I am new to posting at CC but I have been looking at several CC posts for some time now. I have noticed that people in this forum make a very clear distinction between HYPSM and the other top universities. Also I have noticed a similar pattern at my school (a prep school that sends many kids to top colleges), as my classmates have started thinking about college and many are obsessed with HYPSM.
Could anyone talk about the benefits of attending HYPSM for college vs other elite schools? Are there any practical advantages of HYPSM vs other elite schools or is it just a prestige difference or both?
In reality, whether it’s prestige or quality of education, there is no real difference between HYPSM and other elite schools (Cal Tech, UChicago, UPenn, Northwestern, Columbia, etc.). Sure, there’s greater prestige AMONG THE GENERAL PUBLIC, but any employer will know all these schools are phenomenal ones. Pretty much all top 15-20 colleges are highly regarded.
The funny thing is, in many ways HYPSM have less in common with each other than they do with some other schools.
MIT’s closest equivalent is CalTech, Yale’s closest equivalent is probably UChicago, Princeton’s closest equivalent is probably Dartmouth, and Stanford’s probably is Duke. There really isn’t an equivaltnet to Harvard, although from what I read about how much research dominates over teaching undergrads, it might be closest to UC Berkeley.
In terms of quality of actual educational experience, the top LACs (Amherst, Williams, Pomona) may be the best of all.
^Yeah Chicago is the probably closest equivalent to Yale, but i do not think Princeton and Dartmouth are that similar, Dartmouth has a very big and very fratty social life, Princeton is definitively not fratty. Chicago is also probably the closest to Princeton. I think Penn has the most similarities with Stanford, but Duke also has many similarities with Stanford too, and probably Columbia is in some ways quite similar to Harvard. Of course Caltech is most similar to MIT.
Regarding the original question I would say the difference lies almost exclusively in prestige as perceived by the general population, i.e. how many and how intense wows you would get from random people your meet upon telling them where you go to school.
However because of this prestige differential, I would say it is true that a higher portion of the super talented, tippy-top prodigy students flocks to HYPSM (and Caltech) as opposed to the other elite schools.
^ Exactly. I know some people in a college applicant FB group that I’m a part of who stated that they were having trouble selecting between schools they liked and wanted to go to and schools that will impress the most people (ie their family members and classmates).