“Prestige has a precise meaning – something that has cachet in the eyes of others.”
In the eyes of LOTS of others? Or very-selected others who are particularly knowledgeable about a certain area? That’s the whole point.
“All of those things are very selective and exclusive. Prestige of colleges is the same. Being an Eph is quite prestigious because Williams is incredibly hard to get into.”
And if I go over to China, they’ll tell me that Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT and Berkeley are the most prestigious schools, and Williams and Amherst are a “huh? never heard of that so they can’t possibly be prestigious.” So are they right? Or wrong? Telling them “Williams is also very hard to get into!” doesn’t seem to make a difference. So THEIR definition of prestige is NOT “incredibly hard to get into.” It’s something different.
I still also maintain there is academic prestige and social prestige. Academic prestige is predicated on - who’s got the tippiest-toppiest SAT scores. Social prestige is predicated on something else entirely - like what gets you into the New York Times wedding section.
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"“Prestige has a precise meaning – something that has cachet in the eyes of others.”
In the eyes of LOTS of others?"
In the eyes of the people who you are dealing with or who you are trying to impress/date/get a job from, etc.
If it was just about the worldwide number of undifferentiated eyeballs, then the Kardashians win. Which should never be the right answer. : )
“Academic prestige is predicated on - who’s got the tippiest-toppiest SAT scores.”
PG – you agree with me. Prestige for colleges equals selectivity.
Yep, and social prestige is a strange animal (well, all prestige is). In some circles, NYU is as prestigious as an Ivy (not just in the US either). Other folks recall NYU as the night school for kids who had the money to pay for it but couldn’t get in anywhere else (so kind of like the USC of NYC without that whole “Trojan family” thing).
In the NYT Weddings section, UNC seems to carry more cachet than UW-Madison, even though if you rank by alumni achievements, UW-Madison grads have done as well or better.
Prestige on CC is related to how hard a school is to get into, but for others, the defining factors might include the quality of faculty research, the size of the endowment, and breadth and depth of graduate programs. Until I had a high school student, I had no idea that Chicago admissions weren’t ultra-difficult. I did know that they had fabulous faculty. Now they are hard to get into, and they still have fabulous faculty, but my sense of their prestige hasn’t change one drop.
I was thrilled when my daughter got into a HYPS, not because it was difficult, but because of all the intellectual and economic benefits AND the fabulous minds she would meet.
“Academic prestige is predicated on - who’s got the tippiest-toppiest SAT scores.”
PG – you agree with me. Prestige for colleges equals selectivity."
Partially, because there are also colleges that have social prestige that goes beyond what their strict academic prestige is.
Thank to all of you for providing this entertainment and making me laugh. This discussion reminds me of @Hunt 's prestigiosity thread and his milliHarvards.
@PurpleTitan @uskoolfish actually, I do find NYU to be quite overrated…it only has allure because it’s in NYC.
Those of us on CC are in the snob category. We know all about Ivy colleges-the athletic league- and stats for colleges, LACs, which state colleges are harder to get into. I know medical school rankings from my peers. From my son, I learned about differences between Boston consulting, GS, credit Suisse, Bain, McKinsey, and the other places on his radar. Peers taught me about accounting firms and law schools, which are prominent in what fields. Ive been listening and reading for years.
I also know about colleges’ attitudes towards drugs, and which ones suspend anyone caught drinking. As do others on CC
"Partially, because there are also colleges that have social prestige that goes beyond what their strict academic prestige is. "
Like where? What places punch above their selectivity (basically their USNWR ranking) weight?
Seems to me like the NY Times wedding section is mostly populated by doctor/lawyer/banker types who generally attended the usual suspect selective schools. Or by kids who didn’t attend those schools but who have rich/connected parents.
Like where? What places punch above their selectivity (basically their USNWR ranking) weight?*
quite a few of the LACs, and even depending on major, the public directional universities.
Anyone can submit a wedding announcement to the NYT. I don’t consider it prestigious at all.
@Northwesty: I named a few.
Google “matrimonial moneyball”. Note that UNC is listed under “demi-elite”. UChicago, Northwestern, and UMich (who I consider to be better schools) are not.
NYU and IU have strengths in many of the same areas (b-school, music, and arts at NYU; b-school, music, and ballet at IU). UIUC is another university that is similar to NYU in having some schools/departments that are considered stellar in their fields (engineering, CS, physics, and accounting at UIUC) but isn’t considered elite overall. Yet NYU seems to have more social cachet and seems to be considerd more hip than either IU or UIUC.
UCLA and USC have very similar admit rates. UCLA actually pips USC in the USN rankings. By the alumni achievements that I look at, UCLA does better. Both are big universities. Yet the prep school crowd at Harvard-Westlake overwhelmingly attend USC instead of UCLA.
I disagree with northwesty’s reductive “prestige = selectivity” formula. In my book, Michigan and Berkeley have enormous prestige because of the accomplishments of their faculties and graduates, notwithstanding that their admissions policies make them less exclusive than, say, Princeton.
The comments on NYU are semi-ridiculous. Pace was the original for-profit trade school, and it remains trade focused. Its endowment is about 4% of NYU’s (and that doesn’t count the outrageous value of NYU’s real estate), its student complement a quarter of NYU’s, and its faculty a fifth (and not even in the ballpark in terms of credentials). NYU has built significant strength in most of its academic departments, and it has lots of top-20 or top-30 graduate programs (in addition to the areas where it is really strong, like its law school or Tisch). Pace has absolutely nothing on that level. They are really on completely different planes. Apart from the sports, NYU is not unlike an East Coast version of USC.
My ranking of prestige is a formula combining Nobels and mentions on the Periodic Table of Elements. 
NYTimes doesn’t guarantee to publish all wedding announcements they receive. Guess that makes them a prestigious newspaper. ?
Matrimonial Moneyball. NY Times wedding section aka “the sports section for women.” What a hoot!
Even better – take out weddingcrunchers.com for a spin.
Michigan comes in at a 0.03% mention rate in the NY Times wedding announcements. As compared to Dartmouth at 0.02% or Cornell at 0.04%. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that Wolverines are not solidly demi-elite!!!
Yale – 0.07%. Harvard – 0.08% Now that’s what I call prestige…
Princeton – 0.04%. So over-rated.