jym626, a flagship is not limited just to public universities. It extends to the best of any fleet or group. The 600S and G65 are the flagship Mercedes cars. The Enterprise is the flagship starship in the Star Trek universe. All flagship means is the head of a fleet or series. Now is fleet of 10-20 ships or series, the flagship would be #1 or #2. Like the aforementioned 600S and G650. In a larger fleet, with over 300 ships, there could be up to 6 or 8 flagships. As such, one could argue that top Engineering programs (MIT, Stanford, Cal, Caltech, Michigan, GT, UIUC, CMU and Cornell) are flagship Engineering programs. But I agree, there is a better way of labeling top engineering program, like “elite” (as you suggested), or “top” etc…