top 15 most prestigious universities

RML · February 11, 2009, 6:15am

ringoffire’

I completely disagree with your assertion. When it comes to school prestige, it’s the quality of the faculty that determines more than the quality of the students.

Put 50 world-class people who are the leaders of their respective fields in a no-name school and I guaranty you that that school name will shoot up rapidly in the radar of top students, scholars, parents and even employers. Now, let’s do the reverse.

Put 50 top students in a no-name school and let’s see if it’s reputation will grow to the likes of Berkeley, Harvard or MIT. I seriously doubt it. In fact, there are already many, many top students that matriculate in almost all colleges across the US, but there remains to be a Harvard or a Berkeley. The secret of these huge name schools are faculty caliber and research. When a school will be able to attract the best faculty, and in turn, those faculty will be able to contribute to the general society, the school will become prestigious. And then all the rest will follow, including your concern about top students’ attendances.

Don’t compare Harvard and Berkeley because they’re already both quite prestigious schools, only that Harvard being older, richer and is PRIVATE, while Berkeley is public funded and has a different mission. In reality, they are peer schools, although Harvard is a little more prestigious between the two, but Harvard is more prestigious than all the rest of the schools anywhere on the face of the earth including Princeton, MIT, and more so, Cornell, Northwestern and Rice.

Are you sure? On what bases are Cal and UMich not a top 25 school?
But, hey, don’t bother answering that because I know you’re going to give me rankings based on convenience again as what usually are provided on this forum whenever such a topic come out.

But, wait, I can also make Dartmouth, Brown, WUSL, Rice NOT a top 25 school. I can also cite sources for that.

In all honesty, when it comes to academic prestige, resources, faculty caliber, research and contributions to the world that we live in, Berkeley would trounce ALL of them except HYPSM and probably Caltech. Yes, all of them except HYPSM+Caltech. In other words, Berkeley is superior to any of the school in your list or any school anywhere on earth except HYPSM+Caltech. And, I’m sure many scholars would support my assertion. Stanford and Yale presidents have already publicly announced that Berkeley is a top 5 school. I doubt if those school presidents would make such a claim for Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, let alone schools like Rice, Vanderbilt and UWSL.

Alexandre · February 11, 2009, 6:15am

ringoffire, you honestly believe that there are 25 universities that are more “prestigious” than Cal? Wow! Do you think that Rice, Vanderbilt and WUSTL are more prestigious than Cal? I’d like to gather 100,000 of the most influential academics, thinkers and industrialists in the US and around the World and pose them the question. I think you will be hard pressed to find more than a very quiet minority that would not list Cal among the top 10. Michigan is not quite as prestigious as Cal, but again, in the US, I cannot think of more than 6 or so universities that can truly claim to be more prestigious.

Defining prestige is obviously very important. I don’t think it is wise to discount the importance of the quality of a university’s faculty. It is the single most important criterion in determining the prestige of an institution. Availability of resources (funding, endowment etc…) and quality of facilities also play a significant role. Of course, quality of student body matters a good deal. But it’s not like Cal and Michigan are hurting on this front. According to the USNWR, Cal is one of the 15 most selective universities in the US and Michigan is one of the 20 most selective universities in the US. Both are more selective than Vanderbilt. But selectivity is those two schools’ weakest area. In terms of faculty, facilities and resources, Cal and Michigan are among the top 10 in the nation. Overall, claiming that neither is a top 25 university sounds a little extreme.

the_prestige · February 11, 2009, 9:49am

yeah, i gotta agree with Alex on this one. Cal and Michigan are definitely Top 20 schools.

RML · February 11, 2009, 10:43am

^ I’m intrigued which school would you replace then in Cal and UMich’s favor?

confusedboy · February 11, 2009, 11:25am

“^^^ that’s a solid list… though I’d prolly bump Cornell up past WashU and NU, Penn / Columbia / Dartmouth / Brown past Duke.”

Don’t be so obsessed with Ivy League and please…don’t kid yourself.

ring_of_fire_1 · February 11, 2009, 12:11pm

Sorry, I meant to say that Cal and Michigan are not top 15 schools. I do think they are solid top 25 schools.

