<p>Can we debate this? Ever since I've gotten into one of them I feel like it's not prestigious anymore. Basically, am looking for you to boost my ego--or shoot it down.</p>
<p>I think, in order, and not following US News Weekly:</p>
<p>National Universities
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Yale
4. Princeton
5. MIT
6. Columbia
7. Brown
8. Caltech
9. UPenn
10. Dartmouth
11. Duke
12. Georgetown
13. UChicago
14. Berkeley
15. UCLA</p>
<p>LACs
1. Williams
2. Amherst
3. Pomona
4. Swarthmore
5. Harvey Mudd
6. Middlebury
7. Wesleyan
8. Claremont McKenna
9. Military and Naval Academies
10. Haverford</p>
<p>Prestigious among whom? Who’s the audience, how knowledgeable are they about colleges, are you talking social prestige or academic prestige, and what region of the country are you talking about?</p>
<p>I would put Amherst at the top of the list. Swarthmore is unheard of by many laymen despite its high rank, so I would put it closer to the bottom.</p>
<p>“I would put Amherst at the top of the list. Swarthmore is unheard of by many laymen despite its high rank, so I would put it closer to the bottom.”</p>
<p>LOL. All LACs are practically unheard of by many laymen.</p>
<p>Amherst is unheard of by most laymen, too. All the LAC’s are. If you’re talking laymen, they’re going to be aware of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, maybe Stanford and MIT … schools that have athletic programs such as Duke, Georgetown, or UCLA … and then whatever schools are in their immediate area. You’re dreaming if you think that ANY LAC is widely known among most laymen.</p>
<p>It’s hard to rank elite schools but I am pretty sure that UCLA is nowhere quite there. Even Berkeley will have a hard time sitting there. I ain’t talking about academics yet. Just prestige. Coz if we put Cal and UCLA there then how about UNC, UVA, UMich, (Texans might add UT) then what about the missing Ivy? (Cornell) and WUSLT? JHU? CMU? </p>
<p>For prestige (again, not practical academics), either you include only Ivies + Stanford + MIT + Duke + UChicago or it will be too extensive of a ranking list :(</p>
<p>Brown above Duke seems odd to me. Also JHU and Cornell are missing. Arguably Northwestern and WUSTL belong above some of the Ivies, but these are more of up-and-coming colleges so their reputation is sometimes regarded a bit more suspiciously - especially on CC. </p>
<p>Maybe I have an east coast bias, but I’ve never thought of UCLA and Berkeley as prestigious, at least at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>"(I was in Korea and they thought UCLA = the best school in America on par with Harvard) "</p>
<p>I was at the North Pole, and they thought Bowdoin was Harvard because their sports teams are the polar bears. I was in Ireland, and they thought Notre Dame was Harvard because they are the fightin’ Irish.</p>
<p>Wow. In China, people only know some of above. I guarantee Dartmouth is even less prestigious than Boston University. Laymen don’t know all LACs, including Williams and Swarthmore. (Maybe they know Wellseley. Many people here will think it’s the most prestigious LAC.)</p>
<p>But people here do know
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Columbia
Brown
Caltech
UPenn
Dartmouth (Many people don’t know this.)
Duke
Georgetown
UChicago
Berkeley
UCLA (It’s very very prestigious here, it can even compete with top 5.)</p>
<p>Spare me from “prestige lists” based on the “Well, I heard so-and-so is really good, so it must be” and “I haven’t heard of so-and-so, so therefore it can’t be any good.” Which pretty much describes all the ranking lists in Asia. They are so consistently off the mark in missing some really top colleges and universities that they perceive as not as good because they don’t know the “name,” and it’s solely based on familiarity and not actual knowledge, and we’re supposed to take this seriously and ascribe it Great Significance and Meaning … why, exactly?</p>
<p>Yeah, WUSTL is definitely up and coming. The difference between WUSTL and say, Dartmouth, prestige wise is way smaller today than it was 20-30 years ago.</p>
<p>Ah! The start of a grand debate. I was expecting someone to totally butcher me over starting a prestige list.</p>
<p>To me, prestige=wow-factor: If you tell someone–an employer, a parent, a high school junior–that you attend school X, which schools would they be most impressed with (and in what order)?</p>
<p>IMHO, al6200 is sorta wrong in his posts, though obviously this is all subjective. I think WUSTL is up-and-coming in the sense that they use tricky admissions tactics to lower its admission rate and raise its yield to a preposterous level, though that doesn’t wholly determine prestige. I also think that Brown is on a higher level than Duke if you put aside athletics. I think that Cornell equals Berkeley and UCLA in prestige, considering the quality of admitted candidates. JHU is like the MIT of medicine, and it does belong somewhere on that list–I’d imagine somewhere on the same level as the UCs.</p>