Anonymous
04/09/2025 13:57
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Huge difference. No comparison. I grew up outside the USA and no one there has heard of Vanderbilt or Wash U
Anonymous
04/09/2025 13:56
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:I don't recall WashU being viewed as prestigious when I was in HS, so that affects my view -- see the thread on what schools were not selective in the 90s/early 2000s but are now.
It is not prestigious now either
Anonymous
04/09/2025 13:25
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a funny thing. For most grad school admissions and employment opportunities, WashU will serve your child well, although there are programs such as engineering at Cornell that are substantially stronger than WashU.
Nonetheless, I do think that Ivy branding is real and gives you a second chance to impress someone when they fail to recognize the name of your school. You can simply follow up with "it's an Ivy." If you want prestige and name recognition, go to an Ivy. Plus, you can refer to yourself or your kid as an "Ivy Leaguer." Now that sounds prestigious.
I still remember a professor at my decidedly non-prestigious West Coast university bragging to me that his son had graduated from Williams. When he realized that it failed to register with me, he explained that it was "essentially an Ivy, like Harvard." I remember thinking to myself: why didn't the kid just go to Harvard?
No knock on Williams or WashingtonU, but general name recognition and branding are important if you want to be sure that people recognize prestige. I'm not sure WashingtonU has enough of this if prestige is your goal.
How about Northwestern? Is it a step higher in term of pre-med?
Northwestern leans more toward arts/music and communication/journalism. It is probably one or several steps lower in terms of pre-med. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 13:18
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a funny thing. For most grad school admissions and employment opportunities, WashU will serve your child well, although there are programs such as engineering at Cornell that are substantially stronger than WashU.
Nonetheless, I do think that Ivy branding is real and gives you a second chance to impress someone when they fail to recognize the name of your school. You can simply follow up with "it's an Ivy." If you want prestige and name recognition, go to an Ivy. Plus, you can refer to yourself or your kid as an "Ivy Leaguer." Now that sounds prestigious.
I still remember a professor at my decidedly non-prestigious West Coast university bragging to me that his son had graduated from Williams. When he realized that it failed to register with me, he explained that it was "essentially an Ivy, like Harvard." I remember thinking to myself: why didn't the kid just go to Harvard?
No knock on Williams or WashingtonU, but general name recognition and branding are important if you want to be sure that people recognize prestige. I'm not sure WashingtonU has enough of this if prestige is your goal.
You just proved a great point about prestige; context matters. You had no reason to be impressed, as a student you didn’t matter. But his actual peers would be impressed by Williams and that would be where it might matter.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 13:15
Subject: Re:Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
some schools just cannot overcome their location
Anonymous
04/09/2025 12:56
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:Nobody heard of Nvidia and its CEO--and now it's one of the Magnificent 7.
Great logic. Tom Hanks went to a community college, so going to a community college is a great way to become a movie star.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 10:22
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a funny thing. For most grad school admissions and employment opportunities, WashU will serve your child well, although there are programs such as engineering at Cornell that are substantially stronger than WashU.
Nonetheless, I do think that Ivy branding is real and gives you a second chance to impress someone when they fail to recognize the name of your school. You can simply follow up with "it's an Ivy." If you want prestige and name recognition, go to an Ivy. Plus, you can refer to yourself or your kid as an "Ivy Leaguer." Now that sounds prestigious.
I still remember a professor at my decidedly non-prestigious West Coast university bragging to me that his son had graduated from Williams. When he realized that it failed to register with me, he explained that it was "essentially an Ivy, like Harvard." I remember thinking to myself: why didn't the kid just go to Harvard?
No knock on Williams or WashingtonU, but general name recognition and branding are important if you want to be sure that people recognize prestige. I'm not sure WashingtonU has enough of this if prestige is your goal.
How about Northwestern? Is it a step higher in term of pre-med?
Anonymous
04/09/2025 10:04
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Hopkins is a great comparison. Both schools are best known for their medical schools and are in cities that may not be as attractive to college kids. Both also lack the name recognition outside of their regions that schools of similar rank have. Hopkins doesn't have the Washington name issue, which is a real thing outside or certain circles.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 09:56
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Nobody heard of Nvidia and its CEO--and now it's one of the Magnificent 7.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 08:08
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Prestige is a funny thing. For most grad school admissions and employment opportunities, WashU will serve your child well, although there are programs such as engineering at Cornell that are substantially stronger than WashU.
