<p>Oky, so according to about.com - here are the 10. <a href="http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingaschool/tp/top10colleges.htm%5B/url%5D">http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingaschool/tp/top10colleges.htm</a>
1.Harvard
2. Princeton
3. Yale
4. Stanford
5. Dartmouth
6. MIT
7. Amherst
8. Williams
9. Columbia
10 Cal Tech</p>
<p>So wath do u think?</p>
<p>They're definitely all very presitious, but many of those schools could be replaced with other top schools and the difference in prestige would be negligible.</p>
<p>^Agreed. 10 char</p>
<p>Prestige is relative. These are the schools that do the best domestically, and in my opinion these are the best ten schools (add in a couple more schools such as Brown and Duke). I have witnessed an inordinate number of successful grads from the top LACs for example. </p>
<p>Internationals (and strangely people from California) tend to confuse University value with Undergrad value, and tend to add the big research institutions such as Berkeley in the top 10. I personally flat out disagree with this.</p>
<p>In a world in which the last US President, three current Heads of State(Jordan, Phillipines, and the European Commission), twenty Members of Congress, the President of MIT, the Solicitor General of the US ,a Supreme Court Justice, the CEOs of Citicorp and Alcatel, the Supreme Commander of NATO, the majority leader of the US House, the Majority Whip of the US Senate, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander of our army in Iraq, the highest ranking woman in the US Navy, the governors of two states, the immediate past heads of the NFL and PCAOB, and the head of the Food And Drug Admnistration are Georgetown alumni, and in which the former Secretary of State, the former CIA Director, the former Undersecretary of Defense, the former National Security Advisor and former Heads of State for Spain and Poland are on its faculty, I think some "consideration" should be given to adding Georgetown to a list such as this.</p>
<p>Being biased, I'd go with:</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Swartmore, UChicago (tied)</li>
</ol>
<p>The Georgetown "First Spouses" List is pretty robust too with the First Ladies of California, and the Ukraine and the First Man to the Speaker of the US House all being Georgetown alumni too.</p>
<p>As to Williams and Swarthmore and Amherst and all those LAC's, they may give a great undergrad preparation and be well known in the Northeast, but if you want to knock someone's socks off with prestige ANYWHERE in the country, I think U Michigan and Berkeley should definitely be on the list</p>
<p>^I don't think UMich would "knock someone's socks off."</p>
<p>I agree Berkeley should be on the list. its grad is better than most of the ivy.</p>
<p>for undergraduate i would do
1. harvard (no doubt - far above the rest presige wise)
2. yale (people think its close - but honestly when people joke around about applying to the best school in the country - they dont say "Im going to yale" - its harvard)
3. princeton
4. MIT
5. Stanford
6. Dartmouth
7. Amherst
8. Williams
9. Cal Tech
10. Cornell/Brown</p>
<p>I think Columbia is more prestigious than most of those schools. I'd put it right before Dartmouth. Otherwise, that last list looks pretty good, I might switch a few. </p>
<p>I think people are confusing "well known" for "prestigious". Yes, Berkeley is more well known than Amherst, Dartmouth, Williams, Swarthmore, etc. But as an undergraduate institution, those schools are all far more prestigious than Berkeley.</p>
<p>This topic comes up a lot. To reiterate, "prestige" all depends on whom you're asking. If by "prestige" you mean that people go "Wow! Good school!" then that is going to vary widely by region. I can guarantee you that most people outside the NE corridor have never heard of Williams, for instance.</p>
<p>If you try to reduce the lest of prestigious colleges to ten, and you gave a numerical ranking out of 100 to each college on there, you would find that the number one college got a 99.9999999 ranking, while the second one only got a 99.999998 ranking. </p>
<p>Okay, so maybe the differences are a lot more than that, but there are still a lot more than ten top most prestigious schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but if you want to knock someone's socks off with prestige ANYWHERE in the country, I think U Michigan and Berkeley should definitely be on the list
[/quote]
</p>
<p>lol. Michigan's acceptance rate is around 50%. It's not a top 10 undergad.</p>