Ranking Colleges by Prestigiosity

College Search & Selection
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<p>There have been many threads about the relative "prestige" of different colleges. The problem with these, in my opinion, is that they have treated "prestige" as if it were a real thing that can be measured and compared.</p>

<p>My modest proposal is to look at the "prestigiosity" of colleges, which is defined as how desirable they are to highly competitive posters here on CC. It has nothing to do with quality of education, class size, earnings after graduation, or any of that stuff. The only criterion is how many CC'ers want to be "chanced" for the school, and how desperate they are. Extra points for asking "should I even bother applying?"</p>

<p>Stealing from another poster, prestigiosity should be measured in "milliHarvards," with 1000 milliHarvards (or 1 Harvard) being the maximum.</p>

<p>Anyone care to propose rankings?</p>

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<p>Smith trumps all. :)</p>

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<p>In fairness, the unit of measure should be the HYPe (milliHYPe if you want to be precise).</p>

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<p>We can abbreviate it as mH in either case.</p>

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<p>I think the op means ‘prestigiousness’ not “prestigiosity”, which doesn’t exist.</p>

<p>By the way, interesting that the root for ‘prestige’ comes from Middlle French and means trickery or illusion…hmm.</p>

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<p>And I think leanid is missing the point of the OP.</p>

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<p>Maybe I did. I don’t mind being enlightened. Care to point me “homeward, angel”?</p>

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<p>I know the term “prestigiosity” exists, because I coined it and defined it.</p>

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<p>^ hahaa I love that justification :)</p>

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<p>I refudiate prestigiosity. Absomolutely.</p>

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<p>I was afraid people wouldn’t take my brilliant idea seriously. So, here are some scientifically developed mH ratings of a few schools. Feel free to add others, or to suggest modifications:</p>

<p>Harvard: 1000 mH
Yale: 998 mH
Princeton: 998 mH
MIT, Caltech: 997.365782322119 mH
Stanford: 995 mH (998 west of the Mississippi)
Duke: 990 mH (995 south of the Mason Dixon line)
Columbia: 990 mH
Brown, Penn, Dartmouth: 985 mH
Cornell: 980 mH
Chicago, Northwestern, Rice: 975 mH</p>

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<p>^ Chicago should probably be around 978.3-978.4 mH.</p>

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<p>I love that: “around” 978. That’s the spirit.</p>

<p>Harvard: 1000 mH
Yale: 998 mH
Princeton: 998 mH
MIT, Caltech: 997.365782322119 mH
Stanford: 995 mH (998 west of the Mississippi)
Duke: 990 mH (995 south of the Mason Dixon line)
Columbia: 990 mH
Brown, Penn, Dartmouth: 985 mH
Cornell: 980 mH
Chicago: 978
Northwestern, Rice: 975 mH</p>

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<p>I don’t think leanid missed the point at all. I think he hit the nail on the head with</p>

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<p>If you’re going to exclude the measures of</p>

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<p>from how prestigious a school is then what you have left is something like how cool a college is. The reality could be quite different from the perception, hence the tie-in with illusion. Excellent contribution leanid.</p>

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<p>I would think Cornell & Brown would be higher than Duke…no?</p>

1 Like
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<p>I think Duke’s cachet has grown quite substantially in recent years. I think a lot of people would choose it over Cornell for sure, and probably Brown, too. To my eye, Duke has just about come up to Stanford as the “Harvard” of its geographic region.</p>

<p>Note: For those who may be new to CC, this thread is sort of a joke. It’s all about the *perception *of prestige, as opposed to those things that actually contribute to the quality of education. That’s what “prestigiosity” is all about.</p>

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<p>

The OP is probably a Duke basketball fan or a Duke fan in general. It’s possible that he/she took Duke basketball into account and confused basketball with academics.</p>

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<p>Well, as I said, the main criterion for prestigiosity is how desperately CC posters seem to want to get into the college. On the Duke forum, there are a lot of chance requests and expressions of love for Duke. Not so much for Cornell. For Brown, there was a “should I even bother to apply?” thread, so maybe Brown should get a boost.</p>

<p>Harvard: 1000 mH
Yale: 998 mH
Princeton: 998 mH
MIT, Caltech: 997.365782322119 mH
Stanford: 995 mH (998 west of the Mississippi)
Duke: 990 mH (995 south of the Mason Dixon line)
Columbia: 990 mH
Brown: 987
Penn, Dartmouth: 985 mH
Cornell: 980 mH
Chicago: 978
Northwestern, Rice: 975 mH</p>

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<p>Thank you, Pea.</p>

<p>“I would think Cornell & Brown would be higher than Duke…no?”</p>

<p>– As in - “Two heads are better than one.”?</p>

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<p>

Obviously you made this while you were drinking. The question is if you are sober now. :)</p>