<p>No Sam. I’m talking about your comment that aggregating top program ratings is not how you would measure prestige. It has nothing to do with Alexandre’s comment about Europe.</p>
<p>In terms of prestige? I would say:
- Harvard
- Yale
- Princeton
- Stanford
- MIT
- Columbia
- Dartmouth
- Penn
- Duke
- Brown
- Berkeley
- Caltech
- UCLA
- Georgetown
- Northwestern</p>
<p>
It is not, just as xiggi said. I bet if you aggregate the graduate department rankings in the USN, the combined ranking would look very similar to the THES’. </p>
<p>UCLA blows USC out of the water in graduate rankings yet based on my experience living in SoCal, people there seem to think they are about the same. Dartmouth’s students would have plenty to worry about for their job search if those department rankings highly correlates with prestige. It’s not just a bunch of 18-yo. Their parents are highly involved. Those parents talk to their friends and relatives. They become the conversation that circulate among the general public. Except professional schools (business, medical, law), I never overheard anybody in the public talking about which schol is ranked blah blah in material science. 
</p>
<p>By the way, the professors that gave the ratings don’t make hiring decisions for any jobs out there, except professorship but even in that case, they know that Dartmouth is a great school for undergrad and certainly don’t comingle Berkeley PhDs with BS/BA from Berkeley. So don’t try too hard to impress your next hot date with it. Whether she’s in the academia or not, chances are she’s not perceiving it the same as YP. :D</p>
<p>I don’t need to impress anyone. You don’t need to get personal, Sam.</p>
<p>Sorry for my failed attempt at being funny. On a serious note, I don’t mean to say graduate department rankings have absolutely no impact on college prestige; I just think they don’t correlate very well for many schools.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, not all universities with strong graduate programs are prestigious, but most universities that are prestigious have strong graduate programs and it is in part thanks to that they owe their lofty reputations.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis</li>
<li>UC Berkeley </li>
</ol>
<p>What’s with all the anti-WUSTL sentiment on CC?</p>
<p>^Where are Brown, Johns Hopkins, Rice, and Vanderbilt?</p>
<p>Brown has a very, very small endowment (comparatively) and I don’t think it is quite up to par with the other elite schools. I spent two summers at their summer program and by the second summer I had decided against applying. I like Rice (a lot) and it would fall just behind the schools I listed. Same with JHU and Vandy.</p>
<p>Not including Chicago would be totally off base, considering it has climbed so high in its ranks over the past decade, ranks top 10 at least in world university polls, and has the most Nobel Prize connections of any school in the United States and second in the world. Yes it is a scary place, but that’s part of the prestige. I can’t say how many time my lawyer Uncle cites the Chicago Economics philosophy in how influential it is in legal decisions, even if they are not transactional. </p>
<p>Also, this question should clarify undergrad only or total university with all the grad and professional schools. A school like Cal really shines so high only when the whole university is considered. Despite not liking it personally, Harvard is No. 1 overall. Endowment and rankings and just through the roof. I may pick Stanford second overall. Princeton would be top 10 but undergrad it’s Harvard’s equal. I think many overseas universities have big names but when it comes to prestige on a more objective level (yes I know that’s a bit contradictory), I’d slide them down a notch (Cambridge still in top 10). Just what my research says to me. I only know what I discovered.</p>
<p>Chicago counts visiting faculty members as Nobel affiliates. If Harvard and Princeton tabulated their data in this fashion they would have well over a 100 laureates each. This inflationary practice perpetrated by Chicago and numerous other schools is both disingenuous and deceptive. Schools that add to their tallies in this fashion are rightfully ridiculed by people in the know.</p>
<p>
Ummm… No.</p>
<p>
Yes, because Harvard takes a very modest approach to adding winners to their tally. Here’s what Dale Jorgenson, a Harvard University economist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobels., had to say:
He goes onto show that Harvard also indulges in liberal counting methodologies. I don’t know where you’re getting your “well over a 100 laureates” stat from.</p>
<p>
Ummm… were UChicago just to count graduates, and researchers (and get rid of all professors from their tally; professors usually account for most prize winners for obvious reasons), they would still have 41 nobel prize winners. That’s already more than Princeton’s 36 (which includes 14 academic staff, 13 graduates, and 8 attendees and researchers). Princeton is smaller, and cannot compare to UChicago in terms of Nobel prizes won, not that that takes away anything from the school.</p>
<p>Once again, where are you getting your “well over a 100 laureates” stat form?</p>
<p>MITs official count uses faculty who were around for less than a year (UChicago’s does NOT btw). Cambridge, according to an LAtimes article, “uses the most liberal of counting methods itself”.</p>
<p>Here are just a few other nobel statistics (which are more specific, to avoid the counting methodology problem):
Universities where Lauretes recieved their Highest Degree (Econ)
UChicago - 9
UC Berkeley - 4
Cambridge - 4
Harvard - 4
Columbia - 3
MIT - 3
Stanford - 3
…
Princeton - 2
Yale - 2</p>
<p>UChicago has 26 nobel prizes in economics associated with it as faculty, students or staff. According to the same methodology:
