top 15 most prestigious universities

College Search & Lists
1401

<p>Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Penn, Columbia, U Chicago, Berkeley, John’s Hopkins, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern/Duke</p>

<p>In that order.</p>

1402

<p>Zenenj: Oh please, Cornell not in the Top 15 most prestigous schools? Thats ridiculous. Kingofqueens: Is it just me or is Cal Berkely kind of falling off the map? And Cal Berkely and Johns Hopkins in front of Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, and Duke… wow</p>

<p>1 Harvard
2 Yale
3 MIT
4 Princeton
5 Stanford
6 Columbia
7 Dartmouth
8 Cornell
9 UPenn
10 Duke
11 Brown
12 UChicago
13 Northwestern
14 Georgetown
15 Notre Dame</p>

1403

<p>“anyone that puts WUSTL on this top 15 most prestigious school list is a n00b.”</p>

<p>It seems someone got rejected by WUSTL and has something against it…=P. </p>

<p>Anyway, mine is:
-Stanford
-Princeton
-Yale
-MIT
-Harvard
-UC Berkeley
-Columbia
-Duke
-UChicago
-Darmouth
-UPenn
-WashU
-Cornell
-Brown
-Northwestern</p>

1404

<p>Duke is very overrated IMO. I’m generous in even including it in the top 15.</p>

1405

<p>The only consensus “most prestigious” schools are Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton and Caltech. The rest are entirely debateable.</p>

1406

<p>^ i’m with you…
confusedboy you are really confused… Harvard is number one without any kind of doubt. Some people dislike harvard but it is number one… in any part of the world you go harvard is considerated 1.
Even in my visit to cambridge university they acknolodge that.</p>

1407

<p>confused boy doesn’t know what he/she is saying. Harvard 5th? WUSTL up there? No JHU. ■■■■.</p>

1408

<p>^Which one of those schools is JHU better than? I certainly agree that Harvard is #1, whether you would want to go there or not is a different matter.</p>

1409

<p>Hopkins is a great school. I would agree that it is in the same tier level as WUSTL, Georgetown, Berkeley, and Northwestern in terms of overall academics and prestige. It’s not neccessarily better than any of the aforementioned schools. It’s not a popularity contest here. :D</p>

1410

<p>

Overreacting much? Confused boy used dashes, so it’s quite possible he didn’t even mean it as a ranking.</p>

<p>WUStL has decent academics, is more selective than a good chunk of confused boy’s list, and offers a better quality of life than nearly all of them. I’m not sure I’d put replace Hopkins with it, but there’s no need to complain about it being included.</p>

<p>

Duke is
-within the top 20 of the NRC rankings
-regularly in the top 10 of the USNWR rankings
-in the top 15 of the THES ranking
-in the top 15 for endowment
-in the top 15 for virtually all of its professional schools
-in the top 10 for highest SAT/ACT scores
-in the top 10 for graduate placement
-in the top 10 for faculty instruction (possibly flawed survey)</p>

<p>I don’t think you’re being overly generous.</p>

1411

<p>@bjomountsi09: No need to get so angry about it. I just forgot about Cornell but now that I think about it it should be on the list.</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Brown University</li>
<li>Duke University</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
</ol>

<p>sheesh :stuck_out_tongue: It’s all relative anyway. And it changes from different regions of the country.</p>

1412

<p>Caltech is not NEARLY as prestigious as MIT, let alone Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Stanfrod.</p>

<p>Caltech is very very small, and Caltech cheats and uses snobby methods to make itself appear so selective. Caltech does not care AT ALL about having racial diversity, socio-economic diversity, or having sports teams that have above a .01 winning percentage (seriously). </p>

<p>This is evidenced by the fact that there are very few black kids at caltech and a ridiculously large number of Asians, horrendous sports teams, and NO socioeconomic diversity.</p>

<p>Caltech accepts the kids with the strongest SAT scores and grades ONLY just to make themselves appear more selective. After all, the more selective the university, the more prestigious the diploma and more desirable it seems.</p>

<p>Contrast this with schools like Rice and Yale and other schools in circumstances like these schools, which don’t just care about seeeming extremely selective. They want socio-economic and racial and international diversity, and sports teams that are actually good, and they go after these goals. They also want to expand Rice’s size. Why? For the good of the university. As a result, Rice isn’t as selective as it could be (if it hadn’t expanded its size, its acceptance rate would be like 15 percent, and if it hadn’t focused on achieving socio-economic and racial and international diversity, it would appear incredibly selective.</p>

<p>Any school can just accept the kids with the best grades and sat scores and then say “oh we are so selective and prestigious” like Caltech but it takes a truly great school to focus on improving the university instead of just its selectivity ranking in the USNews ranking.</p>

1413

<p>

Compare the strength of the science/math programs at Rice, Yale, and Caltech and then get back to me.</p>

<p>Caltech will be waiting for an apology. ;)</p>

1414

<p>“Contrast this with schools like Rice and Yale and other schools in circumstances like these schools, which don’t just care about seeeming extremely selective”
Yale is EXTREMELY selective…Caltech is not overrated…if you look at their projects and researches you wil understand that they are at the same caliber as MIT…</p>

1415

<p>I agree that Caltech is certainly prestigious, and a great university, but I also agree that they are notoriously single-minded when it comes to applications. </p>

<p>A 2400/4.0 has been shown numerous times to be far more likely to get accepted at Caltech than at Harvard/Yale/Princeton. It’s because those other top schools put more consideration into other, less quantifiable parts of one’s application.</p>

<p>But I disagree pretty vehemently with theendusputrid when he says that Berkeley and Chicago aren’t all that prestigious. Chicago may have a high acceptance rate, but ask any professor in almost any field, and chances are they’ll think highly of Chicago’s programs. Same goes for Berkeley, albeit to a slightly lesser extent; it may be a public school, but is in INCREDIBLY prestigious, especially in Law and Business.</p>

1416

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually general consensus is wider than that. Almost every list includes HYPSM (not caltech which no one knows), and the rest of the Ivies + Duke. If you want consensus that’s it. </p>

<p>Berkeley and Chicago may be prestigious, but they are not up there with the list above. Berkeley tends to be especially overrated on CC because people look so much at academic program strength, which very few prospective students or employers care about that much. I mean just because your Math department is ranked 2 instead of 8 has no impact on a Business hiring you.</p>

1417

<p>How many Nobels does Chicago have? Okay, I know. It’s 17.</p>

1418

<p>

</p>

<p>Sounds like a meritocratic system to me – math/science centric schools like Caltech and MIT not surprisingly follow a selection process based largely by “the numbers”. Even though this kind of system is about as “fair” a system as you can get in terms of addressing “bias” – its people like you who then turn around and scream “no diversity” – have you ever stopped to think about the sheer irony of this kind of charge? Further, have you ever considered that Asians, on balance, just work harder? Should Asian be “punished” for being more studious? Seems to me they are raising the bar, and it behooves those who cry “no diversity” to step it up. It seems you are advocating reverse discrimination if anything.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>oh and btw, Caltech is absolutely prestigious. You are confusing prestige with familiarity:</p>

<p>I’d point out to post #260 of this very thread to make my point:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4939699-post260.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4939699-post260.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

1419

<p>Sorry Bescraze, Duke is NOT a consensus most prestigious university. Berkeley and Chicago are known way better worldwide than Duke. You wouldn’t even be mentioning PA/departmental scores if Duke were right up there with the big boys.</p>

1420

<p>^^“The big boys” - that what we call them now?</p>