If the Ivy label never existed, what are the true top 10 best U.S. colleges in your mind?

[Anonymous]

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Northwestern
Pomona/CMC/Mudd (3Cs)
Williams
Amherst
Georgetown

[Anonymous]

The top tier is HYPSM. After that, it's more program specific. For example, Penn for business is obviously excellent.

And then there is the second tier which is also very good - rest of the Ivies, Duke, Hopkins, Chicago.

Also, it depends on the type of school kids are seeking and whether undergrad or grad. For undergrad, I'd add the top LACs too, such as Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Williams
Amherst
Princeton
Dartmouth
Carleton
Pomona
Middlebury
Davidson
Rice
Wake Forest

Wake, Davidson and Carleton but not Harvard, MIT or Yale? This is not a serious list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Northwestern
Pomona/CMC/Mudd (3Cs)
Williams
Amherst
Georgetown

Replace both Williams and Amherst with Hopkins.

[Anonymous]

H
Y
P
M
S
Williams
ND
CalTech
Duke
Penn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Northwestern
Pomona/CMC/Mudd (3Cs)
Williams
Amherst
Georgetown

good list IMO

[Anonymous]

MIT, CalTech, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, U Chicago, JHU, Rice, Columbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top tier is HYPSM. After that, it's more program specific. For example, Penn for business is obviously excellent.

And then there is the second tier which is also very good - rest of the Ivies, Duke, Hopkins, Chicago.

Also, it depends on the type of school kids are seeking and whether undergrad or grad. For undergrad, I'd add the top LACs too, such as Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst.

You can’t rank grad schools meaningfully; it depends on the department and what you are studying. You can rank grad schools by subject and that’s about it. And any subject will have lots of surprises if you do not know the field, i.e., Pitt and Rutgers for Philosophy, UMass for Linguistics etc.

In other words, all meaningful rankings (other than subject rankings, and even that depends on subspecialty) are undergrad. Of course WASP is somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10 and probably above all of the lower ivies (including Penn; this is not an undergrad business school ranking).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretend you are USNWR and take into consideration all popular majors and the criteria most important to you.

The ask is which are your top 10 if Ivy prestige is not a factor.

Looking through all the responses, it seems that the consensus is HYP are solid T10, whereas none of the other five ivies are solid T10, with frequent mention of Penn and Cornell.

So that begs the question, WITH the ivy label, can any of the five ivies (Penn, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth) make to the true T10 (which is different from US news T10)?

I think Penn could. Cornell is a maybe. C/B/D are not.

[Anonymous]

Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Duke and who cares about the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretend you are USNWR and take into consideration all popular majors and the criteria most important to you.

The ask is which are your top 10 if Ivy prestige is not a factor.

1. Stanford
2. Harvard
3. Duke
4. Princeton
5. MIT
6. Yale
7. Chicago
8. CalTech
9. Berkeley/Michigan
10. UCLA/UVA/Texas/UNC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Duke and who cares about the rest.

Don't care about Duke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Northwestern
Pomona/CMC/Mudd (3Cs)
Williams
Amherst
Georgetown

good list IMO

+1 but I'd swap out Northwestern for Duke and Georgetown for Hopkins

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is this question asked every day?

I often wonder the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Duke and who cares about the rest.

No Duke
Add MIT and JHU