@OHMomof2 M is prominent in several popular movies: Good Willing Hunting and Iron Man spring to mind. So, I don’t agree with you about M. Can any S, Y, and P advocates also challenge @OHMomof2 about cultural references (movies, tv) to your fav university? (I don’t think that the hoi polloi are at all interested in the political import of HYPSM, so SCOTUS, US presidents, etc. really aren’t relevant in this thread about college “name recognition.”)
@Alexandre I agree, Harvard is knows worldwide and then there is the rest…if that really means anything.
Many think that Johns Hopkins is a medical school and hospital without realizing it is a full university.
Then there was the sad tale here on CC of the son of Asian immigrants who was denied admission to Harvard. His parents told him he was a disgrace to the family. His acceptance at MIT did nothing to assuage their shame.
You know, I expressed my opinion, it’s not something to “prove” or “challenge”, @whatisyourquest . You are perfectly free to have your own opinion on it. There have been movies/TV set at/about Yale (Gilmore Girls) and Princeton (Admission)
Movies have been set at Kenyon and Denison too, that doesn’t mean they have massive name recognition. I mention H because there are so many movies and tv shows set there (though not physically filmed there since they haven’t allowed it for almost 50 years). Or even more often, when someone wants to be shown as smart on in a tv show or film, having gone to Harvard is a good shorthand for that. * In my experience*.
@TomSrOfBoston The family probably was decedents of a samurai bloodline. Come in second means death. LOL
I think Notre Dame has a lot of name recognition. Many may not be able to place it on a map, but they know Ronald Regan went there and won one for the Gipper (don’t let the facts get in the way that he was the Gipper, they are sure he won one for the Gip). People know Army and Navy.
Notre Dame is a football school, four horseman…
@OHMomof2 My “challenge” was meant in jest. I thought that it would be fun in this thread for folks to come up with such cultural references. I had forgotten about Princeton in Admission. I enjoyed that movie.
Princeton - references/scenes in A Beautiful Mind and The Talented Mr. Ripley 
If we are talking schools with “universal” name recognition (in the US, at least) rather than simply schools that the “average person” is likely to have heard of, then Harvard and Notre Dame (football, Catholic tradition, movies) are probably the only sure-fire contenders.
I might add Yale . . . not because of “The Gilmore Girls” (which another poster mentioned), but because of a much more seminal TV show in American culture: “Gilligan’s Island.” That show, which will appear in afternoon syndication from now until the sun goes supernova, bequeathed to the popular imagination two fundamental oppositions: Ginger vs. Mary Ann, and (thanks to Thurston Howell, III) Harvard vs. Yale. The dismissive phrase “He must be a Yale man” emerged as the ultimate put-down . . .
One way to approach something like the topic question is through Google Trends.
You can easily compare level of interest in two or more college/university names for specific time periods and regions.
For example, for 30 Oct to 05 Nov 2016, the comparative Google “interest” between Harvard and Johns Hopkins was 100::18. For the same period, for Harvard::Michigan State it was 92::61 but for Harvard::Truman State it was 100::2.
Those are worldwide ratios. For China only, for 1 January to 7 January 2017, the comparative interest between Harvard and Deep Springs College was 29::8. Worldwide, the level of Google interest in DSC throughout 2016 was virtually zero (compared to levels expressed as 60-100 for Harvard.)
For one week in September 2016, worldwide interest in Notre Dame did surpass worldwide interest in Harvard. However, for most of the year, MIT attracted more interest than ND (but still not as much as Harvard did.) Whether that means MIT has stronger name-recognition than ND, I don’t know (although I’d expect MIT to be a better recognized brand than Notre Dame in most parts of the world).
@Alexandre “Harvard is the only university with a truly universal reputation.”
I think that this is true. My experience with “MIT” supports this.
Inside the US there are other schools that nearly all educated people know about, but most Americans never went to university.
Outside the US, Harvard is probably the only US university that is close to universally known. There are other universities outside the US (such as Oxford and Cambridge) which seem to be better known outside the US than any other US school. Again highly educated people outside the US are likely to have heard of at least HYPSM, but average people in some cases have only heard of H.