Nonetheless, I do think that Ivy branding is real and gives you a second chance to impress someone when they fail to recognize the name of your school. You can simply follow up with "it's an Ivy." If you want prestige and name recognition, go to an Ivy. Plus, you can refer to yourself or your kid as an "Ivy Leaguer." Now that sounds prestigious.
I still remember a professor at my decidedly non-prestigious West Coast university bragging to me that his son had graduated from Williams. When he realized that it failed to register with me, he explained that it was "essentially an Ivy, like Harvard." I remember thinking to myself: why didn't the kid just go to Harvard?
No knock on Williams or WashingtonU, but general name recognition and branding are important if you want to be sure that people recognize prestige. I'm not sure WashingtonU has enough of this if prestige is your goal.
Nonetheless, I do think that Ivy branding is real and gives you a second chance to impress someone when they fail to recognize the name of your school. You can simply follow up with "it's an Ivy." If you want prestige and name recognition, go to an Ivy. Plus, you can refer to yourself or your kid as an "Ivy Leaguer." Now that sounds prestigious.
I still remember a professor at my decidedly non-prestigious West Coast university bragging to me that his son had graduated from Williams. When he realized that it failed to register with me, he explained that it was "essentially an Ivy, like Harvard." I remember thinking to myself: why didn't the kid just go to Harvard?
No knock on Williams or WashingtonU, but general name recognition and branding are important if you want to be sure that people recognize prestige. I'm not sure WashingtonU has enough of this if prestige is your goal.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 07:52
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:I don't recall WashU being viewed as prestigious when I was in HS, so that affects my view -- see the thread on what schools were not selective in the 90s/early 2000s but are now.
So you're just old. Anyway you all can hold onto ivy prestige as long as you want to, but the rest of the world isn't. You can tell by grad school rankings and placement in finance, ivy schools like Brown have fallen behind Emory, Vandy etc. WashU isn't far behind them. The government and media are against the ivys, it's inevitable at this point.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 07:36
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:I don't recall WashU being viewed as prestigious when I was in HS, so that affects my view -- see the thread on what schools were not selective in the 90s/early 2000s but are now.
I'm from the midwest, and it was somewhat prestigious in the 90s. Not as prestigious as UChicago, but definitely on my radar when I was applying to colleges.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 06:00
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
I don't recall WashU being viewed as prestigious when I was in HS, so that affects my view -- see the thread on what schools were not selective in the 90s/early 2000s but are now.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 02:24
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
It’s not prestigious if nobody has heard of it.
Anonymous
04/09/2025 02:19
Subject: Differences in prestige over WashU versus an ivy like Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Depends on major. Dyson's prestige over WashU, huge. Many on this board look down on Cornell contract colleges.
Many on this board look down on Cornell, period. Cornell is much closer to WashU than it is to Dartmouth or Brown.
Cornell is in the JHU, WashU, Rice, Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Vanderbilt tier. It is a decided step below all the other Ivies and WASP.
Replace JHU and Chicago with Emory and CMU then sure. JHU and Chicago are a stop above Cornell, closer to Brown. Dartmouth is also in the Cornell group.
JHU and Chicago are drone schools that are relatively easy admits ED. JHU (WashU is its natural twin) is probably the most overrated private (as opposed to public) on US News. If you really believe it is a top 10 school, let’s just say you are not who you think you are.
Nothing relatively easy about JHU and Chicago admits. Although Chicago is a bit easier than JHU. I'm a counselor at a DC private. I would know much more than you. JHU rejects go to WashU.
I sincerely doubt that you are a college counselor. In all my years in private schools, I have never encountered students who applied to both JHU and WashU. In fact, JHU is not popular at all with DC private students because it's known as a humorless, grind school. As a college counselor, you should know that. it is more likely that Ivy deferrals ED2 to WashU (so called "Princeton rejects")--and that's a good thing. WashU still gets the top students.
Might be a college counselor: many tend to be idiots, after all. This one thinks there is “nothing relatively easy” about Chicago and JHU admits relative to Dartmouth and Brown. Please tell us who you are so we can get you fired.
Are you responding to yourself?