3 most prestigious US schools in the world?

College Search & Selection
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<p>World's Top 20 Technology Universities
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology --- 11 Oxford University
2 University of California, Berkeley --- 12 ETH Zurich
3 Indian Institutes of Technology --- 13 Delft University of Technology
4 Imperial College London --- 14 Tsing Hua University
5 Stanford University --- 15 Nanyang Technological University
6 Cambridge University --- 16 Melbourne University
7 Tokyo University --- 17 Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
8 National University of Singapore --- 18 Tokyo Institute of Technology
9 California Institute of Technology --- 19 University of New South Wales
10 Carnegie Mellon University --- 20 Beijing University </p>

<p>Is this list from THES ranking? What year? It is ridiculous. It is an insult to Stanford.</p>

<p>In terms of technlogy, no other school in the world has contributed more than Stanford University, especially in the last 30 years. The world's technology locomotive is Silicon Valley. The well spring of innovation is Stanford. I don't think anybody can deny that. </p>

<p>I don't think any school ranked ahead of Stanford in the above list is deserved, given Stanford's unique leading role in advancing new technologies. I don't think any other school can match against Stanford's following deeds.</p>

<p>1) 18 Turing prizes, more than 1/3 of the prizes awarded.
The number of Stanford's ties to Turing prize, the 'Nobel' prize in computing, is #1 in the world. No other school is even close, perhap except Berkeley.</p>

<p>2) Stanford faculty and students have created some of the most famous and most successful companies, such as
HP,
SUN,
CISCO,
SILICON GRAPHICS,
YAHOO,
GOOGLE,
NETSCAPE.</p>

<p>Again, no other school is even close. </p>

<p>3) Stanford faculty and graduates have invented or at least played the leading role in lots of new technologies in the last 30 years, more than any other university in the world:
internet (Former Stanford professor Vinton Cerf is widely refered as 'the father of internet) ,
wireless router (invented by Stanford researcher Bill Yeager),
DSL broad band internet connection (Invented by Stanford professor John Cioffi),
TEX (invented by the great Don Knuth, who laid the foundation of computer science),
Google search engine (invented by Stanford Ph.D students Page and Brin),
artificial inelligence (Stanford Professor John MacCarthy coined this word)
expert system (Stanford professor Edward Feigenbaum is called the father of expert system),
1st robot car (Stanford Cart),
1st robot arm (Stanford arm),
digital music sytheses (invented by Stanford professor John Chowning, licensed by YAMAHA)
GPS (Global positioning system, Bradford Parkinson),
microprocessor (invented by Stanford ph.d Ted Hoff),
UNIX workstation (invented by a Stanford Ph.d student Andy Bechtolshem),
genetic engineering,
micro array,
MATLAB (invented by Stanford graduates)
RISC (Stanford president John Hennessy).
Again, I believe no other school is even close.</p>

<p>To conclude, Stanford deserves to be #1 in the world's technology ranking. </p>

<p>I don't have time to refute the other THES ranking. I think the whole THES ranking is the most ridiculous ranking I have ever seen.</p>

142

<p>MABUHAY and ConfidentialCLG have no idea what they are talking about, Berkeley doesn't even come to mind when I think of the top 3 schools. The only reason you think that Asians think that it is prestigious is because so many of them are able to get into it since it is a public school and because there is no affirmitive action. No one thinks that a community college is prestigious because a lot of people go there. You can't say that because there are a lot people going to a school that means that they think that it is prestigious.</p>

143

<p>Technology = Computer Science???</p>

144

<p>
[quote]
Would you go to your number 1 choice of school even if you can't afford it financially???????? Come one tell me.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No. But my point is Berkeley has relatively poor yield for internationals in spite of, not because of, it's cheaper tuition than privates. That suggests it's likely not as prestigious as you repeatedly claim. That's consistent with my experience as a former international student and also sakky's experience. I believe the yield of international students is the best measuring stick of how internationals acutally think. Berkeley states clearly that internationals won't get any aid so if they can't afford it, they wouldn't even waste time to apply. Financial aid for internationals is usually very limited from top-20 privates and most students don't get any. That tells me most of those who turned down Berkeley did so not because of financial reason. If anything, Berkeley's cheaper tuition already helps their yield yet many would rather pay extra for top privates and turned it down. </p>

<p>Few years ago, Stanford had an article on its yield and it said where most of those that declilned its offer went. While Harvard/Yale took most of them, it stated that less than 1% of them turned it down for another Pac-10 school (likely Berkeley or UCLA). That translates to no more than 8 students in total and probably all of them are in-state residents turning it down for UCLA/UCB because of the cost. Most internationals would turn down Berkeley for HYP (just like the Americans do), not the other way around.</p>

145

<p>
[quote]
The only reason you think that Asians think that it is prestigious is because so many of them are able to get into it since it is a public school and because there is no affirmitive action.

