To you, what's the bottom of the "elite" colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truly global elite:

- Harvard
- MIT
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Oxford

That's it! Most other so-called "elites" are just reflections of local parochial taste.

Lol Berkeley booster alert. Yeah, no, Berkeley is great at the grad level but simply is not elite in any other way. Also, Oxford is old news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truly global elite:

- Harvard
- MIT
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Oxford

That's it! Most other so-called "elites" are just reflections of local parochial taste.

You forgot UVA and UMBC.

[Anonymous]

We've done this a million and one times but I'll add one more. This is the tier list.

1.Harvard, Stanford
3.MIT, Princeton
5.Columbia, Yale
7. U Chicago, Caltech, Upenn
10. Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Dartmouth, John's Hopkins
15. Cornell, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst
19. Emory, WashU, Rice, Notre Dame, Georgetown, CMU
25. UCLA, UCB, Pomona
28. Gatech, UVA, Michigan, Tufts, Bowdoin, Wellesley

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truly global elite:

- Harvard
- MIT
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Oxford

That's it! Most other so-called "elites" are just reflections of local parochial taste.

You forgot UVA and UMBC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truly global elite:

- Harvard
- MIT
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Oxford

That's it! Most other so-called "elites" are just reflections of local parochial taste.

Lol Berkeley booster alert. Yeah, no, Berkeley is great at the grad level but simply is not elite in any other way. Also, Oxford is old news.

You are missing how fast other universities are rising in key areas like electrical engineering and computer science, particularly those in China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mental list:

1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/Columbia
5 - MIT
6 - UPenn/Chicago
8 - Northwestern/Duke/Cornell

Not exactly informed by rankings, but by my 20+ years in MBB consulting and relatives in academia. Make of it what you will.

Princeton was omitted.

23 Elites:
1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/MIT
5 - Princeton
6 - Columbia/UPenn/Chicago
9 - Caltech/Duke/Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/Northwestern/Hopkins/Berkley
17 - Amherst/Williams
19 - Rice/UCLA/UVA/Georgetown/Michigan

Should there be more?

Elite stops with row 9. The rest are not relevant to the general population or globally.

Elite is relative so it is pretty meaningless and there are multiple areas in which a school may be considered elite (undergraduate, graduate professional, other graduate, research and publications, athletics, etc.). There are really only a few schools where there is a reasonable likelihood that most enrolled students are really attending their absolute top choice if all options are open to them, and those are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. The other possible ones there, but less likely are Yale, Princeton, and Caltech. (Caltech is still pretty attractive to a small set of students that want a more theory-driven and pre-academic option compared to MIT.) If a student is interested in military service, then West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy would join the list. Beyond that, all the schools listed above are second choice and down. At the graduate level, there is too much variation to contemplate, as PhD students often pick on who they may be studying with in their field of interest.

In my view if you are extending to LACs as the above shows with Amherst and Williams there are a number of others that should be included like Pomona and Swarthmore, but they are obviously only potentially elite in the undergraduate education context. Likewise, if you look at some of the schools above like Dartmouth, Brown, Rice, UVA, Georgetown, they are far from elite across the board in research, influential papers, graduate and undergraduate STEM, etc. Schools like Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, UCSD, and North Carolina are generally stronger than they are in a number of these areas.

I would also say there are quite a few schools that have similar or better stats than say UVA. Emory and Notre Dame are examples. I am not sure what the basis is for excluding them.

There are a lot of students who would be competitive (or as competitive as those who apply) at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT who set their sights on other elite schools, at least at the undergraduate level. Harvard has a reputation for arrogance and ignoring undergraduates, Stanford is on the West Coast, and MIT is a niche school with a STEM focus.

Harvard and Stanford have over 80% yield rates and MIT is at 77% and they aren't doing it by locking in based on EA. What other schools can do that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mental list:

1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/Columbia
5 - MIT
6 - UPenn/Chicago
8 - Northwestern/Duke/Cornell

Not exactly informed by rankings, but by my 20+ years in MBB consulting and relatives in academia. Make of it what you will.

Princeton was omitted.

23 Elites:
1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/MIT
5 - Princeton
6 - Columbia/UPenn/Chicago
9 - Caltech/Duke/Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/Northwestern/Hopkins/Berkley
17 - Amherst/Williams
19 - Rice/UCLA/UVA/Georgetown/Michigan

Should there be more?

Elite stops with row 9. The rest are not relevant to the general population or globally.

