<p>I really don't know how to rank them beyond HYP being the top 3 and the rest being the bottom 5.</p>
<p>I do know that the prestige of any of the schools is equal to all the others in terms of applying for a job. A cornell degree is just as impressive as a columbia degree which is just as impressive as a yale degree. The school degrees are, in conjunction with GPA and the rest of the resume, a sort ticket to an interview with a good company, but it's the interview that will put a yale student over a penn student or a cornell student over a princeton student. Having a harvard degree versus a dartmouth degree won't help your job offers in the slightest.</p>
<p>Well put. The college might get you an interview, but it's your performance during the interview that gets you the job.</p>
<p>And actually, none of us can really accurately say how the average person views the colleges in terms of prestige, because none of us can be considered to be the average person. So this is really an endless argument over personal preferences...</p>
<p>This is always how I understood it-- Objectively:</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale / Princeton
Columbia
Cornell / Brown
Penn
Dartmouth</p>
<p>Subjectively is a different story. Cornell, Brown, and Columbia are MY top three (weird for Cornell and Columbia since I'm not into engineering).</p>
<p>But, seriously, it depends not only on personal preferences, but also on which disciplines you are most interested in.</p>
<p>Here's this years <em>OFFICIAL</em> ratings (according to me):</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Penn
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell</p>
<p>HYP gets top ratings since everyone and their dog have heard of these schools ever since we were in grade school. Columbia scores 4th place since it is located in NYC and Penn is 5th since it will always be confused with Penn State. Brown gets low marks because no one famous has ever gone there (except Ted Turner and Otto the bus driver from The Simpsons). Dartmouth - Isn't that in Nova Scotia?? Cornell - I think it's a public school now and besides, they don't even have a Latin motto.</p>
<p>Outside HYPS, I think it has alot to do with who you are around/ where you are from. I could see Cornell being ranked higher than any of them in Asian countries where engineering prowess is emphasized, yet in other places like Boston, Dartmouth/ Brown seem to be above the rest. While younger people are aware that Penn is up there, people even ten years out have a hard time believing its risen from being an Ivy safety. But in Long Island people think of it next to HYPS. </p>
<p>Rankings by individual departments (i.e. English, history, physics etc.) that I have seen suggested to me that Cornell A&S is better than Penn A&S.</p>
<p>No. Cornell is NOT a state school. This is a misconception that some people hold, although the arrangement might be confusing to some. </p>
<p>ILR, CALS and HE are state-contract divisions. The NY state government subsidises these three colleges to take in NY residents at reduced fees. This is different from being a SUNY.</p>
<p>it's been brought up 1,000 times on the forum ... yet those in other ivy league schools still can't seem to get it out of their heads. No state school at Cornell. If you do a search you'll see alot of posts with alot of explanations. </p>
<p>and for the record, the "state school" ilr is #1 in the country by far (Harvard has similar programs at their business school, I believe Penn does as well). Other ones that are highly ranked are Rutgers, Michigan, and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>If Cornell were a state school, then MIT would be as well. People do have the perception that Cornell is a state school. It's an aspect that applicants keep in mind when they are deciding whether or not to apply to Cornell, which draws away applicants.</p>
<p>Cornell's schools are also very specialized, more so than the other schools in the other ivies, so fewer applicants just throw in an app just to see if they get in. If you look at the average SAT scores, Cornell's is pretty similar to the other ivies.</p>
<p>I think Cornell students focus more on ranking of departments, thus believing their school is better. Dartmouth and Brown focus more on selectivity (more selective than Cornell and possibly Penn) and the strength of the undergraduate focused education since these are more LACs than universities. I always thought of Penn and Cornell as the third tier, with penn climbing to Brown/ Dartmouth/ Columbia level in recent years.</p>