<p>Traditionally, or in layman's terms... the traditional notion of "prestige" and "elite" Universities of the World (in terms of graduate and undergraduate) are these in no particular order</p>
<p>Harvard
Cambridge
Oxford
Columbia
Cornell
MIT
Berkeley
Yale
(Penn)</p>
<p>The only reason Penn is in parentheses is that Penn's rise has been very very recent. 30 years ago, Penn wasn't on the map. Today, most people in the world overseas have not heard of Penn. Although i suspect that this will change in the next 15-20 years. As for the rest of the schools on that list, these universities have been around for hundreds of years and continuously produce the world's most preeminent scholars, scientists, politicians, and businessmen. </p>
<p>As for Berkeley, at a graduate level it is uneqivocally commensurate to Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, MIT in terms of research. For undergrad, it suffers the stigma of being a "public" school.</p>
<p>No i left princeton out because though it's undergrad program is certainly awesome, it is extremely limited in terms of grad programs (i.e no medical school, business school, law school). One common denominator betwen Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge is that all of them are recognized for their oustanding professonal programs and many of them (Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Yale) have the BEST Law, Business, AND Medical schools in the world.</p>
<p>Stanford's rise is also fairly recent. 50-100 years ago, the blue blood elite of America attended the Ivy League. They didn't send their kids out west.</p>
<p>Stanford didn't really take off until it became the recipient of massive Cold War R&D fundings, and it had the mix of prescience and good luck in developing Silicon Valley. So says Daddy Bagels (Stanford '74)</p>
<p>Princeton does have a lot of layman's prestige because of Einstein. It probably has the most prestigious name in the world linguistically in my opinion</p>
<p>"(Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Yale) have the BEST Law, Business, AND Medical schools in the world."</p>
<p>Penn's business and medical schools are superior to all those in that list except for harvard. Penn's Law School surpasses Cornell and is only a notch below the other three.</p>
<p>Truazn, your ranking is a complete joke. You say Harvard, Columbia, Cornell and Yale have the best law, medical and business schools. That's a complete farce. And not so very subtle trolling for Columbia on your part.</p>
<p>I'll give you raw data to chew on per US News:</p>
<p>Law: Y = H = S > C > Pe >> Cor
Business: H = Pe = S >> C >>> Y = Cor
Medice: H > Pe >>> Y > S > C >> Cor</p>
<p>And to be clear, > is a few places difference; >>> means a big gap.</p>
<p>Among the Ivy Plus schools, Harvard, Penn and Stanford have a clear advantage in these core professional schools over all the others. Yale is untouchable in fine arts, Cornell in certain other professional programs. But only Harvard, Stanford and Penn are indisputably tops in law, med and business. In fact, for almost ALL of their grad schools, these three universities place in the top 10. No other Ivy Plus can say that. At all. Disprove it if you can Tru.</p>
<p>In general arts and sciences, Berkeley, Chicago, and Oxbridge all clearly stand shoulder to shoulder with the research oriented Ivies (which excludes Dartmouth and Brown). </p>
<p>Pound for pound, Stanford is arguably the best school out there. Even if it's rise is recent -- it's still standing at the pinnacle.</p>
<p>I'll give you CalTech - on a pound for pound basis. It's a boutique school so it's not a real peer to Stanford or any Ivy Plus, but CalTech is the very very best of the boutiques. </p>
<p>Princeton over Stanford - not a chance. Stanford outranks Princeton in the social sciences, far outranks in engineering, and they are equal in arts and humanities. And Stanford's range of grad schools swamps Princeton. </p>
<p>Check a research book called "The Rise of American Research Universities". Stanford is above Princeton. As well as US News (for what that's worth) or the NRC rankings (which thankfully are going to be updated next spring).</p>
<p>But of all American schools, in terms of pure academic power I'd put Stanford followed by Princeton at the top.</p>
<p>Back to the title of the thread, "doormat" is merely a name tag. We're not talking about rankings, or any numbers here. In fact, we're talking about the "biggest reputations": What the public thinks about these colleges? How well-known they are regionally, nationally and internationally? Those are merely based on public opinions. And since they're OPINIONS, there're no right or wrong opinions. If you still need FACTs, well, the Ivy League, in FACT, isn't an academic league. It's a sports league. But among public opinions, it's an elite academic league.</p>
<p>You may not give a damn about what the public think about which college you're attending. Most ppl don't give serious thoughts about it anw.</p>
<p>Owell, here's the StudentReviews' Unofficial Rankings of the "biggest reputations". So yeah it's SR, it's unofficial, it's determined by analyzing the 2 mils searches on SR... so have a look at it if you're interested. If you find it crappy, it IS crappy, please don't fire back at me:D</p>
<p>) What would be your "dream" college? What college would you most like to attend (or see your child attend) if chance of being accepted or cost were not an issue?"</p>
<p>The 10 colleges students most named were: 1-New York Univ., 2-Harvard Univ., 3-Princeton Univ., 4-Stanford Univ., 5-Yale Univ., 6-Brown Univ., 7-Columbia Univ., 8-Duke Univ., 9-Cornell Univ., and 10-Univ. of California Los Angeles</p>
<p>The 10 colleges parents most named were: 1-Princeton Univ., 2-Stanford Univ., 3-Harvard Univ., 4-Univ. of Notre Dame, 5-Duke Univ., 6-Yale Univ., 7-Boston College, 8-Brown Univ., 9-Cornell Univ., 10-Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</p>
<p>Penn made neither the students nor parents list. </p>
<p>These lists are usually meaningless and fluctuate dramatically year to year. note that the #1 school on one list isn;t on the other. Also, NYU #1 student's choice?</p>
<p>"Findings below are based on responses from 4,902 people nationwide"</p>
<p>It's only from 4,902 people. It's nationwide, not worldwide:D</p>
<p>Anw, we can get on with this sort of debate forever.</p>
<p>p/s: I guess the reason Columbia didn't make it to the top 10 list of StudentReviews ranking was because ppl outside the US think the school is actually in Columbia lol</p>
<p>Truazn, why do you spend SO MUCH TIME on the Penn boards. You are a Columbia person - either a student, grad or faculty member. It's a mark of your deep insecurity that you are constantly working to attack Penn in favor of that school on the Hudson. And it serves to highlight the fact the Penn has in fact surpassed Columbia as an institution. </p>
<p>And despite the bizarre list you've just posted, all the studies that use quatifiable and analytical methods to rank schools point to the fact that I've just mentioned. </p>
<p>Check for yourselves loosers:</p>
<p>National Research Council
"The Rise of American Research Universities" book/report
Academic Analytics' Faculty Productivity surveys
Center for Measuring University Performance
US News and World Report</p>
<p>no lolol, goading people on the Penn thread (especially you red&blue, here and on xoxo) is pretty fun. It's mildly fascinating to see how much you get riled up everytime someone even hints at Penn's mediocrity.</p>
<p>btw. Columbia's ED apps were up to 2500 this year, +25%. How about Penn?</p>
<p>If there are 2500 total ED applicants this year, that's an increase of 2.9%.</p>
<p>Penn had a dramatic 21% increase in ED applicants in 2005, and an impressive 11% increase in total applicants in 2006 (despite a 2.5% decrease in ED applicants that year). Penn's overall yield remains high at 66.5%. Those who look at the big picture, as opposed to modest changes from year to year, realize that Penn has been doing exceedingly well on the admissions front.</p>