@prezbucky not sure why you’d exclude RPI. You have casewestern and lehigh but no RPI?
NYU and Purdue, and yet no RPI?!?
Sacrilage I tell you
@Chrchill keep waiting…
@prezbucky I think you’d have to have separate lists for STEM-leaning and non-STEM-leaning.
Also, if you’re focused on undergrad only, then why separate Uni’s and LACs? Shouldn’t they be combined into one list?
Undergrad, STEM-leaning, based on … my subjective opinion 
Princeton, Caltech, MIT
Stanford, Harvey Mudd
Brown, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, Rice
Columbia, JHU, CMU, Dartmouth, Chicago
Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, USC, G-Tech, UT-A, Cornell
UCSD, UCSB, RPI, CWRU, Notre Dame, Yale
Wisconsin, Washington, UIUC, Purdue, OSU, Northeastern, Lehigh, Rochester, Tulane, NYU, others
Strictly undergrad
- Princeton
- Rice 3.Yale
- Dartmouth 5.Brown
- Wake
- Michigan
- Notre Dame
- Vanderbilt
- William & Mary
I work at Bain, a pretty prestige driven company and went to stem heavy schools. This is how I see it at the undergrad level (I won’t rank where I went to school to prevent bias):
- Harvard
- Stanford
- Princeton, Yale
- Columbia
- Caltech
- Chicago
- Northwestern, Duke
- Penn
- Cornell
- Dartmouth, Brown
- Rice
- Wustl
- Vandy
- Berkeley
- Michigan
- Emory
@insanedreamer Are you a NEU grad? Sorry, but Northeastern is not on par with schools like UW (both Wisconsin and Washington) and UIUC for STEM. Also, Notre Dame should be a tier below the flagships mentioned IMO.
@stevensPR we need some other posters on this board to omit where they went to school to prevent bias . . .
@WildestDream no, neither I nor any family/friends went to Northeastern. That was just based on what I’ve read about the school in terms of CS/engineering. But you may very well be right it doesn’t belong there – I certainly wouldn’t argue against you on that.
ND engineering is pretty strong (so I’ve read), the reason I put it higher was because of the undergrad focus at smaller schools compared to the huge flagships. But again, I don’t have personal knowledge of ND and you might be right it belongs a rung or two lower.
Also, on second thought, I don’t really think NYU belongs on that last line with Wisconsin, UIUC and Purdue. Probably one rung lower.
Academics + ROI + Difficulty + Density of High SAT scores
- Caltech
- Harvard
- Princeton
- Yale
- MIT
- Gatech
- Columbia
- Stanford
- U Chicago
- Northwestern
- Penn
- Vandy
- Duke
- Cornell
- Michigan
- Berkeley
- Johns Hopkins
- Dartmouth
- Rice
- Carnegie Mellon
Harvard
@greymeer - You appear to have ranked Harvard twice…
That is correct Mastadon. Harvard is that good! 
Sorry about that. Yep, RPI very much belongs in my list di prestigiolissimo. hehe
As for how to rank the tech-heavy/humanities-light(er) schools, I’ve included Caltech and (now) RPI because they do offer other things – not a full slate of humanities, maybe, but some.
It does, however, hurt them a bit on the “comprehensive slate of programs offered” metric.
CMU and MIT offer enough non-STEM majors, I think, to not hurt them much (if at all) there. The thing with CMU is – and is this really right? – that it’s feast or famine: either you are STEM, Business or PA (or whatever arts program is great…) or your major at CMU is average. That can’t be right. Right?
@Alexandre - I was assuming that I was supposed to place Harvard equidistant from the two points - for a rank of around 13 (but maybe I am taking this ranking stuff too literally)
Are you suggesting otherwise?
@stevenspr - I am kind of curious how potential clients react when you tell them that Bain is prestige driven rather than data driven.
Most STEM graduates I know use data and logic to prevent bias.
Cal tech and UChicago have the highest test scores.
@Mastadon he means prestige driven by recruiting probably… it’s really a given that he means that lol you don’t have to be so aggressive
@Mastadon @jaecha needless to say, i dont tell clients we are prestige driven in recruiting. But internally, it is a different manner.
- harvard, stanford, MIT
- princeton, yale
- U chicago, columbia, penn, cal tech
- duke, JHU, dartmouth, northwestern, brown
- cornell, vanderbilt, WUSL, UC Berkeley, georgetown, emory, CMU
- rice, notre dame, USC, UCLA, UVA, Tufts,U Mich
- Wake forest, UNC CH, Boston College, william and mary, NYU
- U rochester, Brandeis, Georgia Tech, Boston University, Tulane, Northeastern, Lehigh, UCSD
- case western, UCSB, UCI, RPI, UC Davis, UIUC, Wisconsin, U Florida, Villanova, U Washington, George Washington, UT Austin
- U Miami, Penn State, Ohio State, SMU, Purdue, UMD CP
- U Georgia, Fordham, Syracuse, U Conn, WPI, Clemson, pepperdine
Honestly, this was just off the top of my head and my personal feelings about the level of school. I’m from socal so there may be a bias.
Top 20 in my own perceptual map:
- Harvard
- Stanford
- Yale
- Princeton
- MIT
- Columbia
- Caltech
- Chicago
- Penn
- Northwestern
- Duke
- Dartmouth
- Brown
- Cornell
- Johns Hopkins
- Berkeley
- Michigan
- Rice
- Vanderbilt
- WashU
Tier 1a: Caltech, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale
Tier 1b: Brown, Cal Berkeley, UCLA, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Northwestern, Penn, Rice
Tier 1c: Brandeis, UCD, UCSD, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Emory, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, NYU, North Carolina, Notre Dame, RPI, Rochester, USC, Tufts, Vanderbilt, Virginia, WashU, William & Mary
Tier 1d: Boston College, UCI, UCSB, Boston University, Illinois, Lehigh, Maryland, Northeastern, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, Tulane, Wake Forest, Washington, Wisconsin
Tier 1d: American, UCSC, Florida, Fordham, George Washington, U. Miami, Michigan State, Minnesota, Pepperdine, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Rutgers, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Villanova, Virginia Tech, WPI