<p>golly g why cant u smart a$$es understand what he's trying to say here. Of course Harvard's more prestigious than University of Washington (UCLA should have been in ur first category IMO), but if you choose to study physics or something at U of W (or you just dont get into harvard so you opt to go there) it is PERFECTLY FINE.</p>
<p>He's just saying in short that they're all winners, and that once you get into any of the schools he listed it really won't hinder your life/career if you go to a "less prestigious school," and I agree.</p>
<p>Besides, it's society's sheep who go to "prestigious schools" because of their names, or to wear a t-shirt, or whatever floats your boat. I say that from Purdue on up (in terms of prestige), anyone's a winner and you would be wise by choosing a college that excells in the area which you hope to study.</p>
<p>And I hardly think that denison is at a higher level than tufts. Tufts excepts less than 30% of their applicant pool. I've never even heard of Denison until I looked it up just now.</p>
<p>I agree that USC should be on the list. The list is not ranked and so Denison is not higher than Tufts. The OP could have been clearer that none of the groups are higher or lower than the other groups. They are for all practical purposes, just as good. It would have been better not to have groupings at all. The groupings represent levels of prestige and have nothing to do with the qualities of the colleges. I would say that Tufts is in its grouping since it was used as a safety school for outstanding applicants in the Northeast for many years. That is no longer true and doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the college anyway. The idea of the post was to show that there are a lot of other good schools out there besides the Ivies. At least Stanford and MIT. :) I am seeing now that when a person's main or only criteria is prestige, the post doesn't make sense to them.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations of An0nym0u5 and vagrant star. UCLA belongs in the first category alongside UC Berkeley, Georgetown, WUStL and the like.</p>
<p>guys, this list is SOOOO flawed. Lets just agree that Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Caltech are the way to be. Study and work hard and get in. Otherwise, settle for less.</p>
<p>DUKE IS, they are ridiculous dude. It has one of the best reserach facilities and everything you need thats ranked really really high. Undergrad is absolutely amazing. IT is at least better than Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and ranked ON PAr with Columbia and STanford.</p>
<p>"DUKE IS, they are ridiculous dude" Not entirely sure what that means, but I stick with my comments. It just doesn't belong. I'm not even talking about academics really, but just about the levels of the schools and how they are thought of. I don't go to duke, nor do I know anyone who goes there, so I can't tell you if I think its a good school or a bad school or somewhere in between, but when making silly lists like these, duke is on a level below the others.</p>
<p>I don't mean to be rude. However, does it strike anyone as being strange when someone says that they don't care about the academic factors, and they don't go to Duke, and they don't know anyone going to Duke, and the implication is that they don't know anything about Duke, but that they are 100% positive that Duke is not one of the top schools in the country.</p>
<p>GentlemanandScholar is a master and a gentleman, let him be</p>
<p>Its pretty rough that the OP said that the schools were "just as good", except not lol</p>
<p>The goodness of the Ivy league varies from school to school, so I don't get it. Plus pretty much everyone acknowledges that several non-ivy schools are as good as Ivy schools (MIT, Stanford, LAC's, Duke, Caltech, etc.) Its pretty much become politically correct at this point.</p>
<p>and since you bring it up, Duke is ranked 5th on USNWR behind HYP and UPenn, and ahead of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Columbia, Dartmouth, Northwestern, WUSTL, Brown, Cornell, Hopkins and UChicago.</p>
<p>dufus, I bet you have a list of what colleges you think are the best in the country, right? How did you compile that? Have you attended, or known someone who as attended each of those schools that has given you the inside scoop? Or do you base it on rankings and what everyone else says? I have no doubt that Duke is a fine school, and it might be as good or better then harvard or yale or anywhere else for certain people, but when we boil down ranking all we are doing in measuring pretige and percieved quality. I can speak for one school, which is the school that I attend. Everything else is just perception and prestige. Where I'm from duke doesn';t go on that list. Simple as that. Besides, I'd didn't say I didn't care about academics, I said that wasn't my concern here, and I didn't say I was 100% positive about anything, so please don't try to put words in my mouth.</p>
<p>Where I'm from no one really knows about Stanford (well, people who applied to private schools know its like the best of the west) Cal Tech (which I never heard of until they send me a brochure) or Dartmouth. Its pretty weird. I'm on the East Coast so that probably explains it.</p>
<p>This environment in this website makes you think that HYPSM are the only colleges to success. For better or worse, the real world doesn't work like that. </p>
<p>Ask where the bosses of your parents and your uncles/aunts went for college. Chances are, not HYPSM or an Ivy or even top 25/top 50. </p>
<p>Even as I scan the list of interns at my company for which colleges they went to, the "prestige" level runs the gamut, from Ivies and MIT to regular state schools and schools that I've never heard of even though I frequent collegeconfidential.com </p>
<p>But it's okay... most of you will get a wakeup call sooner or later and realize how students who attend less prestigious colleges are suddenly competing --and sometimes beating those who go to better colleges -- for internships and jobs. In the end, success is defined by many more personal characateristics than just the school that you went to. </p>
<p>It is especially sad though when my Education TA has to remind us that we (students at UCLA) go to an elite institution. Sure, UCLA isn't HYPSM. But there are thousands of other colleges out there who wish they could be in the top 25 or top 50 or even top 100.</p>
<p>"and since you bring it up, Duke is ranked 5th on USNWR behind HYP and UPenn, and ahead of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Columbia, Dartmouth, Northwestern, WUSTL, Brown, Cornell, Hopkins and UChicago."</p>
<p>Who brought what up? First you plagorize the atlantic monthly article saying that duke is not on the ivy level (less equal, or whatever lame phrase they use) and now you appear to be saying that it is. What up, homey? </p>
<p>And devil, should I travel the country taking a poll on the perception of your school? Did you travel around the country and find out what the "true" prestige of Duke is, or are you just going off your "regional bias"?</p>
<p>I don't have a ranking of colleges in my own mind. I have a list of colleges that I have heard of. Over a long period of time, you set some of the colleges up as being more special than others. Certainly, HYP and Stanford and MIT and Caltech and Northwestern are in that category because of a lifetime of hearing from practically everyone that they are the best schools in the country. Some schools seem important because you hear them in the news. The presidential debates were held at WUSTL and Emory. You hear of scientific work having been done or being done at different schools. The first computer was at UPenn and the first controlled nuclear reaction was at UChicago. You hear of some schools because of their sports teams. I've read a lot of college guides such as "The Hidden Ivies", "The Public Ivies", and others.</p>
<p>Once the people on CC get off of the Ivies and the 2006 USNWR rankings come out in the middle of August, there is going to be a lot of talk about that. I don't like the fact that USNWR ranks colleges. They are only doing it to sell magazines, but they do rank them on something other than some dumb idea of prestige. They use SAT scores, class sizes, endowment, alumni giving, and there must be dozens of different criteria.</p>
<p>I would never get into these stupid arguments about whether WUSTL is better than Northwestern or not. One might be better for Bill and the other might be better for Ted, and vice versa. If they were in a fight, who would win, Superman or Batman? What tastes better, strawberries or cherries? Who do you love the most, your mother or your father? What is the better school, Yale or Harvard? If you want to argue about the Sox versus the Yankees, it doesn't matter, but you are picking a college here.</p>