<p>I never express opinion. I only express facts based on current reality. </p>
<p>USNWR overall ranking (meaningless but what seems to be generally accepted among the uneducated majority):</p>
<h1>1 Princeton (100)</h1>
<h1>2 Harvard (99)</h1>
<h1>3 Yale (98)</h1>
<p>Small but distinct gap</p>
<h1>7 Penn (93)</h1>
<h1>9 Columbia (89)</h1>
<h1>9 Dartmouth (89)</h1>
<h1>12 Cornell (87)</h1>
<h1>15 Brown (85)</h1>
<p>In terms of peer assessment score:</p>
<h1>1 Harvard (4.9)</h1>
<h1>1 Princeton (4.9)</h1>
<h1>1 Yale (4.9)</h1>
<p>small but distinct gap</p>
<h1>9 Columbia (4.6)</h1>
<h1>9 Cornell (4.6)</h1>
<h1>12 Penn (4.5)</h1>
<h1>15 Brown (4.4)</h1>
<h1>15 Dartmouth (4.4)</h1>
<p>As you can clearly see, the Ivies are clustered into two distinct groups, neither of which affords a university within its distinct group a difinitive edge. And as you can see, Cornell is not at the bottom of either the overall rank or the Peer assessment score.</p>
<p>"USNWR overall ranking (meaningless but what seems to be generally accepted among the uneducated majority)"</p>
<p>I don't belong to that majority, and I take it that the makers of this list don't either. Look, I think Cornell is a great school, but if someone says its the least best Ivy then that's their opinion, and their opinion is just as valid as yours or mine. BTW, if I were to rank the ivys I don't think I'd have Cornell at the bottom.</p>
<p>Snugglemonster, as far as I am concerned, there are two "opinions" on this matter:</p>
<p>The Ignorant/petty/lacking foresight opinion: "________ is the worsest Ivy League"!</p>
<p>The worldly/knowledgeable/enlightened opinion: There is no such this a a "worst Ivy". </p>
<p>Attempting to differentiate and lable colleges and universities ranked between #6 and #30 is impossible. Only the excessively ignorant and/or childishly petty individual would attempt to argue that any university or college on the list below is better than another:</p>
<p>Amherst College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Georgetown University
Haverford College
Johns Hopkins University
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Rice University
Swarthmore College
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia
Williams College</p>
<p>There you have it...#6 through #30. You tell me which universities or colleges don't "belong". </p>
<p>I am not even including other amazing universities like Claremont McKenna, Colgate, Davidson, Emory, Grinnell, Harvey Mudd, NYU, Oberlin, Tufts, UNC-Chapel Hill, USC, UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Wesleyan, William and Mary, Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>Alexander,
Are you trying to say that CalTech is better than Amherst for an English major? Or Middlebury better than Berkekey for Engineering? And I think it is an arrogant/presumptuous/ lacking common sense opinion to assume you or anyone else can say that all schools ranked from 6 to 30 are all exaclty even in terms of quality. What happens if next year Caltech moves to number 4 and UCLA moves to number 31? Are they not equal anymore? And is Yale (or whatever is the new 6) all of the sudden equal to the University of Virgina?</p>
<p>I think that article was hilarious (though I do acknowledge that if I were a Michigan State alum, I'd be pretty ****ed off at what they wrote). :)</p>
<p>Snugglemonster, I am not talking about the USNWR rankings. I never believed in the USNWR overall rankings. As you can see, I mixed LACs and research universities. I am talking about a large number of schools being roughly equal in terms of overall quality. The top 5 universities are generally acknowledged to be Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. My argument is that any attempt to seriously differentiate beween the next 25-30 colleges and universities where overall quality of the institution is concerned is pointless and futile. </p>
<p>And your Caltech vs Amherst or Middlebury vs Cal analogies do not change the fact that all 4 universities are equally excellent. Yes, they are widely different, but it is up to the individual to chose the school that best fits their needs based on fit. An English major is not going to apply to Caltech, any more than an Engineering student is going to apply to Amherst or Middlebury. That wasn't the point at all.</p>
<p>At any rate, back to the original topic, as foolish as it is to list a Big 10 or Ivy League among the worst 9 universities in the US, the article was clearly intended to be whimsical and it is actually very funny.</p>
<p>"The Ignorant/petty/lacking foresight opinion: "________ is the worsest Ivy League"!</p>
<p>The worldly/knowledgeable/enlightened opinion: There is no such this a a "worst Ivy". "</p>
<p>Oh, I agree that the ignorant, petty, and the one lacking "foresight opinion might write [blank] is the worsest Ivy League.</p>
<p>It is the worldly/knowledgeable/enlightened among us--in addtion to recognize the peer assessment as the dumbest of all USNews criteria--who writes without a second thought that Cornell is INDEED the least desirable* and least selective** among the 8 Ivy League. And yes, that makes it the worst in the League. </p>
<p>:D </p>
<ul>
<li>lowest number of applications per available spots
** highest rate of admissions</li>
</ul>