<p>A lot of people here and on other college discussion forums speculate that international prestige differs greatly from domestic prestige when it comes to American universities and it turns out...they are correct.</p>
<p>The Berkeley Learning Center Consulting Group is dedicated to helping high achieving Korean students gain admittance to the most prestigious American universities.</p>
<p>They break down what they consider to be the top 50 American institutions into 4 different tiers and their grouping is unlike anything I've ever seen before. It turns out the Berkeley boosters on this site weren't kidding when they said that the school was revered in Asia.</p>
<p>Tier 1
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Princeton
MIT
Cal. Tech
U. Penn
Columbia
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell
UC Berkeley
Duke
U. Chicago
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
Wellseley</p>
<p>Tier 2
Amherst/Williams/Middlebury/Swarthmore/Other Top LACs
Northwestern
NYU
UCLA
Washington University in St. Louis
Boston College
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
Tufts</p>
<p>Tier 3
University of Michigan
University of Virginia
UCSD
UNC-Chapel Hill
University of Southern California
UC Irvine
University of Wisconsin
University of Rochester
Boston University</p>
<p>Tier 4
Univ. Illinois
Syracuse
Univ. Washington
George Washington
American University
UT Austin
Penn State
UCSB
UNLV
Purdue
University of Oregon</p>
<p>Some Initial Observations
1. West Coast universities in general seem to be revered by Koreans. How else do you explain UC Berkeley in Tier 1, UCLA ranked a tier above Michigan/Virginia, UCI listed along with Michigan/Virginia and even the University of Oregon making the top 50?
2. Koreans don't hold LACs in high esteem with the notable exception of Wellesley (since Chiang Kai-Shek's wife is an alumna perhaps?)
3. Northwestern and Wash U don't seem to be as highly regarded in Asia or at least Korea as they are in the States.
4. Georgetown and UC Berkeley have very high international prestige.
5. Even Koreans consider the Midwest to be merely a "flyover region".:D</p>
<p>What does Chiang Kai Shek’s wife (Soong May Ling) have to do with Korea?</p>
<p>Other Wellesley alumni include Hillary Rodham Clinton and Madeleine Albright.</p>
<p>The Korean American population is densest on the west and east coasts. To the extent that they talk to friends and relatives in Korea about universities, the west and east coast universities likely have greater visibility than the midwest universities.</p>
<p>Still, it looks like a pretty big stretch to even consider UNLV among the “top 50” (even “tier 4”) universities in the US (and there is little or no prestige in getting admitted there, as a quarter of the freshmen had high school GPAs under 3.0 – its common data set indicates much lower GPAs and SAT scores than the Korean college consultant lists).</p>
<p>*The Korean American population is densest on the west and east coasts. To the extent that they talk to friends and relatives in Korea about universities, the west and east coast universities likely have greater visibility *</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>UIUC as “tier 4”. lol</p>
<p>This is the US. Who cares how another country ranks our univs? We may hold THEIR univs in low esteem. We’re not rushing to go there.</p>
<p>^^^Obviously the OP didn’t see the irony in that. </p>
<p>“Still, it looks like a pretty big stretch to even consider UNLV among the “top 50” (even “tier 4”) universities in the US (and there is little or no prestige in getting admitted there, as a quarter of the freshmen had high school GPAs under 3.0 – its common data set indicates much lower GPAs and SAT scores than the Korean college consultant lists).”</p>
<p>That about sums it all up for me as to the importance of this so called “international prestige” ranking.</p>
<p>Oh my…I somehow overlooked that they put UNLV in with UIUC and Purdue… what a laugh. Maybe there’s a translation issue and no one’s told them that poker chips aren’t related to chip technology.</p>
This may be true to an extent but the Berkeley Learning Center still ranks U of Chicago as a Tier 1 institution and deems NU and Wash U to be in the tier right after which underrates them a bit but not egregiously so. I remember posters here talking about how Illinois and Michigan were more prestigious than some Ivies abroad and that’s clearly not true.</p>
