<p>Interesting, I just assumed that W&M was held in extremely high esteem and was probably considered a top 5 university in the 18th and 19th centuries due to the relative paucity of competitors in the higher education realm in this timeframe and its age advantage (2nd oldest after Harvard College). At any rate, we’re lucky to live in a country with so many strong universities big and small. Even your average Big 10 School like Penn State here in the U.S. has greater research productivity and academic resources than the preeminent institutions in other countries in the world like the IITs in India or Tsinghua in China.</p>