqvist, I would say Cambridge=Oxford>>>Imperial=LSE=UCL. Beyond those 5, British universities do not have global presence.

aleksander · January 21, 2012, 11:34pm

For me,

excluding MIT and Caltech

Harvard
Yale / Princeton
Stanford / Columbia
UPenn / Dartmouth / Brown
Duke / Cornell
UChicago / Northwestern
WUSTL / Johns Hopkins / Rice
Vanderbilt / Emory / Notre Dame / Carnegie Mellon / Georgetown

happyman2 · January 21, 2012, 11:54pm

For Lay Prestige:

Harvard
Princeton Yale Stanford
Columbia Duke Brown
Dartmouth Penn
Cornell Chicago Northwestern JHU
Rice

beyphy · January 22, 2012, 9:26am

Harvard/Stanford
Yale/Princeton/Oxford
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
NYU

I would say that most people don’t know the ivies after the big 3, nor can they name them. Also not biasing this just because i go to school in one of them. I respect Caltech greatly, but it’s such a small school that the layperson doesn’t know about it, and hence, i didn’t include it.

SMCguy · January 23, 2012, 2:02pm

I’m in California (Los Angeles)…

1-4. Harvard/Stanford/Yale/Princeton

5-10. CalTech/MIT/Columbia/Cornell/Brown/UPenn

11-15. Berkeley/UCLA/Duke/Nortre Dame/Georgetown

16-20. USC/Michigan/UNC/Washington/Wisconsin

Then…UCSD, UCSB, UCD, UCI, Texas, Penn State, Illinois, etc…

UCBChemEGrad · January 23, 2012, 2:27pm

Why not look at an actual survey put out by a polling company that asked this very question?

[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)

Best/
Second Best
%

Harvard University 24
Stanford University 11
Yale University 11
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 6
University of California at Berkeley 4
Notre Dame University 4
Princeton University 4
University of Michigan 3
Duke University 3
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) 3
University of Texas 2
Texas A&M University 2
Ohio State University 2
University of North Carolina 2
Penn State University 2
University of Pennsylvania (Penn) 2
University of Minnesota 1
Brown University 1
Cornell University 1
University of Virginia 1
Brigham Young University (BYU) 1
University of Tennessee 1
Michigan State University 1
Purdue University 1
University of Iowa 1
Georgetown University 1
University of Arizona 1
University of Southern California (USC) 1
Louisiana State University (LSU) 1
Indiana University 1
University of Washington 1
Columbia University 1
University of Wisconsin 1
Boston University 1
New York University 1
None *
Other 36
No opinion 22

East
Harvard 36
Yale 16
Princeton 7
Stanford 5
MIT 5
Penn State 5
Penn 5

Midwest
Harvard 21
Yale 11
Stanford 10
Michigan 9
Notre Dame 8

South
Harvard 18
Yale 10
Stanford 9
Duke 7
Texas A & M 7

West
Harvard 24
Stanford 19
Berkeley 11
Yale 9
MIT 7
UCLA 7

What about post-graduates themselves, who might be expected to know better than others what schools are prestigious, given that they applied to schools at least twice (for undergraduate and graduate work) and most likely spent a good deal of time evaluating schools? Here’s the list of schools most often mentioned by college graduates with at least some post-graduate education:

Harvard 29%
Stanford 27
Yale 14
MIT 11
Berkeley 7
Princeton 7
Michigan 7

rjkofnovi · January 23, 2012, 2:36pm

Thanks for reprinting this UCB. I was going to look for this prior post. :-)

SMCguy · January 23, 2012, 6:03pm

Nice too see UCLA mentioned often and the absence of USC lol

warblersrule · January 23, 2012, 8:54pm

Presumably because:

(1) Posters are capable of reading and noticed that the thread asked only about top 20 universities as ranked by USNWR – no Berkeley, Georgetown, Michigan, UCLA, Ohio State, or others ranked outside the top 20.

(2) They are capable of thinking for themselves and coming up with their own rankings, especially at a more local level than Gallup provided.

(3) They are not so needy for attention and affirmation that they feel the need to point to a 10 year old poll, which certain posters have done time and again.

dfree124 · January 23, 2012, 9:34pm

Connecticut

Harvard
Princeton/Yale
MIT/Stanford
CalTech
Penn/Dartmouth
Columbia
Chicago/Brown
Duke/Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
WashU
Cornell
Rice/Vanderbilt
Emory
Notre Dame

Obligatory focus on the Northeast, of course

monk414 · January 24, 2012, 7:07pm

Boston

Harvard
Yale/Princeton/MIT
Columbia/Stanford
Penn
Dartmouth/Duke/Northwestern
Brown
Cornell
Johns Hopkins
Chicago/WashU
Vanderbilt
Emory/Rice
Notre Dame

Caltech is not even well-recognized here unfortunately.

Popular kids (aka smart and good-looking) from my HS go for Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern. A lot in this group apply ED to DDN (Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern).

BostonTW · April 18, 2012, 1:36am

USC is far more prestigious than UCLA on the East Coast because USC is private.

Sparkeye7 · April 18, 2012, 1:44am

Gallup Poll

Although it was published nearly a decade ago, I doubt much has changed…

[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)

goldenboy8784 · June 8, 2012, 1:39am

I bet opinions have changed in the past 10 years.

I would say:

Washington D.C.

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
Columbia/MIT
Duke/Penn
Brown/Cornell/Dartmouth/JHU
Chicago/Vanderbilt
Northwestern/Emory
WUSTL
Rice

tk21769 · June 8, 2012, 5:02am

For Baltimore/Washington?
About like this:

Harvard
MIT
Naval Academy
Duke, Georgetown, Notre Dame
West Point
Princeton, Yale
Johns Hopkins
Stanford
UVa, UNC … maybe Michigan and Penn State
Various nameless “Ivy League Schools”
Cornell
Vanderbilt, Wm & Mary
Something with “Boston” in it

Rank the top 20 national universities in terms of lay prestige (based on your region)

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