(UChicago - 26)
MIT - 20
Harvard - 18
Berkeley - 17
Stanford - 16
Columbia - 14</p>
<p>UChicago has fielded the most JBC medalists as well, and has among the most fields medalists associated with it ( and has 2-3 currently on faculty). UChicago also has 8-9 nobel prize winners currently on faculty, which is the same as Columbia, and second only to Stanford afaik. I don’t feel like getting statistics, but with the Fermilab+Argonne conntection (and association with people like Chandreshekhar, Abrikosov, Millikan, Cronin, Michelson, Compton etc.), I think UChicago is one of the leaders in Nobel prize in physics recipient statistics as well. And it doesn’t pretend to assert superiority in Chemistry or Medicine (although it is very strong in both).</p>
<p>UChicago is quite a bit younger than many of it’s Nobel tally peers (Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia) and was, for the longest time, a lot smaller (still remains smaller compared to those three, actually).</p>
<p>
Like Harvard, MIT, Cambridge and Columbia? Seeing as “people in the know” have better things to do (and hold all of the above institutions, including Chicago, in the highest regard) I doubt the veracity of your statement. I think that the universities are more often “ridiculed” by people on random message boards.</p>
<p>Regardless, UChicago has more than enough nobel prize winners to handily be considered in the top 15 (more like top 3) in the world, at least as far as nobel stats are concerned. Rankings seem to concur as well.</p>
<p>Recruiters see things differently than laypeople. There is objective data for what laypeople believe.</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>Basically
1-Harvard
2-Stanford, Yale
4-MIT
5-Cal, Notre Dame, Pton
8-U of M, Duke, UCLA
11-U of T, A&M, Ohio, UNC, Penn State, UPenn</p>
<p>4 Ivies did not make it to the top 16
Cornell, Brown, Dart, Columbia</p>
<p>That’s a little old (2003)
And I find it surprising that Columbia didn’t make the top 15 (even in lay prestige). Not insinuating anything, it’s just that sitting on the other side of the world, watching american TV shows and reading american books, I always thought that Columbia was extremely well known, even among plebeians…</p>
<p>I think Florida Gulf Coast is the most prestigious based on their name recognition and media coverage as of late. Their basketball head coach also dates an (ex) super model.</p>
<p>If you do not agree than you have no idea what preftige means.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Columbia is not a sports powerhouse and for a long time lacked the social glamour of the old-timey WASP former seminaries (Harvard, Princeton, Yale).</p>
<p>askjeeves, I believe you’re right!</p>
<p>Jak, the problem with you is that you are very prone to putting your foot in your mouth. Go to this webpage [Nobel</a> Laureates | The University of Chicago](<a href=“Page Not Found | University of Chicago”>Nobel Prizes | University of Chicago) which gives you Chicago’s official tally of Nobel Laureates and click on William H. Stein. You will be redirected to his official biography on the Nobel Prize website. Here it it: </p>
<p>[William</a> H. Stein - Autobiography](<a href=“http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1972/stein-autobio.html]William”>http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1972/stein-autobio.html)</p>
<p>Search for the University of Chicago and you will find that the only way in which this gentleman was affiliated with the university was in his capacity as a visiting professor for a period of one year. </p>
<p>I found this person at random on Chicago’s list of Nobel laureates and surprise, surprise…he turns out to be a visiting faculty member!
I’m sure that Chicago doesn’t include them in its tallies right!</p>
<p>All this is not to say that it isn’t a fine institution, it is. But, It is also the most “self-esteemed” institution in the country!</p>
<p>@GAILFORCE
I apologize. I read somewhere that UChicago does not include faculty associated with it less than a year, and assumed that visiting professors fell into this category. I retract the first line of a very long post.</p>
<p>Never make assumptions 
</p>
<p>Chicago is a great school though. No doubt about that!</p>
<p>As an aside, do you think it’s fair that Chicago includes argonne and fermi lab in its tally?
Wouldn’t that be like Princeton including the Institute for Advanced Study in its count?
(I hope this question doesn’t come off as being confrontational! I’m asking it out of a genuine sense of curiosity).</p>
<p>I just checked, Princeton, MIT, Cambridge all include visiting professors in their tally.</p>
<p>Ummm, I don’t think it would be very similar. While IAS and Fermi/Argonne share close ties with Princeton and UChicago respectively (some level of collaboration), the IAS can’t be considered as under Princeton University. The IAS is not part of Princeton, and despite it’s proximity (and the fact that it was once housed in Princeton U), IAS exists as a separate entity. Physical proximity may just be their only connection today. Wikipeida:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The referenced “collaborators”, would be included in Princeton’s tallies, provided the collaboration was appreciable.</p>
<p>Fermilab is operated by the FRA, which was a joint venture between the Illinois Institute of Tech., UChicago, and the URA.</p>
<p>Argonne was founded as an outgrowth of the Manhattan Project and the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, and is managed by UChicago Argonne LLC, which is composed of UChicago, and the Jacobs Engg Group. The current President, Eric Isaacs, (as well as several other administrators) is a Prof. at UChicago.</p>