@topaz1116 doesn’t Hurvey Mudd have one of the highest ROIs, even higher than those of the Ivies and Stanford/MIT/U Chicago?
The ROI should be one of the most important factors in choosing a college, but I don’t think many HS students care about ROI at all.
“What I did say is that NYU had more name recognition and prestige than a school like Williams, Tufts or Rice.”
Depends where you are in the country. Don’t make the mistake of believing that one’s “hometown” favorites are that known nationally.
Name recognition: of course. It has the nation’s largest city in its name.
Prestige: really depends. There are individual programs at NYU that are among the top in the country. But there are others that don’t stand out. And as PG says, prestige is often local or regional.
This. I am also a parent of an NYU grad (Arts and Sciences), am pleased with the education she received there. She has a job in her field which was largely made possible by internships she was able to get as an NYU student. In our case, we were full pay anywhere so FA did not come in to play. There are lots of other great schools with better FA, so if that is an issue, then move on. YMMV.
I don’t care a whit about prestige. S attends a small LAC that is very selective, highly ranked, most people where we live haven’t heard of it. Whatever.
Sitting here in the Midwest, my observation is that Notre Dame has a lot of prestige, is very favorably regarded, is a dream school for many, and yet it’s barely mentioned on CC.
And from an Ivy perspective, since I grew up in Philly, Penn and Princeton were “the” schools.
It’s all still regional.
Grew up in Illinois. Notre Dame, Northwestern and UIUC were all considered prestigious.
I live in Northern VA now. UVA, W & M, VaTech are considered prestigious.
All of the above are great schools, but I agree that it is very regional.
There was a time in the not so distant past when NYU and Northwestern were giving Columbia and Chicago a run for their money, respectively, in the US News rankings. This may have had more to do with Columbia and Chicago slipping out of the top ten, than their local rivals rising into the top ten, which may have–judging from the amount of mailings my kids received from Chicago–caused them to step up their gaming of the system. (Side note: both Northwestern and NYU coincidentally are notable for theater/film, which attracts many starry-eyed future baristas. And Pace does compete with NYU for theater types. At the magnet arts school that one of my kids attended it was seen as a reasonable and credible alternative to NYU.)
There’s also the underrated/overrated paradox. Something or someone is so obviously underrated–Reed College–that it gains in stature , or so obviously overrated–Derek Jeter–that it loses luster.
I’ve never seen NYU within sniffing distance of Columbia in the USN undergraduate rankings.
And by quite a few metrics, Northwestern and UChicago are peers.
Columbia has been rated as low as 15 (1996) and 18 (1988). Although you are correct in that NYU hasn’t cracked the top 30, there was at least the perception that NYU was a “hot” school when Columbia was ebbing.
Northwestern, however, has cracked the top ten, and has been ranked ahead of Chicago, which in its own mind (I’m a grad school alum) considers itself the greatest uni in the world. I think that was a wake up call. Chicago is a case study in gaming the ranking metrics, despite being a validly sterling institution. There is that 2nd city mentality.
Here’s the US News archives going back to the 80s: http://web.archive.org/web/20070905004615/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities
@lbad96, you might consider adding some history courses to your university studies as you seem prone to making a lot of sweeping, uninformed generalizations on these pages. I particularly love how you just pull out random numbers (“75% of the attraction”) as if there’s any data whatsoever to back them up. Good luck with that approach in college! (Or please correct me if I’m mistaken about that last one.)
Re Penn, so a university whose origins predate the American Revolution (see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colonial_Colleges) should change its name so people don’t confuse it with the state flagship? Believe me, the university’s name has been debated ad nauseam over the years, and smartly TPTB decided to stick with history. They did (wisely in my opinion) start using “upenn” in the web domain, which no doubt has led to the increased use of “UPenn” by the general public. I think this is a perfectly fine progression, but I’m sure all kinds of alumni get their knickers in a twist over this development.
Funny you cite NYU in your very next sentence. Do you also confuse NYU as being the flagship university of New York State or a public New York City university?
BTW, I think it’s this conflation of the “Colonial Colleges” with the “Ivy League” (since there is so much overlap) that leads to all the confusion about how an athletic league became synonymous with academic excellence. (That and, of course, the wide use of “Ivy League” in many of these “lesser” Ivies’ own marketing materials to add an “elite” imprimatur.) Personally, when I see Penn doing it, it makes me want to gag. I highly doubt Harvard, Yale or Princeton have to boast their “Ivy” bona fides. Its use bespeaks insecurity, but that’s something that no school anywhere has on my alma mater! 
“Although you are correct in that NYU hasn’t cracked the top 30, there was at least the perception that NYU was a “hot” school when Columbia was ebbing.”
Perception WHERE? Out here, all that’s known about NYU is that … Well, obviously it’s in NY. I know about it because I’m me, but again, perceptions in one part of the country aren’t universal.
I seriously doubt perceptions about schools change according to minor fluctuations in the (admittedly flawed/profit-driven) USNWR rankings. The average graduate of any college likely has little idea of its rankings history. The average man on the street has less.
