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Then why isn’t Berkeley considered better than Harvard? It’s the best school in the world according to the academic power rating. Why isn’t Michigan considered better than Columbia? Why isn’t Wisconsin considered better than Northwestern? Why isn’t UT-Austin considered better than Duke? Why isn’t UCLA considered better than Brown? Why isn’t UNC considered better than Dartmouth? Why are UVA, Vanderbilt and Wash U considered prestigious in the first place then?</p>
<p>There’s clearly something else that drives prestige besides all of this. Even putting impressionable high schoolers aside, no adult I’ve ever met would put any of those former schools in the same league as any of the latter schools besides considering Michigan to be on par with Columbia. That’s at least reasonable.</p>
<p>The reason I’m so invested in this is that I chose Duke over a full ride at UT-Austin and a direct admit from McCombs. I’ve never really regretted it and pretty much every adult who’s advised me on that decision in the legal, academic and business world (my dad’s a lawyer at Cleary, my uncle’s an MD at BNP Paribas and my mom’s a Stanford Human Biology professor) thinks it was an absolute no-brainer to pick either Brown, Duke or Dartmouth over Texas even though they were $200,000 more expensive.</p>
<p>If this power rating essentially drives prestige, then we all look like idiots. Of course, that’s essentially why it doesn’t. Perception shapes reality and the perception is that Brown, Duke and Dartmouth are better than Texas academically. Whether they actually are or aren’t is of little relevance.</p>