Elite is relative so it is pretty meaningless and there are multiple areas in which a school may be considered elite (undergraduate, graduate professional, other graduate, research and publications, athletics, etc.). There are really only a few schools where there is a reasonable likelihood that most enrolled students are really attending their absolute top choice if all options are open to them, and those are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. The other possible ones there, but less likely are Yale, Princeton, and Caltech. (Caltech is still pretty attractive to a small set of students that want a more theory-driven and pre-academic option compared to MIT.) If a student is interested in military service, then West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy would join the list. Beyond that, all the schools listed above are second choice and down. At the graduate level, there is too much variation to contemplate, as PhD students often pick on who they may be studying with in their field of interest.

In my view if you are extending to LACs as the above shows with Amherst and Williams there are a number of others that should be included like Pomona and Swarthmore, but they are obviously only potentially elite in the undergraduate education context. Likewise, if you look at some of the schools above like Dartmouth, Brown, Rice, UVA, Georgetown, they are far from elite across the board in research, influential papers, graduate and undergraduate STEM, etc. Schools like Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, UCSD, and North Carolina are generally stronger than they are in a number of these areas.

I would also say there are quite a few schools that have similar or better stats than say UVA. Emory and Notre Dame are examples. I am not sure what the basis is for excluding them.

There are a lot of students who would be competitive (or as competitive as those who apply) at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT who set their sights on other elite schools, at least at the undergraduate level. Harvard has a reputation for arrogance and ignoring undergraduates, Stanford is on the West Coast, and MIT is a niche school with a STEM focus.

Harvard and Stanford have over 80% yield rates and MIT is at 77% and they aren't doing it by locking in based on EA. What other schools can do that?

The only other school that can do that is Columbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've done this a million and one times but I'll add one more. This is the tier list.

1.Harvard, Stanford
3.MIT, Princeton
5.Columbia, Yale
7. U Chicago, Caltech, Upenn
10. Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Dartmouth, John's Hopkins
15. Cornell, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst
19. Emory, WashU, Rice, Notre Dame, Georgetown, CMU
25. UCLA, UCB, Pomona
28. Gatech, UVA, Michigan, Tufts, Bowdoin, Wellesley

Bump Columbia down to 7, then good

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mental list:

1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/Columbia
5 - MIT
6 - UPenn/Chicago
8 - Northwestern/Duke/Cornell

Not exactly informed by rankings, but by my 20+ years in MBB consulting and relatives in academia. Make of it what you will.

Princeton was omitted.

23 Elites:
1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/MIT
5 - Princeton
6 - Columbia/UPenn/Chicago
9 - Caltech/Duke/Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/Northwestern/Hopkins/Berkley
17 - Amherst/Williams
19 - Rice/UCLA/UVA/Georgetown/Michigan

Should there be more?

I would put Swarthmore in with Williams and Amherst. There are probably some other top colleges that should be there, maybe Pomona? I would add Tufts and Emory to the 19 line.

25 Elites:
1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/MIT
5 - Princeton
6 - Columbia/UPenn/Chicago
9 - Caltech/Duke/Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/Northwestern/Hopkins/Berkley
17 - Amherst/Williams/Swathmore
19 - Rice/UCLA/UVA/Georgetown/Michigan/Pomona

Should there be more or less?

Too many

1 - Harvard
2 - Yale
3 - Stanford/MIT
5 - Princeton
6 - Columbia/UPenn/Chicago
9 - Caltech/Duke/Northwestern
12 - Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell/Hopkins

Seems like the definitive list. Can we put a bow on this?

[Anonymous]

1 - Harvard/Stanford
3 - Yale/MIT/Columbia/Princeton
7 - Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1 - Harvard/Stanford
3 - Yale/MIT/Columbia/Princeton
7 - Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.

Perhaps, but I would still consider Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore to be "elite"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1 - Harvard/Stanford
3 - Yale/MIT/Columbia/Princeton
7 - Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.

Perhaps, but I would still consider Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore to be "elite"

DP, but in terms of undergraduate education absolutely correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1 - Harvard/Stanford
3 - Yale/MIT/Columbia/Princeton
7 - Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.[/quote

1 - Harvard/Columbia
3 - Yale/MIT/Princeton
7 - Stanford/Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.[/quote

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truly global elite:

- Harvard
- MIT
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Oxford

That's it! Most other so-called "elites" are just reflections of local parochial taste.

Lol Berkeley booster alert. Yeah, no, Berkeley is great at the grad level but simply is not elite in any other way. Also, Oxford is old news.

No need to hate on a public school. This list came straight from the latest ranking of the best global universities: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1 - Harvard/Stanford
3 - Yale/MIT/Columbia/Princeton
7 - Chicago/Penn
9 - Northwestern/Caltech/Duke
12 - Johns Hopkins/Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth

That's it. That's the top 15. The elite of the elite. We can call it now.

+1. Best list so far.