People in your town know about BU and BC because they live close to those schools.
In the metropolitan south, people would apply the following ranks based on academic prestige:
Emory
UNC
Everyone with a college education knows about Emory and UNC here and they all know that Emory students = smart and well prepared. UNC, of course, has a higher sports profile. There’s a decent sized and active Emory alum network in my city (not based in Georgia or any adjoining state).
People here confuse BC and BU; they probably don’t realize they’re two different schools. BC is known for its sports exploits more than anything else.
People here would not know much about Wash U in St. Louis. Even the college educated ones (except those who are from the midwest originally or who studied or lived in the midwest) will struggle to distinguish between U of Wash and Wash U in St. Louis.
The link posted earlier shows that the “northeast” is where the largest proportion of Emory Goizueta graduates with a BBA (as distinct from a MBA) end up with a job:
Region Number of Students Median Base Salary
U.S. Northeast 146 $72,000
U.S. South 120 $60,000
U.S. West 23 $61,500
U.S. Midwest 10 $64,000
Destinations Outside the U.S. 8 $57,500
U.S. Southwest 6 $85,000
U.S. Mid-Atlantic 4 $63,000
Destination not yet determined 3 $58,000
Unknown 1 N/A
I find this to be so strange. BC and BU over Emory and WUSTL. A true Warholian experience. Can’t your parents just use Google? Emory is great for your interest, in fact it is the best school for business out of the schools you got into. You have a teal shot at Wall Street if you’re in the top 25-30% of the class.
UToronto is a great school, but its hard to compare it to domestic colleges.
In terms of the US, Emory and WashU are very similar schools, particularly their levels of prestige. If you evaluate these schools objectively and disregard the regional bias(looking at schools from a ‘national perspective’), they are definitely top 20. Emory and WashU are toss ups (even US News says so) and it really depends on your major and interest when deciding between them (i.e. WashU’s pre med program is exceptional while Emory is better at humanities/social science and business…or St Louis vs Atlanta etc).
Objectively I would say Emory and WashU share same tier of peer schools that includes: Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Berkeley. This tier of schools is probably an edge lower than lower ivies (definitely Cornell) and an edge above USC, Carnegie Mellon, UNC, Tufts etc
Consequently, Emory and WashU are far more prestigious than BC and BU. Im from New Jersey and I still think so.
UToronto is enormous, 75,000 full time students. It is also a public university. It is focused on graduate study with very large freshman classes. For an undergrad it would be a totally different experience from the three schools you mention.
@BiffBrown : I think P and Q also did top MBA feeder school rankings for BBA (or whatever) programs and Emory GBS ranked in the top 10. Sorry you just can’t do that well without the program being known. Mind you it ranks that well while having lower(perhaps much) SATs than other top schools/b-schools, so that suggests that the training and branding (probably training. Emory is pretty much under branded) clearly have an effect that more than compensates.
I’m not from the northeast originally. However, I did go to law school in the Boston metropolitan area many years ago.
As such, I am probably more familiar than most with the general branding of the various Boston area universities.
Leaving aside Harvard and MIT, I would have to say that I’d look to Wellesley, Tufts, and Brandeis for academic rigor and job placement and graduate/professional school admissions before I’d look to Boston College and Boston University. That’s not based on a point by point comparison of their various pluses and minuses but rather based on my sense of how folks in elite higher ed regarded those institutions.
That being said, Boston College is a highly regarded university and probably better regarded than Boston University.
But isn’t Emory much harder to get in than Boston U and BC tho? In MA, people seem to think that Tufts is much better than Emory because they don’t know about Emory…
@Goforthestar : Can you please stop?..they live in MA. Just because they are supposedly well-educated does not mean they will know everything. They will know places they were primed to think of highly and think everything else is irrelevant, and this is very common regional provincialism. Also, as nice as that is, I think Emory still outranks or is negligibly worse than them in terms of peer and guidance counselor scores which means that people actually in the know (you know people that may teach at many of these type of places, hire colleges graduates, or advise HS students at good schools) think they are comparable to each other in many ways (though some GC’s, questionable). Put an end to this. The provincialism was explained to you over and over again. Instead of worrying how often random others in MA or wherever will pat you on the back, please begin researching the opportunities and things you would like to take advantage of at whatever school you chose or are looking at. This is your education and what you choose to do at whatever school (especially a really good one) will determine your mileage. So you can sit on here and listen to comments about lay prestige or worry about why the heck you are going to college, the fact that you have been blessed (or lucky if not religious), and how you plan to use the blessing to further your personal development or help others. You have been granted with a great opportunity (you should be able to easily prove this to yourself. We should not have to convince you. Go find things you are interested in doing. Hit up Emory or the b-school, or whatever you are doing’s website), please focus on the right things now.
Appears Emory’s research infrastructure and perhaps even global reach leads Tuftsand BC by a lot according to this methodology, especially in areas considered broad and quite important mainly for modern day science (and thus defense and healthcare).
The only school of those you mention that has better global reach and relevance is BU and that is according to USNWR global rankings and the other one which kind of just makes sense (bigger and likely less recent to the “research U first” scene). Also, by subject area with this methodology, BU clearly beats many top 20 institutions with overall rank, but Emory is about even with subject rankings and unlike it has some near top 10 rankings in a couple of areas even according to that methodology. Even in the top methodology, Emory and places like Vanderbilt have specialty rankings that go further which means that they at least have certain areas that they are known to be really, really excellent in.
