Anonymous
06/04/2025 14:38
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Also these are tiers not hard cast ranks. Similar 30 schools are shuffled differently for r every year's ranking lists and sometimes state schools thrown in the mix for creating more buzz.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 14:36
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. MIT
4. Yale
5. Princeton
6. UC Berkeley
7. Caltech
8. Columbia
9. UCLA
10. U Chicago
11. Penn
12. Duke
13. Brown
14. UC San Diego
15. NYU
16. Michigan
17. USC
18. Cornell
19. UT Austin
20. UNC Chapel Hill
21. Johns Hopkins U
22. Dartmouth
23. Rice
24. Pomona
25. Williams
26. Washington U (St. LouisK)
27. UW Madison
28. Swarthmore
29. Vanderbilt
30. UW Seattle
31. Northwestern
No. State schools don't qualify for top 30 list. Also in which universe's lists UT Austin and UNC are ranked higher than Northwestern, Rice or Hopkins?
Anonymous
06/04/2025 14:11
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I only go by the top schools by major. My kid is in CS and in UMD. Its good enough for me.
+1 UMD is T20 for CS, and might even go up higher based on admission rates since they halved the program size.
Some of the T20 on OP's list aren't highly regarded for CS. So, going by major makes more sense.
UMD's a fine school, but this feels like a bit of a cope.
Sure, UMD is not a general T20, but it is for CS. And since my kid is a CS major, they'd rather go to UMD than some on the "T20 list".
Anonymous
06/04/2025 14:08
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. MIT
4. Yale
5. Princeton
6. UC Berkeley
7. Caltech
8. Columbia
9. UCLA
10. U Chicago
11. Penn
12. Duke
13. Brown
14. UC San Diego
15. NYU
16. Michigan
17. USC
18. Cornell
19. UT Austin
20. UNC Chapel Hill
21. Johns Hopkins U
22. Dartmouth
23. Rice
24. Pomona
25. Williams
26. Washington U (St. LouisK)
27. UW Madison
28. Swarthmore
29. Vanderbilt
30. UW Seattle
31. Northwestern
This is (more or less) what everyone that matters in this conversation thinks:
https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/resources/universities/us-colleges-rankings/
Crimson? The international student scam organization?
Crimson's rankings make no sense. In what world are Notre Dame, USC and Vanderbilt better than Duke, Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins?!?
Anonymous
06/04/2025 12:11
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I only go by the top schools by major. My kid is in CS and in UMD. Its good enough for me.
+1 UMD is T20 for CS, and might even go up higher based on admission rates since they halved the program size.
Some of the T20 on OP's list aren't highly regarded for CS. So, going by major makes more sense.
UMD's a fine school, but this feels like a bit of a cope.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 12:08
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
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.
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.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:40
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The ivy plus schools are a specific group noted in multiple articles to give an advantage in some outcomes for careers and top grad/prof schools:
8 ivies plus MIT Stanford Duke Uchicago.
Add the 3 schools that have made the usnews top 10 for years running (JHU, Caltech, Northwestern) and that is the T15 universities.
The order varies but the four ivies in the top 10 for many years are HYPP, the top half of the ivies. Columbia is on a major 5 yr slide with cheating of rankings and now significant issues so one could debate whether Cornell beats it due to stem and a 4th best ivy world ranking, or if Brown does, but almost everyone agrees Dartmouth is the lowest and more on par with top LACs Williams and Amherst.
The T3 LACs (WAS) are generally considered at the bottom or just below this T15group and on par with the next 7 national universities (Berkeley CMU Rice WashU Vanderbilt UCLA Notre Dame).
That’s the top 25 overall.
Pomona is the next tier down with Georgetown UMich UVA Emory, making the Top30 overall, though some would argue for UNC in this group and bump Pomona down.
Dartmouth is much better than b tier Amherst and Williams no name schools
Your ignorance is showing.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:35
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Not that I agree with the list, but did UC San Diego somehow appear at #14 out of thin air?
CA parent checking in. UC San Diego is now considered on par with UCLA/Cal (Berkeley) as top 3 UCs. It is very hard to get into and fights for the same students as Cal and UCLA.
UC Tiers:
Tier 1: UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego
Tier 2: UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine
Tier 3: UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz
Tier 4: Riverside, Merced
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:23
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Not that I agree with the list, but did UC San Diego somehow appear at #14 out of thin air?
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:18
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:I find these rankings and discussions completely non-credible, but since when did UC San Diego gain such a perception of prestige?
It hasn't.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:18
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:I find these rankings and discussions completely non-credible, but since when did UC San Diego gain such a perception of prestige?
no one thinks it is prestigious.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:10
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:I only go by the top schools by major. My kid is in CS and in UMD. Its good enough for me.
+1 UMD is T20 for CS, and might even go up higher based on admission rates since they halved the program size.
Some of the T20 on OP's list aren't highly regarded for CS. So, going by major makes more sense.
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:10
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. MIT
4. Yale
5. Princeton
6. UC Berkeley
7. Caltech
8. Columbia
9. UCLA
10. U Chicago
11. Penn
12. Duke
13. Brown
14. UC San Diego
15. NYU
16. Michigan
17. USC
18. Cornell
19. UT Austin
20. UNC Chapel Hill
21. Johns Hopkins U
22. Dartmouth
23. Rice
24. Pomona
25. Williams
26. Washington U (St. LouisK)
27. UW Madison
28. Swarthmore
29. Vanderbilt
30. UW Seattle
31. Northwestern
This is (more or less) what everyone that matters in this conversation thinks:
https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/resources/universities/us-colleges-rankings/
This site also has some data that can provide insights. https://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Harvard+University&with=Massachusetts+Institute+of+Technology
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:05
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. MIT
4. Yale
5. Princeton
6. UC Berkeley
7. Caltech
8. Columbia
9. UCLA
10. U Chicago
11. Penn
12. Duke
13. Brown
14. UC San Diego
15. NYU
16. Michigan
17. USC
18. Cornell
19. UT Austin
20. UNC Chapel Hill
21. Johns Hopkins U
22. Dartmouth
23. Rice
24. Pomona
25. Williams
26. Washington U (St. LouisK)
27. UW Madison
28. Swarthmore
29. Vanderbilt
30. UW Seattle
31. Northwestern
This is (more or less) what everyone that matters in this conversation thinks:
https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/resources/universities/us-colleges-rankings/
Crimson? The international student scam organization?
Anonymous
06/04/2025 11:04
Subject: Is this the Top 1-30 that everyone is referring to? I'm so confused when people reference T1 or T20 or T30.
Anonymous wrote:The ivy plus schools are a specific group noted in multiple articles to give an advantage in some outcomes for careers and top grad/prof schools:
8 ivies plus MIT Stanford Duke Uchicago.
Add the 3 schools that have made the usnews top 10 for years running (JHU, Caltech, Northwestern) and that is the T15 universities.
The order varies but the four ivies in the top 10 for many years are HYPP, the top half of the ivies. Columbia is on a major 5 yr slide with cheating of rankings and now significant issues so one could debate whether Cornell beats it due to stem and a 4th best ivy world ranking, or if Brown does, but almost everyone agrees Dartmouth is the lowest and more on par with top LACs Williams and Amherst.
The T3 LACs (WAS) are generally considered at the bottom or just below this T15group and on par with the next 7 national universities (Berkeley CMU Rice WashU Vanderbilt UCLA Notre Dame).
That’s the top 25 overall.
Pomona is the next tier down with Georgetown UMich UVA Emory, making the Top30 overall, though some would argue for UNC in this group and bump Pomona down.
Dartmouth is much better than b tier Amherst and Williams no name schools