Elite universities, Ivy Plus/Equivalents...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you but most people have never even heard of Dartmouth, and Brown is the color of poop and is only relevant because it's in the Ivy League. Certainly on an international level, these two schools are lucky to even be grouped with the rest of the universities listed here.

If that's the best you've got, you minimum-wage troll, you are still highly overpaid. Weak tea. Room temp water, actually.

I lol'ed at that.

Also the low-level Ivy Leaguers who think "minimum-wage troll" is an actual insult are blindly self-unaware and don't realize they're actually hurting their case and making themselves look even worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you but most people have never even heard of Dartmouth, and Brown is the color of poop and is only relevant because it's in the Ivy League. Certainly on an international level, these two schools are lucky to even be grouped with the rest of the universities listed here.

If that's the best you've got, you minimum-wage troll, you are still highly overpaid. Weak tea. Room temp water, actually.

I lol'ed at that.

Also the low-level Ivy Leaguers who think "minimum-wage troll" is an actual insult are blindly self-unaware and don't realize they're actually hurting their case and making themselves look even worse.

Cool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you but most people have never even heard of Dartmouth, and Brown is the color of poop and is only relevant because it's in the Ivy League. Certainly on an international level, these two schools are lucky to even be grouped with the rest of the universities listed here.

If that's the best you've got, you minimum-wage troll, you are still highly overpaid. Weak tea. Room temp water, actually.

I lol'ed at that.

Also the low-level Ivy Leaguers who think "minimum-wage troll" is an actual insult are blindly self-unaware and don't realize they're actually hurting their case and making themselves look even worse.

I didn’t say it to insult minimum wage workers, for whom I have no disdain.

I said it to insult your abilities as a troll, and the fact that you are working as one.

If it offends you, I formally withdraw it, and replace it with this: “Artless and idiotic troll”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This has pretty much been the case for a very long time. And so maybe it always will be the case (especially at country clubs in the Northeast...)
But......in my opinion, it's happening...it's really happening....The Ivy League and even HYP are starting to leak some of their cachet. Is anyone else sensing this? I have my theories as to why, but I believe it's happening. Maybe it won't grow or continue, but in the meantime, schools like Chicago are benefitting.

We're a young country. Even the most prestigious of universities in the U.S. would look anything like they do currently if you went back too far. Princeton was only named Princeton in 1896. Stanford was founded in 1885. The Yale gothic college buildings that look the oldest were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. Same for the Harvard houses. Compare the oldest existing building at Harvard, a simple building from about 1720 with the soaring King's College Chapel at Cambridge, which was finished 200 years earlier.

I suspect this is a very big part of it. Another important thing to consider is that the U.S. is HUGE, as someone on the first page of this thread pointed out. Let's see, if we were to compare ourselves to the "second" world leader in higher education, the U.K., the numbers make sense. The U.S. is about 6 times larger the U.K. in terms of population. Even if we were to take JUST the two tippy top representative universities from the U.K., Oxford and Cambridge, and adjusted to scale, it would mean we have about 12 elite-tier universities here in the states. That should make sense. If we were to expand the comparison pool to other prestigious U.K. universities like UCL, LSE, KCL and Imperial, that would mean we have more than 36 strong, world-class universities in the U.S.

This all tracks. The folks who are only pre-occupied with 7 or 8 of America's top universities, or think they're inherently more special because they happen to belong to the same sports league as Harvard, are misguided and living in the past. Yes, social prestige is a factor, but outcomes from the other Ivy Plus schools are just as strong. But even arguing for that should be a non-issue - anyone who thinks the aforementioned colleges are NOT prestigious is a complete and utter dunce.

Oddly this is perhaps the most lucid post on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League is a sports category. There are hundreds of excellent colleges and universities in the U.S. It is a giant country.

It’s clear that the Ivy League has grown in the popular imagination to be more than just a sports league. It’s become a sort of designation or a shorthand for prestigious, top universities. Laypeople are rarely sure of which schools actually constitute the Ivy League, except for Harvard and Yale. Most also assume Stanford is one. I’ve met college basketball enthusiasts who thought Duke was an Ivy, and I know college football fans who assumed Northwestern was an Ivy. It’s a colloquialism that’s anchored in a slightly different reality from what most people think.

They cannot be much of college hoops enthusiasts if they thought this. I mean, come one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW I chose to attend one of the schools on OP’s list (not MIT or Stanford) over two Ivies, Dartmouth and Penn, and knew more than just several at my alma mater who had chosen similarly.

