Google's Top 50 Universities

Applying to College
1

<p>Just got a little bored and did this stupid ranking list by typing in "university" in Google...Alright, here is what I got:</p>

<p>1 - Harvard
2 - Stanford
3 - Cornell
4 - Columbia
5 - Princeton
6 - Yale
7 - UMichigan
8 - UDelaware
9 - UWashington
10 - UFlorida
11 - Duke
12 - Boston U
13 - Indiana U
14 - Cambridge
15 - Brown
16 - UArizona
17 - Georgetown
18 - Purdue
19 - UCB
20 - Syracuse
21 - Oxford
22 - UTA
23 - UPenn
24 - UWM
25 - UVA
26 - Bucknell
27 - NYU
28 - Brandeis
29 - Northwestern
30 - Howard
31 - UChicago
32 - Florida State
33 - Warwick
34 - Iowa
35 - Toronto
36 - George Washington
37 - UGeorgia
38 - USC
39 - UM Twin Cities
40 - Northeastern
41 - Sheffield
42 - Rice
43 - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
44 - Penn State
45 - Griffith
46 - Pittsburgh
47 - Marquette
48 - American
49 - Vanderbilt
50 - McMaster</p>

<hr>

<p>Are you looking for these?
54 - CMU
55 - Johns Hopkins
56 - Rutgers
58 - Emory
60 - Texas A&M
70 - Tufts
86 - WUSTL
88 - UCLA</p>

2

<p>heh, now try googling "college".</p>

3

<p>You really shouldn't have listed this as a "ranking" by Google - all that invites is "but but but, why isn't this school here in the ranking? ::whine::"
That is the list of schools based on the way Google's search engine software lists sites that come up for the query "university".</p>

4

<p>This is the list of schools based on the way Google's search engine software lists sites that come up for the query "college". (from Icarus' post)</p>

<p>1 - Dartmouth
2 - Boston
3 - MIT
4 - Reed
5 - Sheridan
6 - Bryn Mawr
7 - Hunter
8 - Oberlin
9 - Kalamazoo
10 - Smith
11 - Pomona
12 - Williams
13 - Middlebury
14 - Seneca
15 - Swarthmore
16 - Wellesley
17 - Wheaton
18 - Baylor
19 - Bard
20 - Manhattan
21 - Babson
22 - Union
23 - Harvard
24 - Rollins
25 - Mills
26 - Ithaca
27 - Trinity (Dublin)
28 - Davidson
29 - Calvin
30 - Imperial
31 - Cork
32 - Westmont
33 - Haverford
34 - Bowdoin
35 - Vassar
36 - Connecticut
37 - Emerson
38 - Occidental
39 - Charleston
40 - Skidmore
41 - Carleton
42 - Lafayette
43 - Hope
44 - Hampshire
45 - Rhodes
46 - Colby
47 - Columbia (Chicago)
48 - Kenyon
49 - Trinity (Hartford)
50 - Simmons</p>

5

<p>Wonder what's the basis for the ranking.</p>

<p>UCB at 19 and FSU at 32? That's too close for comfort.</p>

6

<p>Well the google engine is based off looking at the number of links a site has from other reputable sites...maybe florida has an extremely active alumni/students on the internet?</p>

7

<p>Yeah, I agree. UCB and FSU should be reversed. It is too close for comfort.</p>

8

<p>This is NOT a ranking of merit, to clarify. It's a ranking of how good these colleges' online marketing strategies are.</p>

9

<p>not true~!</p>

10

<p>The fact that a college is number one when you type in university means nothing at all.</p>

11

<p>haha I thought Dartmouth was a university...?</p>

12

<p>even in a unusual and unimportant ranking, harvard still HAS to be on top.</p>

13

<p>delaware at 8th? ha</p>

14

<p>check out yahoo's and msn's search</p>

15

<p>No argument there, Parent2noles, for partying.</p>

16

<p>Well, hopefully your offspring makes it into a nice school wherein a bit of tact and diplomacy will be imparted. Then I'll happily hoist one to the genetic improvement of the family, most likely due to the marrying 'up' of the male end of the biological stew.</p>

17

<p>Better still, while facts are hard to swallow, they do not need embellishments. One just states them as they are. Unlike seemingly half-truths to a cluttered mind ...</p>

18

<p>Whatever.</p>

<p>I should think this nonsense list would cause you to lose sleep over the fact that schools like Arizona, Delaware, Florida U and so on are all rated higher than U California Burklee. </p>

<p>Oh, but wait - Florida U calls themselves the Harvard of the South. Guess this means they should be higher than 10, and consequently much higher than UCB. I've often wondered what real Ivy alums thought about that claim, much less the UVA folks, who might have an opinion as well. UVA is an ACC school, like FSU and they always seem to have an opinion about stuff like that. </p>

<p>I've long waited to hear some Harvard alum say "I was rejected at Florida U, so I had to settle for Harvard".</p>

19

<p>Exactly, whatever.</p>

20

<p>Google's ranking is based on how many inbound links their site has. Google Bombing is a trick to get many many sites to link to a one specific site to push it to the top of the listing. Ex: type in miserable failure and see what comes up.</p>

<p>So basically the top of the list is how much that site was refferenced. It's more of a popularity figure.</p>