Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

What kind of ridiculous logic does it take to 1) tier elite colleges and then 2) decide yale is somehow in a second tier? Where is you logic, your metrics, your analytics? Oh, you don't have any and you pulled this right out of your a$$? Ok, makes sense now.

The whole thing makes NO sense and you should stop.

It’s fair to put Yale a tier lower honestly. The tier 1 schools excel across the board whereas Yale has been lacking in STEM for decades. Yale STEM is not bad by any means of course but not the best of the best like the rest of tier 1. This is also reflected by the fact that the tier 1 schools (HPSM) don’t have to offer any scholarships or special programs to recruit students. All of the tier 2 schools (including Yale) have special scholarship programs.

It is mystifying how Yale continues to be ranked in the top 10. As the previous poster noted, Yale does not have a meaningful STEM program. Maryland, UIUC, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Texas, Michigan, Berkeley are all far better schools in the hard subjects. I'm sure Yale is a lovely place if you'd like to become an English teacher, but if you want to do something meaningful at NASA or FAANG you don't go to Yale. That's your grandmother's school. Today, Yale in the top 10 is an anachronism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

What kind of ridiculous logic does it take to 1) tier elite colleges and then 2) decide yale is somehow in a second tier? Where is you logic, your metrics, your analytics? Oh, you don't have any and you pulled this right out of your a$$? Ok, makes sense now.

The whole thing makes NO sense and you should stop.

It’s fair to put Yale a tier lower honestly. The tier 1 schools excel across the board whereas Yale has been lacking in STEM for decades. Yale STEM is not bad by any means of course but not the best of the best like the rest of tier 1. This is also reflected by the fact that the tier 1 schools (HPSM) don’t have to offer any scholarships or special programs to recruit students. All of the tier 2 schools (including Yale) have special scholarship programs.

It is mystifying how Yale continues to be ranked in the top 10. As the previous poster noted, Yale does not have a meaningful STEM program. Maryland, UIUC, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Texas, Michigan, Berkeley are all far better schools in the hard subjects. I'm sure Yale is a lovely place if you'd like to become an English teacher, but if you want to do something meaningful at NASA or FAANG you don't go to Yale. That's your grandmother's school. Today, Yale in the top 10 is an anachronism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

What kind of ridiculous logic does it take to 1) tier elite colleges and then 2) decide yale is somehow in a second tier? Where is you logic, your metrics, your analytics? Oh, you don't have any and you pulled this right out of your a$$? Ok, makes sense now.

The whole thing makes NO sense and you should stop.

It’s fair to put Yale a tier lower honestly. The tier 1 schools excel across the board whereas Yale has been lacking in STEM for decades. Yale STEM is not bad by any means of course but not the best of the best like the rest of tier 1. This is also reflected by the fact that the tier 1 schools (HPSM) don’t have to offer any scholarships or special programs to recruit students. All of the tier 2 schools (including Yale) have special scholarship programs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

What kind of ridiculous logic does it take to 1) tier elite colleges and then 2) decide yale is somehow in a second tier? Where is you logic, your metrics, your analytics? Oh, you don't have any and you pulled this right out of your a$$? Ok, makes sense now.

The whole thing makes NO sense and you should stop.

Anonymous wrote:To me elite means if you want, you can get a your foot in the door in almost any career without too much difficulty based on the reputability of the degree/strength of the alumni base (and of course with some relevant skills on the kid’s behalf). I would say

Group 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton

Group 2: Yale, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, Caltech

Group 3: Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona

Group 4: Georgetown, WashU, Notre Dame, etc…

Anything in the top 3 groups is probably fair to consider “universally elite” if one wants to be safe. Some may not know the LACs as well though so beware of that

Anonymous wrote:Getting back to your point, OP, here's a list of the average SAT percentiles at various colleges (pre-covid, when test scores were required of all applicants). It shows how tiny the differences are, and that all the ridiculous claims so many on this thread (and others on DCUM) make about how HYPSM+ students are soooo awesome compared to those at HYPSM's safeties are completely ungrounded in fact. I mean, those schools are very nice obviously, but like you say, the number of "top colleges", if there is such a thing, is not as exclusive as those who kowtow to the usual suspects would have you believe.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/page/3/

Anonymous wrote:An objective indicator of elite status is a school's total endowment. The recently released (Feb., 2023) endowment figures show a decline from last year. The top 10 schools by total endowment are:

1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) Stanford
4) Princeton
5) MIT

6) U Penn
7) U Michigan
8) Notre Dame
9) Northwestern
10) Columbia

The next seven are:

11) WashUStL
12) Duke
13) Vanderbilt
14) Emory
15) U Virginia
16) Cornell
17) Johns Hopkins

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elite:

HYPSM + Ivies
Chicago
Duke
Northwestern
Caltech
Johns Hopkins
Williams
Amherst

That's it. The rest of the top 20-30 are "top schools" but I would not categorize them as elite.

Remove Northwestern from "elite."

Then you need to eliminate half of the Ivy League schools, Johns Hopkins, Williams, & Amherst as well.

That’s the point isn’t it. Only several are really elite. The rest are good but not that meaningfully distinguishable from number 50+ ranked college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The definite top colleges are HYPSM. That's it.

+1

Peripheral elite schools are the following:
- The rest of the Ivies (non-HYP Ivies are analyzed as a collective, not individually)
- Chicago
- Hopkins
- Caltech
- Duke
- Northwestern
- Williams, Amherst (analyzed in a separate class from the rest of top LACs)
- Berkeley (it's been too important in U.S. history to exclude it)

Anonymous wrote:Do you people ever give it a rest?

Anonymous wrote:
The definite top colleges are HYPSM. That's it.