What Schools Do You Consider “Prestigious?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT
Stanford
Harvard
Princeton
Cal Tech
Penn, but only Wharton
Vanderbilt
Rice
Duke
Williams
Juiliard
West Point
Naval Academy

Other schools have great programs, but for overall "prestige" in the US, I think that's it.

Vanderbilt, but not Yale? Lol. No

Yale hasn't been a meaningful university in 30 years. Vanderbilt and Rice have it going on these days. Times change

Yale is still Yale cmon ladies - Rory Gilmore didn’t go to Wesleyan or Williams, she went to Yale! but I have to agree with Vandy / Rice comment, they both have it going on these days. My DCs immediate and extended friend group (which is humungous) in the region all luv these 2 schools. Even the ones aiming for HYPMS consider these 2 schools “fun and cool”, which are two words never attributed to Cornell or JHU. Times change - both had a 70% acceptance rate not too long ago, and too much of DCUMs collective memory is firmly rooted in the past. Other than the extreme lefties, who Vandy and Rice don’t want anyway!

Expect Rice and Vandy to drop in the rankings this year, especially Rice.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

We’re talking prestige here. Rice is hardly a household name. Same with Washington U. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

They are imitating UVA boosters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

We’re talking prestige here. Rice is hardly a household name. Same with Washington U. Sorry.

Prestige is a silly metric but I think most schools have stronger regional than national reputations, which I don’t intend as a slight in anyway. The ones that transcend regional familiarity and wow equally everywhere are (IMO) all or at least most Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, and MIT. Possibly Duke. Honestly I think that’s it.

I went to a state school personally.

[Anonymous]

MIT is one of the few that you have to show an SAT/ACT. No TO at MIT. They also don’t seem to judge on legacy and even their athletes get no bump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

We’re talking prestige here. Rice is hardly a household name. Same with Washington U. Sorry.

Prestige is a silly metric but I think most schools have stronger regional than national reputations, which I don’t intend as a slight in anyway. The ones that transcend regional familiarity and wow equally everywhere are (IMO) all or at least most Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, and MIT. Possibly Duke. Honestly I think that’s it.

I went to a state school personally.

In terms of familiarity, the vast majority of people don't know UChicago and think it's a state school, or even specifically University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Most people also have no clue about Dartmouth or Cornell, maybe not Brown either. I'd say the academically uber elite schools that also have wide national recognition are: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Wharton (UPenn often confused for Penn State), Duke, Yale, Caltech (for people who are in STEM/have watched Big Bang Theory), and Columbia. I really think that's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious what the cutoff for prestige is for people in the DMV. Just HPSM? Does it extend further?

Troll much?

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Cal Tech
UPenn

Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
(UChicago, Columbia, Hopkins, Northwestern)

Williams
Amherst

16

Obvious anti-Duke troll as many are on DCUM. Also if you’re going to include Williams and Amherst, you might as well add Swarthmore and Pomona

My bad.

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Cal Tech
UPenn
Duke

Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
(UChicago, Columbia, Hopkins, Northwestern)

Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore
(Not including Pomona b/c less known in the DMV)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

We’re talking prestige here. Rice is hardly a household name. Same with Washington U. Sorry.

Prestige is a silly metric but I think most schools have stronger regional than national reputations, which I don’t intend as a slight in anyway. The ones that transcend regional familiarity and wow equally everywhere are (IMO) all or at least most Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, and MIT. Possibly Duke. Honestly I think that’s it.

I went to a state school personally.

In terms of familiarity, the vast majority of people don't know UChicago and think it's a state school, or even specifically University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Most people also have no clue about Dartmouth or Cornell, maybe not Brown either. I'd say the academically uber elite schools that also have wide national recognition are: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Wharton (UPenn often confused for Penn State), Duke, Yale, Caltech (for people who are in STEM/have watched Big Bang Theory), and Columbia. I really think that's it.

I don’t disagree wildly but I’d stand by Chicago, especially above Caltech. I’m from Virginia and have virtually no familiarity and thought that was a state school until recently, lol. (Maybe because of VT?) I think Penn is more well known than Wharton specifically but I get the Penn State mixup. I agree not everyone can name the whole Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A comprehensive list based upon wide consensus would probably include the following colleges and universities:

Amherst, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Cal (Berkeley), Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Carleton, Chicago, Colby, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Claremont McKenna, Curtis (Institute of Music), Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Grinnell, Hamilton, Haverford, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Howard, Johns Hopkins, Juilliard, Kenyon, Michigan, Middlebury, MIT, Mount Holyoke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oberlin, Olin, Penn, Pomona, Princeton, Reed, Rice, RISD, Scripps, Spelman, Stanford, St. John's College (Annapolis & Santa Fe), Smith, Swarthmore, UCLA, UNC, USC, UT Austin, UVA, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Washington & Lee, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams, Wisconsin (Madison), WUSTL, Yale and the U.S. academies (West Point et al).

So approximately 70 schools out of 653 national university and liberal arts colleges combined according to U.S. News and World Report which in turn is approximately 2.5% of all 4-year U.S. colleges and universities and 1.6% of all U.S. colleges and universities.

Bingo

[Anonymous]

Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Princeton
Columbia

Duke
UChicago
Northwestern
UPenn
Dartmouth
Cornell

Brown
Amherst
Williams
Johns Hopkins

Caltech
Navy
Army

That's about it.

[Anonymous]

I think HYPMS, Caltech and Wharton are the most prestigious. As a math major, I consider CMU, Harvey Mudd, and Berkeley also very prestigious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Princeton
Columbia

Duke
UChicago
Northwestern
UPenn
Dartmouth
Cornell

Brown
Amherst
Williams
Johns Hopkins

Caltech
Navy
Army

That's about it.

remove Columbia entirely

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can accept every list being proposed on this thread with the exception of those that include Cornell

Cornell CS, Engineering, Business(Dyson) are very prestigious.
Hotel Management NO

all very good programs, and Cornell is a great school - but agree not the tippy top kids. Think T15 in US News is cutoff in my circle for prestige

WashU and Rice are better than Cornell?

yes

We’re talking prestige here. Rice is hardly a household name. Same with Washington U. Sorry.

agreed, but Cornell is an outlier in the ivy - there is a bigger disparity in both prestige and academic reputation between Cornell and the next lowest ranked ivy (Dartmouth), than between Dartmouth and Harvard or Princeton.

I wouldn’t quibble between Cornell, Vandy, and Rice - all probably about the same in 2nd tier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just being real, not state schools. Not even IC Berkeley. Of course HYPMS, but also the “lower” Ivies and also the odd private school like Northwestern and Emory and probably a few more if I really thought about it.

Emory?

Lemme guess, PP, where you or your kids went/go to school . . .