The Ivies derive their prestige from their association with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. All of the other top schools outside of HYP are peer institutions and generally equal in prestige. As others have noted, Stanford and MIT easily match HYP.

THANK YOU!! Cornell or Brown are not more prestigious than say Georgetown. It's HYPSM then the other top 25 schools. Then the rest.

Georgetown is a questionable choice to make your point. I don't view Georgetown as that prestigious and its prestige (even if not equal to Cornell or Brown) outstrips its current quality given tremendous budget issues and an endowment that is dwarfed by most schools it likes to consider as peers.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be the best choice for some kids.

I got into Georgetown SFS early and, even though I was competitive for Ivies, did not apply to any. Why? Because I wanted a career in the USG. No school is better for that than SFS. I went there, graduated in the top 9% of my class, and developed connections that got me my dream job, which I still have and love.

My point is that schools you might not consider prestigious can provide the perfect path for certain people.

Oh and I’ll add: at my fed agency—which is extremely competitive to get hired at—we have a ton of people from Georgetown, many from Michigan and Northwestern, and a handful from HYP. After that it’s universities you’d all look down your nose at. I don’t know a single person there who went to Cornell or Brown.

If you acknowledge that your agency is filled mostly with people who went to not particularly prestigious schools, I'm not sure why the supposed lack of people from Cornell or Brown would serve as an indictment of those schools.

And if you think Georgetown, Northwestern and Michigan are prestigious, I don't know what to tell you. That is more a negative reflection of you.

[Anonymous]

High Elite

Harvard, Stan, MIT

Yale Princeton, Columbia

Duke, Upenn, Uchicago,
------------------------------------------------
Elite

Northwestern, JHU, Dartmouth, Caltech

Brown, Williams, Amherst

Vanderbilt, Cornell, Notre Dame

WashU, Emory, Rice, Georgetown, CUM,
-------------------------------------------------------------------
UCB(Borderline because it's not as selective anymore)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Teir

UCLA, Pomona, Swarthmore, Tufts, UVA, NYU

USC, UNC, Umich, Wellesley, Midd, Gatech

Davidson, CMC, Wake, Boston College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I be the person who asks how Duke made it onto OP’s list?

I’d leave Duke but I was side-eying Northwestern. Only to tiger moms who obsess over US news is Northwestern undergrad in any way that impressive.

What? I don’t know a single soul who wouldn’t consider Duke or Northwestern prestigious.

Nobody gives a sh-t about Northwestern undergrad in real life. It's just psycho tiger moms posting about NU over and over and over online because of US News.

You’re literally the one person ranting about Northwestern on this forum with the same, tired one-liner about tiger moms and US News. We get it, your kid didn’t get into Northwestern.

None of my kids wanted to go to college in the Rust Belt suburbs of northern Cook County, a half hour N of Chicago. Nobody with better options does.

Uh, Northwestern is in Evanston. That is not a reflective of a "rust belt" environment. Maybe the rail yards on the west side?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High Elite

Harvard, Stan, MIT

Yale Princeton, Columbia

Duke, Upenn, Uchicago,
------------------------------------------------
Elite

Northwestern, JHU, Dartmouth, Caltech

Brown, Williams, Amherst

Vanderbilt, Cornell, Notre Dame

WashU, Emory, Rice, Georgetown, CUM,
-------------------------------------------------------------------
UCB(Borderline because it's not as selective anymore)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Teir

UCLA, Pomona, Swarthmore, Tufts, UVA, NYU

USC, UNC, Umich, Wellesley, Midd, Gatech

Davidson, CMC, Wake, Boston College

Cal is Cal, not UCB. NO ONE CALLS IT THAT, PLEASE STOP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW I chose to attend one of the schools on OP’s list (not MIT or Stanford) over two Ivies, Dartmouth and Penn, and knew more than just several at my alma mater who had chosen similarly.

The Ivies derive their prestige from their association with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. All of the other top schools outside of HYP are peer institutions and generally equal in prestige. As others have noted, Stanford and MIT easily match HYP.

THANK YOU!! Cornell or Brown are not more prestigious than say Georgetown. It's HYPSM then the other top 25 schools. Then the rest.

Georgetown is a questionable choice to make your point. I don't view Georgetown as that prestigious and its prestige (even if not equal to Cornell or Brown) outstrips its current quality given tremendous budget issues and an endowment that is dwarfed by most schools it likes to consider as peers.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be the best choice for some kids.

