<p>Prestige - The level of respect at which one is regarded by others; standing</p>
<p>Note the lack of actual <em>quality</em> in that statement. Among educated folks, something's <em>quality</em> influences prestige, however the opposite is not true: it is possible to have "prestige" without comparable quality. </p>
<p>I, personally, <em>do</em> find UPENN to be among the top 5, at least, prestigious universities. However, USNEWS has consistently and undoubtedly found its quality to be among the top 5.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I agree. If a school consistently gets more than its share of top students - whatever the reason - it will, eventually have a very strong student body. </p>
<p>Since quality is drawn to quality, and good students are the key ingredient of a good school - good in academics, leadership, ECs, "diversity", etc. -such schools, "prestigious" or not (whatever that means), will also be tops in quality overall.</p>
<p>i knwo someone who turned down yale for a full ride, paid school expenses, 5 paid trips home every school year, and yearly spending money from emory</p>
<p>i can understnad why he did (as much as i'd love to go to yale)</p>
<p>Byerly, don't you have a super glitzy-ritzy important job or something to do? A social life? Something else to do? Seriously. Cheap shots on a board populated with teenagers... Come on, you've gotta be above that.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Both Duke and UNC-CH rely heavily on the Robertson Scholarships to attract top students to their campuses. </p>
<p>Other schools have similar programs, including Emory, Rice, CalTech etc.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen how the Ivys will respond should their "losses" mount to schools offering such "merit" scholarships.</p>
<p>It has always been the Ivy credo that financial aid should be awarded on the basis of need only. Of course, that philosophy was adopted as a means of announcing that they wouldn't compete with the "factories" in awarding athletic scholarships. </p>
<p>Losing "scholars" rather than jocks to the highest bidder changes the landscape!</p>
<p>ubermensch, I still agree with you and my earlier post that, while UPENN is definitely a good college, it is not one of the top four most prestigious universities (I could care less about US News rankings)</p>
<p>No it doesn't, well I think it does take it into consideration as far as grad school admissions, etc. I was referring to thinkjose's reference to USNews rankings</p>
<p>No one can deny that UPENN has certainly been on an upward trajectory the last few years in terms of quality...sometimes "prestige" takes a few (hundred) years to catch up...</p>
<p>UPenn aint all that great in terms of quality. Quite frankly, UPenn's only good program is Wharton and they know it. UPenn should be ranked behind all the ivies except Cornell and Brown. IMHO, Columbia and Dartmouth are better than UPenn in terms of quality. (Columbia is better in terms of prestige and selectivity). HYSMP are obviously the top five schools in the nation...with UPenn coming up around #15 or so.</p>