Having said that, I do think the “up-and-coming schools” rankings at least sheds light on some schools that aren’t already known to people who value name recognition.
@LucieTheLakie I’m not denying that NYU is a good school academically. I’m just agreeing with some of the other posters who are saying that NYU might be a little overrated. Let’s be real here; even though I may have overestimated my “75%” comment, you have to agree that a good portion of the reason that NYU draws so many students is the location. I find it overrated because of how expensive it is, and the fact that it is so stingy with merit/financial aid. No, I am not confusing any school, but it is common for UPENN to be confused with Penn State. I was just thinking that many Americans who aren’t as familiar with the Ivy League would think that UPENN was a flagship. I would not at all confuse NYU with a SUNY/CUNY, and I am insulted that you think that I would do so.
Columbia is now pretty much a peer with HYP. It’s admission stats have been equivalent or ahead of Princeton and Yale for the last few years. Those four schools have GPA, class ranks, and SAT scores within points of each other. Stanford’s SAT scores are actually much lower than these four schools.
Columbia is now pretty much a peer with HYP Sigh. There is so much significance placed on those media rankings that people lose perspective. Columbia is a tippy top.
To say NYU is overrated swings us right back to the mindset where so many insist the colleges outside the top 50 are probably not worth it. NYU is a good school. Like so many, you can get much out of an education there, if you put in the effort. It draws superb professors, highly active in their fields. (I doubt many have Columbia-envy.) It offers many additional programs, has many well-prepared, motivated kids. If your own dept there isn’t as strong as elsewhere, then look elsewhere.
Likewise, many of the lesser ranked schools have dept strengths to beat the band. Just going on superficials (the football team, some media ranking of the school overall, which neighbors have heard of it, etc,) is lame.
@Pizzagirl
I grew up in NYC, and am old enough to remember when NYU was considered to be a school that anyone could attend as long as you could pay the tuition. That perception changed greatly over the years, as well as the academic quality itself. The school became faddishly popular beyond its urban borders and entered the national conversation. Of course, location didn’t hurt, but there are many other schools in NYC that share none of its cachet.
Some of its departments–e.g., math–are solidly top 10.
@ricck1, the problem is that all those measures you listed are inputs and gameable (not to mention that a few percentage points in acceptance rate or few points in the average SAT score would not change the quality of your college experience and education one iota). That’s why, if you want to engage in bragging rights, I prefer to look at outputs (placement in to elite professional schools, “American Leaders” produced, percentage winning student awards, and percentage getting PhDs). In all those measures, Stanford bests Columbia.
Plus, Stanford has an unparalleled network in the Bay Area. Columbia can’t claim the same in NYC.
But yes, trying to differentiate between HYPSM and the rest of the Ivies/equivalents (or those schools and the near-Ivies) is sort of like splitting hairs.
That question was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, @lbad96. OBVIOUSLY you know NYU is not a SUNY/CUNY. My point is, why would you assume that the Average Joe or Jane who doesn’t know the difference between the private University of Pennsylvania and the public Pennsylvania State University would know the difference between the private NYU and New York State’s (or City’s) publics? Pennsylvania and New York are both states after all!
And someone’s not knowing doesn’t make them stupid either, by the way.
I agree with you that some people want to go to NYU because its in NYC. Others want to go there because of its “expensive private” (pseudo-Ivy?) cachet. And still others have their sights set on its highly-regarded business or theater schools (among others).
No doubt, most colleges and universities in NYC get a not-insignificant bump in applications due to the appeal of their locations in the Big Apple, but that’s a far cry from the claim that three-quarters of NYU applicants only want to go there because it’s located in New York City.
NYU is a very expensive private university. They offer scant financial aid and very little merit money. They’re pretty transparent about that as far as I can tell. Why kids who can’t afford it continue to apply there makes about as much sense to me as buying a $60,000 luxury car on a $25,000 annual salary. But plenty of kids apply to and take on enormous debt to attend NYU every year (or so it seems).
@LucieTheLakie I totally get your point. The amount of kids who take on large debt just to attend NYU is staggeringly nonsensical in my eyes. Personally, I’d never apply there because of the fact that it’s so expensive. I never assumed those who didn’t know the difference between UPenn/Penn State or NYU/SUNY made them stupid. And, I hate to go off topic, but I applied to a SUNY 
I also grew up in NY and remember when NYU was a party school, referred to jokingly as NYZoo (just as URI was called URHigh ). Not that the education was terrible, but it was not at all a challenging school. I guess, to put in terms of reputation, back in the old days (1970s-1980s) in my experience anyway no one would have held it against you but it wouldn’t have opened doors.
My current view is that NYU has some departments and grad schools that are stellar, and those would get respect and open doors in NYC, NYS, and possibly elsewhere in the NE. But if you weren’t going to one of those particular programs/schools, and you didn’t have loads of cash, I would not see any “prestige” advantage to NYU.
I guess that’s not helpful but it leads me to conclude that “prestige” is in the eye of the beholder.