To you, what's the bottom of the "elite" colleges?
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Anonymous
| Who effing cares? This is the dumbest thread ever. Ever. |
Anonymous
No, I've seen worse. 
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Anonymous
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Imo the truly elite schools are the following (sorted into tiers):
1. HYPSM, Caltech 2. Columbia, Penn, Chicago 3. Duke, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell 4. Northwestern, Hopkins I feel Northwestern, Hopkins as well as the lower ivies (Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell) are the bottom of the elite schools. |
Anonymous
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TRULY "elite" - let's be honest:
Princeton University (NJ) Harvard University (MA) Yale University (CT) (tie) Columbia University (NY) (tie) Stanford University (CA) (tie) Massachusetts Institute of Technology That's it folks - those are the ONLY schools that are so elite they NEVER require explanation. Of course Penn's Wharton School and Cornell's Hotel school are elite - but that's the point you have to specify the particular program. The other Top 25 schools are terrific, but there are NOT in the same class. |
Anonymous
Cal Tech. |
Anonymous
Nah. CalTech gets confused with Cal Poly even in California. Not much of a national name brand like the others. |
Anonymous
When did it become acceptable to brag about anything? |
Anonymous
I liked how you snuck Columbia in there. |
Anonymous
LOL no. No one in CA or anywhere else confuses CalTech with Cal Poly. Are you the Pomona booster who claims that the school's rankings take an unfair hit because people confuse it with Cal State Pomona? |
Anonymous
I grew up in California and Caltech did not have much name brand among the general public back then. It was often confused as CalPoly given the name (since Cal implied the Cal State System). The big dogs there were always USC, UCLA, UCSD, Berkeley, and Stanford. Pomona was even more obscure- grew up 20 minutes away, and had never heard of it until recently (I did hear of Caltech growing up on occasion). I don't know if things have changed, but I doubt it. It's a super tiny (less than 2500 students total), science specialized school with no sports to speak of. Most go to science grad school. Those interests are not aligned with the public eye. Educated folks from top ranked schools will have heard of it, but many haven't. |
Anonymous
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Also, I didn't write this from 2014, but it was updated by 2 Caltech students: https://www.quora.com/How-prestigious-is-Caltech
"Among the general population, most people have never heard of Caltech. It's also often confused with California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), so be prepared to be asked if you're referring "to the one in San Luis Obispo or Pomona." And another: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/1082690/reputation-of-caltech/ " The talk generally goes like this. Student id you go to college/ where did you graduate from?
Teacher:Caltech Student:Oh...where is it at? Teacher:It's Calif Ins. of Tech. in CA Student:CA...You mean Cal Poly? Teacher:No, it's a private school. Student:Oh I see. Is it something like ITT Tech?" https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Caltech-have-the-reputation-of-MIT-among-the-public-despite-being-on-the-same-level-of-academic-excellence Answer from a Caltech PhD "3. Cal Poly creates confusion. Caltech suffers the accident that California Polytechnic State University, a less prestigious but much larger public university, has a somewhat similar name, creating some confusion in the general public. MIT has no analogous large school with a similar name." And a response by a Caltech grad in the reply to that: "I've had people, including one prospective employer, ask me what it was like at Cal Poly. So you are right about that." Seems like Caltech is still confused  Good to know things don't change
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Anonymous
Hasn't Columbia been harder to get into than Yale or Princeton for the last several years? |
Anonymous
It has a lower acceptance rate, sure, but: * It has early decision and fills nearly half of its class through that. Yale and Princeton don't. That's 100% yield for Columbia and enables them to admit less students later. * Princeton has the most coveted location of any of the Ivies. You get a substantial number of under-qualified students applying simply because it's in NYC. * Columbia gets to push students into alternative routes (Sciences Po, School of General Studies) which are not factored into acceptances. General Studies folks for all intents and purposes undergraduate Columbia students; they take the same courses as those in SEAS and the College. General Studies has a far higher acceptance rate- 33%- which is not accounted into the 5.8% acceptance rate. Yale and Princeton only offer one route into undergraduate. Let's not kid ourselves here- Yale and Princeton are harder to get into. |
Anonymous
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More on General Studies- more than 30% of the undergrads come from it. The students are smart but the testing profile is substantially below Columbia's other two undergraduate schools (1330–1530 vs 1490-1580)
This is a sneaky way for Columbia to make its admission rate look lower and selectivity profile higher than it actually is. |
Anonymous
Huh? Are there really folks here who do NOT think Columbia is elite? |