[/quote]

The 41% Asian at Berkeley are Asian Americans, most of them are at least second or third generations. In other words, they are very much like you. With only 3% internationals, Berkeley has very few Asian from Asia. In fact, Stanford, MIT and Harvard all have more real Asians, percentagewise. It's the Asian in Asia that are good in math and science by the way.</p>

146

<p>

LOL! True, true. :D</p>

147

<p>Why are you guys keep arguing same things over and over again? Go find something productive to do than beat the dead horse. Having said that, it’s time for the WCU’s to effectively end these silly arguments once and for all.</p>

<p>Rabban Wrote:</p>

<p>
[quote]
….{snip} *the world class universities (WCU) *.</p>

<p>They are:</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard-Berkeley</li>
<li>MIT-Stanford-Yale-Princeton</li>
<li>Caltech-Columbia-Chicago-Cornell (Eng.) – Penn (Wharton) - JHU(Med) –Duke (animal science including birdstudy ;) )

[/quote]
</li>
</ol>

<p>Basically, the schools listed above are ALL PRESTIGIOUS. Now, the question is which are *3 most prestigious US schools in the world *?</p>

<p>The answer: Based on individual taste & preference & bias, one can pick & choose any 3 schools from the WCU list.</p>

148

<p>Indeed, Duke has its excellent location for serious wild-life animal study majors, close to mountains and sea (Hilton Head Island and the famed outer bank including “DUCK”) – a prime location not just for bird watching & serious bird study, but also for sea-based animal study.</p>

149

<p>Just to throw in my argument, I think the top 3 US schools on the global level are Harvard, Stanford and MIT, since they all have excellent business, science, math, and economics programs and are among the best regarded within the U.S. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Cornell (Eng.)

[/quote]

Interesting that you put Cornell so high for its English department.</p>

150

<p>Don't forget the Primate Center, Rabban. Duke houses a lot of monkeys. ;)</p>

<p>I'm afraid Cornell takes the cake for ornithology, however. :(</p>

151

<p>Eng. = Engineering</p>

152

<p>The top universities:</p>

<p>tier 1: Harvard (great in everything except engineering),
Stanford (great in everything),
Berkeley (great in everything except medicine) .
tier 2: MIT(great in science, engineering, bussiness, econimics),
Caltech (great in science and engineering),
Princeton (great in humanities and science) ,
Yale(great in humanities and law) .
tier 3: Chicago, Columbia, Cornell.
tier 4: U Penn, DUKE, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, Wisconsin, UIUC, Texas at Austin.</p>

153

<p>
[quote]
I'm afraid Cornell takes the cake for ornithology, however.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.birds.cornell.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

154

<p>"not just for bird watching & serious bird study, but also for sea-based animal study."</p>

<p>What kind of birds are the most serious?</p>

155

<p>Harvard, Yale, UCLA</p>

<p>MIT isn't known that much by name.</p>

156

<p>
[quote]
No. But my point is Berkeley has relatively poor yield for internationals in spite of, not because of, it's cheaper tuition than privates. That suggests it's likely not as prestigious as you repeatedly claim. That's consistent with my experience as a former international student and also sakky's experience. I believe the yield of international students is the best measuring stick of how internationals acutally think. Berkeley states clearly that internationals won't get any aid so if they can't afford it, they wouldn't even waste time to apply.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't buy this argument. First of all, the tuition is about the same. It costs internationals about $44,000 to attend Berkeley for one year and about $46,000 to attend Stanford/Harvard/MIT for one year. You pointed out the very flaw in your argument: Berkeley states that internationals won't get any aid. So guess what happens to those who applies to Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley? Some students will end up with financial aid at one or more of the other three and not at Berkeley (because you can't get aid from Berkeley), so they will choose to attend HSM even if they really wanted to go to Berkeley. This, it seems to me, is a plausible explanation for Berkeley's supposed low yield rate.</p>

157

<p>
[quote]
This, it seems to me, is a plausible explanation for Berkeley's supposed low yield rate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Two words: Occam's razor. </p>

<p>(i.e. that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible)</p>

<p>Perhaps your theory explains Cal's low yield vs. HYPSM... but then perhaps it could be the most obvious reason: that HYPSM is simply better, that HYPSM is simply more preferred over Cal.</p>

158

<p>Occam's razor is often used to "disprove" the existence of an almighty being, but I have never heard of it being used in a debate regarding Berkeleys' prestige...lol.</p>

159

<p>vicisstudes,</p>

<p>Your logic, not mine, is flawed. People who apply to Berkeley are those that don't qualify for NEED-BASED scholarships and that's the only form of aid that the Ivies and many other privates provide for internationals (very limited number available anyway and the admission isn't need-blind--I haven't known a single person from Hong Kong that didn't pay the full amount for top privates). You were talking about a hypothetical situation that Ivies/Stanford use merit-based money to win students over and it pretty much doesn't exist.</p>

160

<p>This is the truth:
Harvard, Princeton, MIT</p>