@Alexandre " Cal, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale are next"
I mostly disagree. Your typical college educated person could possibly list Princeton, MIT and Stanford… but not California or Columbia. Once you step across the California border, Cal does not have any more national name recognition than say Arizona does. In fact, Alabama probably has 10x the name recognition as Cal. Columbia? Not a chance anyone outside of kids researching ivy league schools or high school counselors have even heard of it.
The average guy…
Q: name some colleges.
A: alabama, auburn, clemson, notre dame, duke, oregon, florida state, texas, texas AM, lsu, boise state, michigan, ohio state, iowa, Iowa state, florida, georgia, Tennessee, miami, arizona, nebraska, syracuse, georgia, south carolina, wisconsin, penn state, maryland, colorado, washington… … … vanderbilt … … harvard
Q: where can you get the best college education?
A: harvard
Q: what’s the next college comes to mind?
A: hmmm. alabama.
Would be a fun thread! I’d join it if you start it 
There’s already a thread, albeit limited to IVL and top 20:
Hasn’t been my experience nor that of the people I’ve run into. Granted I grew up mostly in California and in metro areas. But I also lived on the east coast for a few years. At that time, UC Berkeley was in everyone’s memories for a variety of reasons, ranging from academic - physics, chemistry, engineering, Nobel, etc - to protests ranging from people’s park to Rodney King. I did not - and do not - run into many that did not know of Berkeley. The areas I’ve lived in are typical of places that had a majority of “typical college educated person(s)” and it was rare finding people unaware of Berkeley in new england and rare finding people in metro California not knowing about Columbia. One cannot read the periodic table without running into Berkeley, and every advisor of a HS newspaper knows of Columbia’s school of journalism - Pulitzer started it for crying out loud.
I’ve had a lot harder time convincing people that you can get a good education at Alabama or Arizona State, or that USC has come a long way in 20-30 years academically.
But I’ll bet you can find a lot of people on the East Coast who think “Cal”, “Berkeley” and “UCB” are different schools. 
We already know Caltech doesn’t have much name recognition (despite the Big Bang Theory show). Even 2 hours drive from Pasadena, he still gets “Is that the one in San Luis Obispo or in Pomona?”
Things I didn’t know until I started hanging around CC:
Cal and Berkeley were the same thing.
Michigan was considered to be a better school than other large midwest flagships.
Rice was considered to be a good school - I had never even really heard of it before.
The Ivy League was so highly desired by so many. It still amazes me.
There’s probably more but that’s what initially comes to mind. FWIW I am a MA resident who attended a top 20 university undergrad, an ivy league grad school, and I have been in hiring positions.
"Q: where can you get the best college education?
A: harvard
Q: what’s the next college comes to mind?
A: hmmm. alabama."
That works both way… if you are in the snobier zones of the northeast (and they are plentiful) you will rarely if ever hear that for say UMass, UConn, Rutgers, Pitt… I have this pet theory of mine that if these schools were located elsewhere in the country their status (and ranking) would be up there with the top flagships.
Yes, you are spot on! From what I’ve seen, one can’t even get alums to agree on what is and is not proper to call the university. (Generally, “Cal” is the affectionate and sport team related term, as in “We root for Cal”. UC Berkeley, UCB, Berkeley, Cal Berkeley have varying levels of acceptance, with the first two being most widely accepted especially in an academic reference. The latter two have strong opponents, although I find myself using Berkeley a lot (some feel that it associates with the city too much… and the school and the city are intertwined yet distinct on many fronts). Cal Berkeley is felt to sound too awkward and blends the academic side with the athletic side… So UC Berkeley has several avenues for gaining name-recognition, but at the same time has diluted its ability to focus attention.
Berkeley’s rival Stanford has long touted its sports programs and her successful merging of sports and academics is considered a model across the country. It is ironic though that Stanford’s founding story involves Harvard and creating its equivalent in the west, yet the Ivies never invested in athletics to the same degree as the Cardinal. UC Berkeley’s attitude, at least long ago - and many say this still holds true today - is more similar to Harvard’s but presently comes off as confused between their academic and athletic identities. Stanford thus has had an easier road to gaining name recognition.