<p>this may help
[50</a> Top Colleges](<a href=“http://50topcolleges.com/]50”>http://50topcolleges.com/)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So in order for a school to be prestigious, it must be widely known. See, I have a fundamental problem with that. Most people aren’t particularly knowledgeable about colleges - they’ve heard of the big guns (Harvard, Princeton, etc.), the schools with top athletic programs and then their state and local schools. So their wow-factor is largely based on what they’ve heard of. Which has zero to do with excellence or quality. So why do you care? </p>
<p>It’s rather like buying a watch based on whether the brand name will impress. Most people, if asked about a fine watch, will answer Rolex. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t better brands – they just are only known to watch aficionados. To me, I would care about what impresses watch aficionados who are knowledgeable about the subject in question – not what impresses the man on the street. And yes, employers can be “man on the street.” Most parents are. And certainly most hs juniors are.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Prestige among whom? Among people living in Boston or people living in St. Louis?</p>
<p>Prestige can’t be ranked, and Brown should be much lower, lower than Duke atleast, if you were to use that ranking list, while Cal Tech should be on par with MIT.</p>
<p>banjoman, Clown College is way underrated on your list. I know people in Asia who think Clown College is better than Swarthmore, though still not up to the level of Acme Barber College.</p>
<p>The OP’s list clearly has a west coast bias to it.</p>
<p>
WUSTL ranks in the top 7 for [test scores and class rank](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html</a>)metrics that cannot easily be manipulated. WUSTLs
[url=<a href=“College Navigator - Washington University in St Louis”>College Navigator - Washington University in St Louis]yield[/url</a>] is around 31-32%, which is hardly preposterous.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>of course they can be manipulated, and frequently are…</p>
<p>WUSTL is known for gaming the rankings but it has help attract better students and has improved the prestige of the school. Definitely one of the top.</p>
<p>The general consensus is that: (there was a 100+pg thread on this I think)</p>
<p>Ivies+Cal+Stanford+MIT+UChicago+Duke=13</p>
<p>and the last two spots can be filled by WashU, Northwestern, UMich, Berkeley, Vandy, Tufts, JHU, or Georgetown.</p>
<p>And getting into any one of them is already a major feat. No need to shoot yourself over rankings. :)</p>
<p>In the region of Spain where I live, no one has heard of MIT, Duke, UCLA and etc.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale
5-2500. the rest.</li>
</ol>
<p>It must be a very remote area where you live in, Beningno. Where we come from, We have heard of HYPS and MIT, Duke, UCLA and others.</p>
<p>How about Georgetown? My wife is from Spain, and says everybody knows Georgetown because the prince went there for a master’s degree.</p>
<p>I remember walking down a street in an obscure city in Castile, and in the window of a stationery shop was a set of supplies for students (notebook, pencil case, etc.) all imprinted with “Boston College.”</p>
<p>Georgetown is well known outside the US because a lot of budding diplomats go there to get foreign service degrees and also like the international community that is Washington, DC.</p>
<p>What’s the point of arguing over all this numbering bogus? I feel a degree from any top school will be respected and valued.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>People love to argue.</p>
<p>Because hs seniors actually think that in the big grown-up adult world, adults introduce themselves at cocktail parties or social gatherings by saying, “Hi, my name is xxxx and I went to X college,” and that mouths drop open, drool, gape or close as a result. They have no point of reference to understand otherwise.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think those probably are the top 13, although Cornell and Brown are debatable.</p>
<p>
So Notre Dame is #6, but they can’t even get the name right? Sigh.</p>
<p>University of Texas #11, Texas A&M University #12… Columbia University #32. Hmm.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that it asks “What is the best university?” People who know a lot about colleges will choose one of the obvious ones, as evidenced by the top 9-10. However, these people are also the ones who know which of the others are also academically rigorous, but are unable to select all of them. That then leaves the people who either don’t know a lot about colleges or just want their favorite state university to be first to choose ones like Texas A&M. Texas and California are both very populous, so naturally, their state universities would be the highest.</p>
<p>All attempts at ranking colleges are screwed up, but this is just kind of funny.</p>
<p>I think that ranking colleges in term of prestige is important to HS seniors and juniors for several reasons. </p>
<p>One of them is that they’re faced with several options and they believe that a school’s prestige will help them get better jobs post-grad; if one school is less prestigious than another in their list, then they’d rather go to the one that will allow them to be more successful later in life. </p>
<p>Another reason is that they see the prestige of a school as an indication of success. Whether or not it might be the better school, Yale’s students are more talented than Cal students on average. It’s a controversial statement, but it’s true. I’d rather go to a prestigious school because the students there are probably more qualified (and amazing.)</p>
<p>I also think that ranking schools in this way is much more helpful than looking at the UNSWR rankings–that list is just plain wrong. I don’t see how WashU can rank higher than Brown, or how Emory can rank higher than Georgetown.</p>