The Top 50 National Universities by Average Rank from the 8 Most Influential Rankings

[Anonymous]

When people in this forum write STEM it looks like they basically mean CS and a small subset of engineering. I think people are misunderstanding the breadth of STEM.

Also remember that many founders, even ones who go to Stanford, are not CS majors (like Evan Spiegel). It is great to see more CS majors but people misinterpret that path.

Tech hiring has dropped significantly. Nearly every large SV company has frozen hiring at some point this year, and I feel especially sorry for those would be Meta/Facebook interns, so encourage some soft skill development! It will help leadership and collaboration wise too, since most big tech leaders have grad degrees outside of STEM.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Quick question if somebody had a choice of Pomona or Cornell which is more prestigious? Being an East Coast Snob, I would say Cornell. And Ivy is Ivy. That being said for those that know Pomona, know how hard it is to get into. Friend mine said there is always 1 or 2 kids at Harvard Law from Pomona every year. But then again probably at least 10 from Cornell. Hypothetical.

I think it really depends on someone's goals. Pomona is a top-tier LAC in a fantastic and warm location that will provide a very intimate college experience. Cornell is large, cold, and can be quite impersonal. However it has a big brand behind it along with being in the ivy league, and its campus is beautiful if one can withstand the snow. It depends how much an individual really cares about having a more "popular" brand that will be recognized more often. For fields like academia, nonprofit work, law, and consulting, Pomona should hold up fine, but for more accessible fields and tech, the Cornell name might help. But Pomona certainly won't hold anyone back, it just doesn't have as much lay prestige.

And note Pomona and Cornell are in the same tier in the tier rankings. And usually around each other in surveys that rank SLACs and Nat Univs together.

Are you the one who created the tiers above? If so, how did you come to those tiers?

+1 people making their own "lists" based on what, exactly?

I think it's fair but I think people should put disclaimers as to what they're looking at in their tiers. As someone with more interest in STEM, I'd go:

1A) MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech
1B) Duke, Yale, Penn, Columbia

2A) Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Brown, UChicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, CMU, Berkeley, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Olin
2B) UMich, WashU, Notre Dame, Georgetown, UCLA, Georgia Tech, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Claremont McKenna

3A) UVA, UNC, UF, Emory, USC, UT Austin, Wellesley, Barnard, Carleton, Middlebury
3B) UCSD, BC, W&M, UIUC, W&L, Vassar, Davidson, Hamilton, Haverford

I'd go a step further and REMOVE and replace a number of schools...particularly in 3A and 3B. Not going to BC, W&L, Bsrnard, Hamilton and Haverford for the CS programs.

My experience is all with big tech companies but there Berkeley and CMU are very well respected and would be in 1B. Princeton would likely be more in that 1B area with Yale, Penn, and Duke too.

[Anonymous]

I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quick question if somebody had a choice of Pomona or Cornell which is more prestigious? Being an East Coast Snob, I would say Cornell. And Ivy is Ivy. That being said for those that know Pomona, know how hard it is to get into. Friend mine said there is always 1 or 2 kids at Harvard Law from Pomona every year. But then again probably at least 10 from Cornell. Hypothetical.

I think it really depends on someone's goals. Pomona is a top-tier LAC in a fantastic and warm location that will provide a very intimate college experience. Cornell is large, cold, and can be quite impersonal. However it has a big brand behind it along with being in the ivy league, and its campus is beautiful if one can withstand the snow. It depends how much an individual really cares about having a more "popular" brand that will be recognized more often. For fields like academia, nonprofit work, law, and consulting, Pomona should hold up fine, but for more accessible fields and tech, the Cornell name might help. But Pomona certainly won't hold anyone back, it just doesn't have as much lay prestige.

And note Pomona and Cornell are in the same tier in the tier rankings. And usually around each other in surveys that rank SLACs and Nat Univs together.

Are you the one who created the tiers above? If so, how did you come to those tiers?

+1 people making their own "lists" based on what, exactly?

I think it's fair but I think people should put disclaimers as to what they're looking at in their tiers. As someone with more interest in STEM, I'd go:

1A) MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech
1B) Duke, Yale, Penn, Columbia

2A) Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Brown, UChicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, CMU, Berkeley, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Olin
2B) UMich, WashU, Notre Dame, Georgetown, UCLA, Georgia Tech, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Claremont McKenna

3A) UVA, UNC, UF, Emory, USC, UT Austin, Wellesley, Barnard, Carleton, Middlebury
3B) UCSD, BC, W&M, UIUC, W&L, Vassar, Davidson, Hamilton, Haverford

I'd go a step further and REMOVE and replace a number of schools...particularly in 3A and 3B. Not going to BC, W&L, Bsrnard, Hamilton and Haverford for the CS programs.

