Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

[Anonymous]

Since we're doing lists and I'm bored, here's my ranking for how I perceive the median undergrad intelligence:

1 Caltech
2 MIT
3 Harvard, Stanford
5 Princeton
6 Yale, JHU, UChicago
9 Columbia, UPenn, Northwestern, Rice, Duke
14 Dartmouth, Brown
16 Vanderbilt
17 WashU, CMU, Cornell
20 ND, Emory
22 Berkeley, Georgetown, UCLA
25 NYU
26 USC, Michigan, Georgia Tech, UVA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

Generally agree with you on SLACs, and I'd go a step further. Williams and Amherst have way too many athletes as a % of undergraduates to say that the student body as a whole is "exceptional." The kids we know going to those schools are regular smart.

I'd also divide Penn into 2 categories. Engineering and Wharton - Tier 2 - exceptional. CAS - regular smart and a lot of legacies and FGLI - definite Tier 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Caltech

Tier 2: Penn, Duke, Rice, Williams, Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, maybe some other schools...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Caltech

Tier 2: Penn, Duke, Rice, Williams, Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, maybe some other schools...

Would you put Amherst as tier 2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

East coasters are such an interesting bunch…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Caltech

Tier 2: Penn, Duke, Rice, Williams, Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, maybe some other schools...

Would you put Amherst as tier 2

I would definitely put Amherst as tier 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While acknowledging that this is a silly, navel-gazing exercise bereft of any empirical basis, below are my personal set of tiers, which are very loose. I honestly don't know how one can claim, as a very general matter, that Princeton is "better" than Harvard, Duke better than Brown, or Amherst better than Pomona. People get really upset because of a ridiculous obsession with ordinal numeration. Anyhow:

Tier 1: HYPSM

Tier 2: The remaining Ivies, Duke, CalTech, JHU, Northwestern, Rice, WASP

Tier 3: UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, WashU, Vanderbilt, Emory, USC, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Carleton, Mudd, CMC.

Tier 4: A bunch more really good schools that are very close to the Tier 3.

To be clear, all of the schools above are really, really good. Any kid who gains admission to any one of them is blessed. But people here always forget this as they take extreme positions in an effort to distinguish nearly identical schools.

I agree this is a dumb exercise and fit and major are what matters. However...

There really aren't a lot of top students going to SLACs these days. This categorization is overvaluing small liberal arts colleges. I do agree though that absolutely nothing is going to topple HYPSM from the top tier. I have two kids at top 20 schools, and the way I'd frame it for this generation of students would be:

Tier 1: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Tier 2: Penn, CalTech, Duke, Rice, Williams - these schools generally have really exceptional students

Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin

Tier 4: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Amherst, WashU, Harvey Mudd

I would add West Point and Annapolis somewhere, but they are peculiar schools and difficult to put into any kind of useful comparison list.

Why on earth would Rice and Williams be the same level as Duke? What is Rice good at that Duke isn't much better at? Rice down to 4, Williams down to 3. Vanderbilt, Swarthmore, Pomona, down to 4. Bowdoin??? Down to 5. Amherst up to 3, and Harvy Mudd down to 5.

[Anonymous]

Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

I don't know why you think Dartmouth is questionable. I graduated from one of the other schools in your Tier 2 but think Dartmouth is better tbh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

I don't know why you think Dartmouth is questionable. I graduated from one of the other schools in your Tier 2 but think Dartmouth is better tbh.

Dartmouth has a lower reputation score than the others, 4.3 tied with Vanderbilt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

Disagree on Chicago. It has slipped to at least Tier 3 if not Tier 4.
Wellesley and Bowdoin should be in Tier 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

Disagree on Chicago. It has slipped to at least Tier 3 if not Tier 4.
Wellesley and Bowdoin should be in Tier 3.

Move Gtown to Tier 2. Williams, Amherst, Chicago to Tier 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

Add .5 tiers
Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT

Tier 1.5:Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Columbia, Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Chicago,

Tier 2.5: Cornell, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Vanderbilt

Tier 3: Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore

Tier 3.5: UCLA, Umich, Pomona

Tier 4: UVA, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Barnard

Tier 4.5: Gatech, UNC, Harvey Mudd, top Military Academies, Boston College, UT, Tufts

Tier 5: Vassar, UCSD, UCSB, UCD, UF, UW, W&M, BU, UMD, Wake Forest, Tulane

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton

Tier 2: Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern,Upenn, Brown, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Dartmouth**

Tier 3: Vandeebilt**, Rice, GTown, Emory, ND, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Pomona

Tier 4: UCLA, UVA, Umich, USC, NYU, Wellesley, Bowdoin, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Barnard, Gatech**

Can someone explain the romance with Rice on this forum, its the most unknown in the T25, and has a 4.2 reputation score on US news same as Georgetown and others. There's a ton of east coast bias here. It's not the 90's, LACs are not ivy level anymore. I put "**" next to the school I think are questionable, Dartmouth and Gatech could go down 1, and Vanderbilt could go up 1.

I don't know why you think Dartmouth is questionable. I graduated from one of the other schools in your Tier 2 but think Dartmouth is better tbh.

Dartmouth has a lower reputation score than the others, 4.3 tied with Vanderbilt.

On the other hand, Dartmouth is second only to Princeton in terms of alumni giving and support.