However, I guess if you only and others care about the NE, oh well. Just go to BU lol (Emory, Georgia Tech, and BU’s trajectory is quite remarkable actually. These were the last 3 to join the AAU with GT and BU being dead last and they are already hanging with some of the “big boys” that have been in it much longer). Overall though, in terms of being a true powerhouse, Emory is more similar to at least the private schools it ranks around (elite publics really excel on a global scale) than those maybe except BU. But regardless, data does not support the need for super strong NE obsession and provincialism. There are certainly many impactful (even more so) and globally reputable schools outside of it, when you remove the very elite U’s from the equation. Also, these rankings have no bearing on quality of education so much as resources. You have to have many resources to have high global rankings. And it does suggest that Emory may be more opportunity rich (you may end up a part of something on a grander scale) with differences like this.
Again, the point is, people who matter likely know of Emory and perhaps know it quite well especially in some areas. If you only care about who “knows” about something as opposed to its measured impact, then I guess go elsewhere if you cannot be convinced. Perhaps you will just enjoy those places better. Most of all your peers in the NE will understand you a lot more, which is what matters right?
Colleges with a city or state name in them have a distinct advantage in name recognition, because at least nobody has to say, “Where the heck is that?” So Emory will probably never catch up with UNC, Toronto, BC, etc to the man on the street. My kid who goes to Northwestern runs into people all the time (even people attending other Big 10 universities!) who never heard of it.
U of Toronto is huge, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Its huge enrollment includes 2 significant suburban campuses, and on its main campus there are various residential colleges that provide a sense of intimacy for their members. The faculty is top-notch, and it has a great reputation around the world–often ranking in the top 20 in the world, if you care about such things. Students there have a swagger that comes with believing they are attending the top university in the country (it usually edges out McGill in Canadian rankings).
The Boston-area pecking order has changed in recent decades, with Northeastern surging, and BC creeping up. Brandeis seems to be slipping.
If you go to a good college that “nobody ever heard of,” it is natural to take comfort in believing that the people who MATTER will have heard of it. But that isn’t always the case. I’m sure plenty of important, rich, and influential people have never heard of Williams, Case Western Reserve, Washington U, Emory, or Pomona. If it will bother you that some people will have never heard of your school, then just apply to Harvard, Notre Dame, UCLA, Alabama, & Ohio State.
Perhaps more important… as opposed to your parents’ representation that “noone” on the East Coast has heard of Emory, I would offer that every employer of any size on the East Coast has heard of Emory, and every graduate school of any repute knows as much about Emory as they do any of the other schools you have mentioned. Having lived all over the country, I find it humorous that somebody would put both BC an BU above Emory, Wash U, and UNC, but there’s really no benefit it arguing about that – the people who matter (not your parents’ bridge partners) know about all of them.
But to the question your not focusing on – Your parents say they don’t want to PAY for Emory because they haven’t heard of it. What are you other options, and what is the cost difference over four years? Are any loans involved with going to Emory? By addressing the reputation part of the resistance, you may only be understanding half of what your parents are saying, and you will never have a productive conversation with them on that basis.
@cchau3399. You say: “Objectively I would say Emory and WashU share same tier of peer schools that includes: Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Berkeley. This tier of schools is probably an edge lower than lower ivies (definitely Cornell) and an edge above USC, Carnegie Mellon, UNC, Tufts etc”
Uh, Berkeley is ranked by USNWR as #4. And by that I mean #4 globally; on earth, that is. And they’re not the only ones: Times Higher Education has Berkeley at #10 (tied with UChicago)–in the world. So, I think you’re a bit off in your tiers. Carnegie Mellon also would be at least as high as Emory and WashU. Perhaps you just have an idiosyncratic perspective. But Carnegie Mellon is extremely strong reputation. Tufts is also an excellent school, and I doubt that nationally Emory or WashU would be any higher than Tufts, reputation-wise.
More broadly, however, this whole exercise perhaps misses the more important point. All of the schools listed are well-regarded schools. People will give a bit more of a “wow” factor for a school like Berkeley. But informed people will know that all of the schools on this list are good schools. Despite the fact that I just quoted the UNWR and T.H.E. rankings, I think people should realize that what you do at college and, more importantly, what you do after college, are what counts. And you’re unlikely to be held back if you go to a “decent” (or better) school (and perhaps even if you didn’t go to a decent school–look at Steve Jobs, where did he go to school? did he even graduate? did it matter? an unusual case, no doubt, but he also didn’t just do “OK” in life, either, despite his lack of any letters or educational pedigree.)
@GoldenState99 : They are talking about the undergraduate program which in some respect is regarded in the same tier. Chill. No need to be so defensive. We know Berkeley is great. But nonetheless, outside of things like engineering, there are schools just as good or better fitting for many for undergrad. and that is okay.
Emory is the third university in the South after Duke and Vandy. Emory is well known and regarded by people who know schools in the East. I would put it ahead of BC and BU and I tiny touch below Wash U. If you do well at Emory, you will be able to do great things.
I don’t think Emory is a “waste of money” but I am curious why this particular college has great appeal for you compared to other colleges you’ve been admitted to.