My experience is all with big tech companies but there Berkeley and CMU are very well respected and would be in 1B. Princeton would likely be more in that 1B area with Yale, Penn, and Duke too.

+1 if we’re looking at tech primarily Berkeley and CMU are top feeders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

Dartmouth is a premier undergrad institution. It’s essentially a top LAC with the ivy brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

Dartmouth is a premier undergrad institution. It’s essentially a top LAC with the ivy brand.

Dartmouth is not an LAC by any reasonable definition.

It is an R1 research university with plenty of bigtime graduate programs and several undergraduate colleges. It has 7,000 students, much larger than other colleges which don't get that stupid "big LAC" label.

They are the smallest ivy and brand themselves as "Dartmouth College" but that doesn't change the facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

Dartmouth is a premier undergrad institution. It’s essentially a top LAC with the ivy brand.

Dartmouth is not an LAC by any reasonable definition.

It is an R1 research university with plenty of bigtime graduate programs and several undergraduate colleges. It has 7,000 students, much larger than other colleges which don't get that stupid "big LAC" label.

They are the smallest ivy and brand themselves as "Dartmouth College" but that doesn't change the facts.

+1 They have a business school and a medical school, along with many PhD programs, sounds like a small research university. Their endowment given their small size is quite impressive though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

Dartmouth is a premier undergrad institution. It’s essentially a top LAC with the ivy brand.

Dartmouth is not an LAC by any reasonable definition.

It is an R1 research university with plenty of bigtime graduate programs and several undergraduate colleges. It has 7,000 students, much larger than other colleges which don't get that stupid "big LAC" label.

They are the smallest ivy and brand themselves as "Dartmouth College" but that doesn't change the facts.

That’s true but they’re known to have a very strong undergraduate focus that almost no R1 research universities have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would add Northwestern and UChicago to 1B, personally. Stellar reputations here in NYC.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Do they really deserve a spot over Dartmouth for example?

Yes.

Dartmouth is a premier undergrad institution. It’s essentially a top LAC with the ivy brand.

And? Both UChicago and Northwestern are world-class elite universities that produce globally significant research, and have built their own individual, respective prestiges without having to ride the coattails of greater institutions.

[Anonymous]

Dartmouth is a league above UChicago and Northwestern when it comes to undergraduate focus. I agree with the pp who said that Dartmouth is like a top LAC with an Ivy brand. It is this feature that makes it unique among the R1 research universities.

Also, as a pp said its endowment is incredible for its size, though they need to use some of it to spruce up their dorms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dartmouth is a league above UChicago and Northwestern when it comes to undergraduate focus. I agree with the pp who said that Dartmouth is like a top LAC with an Ivy brand. It is this feature that makes it unique among the R1 research universities.

Also, as a pp said its endowment is incredible for its size, though they need to use some of it to spruce up their dorms.

“A league above” is really pushing it. At best, Dartmouth is a peer to UChicago and Northwestern at the undergrad level. At worst, it’s an increasingly irrelevant backwater school with a long history of sexual and racial harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dartmouth is a league above UChicago and Northwestern when it comes to undergraduate focus. I agree with the pp who said that Dartmouth is like a top LAC with an Ivy brand. It is this feature that makes it unique among the R1 research universities.

Also, as a pp said its endowment is incredible for its size, though they need to use some of it to spruce up their dorms.

“A league above” is really pushing it. At best, Dartmouth is a peer to UChicago and Northwestern at the undergrad level. At worst, it’s an increasingly irrelevant backwater school with a long history of sexual and racial harassment.

Calling Dartmouth a backwater school is pretty funny. Guess what, a Dartmouth college alum just won the Nobel prize in chemistry this week. He’s actually the fifth person ever to win the Nobel prize twice. Nobel prizes aren’t everything of course but that’s not bad for a backwater school, having undergrad alumni win Nobel prizes is rare.

[Anonymous]

You can’t average a ranking. These are ordinal numbers. There’s no underlying zero. You can’t add them up and then divide.

But you all keep doing your DCUM status obsession thing.