College_Yahoo · February 11, 2009, 12:34pm

In terms of prestige on CC,
1 H
2 Y
3 P
4 S
5 M
6 mid “level” ivies (Col/D)
7 duke/chicago
8 low “level” ivies (P/Cor)
9 Northwestern
10 nothing else matters…

In the real world…
1 H
2 Y/S
3 P
4 MIT/Columbia/Cal-Berkeley/Caltech
5 Corn/Chicago
6 Duke/Mich
7 Penn/Dartmouth
8 Gtown/Northwestern/Brown
9 UVA/UCLA/Rice/Vanderbilt
10 UNC/Emory

Phead128 · February 11, 2009, 12:48pm

^Where is Johns Hopkins on these lists?

tenisghs · February 11, 2009, 12:54pm

Outside the sciences and engineering, no one cares about Caltech. Cornell is not better than Duke, Michigan or Northwestern.

College_Yahoo · February 11, 2009, 1:00pm

Oops, I would put JHU at #7.

I don’t think much of these schools are “better” than each other. The question was about prestige…(this is all senseless anyway)

LHS2009 · February 11, 2009, 2:59pm

“Michigan is one of the 20 most selective universities in the US”

I’m sorry, there is no way this is true. The acceptance rate at Michigan is 42%, which is nowhere near top in the country. For what its worth, I’m a senior this year, and when myself and others were applying to colleges, Michigan wasn’t regarded nearly as highly as other schools. I applied to both Michigan and UNC, and considered my chances at Michigan much better (got in ED at WUSTL so I withdrew both apps.) I also know a bunch of people who are using Michigan as a safety.

bjomountsi09 · February 11, 2009, 6:35pm

Are you kidding me? Michigan and Northwestern over Cornell?! Duke is more comparable

the_prestige · February 11, 2009, 7:37pm

This is the ranking that I put together a while back:

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2885267-post115.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2885267-post115.html</a>

rjkofnovi · February 11, 2009, 7:44pm

LHS2009. Where are you from? If you are not from the state of Michigan, U-M is NOT a safety school.

LHS2009 · February 11, 2009, 7:57pm

I’m from Massachusetts. I may have exaggerated a little bit, but I know kids who got into Michigan a month before the EA notification date, and who did consider Michigan a safety. However, these are kids who are getting into UChicago, Columbia, etc. My point stands though that I felt like I had a much better chance getting into UMich than Chapel Hill, and there was data supporting this.

rjkofnovi · February 11, 2009, 8:01pm

Yes you were exaggerating quite a bit. Naturally it’s going to be easier to get into Michigan than UNC for such obvious reasons that they don’t even need to be stated. How many kids are you talking about? 5-10? It can’t be much more than that. I just can’t imagine that many top high school students at one school in Mass. would be applying to U-Mich. So tell me, how many got admitted to U-M? I know that you didn’t.

LHS2009 · February 11, 2009, 8:09pm

You’re right, I didn’t get accepted at Michigan, I withdrew my application because I got accepted at what I consider to be a superior school. And no, I’m not talking about 10-12 kids at my school, I’m talking about 5 or 6 kids at my school and a bunch of kids I know from all over the place outside of Michigan. I’m not in any way saying that Michigan isn’t a great school, which it is, I’m simply saying a school that has an acceptance rate of 42% is not one of the 20 most selective schools in the country. To back up my argument I added some insight that I’ve learned in the college searching process I’ve been going through this year. End of story.

tenisghs · February 11, 2009, 8:20pm

bjomountsi09: Yes because outside the Northeast, no one really cares about Cornell. Northwestern and Michigan carry national reputations. Especially Michigan. You can go to any state in this country and folks look highly up to Michigan.

the_prestige · February 11, 2009, 8:36pm

Every state except for Alaska and northern parts of Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington.

Bescraze · February 11, 2009, 9:03pm

the smartest college applying seniors consider Michigan to be a safety and schools like Vanderbilt, Wash U, Northwestern ect. to be superior and more prestigious. Berkeley is also not as prestigious. They are solidly top 25, but not top 15 in most people’s rankings. I also am including those intellectuals, industrialists and such that Alexandre mentioned before.

top 15 most prestigious universities

CONNECT WITH US