I got into Georgetown SFS early and, even though I was competitive for Ivies, did not apply to any. Why? Because I wanted a career in the USG. No school is better for that than SFS. I went there, graduated in the top 9% of my class, and developed connections that got me my dream job, which I still have and love.

My point is that schools you might not consider prestigious can provide the perfect path for certain people.

Oh and I’ll add: at my fed agency—which is extremely competitive to get hired at—we have a ton of people from Georgetown, many from Michigan and Northwestern, and a handful from HYP. After that it’s universities you’d all look down your nose at. I don’t know a single person there who went to Cornell or Brown.

If you acknowledge that your agency is filled mostly with people who went to not particularly prestigious schools, I'm not sure why the supposed lack of people from Cornell or Brown would serve as an indictment of those schools.

And if you think Georgetown, Northwestern and Michigan are prestigious, I don't know what to tell you. That is more a negative reflection of you.

*aren't* prestigious, typo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High Elite

Harvard, Stan, MIT

Yale Princeton, Columbia

Duke, Upenn, Uchicago,
------------------------------------------------
Elite

Northwestern, JHU, Dartmouth, Caltech

Brown, Williams, Amherst

Vanderbilt, Cornell, Notre Dame

WashU, Emory, Rice, Georgetown, CUM,
-------------------------------------------------------------------
UCB(Borderline because it's not as selective anymore)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Teir

UCLA, Pomona, Swarthmore, Tufts, UVA, NYU

USC, UNC, Umich, Wellesley, Midd, Gatech

Davidson, CMC, Wake, Boston College

Cal, UCLA and Michigan all should be higher, as should Tufts.
I assume CUM is meant to be CMU?
And NotreDame should be lower than where you have it.

[Anonymous]

Berkeley has lost it’s uniqueness in the last 10-12 years. It’s a great school. One of the best. The students there are driven and smart. But if you had a parent that attended or anyone else Pre-2010-ish,, you’d know it used to be a much more of unique experience. I have a friend who has said they are struggling to Hire talent in certain departments b/c of this. It’s no longer “fun and quirky”. I don’t think it will be long before it’s much more than a glorified state school given the shift

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Berkeley has lost it’s uniqueness in the last 10-12 years. It’s a great school. One of the best. The students there are driven and smart. But if you had a parent that attended or anyone else Pre-2010-ish,, you’d know it used to be a much more of unique experience. I have a friend who has said they are struggling to Hire talent in certain departments b/c of this. It’s no longer “fun and quirky”. I don’t think it will be long before it’s much more than a glorified state school given the shift

Yea it's lost some of its luster, UCLA is more selective now a days. Could say Georgetown and maybe Cornell lost some spark too...MAYBE.

Conversely UCLA could move up to borderline/Elite and Maybe NYU is a few years...MAYBE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Berkeley has lost it’s uniqueness in the last 10-12 years. It’s a great school. One of the best. The students there are driven and smart. But if you had a parent that attended or anyone else Pre-2010-ish,, you’d know it used to be a much more of unique experience. I have a friend who has said they are struggling to Hire talent in certain departments b/c of this. It’s no longer “fun and quirky”. I don’t think it will be long before it’s much more than a glorified state school given the shift

Yea it's lost some of its luster, UCLA is more selective now a days. Could say Georgetown and maybe Cornell lost some spark too...MAYBE.

Conversely UCLA could move up to borderline/Elite and Maybe NYU is a few years...MAYBE.

Interesting point. Frankly, I see it moving the same way as Berkeley. They are struggling to maintain distinct culture identity that put them where they are now. Not sure how to fix this. I think the east coast schools have done a better job not falling prey to this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High Elite

Harvard, Stan, MIT

Yale Princeton, Columbia

Duke, Upenn, Uchicago,
------------------------------------------------
Elite

Northwestern, JHU, Dartmouth, Caltech

Brown, Williams, Amherst

Vanderbilt, Cornell, Notre Dame

WashU, Emory, Rice, Georgetown, CUM,
-------------------------------------------------------------------
UCB(Borderline because it's not as selective anymore)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Teir

UCLA, Pomona, Swarthmore, Tufts, UVA, NYU

USC, UNC, Umich, Wellesley, Midd, Gatech

Davidson, CMC, Wake, Boston College

Cal, UCLA and Michigan all should be higher, as should Tufts.
I assume CUM is meant to be CMU?
And NotreDame should be lower than where you have it.

Yes lol, I meant CMU