Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 11:50     Subject: Re:Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:Why do we have incessant threads like this?


Some users of this forum think they need to boast about their school for their diploma to be of adequate value. They approach education like it’s some sort of credibility Ponzi scheme. In my experience, they are usually the ones who have accomplished the least and hence are the most insecure. My advice is to ignore their drivel and focus on the 3-5% of posts with actual information that will help you navigate your child to a college whose fit will maximize engagement.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 11:37     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I went to Brown and lived abroad. No one has heard of it — although they do know what the Ivy League is. Picking a school because you hope people will recognize it and be impressed doesn’t seem like a good plan to me.


This is the answer. I, too, lived in Europe (England, France, and Italy) and Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, and Cornell are vastly unknown.


Are we now choosing schools to impress the layperson in Italy? This is the strangest thread. I don’t care about their opinion, I do care about the hiring people in the US and they know.


Ha!! Totally! I wouldn’t be able to tell you the names of most top Euro universities outside of Oxford and the like
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 11:27     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
This is an excellent question for ChatGPT.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 11:01     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
I think some of the issue is who are “people”….have you traveled abroad? It’s like the US, the average citizen would be hard pressed to know their own schools beyond the top few, they certainly don’t know US schools beyond what’s in pop culture.

The highly educated abroad absolutely know more top schools. Maybe in Asia more STEM is known. In UK, ivies are very known perhaps more academia vibes similar to their own top institutions.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 10:49     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:Overseas, people only know MIT, Stanford and Harvard and maybe Berkeley.

- immigrant who has lived in many places


I doubt that. I never heard of MIT or Stanford as a child and I grew up in New York. Let alone in India or China.

But I knew Harvard, Columbia and NYU growing up. Our only rich neighbor the "Doctor's wife" sent her three kids to those three schools and we never heard the end of it.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 10:45     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Notre Dame, Penn State and UNC are dream schools for some kids way beyond any IVY league.

Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:50     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Not Penn.
Most of the country thinks it's the same as Penn State.

This is true. But the general public is pretty stupid. They know Harvard and maybe one or two others plus local schools and that's it. Imagine asking a plebe about Bowdoin 😂


This is the hallmark of a liberal! Look down the noses at the public.



The current Republican Party is reliant on human stupidity.


Yep. It’s not your grandfather’s Republican Party anymore…that is for sure.


It is the Trump/MAGA party now. They should rename it just like they did the Gulf of America.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:40     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:You can tell how much perceived prestige a school has by how little it is touted or defended on DCUM because those with a real association don't feel obligated to do so. That is a gift. The supporters of many of the schools mentioned on DCUM will always be resigned to elbowing for space.


Exactly! When I read all the people pumping up their schools unprompted, it doesn’t sway anyone, it comes off desperate.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:38     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
You can tell how much perceived prestige a school has by how little it is touted or defended on DCUM because those with a real association don't feel obligated to do so. That is a gift. The supporters of many of the schools mentioned on DCUM will always be resigned to elbowing for space.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:37     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Overseas, people only know MIT, Stanford and Harvard and maybe Berkeley.

- immigrant who has lived in many places
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:23     Subject: Re:Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:Why do we have incessant threads like this?

It seems like HYPSM should be secure and not needing to dunk on anyone else. My experience is they don’t IRL.

Top non-Ivy schools trying to legitimize and bump up status so agenda is to dunk on non-HYP ivies.

Berkeley, UofM, UCLA, UVA, UNC want to overcome public label and be legitimized.

The amount of Emory, WashU, Wake level schools that are so insecure for no reason. They are great schools, I hate reading threads tearing each other down to be the best of that range.

And I’m sure a million more examples.
My sense it is the very top and then the schools outside of T75 that are quite content and secure with their positions, and the rest just come off so desperate.




+1. Huge insecurity here.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 09:18     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:Internationally, you can't beat Harvard.

Stanford and MIT are almost as good.

Princeton, Yale and I'm gonna throw Cal Tech in there just to watch people get bent out of shape.

Then Columbia, Penn, Duke, Chicago

Then Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins.


I went to Columbia and when I lived in Paris in my 20's no one knew what Columbia was (they thought I was talking about the country) so I just started saying that I went to Harvard to make it easier since everyone knew Harvard.
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 08:45     Subject: Re:Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Why do we have incessant threads like this?

It seems like HYPSM should be secure and not needing to dunk on anyone else. My experience is they don’t IRL.

Top non-Ivy schools trying to legitimize and bump up status so agenda is to dunk on non-HYP ivies.

Berkeley, UofM, UCLA, UVA, UNC want to overcome public label and be legitimized.

The amount of Emory, WashU, Wake level schools that are so insecure for no reason. They are great schools, I hate reading threads tearing each other down to be the best of that range.

And I’m sure a million more examples.
My sense it is the very top and then the schools outside of T75 that are quite content and secure with their positions, and the rest just come off so desperate.


Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 08:32     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Insert same list of 25 schools that people argue are the TeN mOsT pReStIgIoUs here.

Thanks for reading!
Anonymous
Post 03/12/2025 08:03     Subject: Top universities with "perceived" prestige.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I went to Brown and lived abroad. No one has heard of it — although they do know what the Ivy League is. Picking a school because you hope people will recognize it and be impressed doesn’t seem like a good plan to me.


This is the answer. I, too, lived in Europe (England, France, and Italy) and Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, and Cornell are vastly unknown.


Are we now choosing schools to impress the layperson in Italy? This is the strangest thread. I don’t care about their opinion, I do care about the hiring people in the US and they know.