<p>The Ivies perhaps hold more cachet internationally since the foreigners don’t always have an in-depth knowledge of American universities to break out of this line of thinking.</p>
<p>
It matters because we live in a globalized world and many college grads may want to seek gainful employment overseas as the BRICS and the Asian Tiger economies start becoming and more competitive with the U.S. for the top human talent to drive their growth. It should be a consideration for college goers at the very least.</p>
<p>Why do you think universities like Georgetown, Duke and JHU are scrambling to create outposts and satellite campuses in Asia?</p>
<p>
Prestige is a matter of opinion. There are certain indicators of quality that are generally agreed upon as good parameters to compare universities but there is no hard and fast rule. Otherwise you wouldn’t see thousands of threads on CC debating this very issue…good for UNLV I say.</p>
<p>…and my opinion is that you are obsessed with it. Silly threads like this only go to show how ridiculous this whole subject matter is. Thanks for clarifying that for me goldenboy8784.</p>
<p>Wow, you are quoting a two-bit study-in-usa tutoring center as your authority? This kinda outfits has little or no credibility.</p>
<p>The so called ranking is quite obviously based on SAT scores. See how neatly they line up.</p>
<p>What do you know about Korean? How much do you know what Korean employers and academia think about US universities? Have you even been to Korea?</p>
This is a Berkeley grad who runs this tutoring center and most of their faculty studied in the States at elite universities so I think they would know what they’re talking about. If you have a more credible list by employers in Korea ranking American schools, please do share.</p>
<p>
If this was solely based on SAT scores, then Wellesley, Berkeley and perhaps Georgetown would be knocked down a tier while Wash U, Northwestern and the top 4 LACs would be put in the top group according to USNWR SAT data. Clearly there is an external judgment of prestige that is being utilized which is more subjective.</p>
<p>
Why are you getting so defensive? I made no judgments about any of the schools that this Korean tutoring agency rates. I’m merely making observations as to how its ranked the schools.</p>
<p>For what its worth, my Korean friends’ views on American schools mirror this list to a great extent. They see Berkeley as being just as good as the Ivies and the other California public schools to be on par with every other state school nationwide. Also, they would never turn down an Ivy to go to a top LAC, even Williams, which I thought was surprising.</p>
<p>Sorry to bring up a tragedy but the whole notion of Koreans’ perceptions in this context makes me think of the Cho case/Virginia Tech. Remember, it was reported that one of the reasons his family considered him a dissapointment was that his older sister attended the Ivy League whereas he “had to settle” for his state’s public university, even one as superior as Virginia Tech.</p>
I’ve known dozens of outfits like this. Their bread-and-butter is in test prep not consulting. So you have to separate the “faculty” from the consulting part of the business. This outfit is run mainly by Benjamin Huh, the Director (UCB) and Michelle Moon, the Assistant Director (Ewha Women’s University).</p>
<p>
That’s true, especially for Korean in Asia. It’s the name brand effect; and it may have something to do with the misconception of college vs. university. UCB has a very strong reputation and a long history in Asia.</p>
<p>“Really? Then what explains you obsessively responding to every other comment on this thread?”</p>
<p>I didn’t invent the thread. The OP continuously inserts Michigan into his statements/threads. You are relatively new to CC, so you might not be aware of this.</p>
<p>The breakdown was totally based on the SAT/GPA ranges which are pretty outdated. goldenboy, I am not sure how you could be missing something that’s so obvious. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if you go to “admitted students list and record” page, 8 out of 131 of them matriculated to Northwestern. Two of them even did ED. It seems like a pretty popular choice among the Korean kids, at least the ones that went to this program.</p>
<p>Try to be more detail oriented next time. :)</p>
<p>Oh, please look at where those 3 kids FEATURED IN THE PHOTO were going:
Harvard
Penn
NORTHWESTERN!!!</p>