<p>The ironic thing about all of this prestige thing is…in the long run…it just doesn’t matter that much. It is what you do with your degree and experience that matters. My wife has a team of Ivy league/Cal/Stanford/Georgetown quants working for her. She is one of the most successful and highly respected executives I know. She went to the academic powerhouse of…University of Arizona. Even she laughs at what a joke their academic reputation is…(especially since I did my undergrad at Cal, as did most of my friends). Also, one of the most incompetent, arrogant and useless employees I ever had on my team did both his undergrad AND grad work at Harvard. What a waste. The rankings and reputation of your school is one thing but he, and so many others think that gives them a free pass on life. I graduated from Cal 25+ years ago and learned one thing…a diploma from a prestigious university was a great start…it is up to YOU to make something happen with it. Finally, I don’t care what anyone says…Stanford is one of the top 8-10 schools in the entire Bay Area.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
</ol>
<p>[Oxbridge]</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li><p>Stanford</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia</p></li>
<li><p>UPenn</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth</p></li>
<li><p>Brown</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell</p></li>
<li><p>Duke</p></li>
<li><p>U of Chicago</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley</p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern
15A. Georgetown
15B. Johns Hopkins</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Honorable Mentions: </p>
<p>Notre Dame
Emory
Vanderbilt
Carnegie Mellon
Boston College</p>
<p>Personally I think Caltech should be grouped with Amherst, Williams, and Swathmore. MIT differs because of it’s renowned political science, economics, business, and philosophy departments.</p>
<p>This is from a domestic POV. Prestige according to academics and the educated/cultured populace.</p>
<p>EDIT: I think it would be interesting to see how the new NRC rankings influence this seemingly endless debate.</p>
<p>I’ve also been looking for a USNWR that averages out rankings for the last 10 years.</p>
<p>I’ve read some of this massive thread and it seems that the majority of the discussion tends to lean from a science and engineering perspective.</p>
<p>What would your top 15 list be for universities in the Humanities and Social Sciences?</p>
<p>Curious to see if most peoples’ lists stay the same or if there’s a lot of switching around.</p>
<p>It’s the most prestigious. Williams doesn’t have prestige. Nobody even knows about it before they start seriously looking into colleges.</p>
<p>Tier 1 A :- HPY S (maybe M)
Tier 1 B :- Penn Columbia Duke
Tier 1 C :-Brown Dartmouth Chicago NU
Tier 1 D :- Cornell WUSTL JHU</p>
<p>Wow - just wow.
This thread was started in 2005 and 138 pages of arguing about which school is more prestigious. Why doesn’t anyone realize that any school in the top 25 is enough to get you just about anywhere in life? The actual education quality is pretty much going to be the same throughout the top “15”. The only difference is the actual environment of the school and thats more important for success.</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
Columbia
Caltech
Dartmouth
Brown
Penn
Cornell
Duke
Chicago
JHU
Northwestern</p>
<p>From a NE perspective.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University](<a href=“Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University”>Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University)</p>
<p>The top 15:</p>
<p>16% Harvard
04% Stanford
03% MIT
03% Princeton
02% Yale
02% Notre Dame
02% Duke
02% Univ. of CA/Los Angeles<br>
02% Penn State
01% Texas A&M
01% Univ. of CA/Berkeley
01% Univ. of Michigan
01% Cornell
01% Brown
01% Florida State</p>
<p>"College graduates, who theoretically should know the strengths and weaknesses of colleges best of all, have roughly the same perceptions as the sample of all Americans. Harvard is number one among college graduates, with 22% of all mentions, followed by Stanford with 7%, MIT with 6%, Princeton with 4%, and Notre Dame with 3%. "</p>
<p>Survey of the American public. At first, it’s the popular private schools. Then it becomes “Which state u has the most fans.” Which is to say, most of the popular private schools have more fans. They also have a regional breakdown.</p>
<p>This survey only allowed for the selection of one, though. The 16% who chose Harvard might have boosted certain others if they had voted for their #2 or #3. Maybe some instant run-off voting would have been interesting, or letting each person choose five. So it actually isn’t a good measure, but something interesting to look at either way.</p>
