<p>Which school is better as far as an overall college experience AND ranking/ how they're viewed in the world. Because rankings often change. Like I know NU is #12 and dartmouth is #11 but I have been hearing a lot about NU moving up. Soo as far as prestige. Thannks!!!</p>
<p>NU is not moving up, so I don’t know where you heard that. For undergrad domestic prestige, it goes:</p>
<p>Dartmouth = Penn > Duke > Northwestern</p>
<p>Internationally:</p>
<p>Penn > Dartmouth = Duke = Northwestern</p>
<p>For college experience, they’re basically the same.</p>
<p>Duke is pretty Greek heavy, as is Dartmouth. I haven’t heard of NU being very Greek but I could be wrong. So make sure you’re comfortable with the Greek scene if you attend any of these schools, except maybe NU.</p>
<p>None of them is better than any other, as a general proposition. One or more of them may be better for you. They are all crazy hard to get into, so don’t pin your hopes on any of them.</p>
<p>They’re all about the same so I would base my decision on factors other than prestige.</p>
<p>Depends on what you’re looking for in college life. Duke and Dartmouth have strong Greek systems. Dartmouth is in the middle of nowhere; Penn is in the middle of Philadelphia. Northwestern and Duke are more suburban. Dartmouth and Duke have more traditional campuses, whereas Penn is sort of scattered throughout Philly. And so forth. So really, you’ll have to think about the kind of experience you want and choose based on that. (Personally, I’d pick Duke.)</p>
<p>Any differences in prestige are likely to be so minuscule as not to matter, but for the sake of the question I agree with phuriku. I would even say that Penn has a slightly better reputation than Dartmouth, but mostly for Wharton.</p>
<p>Lay Prestige
[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)</p>
<p>Duke > Penn >>>>> Dartmouth, Northwestern</p>
<p>Domestic Prestige
[High</a> School Counselor Rankings | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor]High”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor)</p>
<p>I used the USWNR counselor ratings since the views of academics are far removed from what the public perceives with regards to university reputation.</p>
<p>Dartmouth > Duke > Penn > Northwestern</p>
<p>International Prestige
[World’s</a> Best Universities; Top 400 Universities in the World | US News](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world]World’s”>http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world)</p>
<p>Penn > Duke > Northwestern >>>>>> Dartmouth</p>
<p>Penn and Duke are slightly better than Dartmouth and Northwestern IMHO overall but its like the difference between Harvard and Stanford or Yale and Princeton i.e. pretty small. I would choose based on fit.</p>
<p>The Lay Prestige rankings are useless. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would seriously consider Ohio State and Penn State more prestigious than Caltech, Columbia, WUSTL, Cornell, JHU, Brown, Northwestern, and Dartmouth. (In fact, the 2% of people that voted for OSU and PSU each are saying that they are better than HYPSM and any other school, which is obviously silly. Same goes for everyone voting for Michigan State (not UMich) and all those other schools. Many of those are probably people just voting for their alma mater or the local flagship.)</p>
<p>^ i guess. I personally don’t care, at all, to what high school counselors say about what universities are prestigious or how they rate them. Multiple rankings are able to give different perspectives on different things. So i’d say they’re all pretty valuable in filling in the whole picture. </p>
<p>If it were possible, i’d like to see something like an international lay-prestige ranking. More specifically, i wonder if there’s actually any truth to this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14398739-post18.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14398739-post18.html</a></p>
<p>^I don’t think that’s true at all. Berkeley, for instance, is far more well known (rightfully or not) than either Yale or UCLA internationally, and especially in Asia. Stanford is as well, at least more so than UCLA.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on what you want to go for. If say, you’re going for Business, Penn Wharton crushes. If say pre-med, Dartmouth and Duke will be your best bets. Overall, I would group Penn, Dartmouth,and Duke together and place Northwestern just a slight step below (usually grouped with a Johns Hopkins/WUSTL) in terms of academics. Otherwise it’s what type of location you prefer; Penn, Dartmouth, and Duke all have active party/social scenes.</p>
<p>^^ Meh, I’ve heard too many different stories about the matter to really trust anyone’s first hand experience.</p>
<p>Although from what i have heard, the consensus seems to be that among the educated/informed Berkeley > UCLA. That says nothing about lay prestige though (which is what i’m talking about.)</p>
<p>Small note - yes, Penn is in Philly, but it is not “scattered throughout” the city. There is an actual campus, with some very nice, classic ivy league-type buildings. I worked about 2 blocks from their campus for many years. Also, their campus is right next to Drexel’s.</p>
<p>^ Indeed–Penn’s campus consists of about 300 contiguous acres, is fairly cohesive (not “scattered” in any way), and contains lots of greens, plazas, courtyards, and shaded walks that are isolated from streets and traffic, giving much of it an almost cloistered atmosphere.</p>
<p>There is no party scene at Duke. Do not make this mistake.</p>
<p>well, speak as a Chinese local, HYSM+UCB >> UCLA, in terms of both elite and lay prestige.
UCLA is well-known for big basketball fans, in this case, however, UNC beats UCLA anyday.</p>
<p>US: Dartmouth=Penn>Duke>Northwestern
Asia: Penn>Dartmouth=Duke=Northwestern
Europe: Penn>Dartmouth=Duke=Northwestern</p>
<p>Hmm, according to Parchment, Duke is slowly starting to edge Dartmouth in winning cross admits. Penn holds a small advantage but how much of that is due to Wharton I wonder…</p>
<p>Dartmouth is still 13th while Duke is 21st.</p>
<p>[Parchment</a> College Rankings 2012 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25]Parchment”>http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25)</p>
<p>I don’t think they updated the rankings themselves but you can see the realtime results based upon the most recent matriculation decisions when you match up colleges against each other.</p>