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Another reason that some private colleges are more prestigious is because the prestige of publics is usually restricted to their state, while privates have always done their best to market themselves nationally. So OSU is considered by most Ohioans to be the more prestigious than almost any college out there. While they may have heard of HYPSM, you can bet that the vast majority of people in the state will respond “what, there is a university called Brown ? Next you’re going to tell me that there is a university called ‘Blue’”, they will think that UPenn is the same as Penn State, and never have heard of Vanderbilt or Duke.
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I find that the Brown grad isn’t necessarily going to compete with an Ohio State grad in the state of Ohio. The Brown grad is using the Brown network and also applying to companies that come to campus. They will rely on that network throughout their careers for jobs. Only a few times will they get a significant reception due to graduating from Brown and the presumably better first job they achieved than an Ohio State grad, or even say a Kent State, Bowling Green or Akron grad. Do people go on to med school from The Ohio State or the Ohio regional universities? Sure. However, the farther down the resource list one goes, the fewer people that are applying to med school and the fewer resources and examples there are.
As far as this article, let’s take this guy as an example. He’s in the Chicago PhD program. He went to Brown and worked for a professor who is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Maybe the top Buckeye student could do something similar. It seems like it would be harder to get to know your professors with much higher average class sizes.