<p>For actual prestige? Harvard, naturally, leads. It is the most prestigious, though others are close, like Stanford and MIT and much of the rest of the Ivy League sports conference. Obviously I’m biased, but Notre Dame seems to have prestige, whether you think it’s deserved or not, amongst most Catholics, which are like 25% of the population. Duke is a big deal in the South, but not so much in the North (I’ve lived in both). From what I’ve seen, of public universities, only UCLA and UCB seem to have solid academic reputations with most people far from their region (obviously others, like UVa and Michigan, are also at that academic level, but it doesn’t mean people in NYC or Florida or Texas know it). I’d also say West Point, which seems to be quite prestigious. Excellent schools like Chicago or Northwestern, which get tons of recognition on this board, seem to get shorted in the average person’s view of prestige. Maybe because they’re not on the coasts? Odd that the two I notice this the most for are in/around Chicago. Also, next to no-one I know has heard of WUSTL, despite their apparently great academics.</p>
<p>^ This Gallup poll is 4 years newer:
[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)</p>
<p>Gallup contacted a more recent poll in 2003. </p>
<p>Among the masses:
- Harvard University 24%
- Stanford University 11%
- Yale University 11%
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6%
- Princeton University 4%
- University of California-Berkeley 4%
- University of Notre Dame 4%
- Duke University 3%
- University of California-Los Angeles 3%
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 3%</p>
<p>Among people with graduate degrees:
- Harvard University 29%
- Stanford University 27%
- Yale University 14%
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 11%
- Princeton University 7%
- University of California-Berkeley 7%
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 7%</p>
<p>[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)</p>
<p>Tied for #5, yet they still can’t get the damn name right. It’s “University of Notre Dame” not “Notre Dame University.”</p>
<p>And thanks, I just used the first one that showed up on Google, didn’t know there was a newer one. Given the changed results, they seem to have done things significantly different, since such changes in opinion likely didn’t happen in a few years.</p>
<p>
Eh, UCBChemE, looks like we can stop arguing. Though the alphabet seems to side with you…</p>
<p>LOL. What his hilarious about this thread is that it is 139/140 thread-pages long, yet all you have to do is go to [US</a> News & World Report | News & Rankings | Best Colleges, Best Hospitals, and more](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com%5DUS”>http://www.usnews.com) and look at numbers 1-15. Some people just like to fight the hypo.</p>
<p>
So WUSTL has a high national prestige, greater than all those listed below it?</p>
<p>And it is fairly pointless to count prestige, but pointless things can also be interesting.</p>
<p>"Among people with graduate degrees:
- Harvard University 29%
- Stanford University 27%
- Yale University 14%
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 11%
- Princeton University 7%
- University of California-Berkeley 7%
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 7%"</p>
<p>Gee, no Notre Dame here. I guess college graduates know a bit more about which schools are truly at the top.</p>
<p>
Notre Dame isn’t that good for graduate school; all the ones listed either focus on grad school or at least have big ones. It’s natural that post-grads base their responses on grad-school reputation, which ND has little of. The one from a few years before had ND on the list from just college graduates, including the many who had just undergrad degrees.</p>
<p>^ I guess that’s what will come out when the respondents are highly educated and well-informed.</p>
<p>
Or a different standard is being applied. When the standard is “undergraduate institutions,” ND will do considerably better than when it is “graduate institutions,” and justifiably so. Someone with an undergrad education will think of colleges in terms of undergrad education; someone with a graduate education will think of colleges in terms of graduate education and research.</p>
<p>Of course, also not on that short list are schools like Caltech, Columbia, Chicago, and Northwestern, all of which you put ahead of UCB (not to mention UM) in your [“RML</a> Rankings”](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/848154-rml-rankings.html]"RML”>RML Rankings - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums).</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Hopkins</li>
</ol>
<p>In US,</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard
2/3. Yale/Princeton (interchangeable)</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Columbia
6/7. MIT/Cal Tech</li>
<li>Penn
9/10. Cornell/Duke</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li><p>Chicago</p></li>
<li><p>Michigan</p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern
(Just in case people were wondering)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Based on Prestige alone, Dartmouth is probably the lowest of the Ivies.</p>
<p>Our two kids found this “college of the day” blog [College</a> of the Day! | uraccepted.com blog featuring news and commentary from Joe College](<a href=“http://uraccepted.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-of-the-day/]College”>College of the Day! | uraccepted.com blog featuring news and commentary from Joe College) pretty good for the “unofficial” look at several of the top schools. Ours ended up at Yale and Emory. I checked the blog today and it was Berkeley but it changes pretty often. I think last week was Vandy. Hope it helps.</p>