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<p>Well, that says something about the paucity of knowledge even about LSE, which specializes in a broad range of social sciences; in fact, its full name is the London School of Economics and Political Science, and it’s not particularly known as a business school.</p>
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<p>I disagree. Look, Ivy League schools don’t play in big bowl games, and they don’t send many players to the NFL or the NBA (Jeremy Lin and Ryan Fitzpatrick are notable exceptions, notable simply because it almost never happens). Yet Harvard and Yale are probably two of the most widely recognized and widely respected names in American higher education. Boatloads of people would put Oxford and Cambridge in that same category. In fact, I’d venture to guess Oxford and Cambridge have higher name recognition among the general populace in America than at least half the Ivy League schools; most Americans probably think the University of Pennsylvania is a state school, but because it’s lesser-known than Penn State, many would probably assume it’s a lower-tier state school.</p>
<p>After Oxbridge, though, it’s a long drop in name recognition. Probably LSE would come next. University College London gets some props among literary and professorial types, especially on the humanities side, as does Imperial College London in STEM fields, but these schools are not well known to the general public in America. St. Andrews is popular among a certain college-bound set in a similar way to McGill (in Montreal), as a relatively high quality, slightly offbeat but “safe” (as in low-risk) choice, though probably not that many Americans actually pull the trigger and decide to attend. Universities like Durham, Warwick, Bath, and Exeter are well respected among academics who travel in trans-Atlantic circles but would register almost zero name recognition among the general public.</p>