Among the top private universities, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Cornell have the highest percentage of undergraduates. The rest are more grad-focused. Of HYPSM, Princeton puts the most emphasis on undergraduates. Somehow, maybe that philosophy is reflected in their annual #1 undergrad ranking by USNews. (or maybe it has little to do with it, given the ranks of Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown…)
That said, that’s just one part of the overall “academic fit” variable. Some kids might want more grad students around. (certainly there are pros to go along with the cons). Maybe it doesn’t make that big of a deal – even the schools with lower percentages of undergrads assign enough resources to them to make it a great experience. Certainly undergrads at UChicago aren’t lacking attention or opportunities.
As for the tiers, i had been thinking of them in terms of the whole university – undergrad, grad/pro, and PhD. I would add Johns Hopkins to the Northwestern level and put Duke back on it too. Looking at overall program rankings, Duke is not better than Northwestern, Johns Hopkins or Cornell… and it is not as undergrad-focused as Brown or Dartmouth.
Stanford now does have a bigger international rep than Princeton or Yale, mostly based on its grad programs/research and CS pipeline. But for undergrad quality and focus, I think Yale and Princeton are at least as good.
But anyway @allima the point here to be made is that prestige as a consideration is not super important when looking at he top 10-15 schools to begin with and becomes less important when you look at the Columbia, Penn, Chicago tier compared to the tier below. If you were looking at say Harvard vs Brown of course the prestige differential is much bigger. At the end of the day there are more important considerations for the Brown vs Chicago or Briwn vs Penn choice than prestige.
Note that Penn has lower peer assessment scores than Cornell and JHU (and Duke if I recall correctly), so the distinction between tier 3 and 4 is very small if existent at all. When assessing your own school, you should focus more on what outsiders think; everyone is subject to overconfidence bias.
@Boothie007 We will agree to disagree then. The peer assessment scores do not show any significant insight especially at such small differences. There is no objective measure and general perception that would lead someone to say that Penn is below Columbia or Chicago. it is not overconfidence just taking all the facts about desirability, choice, outcomes and intangible perceptions out there rather than relying on a highly subjective number. If Penn was truly below Columbia or Chicago you would see people choosing Columbia, Chicago consistently and significantly more over Penn much like people choose HYPSM in significant numbers over Columbia, Penn, Chicago. Columbia, Chicago would have much better names domestically and internationally than penn much like HYPSM have much stronger names than CPC. But this is not the case.
Also Caltech is very often considered along with HYPSM and certainly above Columbia, Penn or Chicago in general perception, thus I think it hovers between tier 1 and 2.
I don’t even know that there IS a “general perception” of Caltech. Heck, one of the most popular TV shows in the past decade is more or less explicitly set at Caltech, and my sense is that less than 5% of the show’s audience could identify it.
It’s kind of ridiculous to debate where it stands in a pecking order that is purely hypothetical to begin with and where it has about a tenth the name recognition of the others. If you are talking about a kid in Los Angeles who knows he wants to be an engineer or maybe a physicist, of course Caltech is a first-rank institution. If you are talking about a kid here, even a sophisticated one, who maybe wants to do something in STEM, but maybe economics instead, or medical school . . . Caltech never enters the conversation.
Among my kids’ friends and my friends’ kids, there are dozens who have applied to Stanford (and several attended), at least 7-8 who have applied to Berkeley, and others who have gone to USC, UCLA, Pomona, CMC, Santa Clara, Davis, Redlands. And lots apply to MIT. I am not aware of a single kid who applied to Caltech.
@allima yeah are you from RI? Maybe that would explain it. Putting Brown this high up or non- wharton Penn below Duke,Chicago, Columbia or Penn Wharton the same as Duke and below Brown is way off.
@JHS I think the is a general perception about Caltech as a niche, very tough place where most students are practically geniuses.
Doesn’t that pretty much state what you’re trying to convey? That is to say, if you get into Tier 1 schools, choose based on fit, and if you get into Tier 2 schools, chose based on fit. If you get into a Tier 1 school AND a tier 2 school, then maybe other perceived differences (in prestige, for instance) might matter.
Put another way, if someone gets into Duke and Northwestern, or Dartmouth and Chicago, fit should be the key factor. If you get into Dartmouth and Stanford, on the other hand, differences in (perceived) prestige could be taken into account.
Suppose UChicago is in tier n. Then Northwestern must be in tier n+1. All the Ivies must be in some tier n + i where i in integers such that |i| < 2. Stanford must be in tier n-1, solely because of weather. It is now clear that, by induction, all of this doesn’t matter.
Regarding the evolution of colleges through time, which appears to be a subtopic here, the academic strength of UC entering students can be compared to Brown, Penn et al., c. 1960. For that time, the top tiers appear to have been well represented by schools with a range of sizes and emphases:
I think Chicago trumps Brown in most areas, with the exception pre-med. Brown’s PLME program and overall pre-med support are likely significantly better than Chicago’s.
The main reason for Stanford’s and MITs rise is due to the computer industry. Without the perceived dominance of that industry by Standford and MIT grads, your statement would not be true.
I graduated from Brown, but had gotten into UChicago. Brown’s premed support is pretty similar to other colleges, and it’s success with applying to med school is largely due to the strength of its applicants. It’s only recently that Chicago has really climbed the ladders. Four or five years ago, Chicago was relatively not as highly regarded in many areas.
