<p>I’ve been around this forum for quite a while, and I’ve seen countless people categorizing colleges into three groups: 1st-tier, 2nd-tier, and 3rd-tier.</p>
<p>I think I have a very general idea on what they are (from my understanding, it’s a way of categorizing colleges into “ranks”), but I don’t fully understand what exactly determines which college falls into certain category.</p>
<p>I mean obviously, most people will agree that HYPS and MIT all fall into the 1st-tier school. So ok, people seemed to have met a kind of consensus regarding the 1st-tier schools. But for 2nd- and 3rd-tier schools, each person seem to have different opinion on certain schools. For example, some people will put UC Berkeley in the league of 2nd-tier schools while many will put it in the 3rd-tier.</p>
<p>So I’m just curious, what kind of factors do you use to “formulate” the categorization of colleges? Do you mostly base it off from US Newsweek ranking?</p>
<p>Oh i forgot to mention: we are talking about undergrad. program, if that makes any difference.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve actually seen more people reserving the 1st-tier spot to the top private universities (top 20 according to US News) while putting Berkeley in the 2nd-tier category with the top public schools and some privates like Ann Arbor, Virginia, and USC.</p>
<p>US News is a good start. You might argue the exact ranking but all the Top 50 schools listed are at least very good in many areas. I have seen many people buying rap records–does not mean they are any good.</p>
<p>tier is an arbitrary term thrown around here by many people. You’ll hear people go “Tier 1 HYPM, Tier 2 Caltech, Brown, Dartmouth, Chicago, Tier 3 the rest…” or something stupid like that.</p>
<p>its complete bunk. USNEWS tiers are as follow, Tier 1 1-100 (1-50), Tier 2 (51-100 they don’t actually list a tier 2, they just jump from 1 to 3), Tier 3 101-150, Tier 4 151-the bottom.</p>
<p>“So ok, people seemed to have met a kind of consensus regarding the 1st-tier schools. But for 2nd- and 3rd-tier schools, each person seem to have different opinion on certain schools.”</p>
<p>I think it’s the opposite, actually. There’s much contention over what’s first tier, and little contention over second and third tier, from my experience. As others have said, Berkeley is a good example: many place it in the first tier (I definitely would), while others in the place it in the second. I’ve never heard Berkeley put in the third tier.</p>
<p>I agree with tiers, because it’s a lot easier to group colleges than it is to say “Princeton is better than Harvard [by one point]” – that sort of thing. I’d consider the top 25-30 to be first tier, while 30-55 or so to be second tier.</p>
<p>tier 1 if talking about first 50 univeristies/lac then ucb will definetly be on it and i think kyle what jags was saying is that tier 1 for univiersities in his definition is only the top 6 schools and tier two probably the next top 10 or so and probably tier 3 the next top 10 or so hence why jags would put ucb in tier 3, i don;t think he meant ucb was not a top 50 school</p>
<p>^^ I’m aware of what he meant, but I was clarifying what a ‘tier’ is, which generally isn’t a three-college grouping. A tier tends to be a larger group of schools – a concept which few on this site grasp. But the meaning of ‘tier’ has changed and now it comes to mean “HYPSM-1, Dartmouth blahblahblah-2 …”</p>
<p>Just so I’m clear, why does anyone care? You don’t put “I went to a first tier school” on your resume or CV…
How about picking a school that is a good fit for you and be done with it.</p>
<p>darkhope, i wouldn’t put berkeley in tier 3, its most definately a “tier 1 school.”</p>
<p>I was making fun of people who make ridiculous comments like “only Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are tier one schools and nothing else matters” - which there are several people who think that.</p>
<p>This is a bulls*** thread, and I don’t really believe that someone actually posted this with real curiosity. Are you telling me that you don’t understand the concept of 1st, 2nd, 3rd-tier? If you wanted to posit that HYP are in tier 1 and you think Berkeley is in Tier 3 and that’s your opinion, or that all publics are in Tier 2, why don’t you just say that rather than asking a rather transparent and simple question? Clearly you’re not going to be Tier 3 material if you can’t understand those concepts. I just don’t buy the question. What’s not to understand in Tier 1, 2, and 3? The question is where the cut-off is and how or by what source its determined. The person who posted this thread already has opinions about this, so what’s the point?</p>