Is it time to revise the prestigiosity ratings? The original!

Parents Forum
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<p>A couple of years ago, I devised the only truly accurate and scientific method of ranking colleges. My system ranks them by prestigiosity, which is defined as my (highly scientific) evaluation of how desperate students on CC are to gain admission to them. Here's the old thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/978040-ranking-colleges-prestigiosity.html?highlight=prestigiosity%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/978040-ranking-colleges-prestigiosity.html?highlight=prestigiosity&lt;/a>
As you can see, prestigiosity is measured in milliHarvards.
My world has been rocked, however, by the recent lengthy discussion of applicants who were rejected by MIT and had to settle for Harvard. So, is it time to revise these ratings? The old ratings are below (accompanied by a list of "CC Darlings" which are colleges that people on CC like, but are less known by ordinary people). Thoughts?</p>

<p>Prestigiosity Ratings (in milliHarvards):</p>

<p>Harvard: 1000 mH
Yale: 998 mH
Princeton: 998 mH
MIT (or Caltech): 997.365782322119 mH
Stanford: 995 mH (998 west of the Mississippi)
Duke: 990 mH (995 south of the Mason Dixon line)
Columbia: 990 mH
Penn (Wharton): 990 mH
Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore: 988 mH
Brown: 987 mH
Penn (other than Wharton), Dartmouth: 985 mH
Cornell (CAS and engineering): 980 mH
Chicago: 978 mH
Northwestern, WUSTL, Rice: 975 mH
Johns Hopkins, Emory: 950 mH
Tufts, Vanderbilt, Georgetown: 925 mH
University of Virginia: 900 mH (950 in Virginia; 990 in Virginia excluding Northern Virginia)
UC Berkeley: 900 mH
UCLA, CMU, Notre Dame: 880</p>

<p>CC Darlings (in alphabetical order):
Carleton
Claremont Colleges
Deep Springs
Grinnell
Harvey Mudd
Macalester
Oberlin
Reed
Smith
St. Johns</p>

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<p>Those of us really in the know already know that it is all about fit. Of course it is frequently the case that the best fit just happens to be … Harvard! But seriously, should Professor X and Magneto really be looking at the same schools? Does anyone think that makes sense? And will the school have any significant impact on their future careers?</p>

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<p>My rating system is the best because it doesn’t have to consider fit, earnings potential, or any of those other confusing facts–it is based only on perceptions. Scientifically evaluated perceptions, of course.</p>

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<p>My atomic clock could be a few milliHarvards off, but cmu is about a 950 on my clock :)</p>

<p>Also, FWO and Cooper Union probably belong on the list.</p>

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<p>Since I don’t know what FWO stands for, it can’t possibly belong on this list. And I hardly ever see Cooper Union mentioned on CC. That means that it’s lacking in prestigiosity.</p>

<p>As to Carnegie Mellon, your point makes me wonder if we can really measure schools like MIT, Caltech, and CMU in milliHarvards. Do we need a separate tech scale? As an analogy, my list does not include the service academies, which possess a kind of prestige that is different from that possessed by Harvard et al.</p>

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<p>I see Podunk U. mentioned fairly frequently on CC.</p>

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<p>

I think Podunk’s prestigiosity would be expressed in negative milliHarvards.</p>

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<p>I’d prefer if you converted this all to milliMITs rather than milliHarvards. That would make it far more scientific and rigorous.</p>

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<p>Well, that’s a copout, Hunt. Saying the service academies possess a different kind of prestige? Surely you can rank the types of prestige quantitatively, too. Meta-prestigiosity.</p>

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<p>Speaking of meta, lets bring back the meta thread</p>

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<p>I thought Harvey Mudd was one of the Claremont Colleges?</p>

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<p>Good eye, EK!</p>

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<p>I agree with pizzagirl. At this point, it seems crystal clear we really have to make MIT the standard by which all others are measured.</p>

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<p>But it just won’t be the same without POIH here to chime in…</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, I don’t think the service academies have “prestigiosity,” which is simply based on perceptions of which school is “better” than another one. I actually think it would be unpatriotic to include those academies in that kind of ranking.</p>

<p>I was thinking of a milliMIT rating–the question in my mind is whether they would be convertible into milliHarvards, or whether you’d really be measuring something different.</p>

<p>And you’re right about Harvey Mudd, EK–although I would argue that it’s a CC Darling in its own right, in discussions of tech schools.</p>

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<p>

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<p>Let me make a couple alternative suggestions for the standard unit -
Weber State
<a href=“https://www.weber.edu/[/url]”>https://www.weber.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>or James Watt College
[James</a> Watt College - We Are All About Learning](<a href=“http://www.jameswatt.ac.uk/]James”>http://www.jameswatt.ac.uk/)</p>

<p>That way we have existing units and can actually perform the measurment with scientific instruments.</p>

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<p>

MilliMIT’s would be considerd by some to be a second class rating compared to milliHarvards. I guess that makes them measured in…
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<p>.
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<p>milliseconds.
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;)</p>

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<p>I’m only willing to consider switching to milliMITs when I start seeing “MHYPS” here on CC.</p>

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<p>Here ya go <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10249942-post213.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10249942-post213.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>in response to POIH, of course.</p>

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<p>I checked–MHYPS has been used about seven times, as opposed to seven thousand times for HYPSM.</p>