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[quote]
People that don't know it for academic prestige often know it for athletics (or have at least heard of it).
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</p>
<p>Do people halfway around the world follow NCAA basketball?</p>
<p>They should</p>
<p>They do. In China, someone I met knew the basketball team, not the school</p>
<p>^ haha that's surprising. I would expect a lot of Americans to know it for sports and not academics and a lot of Chinese to know it for academics instead of sports.</p>
<p>Top liberal arts colleges are extremely well regarded in US academic and professional circles, yet have relatively little name recognition to the general public in the US, and virtually zero overseas (exception: top women's colleges, which were historically the preferred option for many female students from other countries)</p>
<p>For example, pull out the Wall Street Journal [url=<a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5Drankings%5B/url">http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf]rankings[/url</a>] of the top "feeders" to leading US professional schools. Ask an international student to guess the top 5 or top 10 schools. Most of them will never, ever guess Williams, Amherst, or Swarthmore, no matter how hard they try, simply because they've never even heard of these schools.</p>
<p>The small, highly selective liberal arts college is a US thing; other countries don't have them and don't understand them.</p>
<p>None of my family members (educated family members) knew any US universities outside of Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Made me sad...</p>
<p>The 'prestigious some places but not well-known other places' list"
NorthWestern
Georgetown
UCSD
Ohio State
UPenn
University of Chicago
Purdue
Duke
Dartmouth
Brown
William
Amherst
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Yea, i agree with Corbett. at first, i didn't even understand the liberal arts college thing lol. About following NCAA... most people outside of NA do not even follow the NBA on a regular basis. I am sure they know it exists but its not major especially in Europe. So it doesn't surprise me that people around the world do not know much about the athletic schools that are also renowned academically.</p>
<p>Family members from Hong Kong only knew of Hopkins (medicine), NYU (in New York), Columbia (in New York), Harvard (big one), and MIT (another Science big one). Of course, UofC (business/econ), Penn (Wharton), Georgetown(IR) was also big as well.</p>
<p>I have family member friends who were from China that are nurses that would have DIED tocome to American to see and visit the Johns Hopkins Hospital. I knew it was a very good hospital but I never knew Chinese ppl back in China would have known of it! Yeah, she wanted her daughter to go to Hopkins to become a doctor. Didn't get in. :-(</p>
<p>Shad Faraz,</p>
<p>Please do not think your experience is representative of others in the world. JHU could very well be in the 'prestigious some places but not well-known other places' list of others, even though it's not in <em>yours</em>. I'd say people have heard of Northwestern more than JHU in Hong Kong. Why? Simply because it has a joint EMBA program with HKUST and it's been ranked #1 program in the world; that alone has received quite a bit media coverage.</p>
<p>Sam,</p>
<p>you are absolutely correct. From my experience and the people i am usually around, they are quite familiar with JHU. But now that you mentioned JHU, i will put it on the list. All colleges except HYPS could potentially be on the list. I am just listing them based on people's experiences.</p>
<p>I'm ashamed to say that as recently as a month ago I told a friend with very bad stats that he good get into U of Chicago. He said it was top 10 in the country and I said something along the lines of "maybe 20 years ago but you definitely could get in now". I went home and felt like an idiot when I realized how prestigious UChicago was. I should add that I live in florida and always considered myself pretty well informed when it came to colleges (when compared to my peers). UChicago is probably the best example of an amazing school being unknown to many people.</p>
<p>Also I knew (and still know) next to nothing about LACs. Most people seem to have never heard of even Swarthmore.</p>
<p>LAC reputations are shaky at best outside their respective regions. My top choice is Amherst College, and I've said that to at least fifty people over the last few months. I live in Ohio. Not one of them has heard of Amherst College. Not one person. That includes some very well-educated people. But no one knows anything about it. The general public knows very little about colleges. I've also mentioned that I like Case Western as a safety, and only one person has heard of Case. It's in Cleveland. </p>
<p>In conclusion, I've decided to not worry about prestige in my decision. I'll pick a school that has a good quality of students, good academic programs, and a good price tag. I don't care what the farmers in Nepal think about my school, because they're not my future employers.</p>
<p>Famous is one are but not known in another list:
NorthWestern
Georgetown
UCSD
Ohio State
UPenn
University of Chicago
Purdue
Duke
Dartmouth
Brown
William
Amherst
Swarthmore
LAC</p>
<p>lol at JB, i totally agree farmers are not going to be your future employers. especially the ones in Nepal! I am so tempted for someone to say Harvard so i can put it on the list</p>
<p>Sam suggested that Shad's experience is probably not representative of others'. It's equally relevant to realize that the the perceptions of CC posters isn't very representative of anyone else either. We're all college and university fanatics who obsess over things that 99% of American society isn't concerned with. Here in Georgia, I'd imagine that if you asked the person on the street about Stanford, they'd primarily know that Stanford is a place with a good baseball team and a bad football team. They'd have no idea that it's considered a peer of HYP. I don't know that they'd recognize Brown at all. And if you asked about the highest prestige in all of higher education, they'd probably tell you that it would be getting into the most exclusive fraternity at U.Ga.</p>
<p>Basically any school that isnt ivy or MIT or Caltech or doesn't have a good D1 sports program is unknown in this country.</p>
<p>I'd even hesitate to say that the average person knows all the Ivy's. Yes, they know Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and maybe Cornell, but I'd hesitate to say the same about Penn, Brown and Dartmouth. I didn't know these 3 were Ivy league institutions until I got to CC.</p>
<p>Most people don't know about Caltech either.</p>
<p>If you mention to people about Syracuse University, it will automatically ring bells as one of the finest schools especially for communications and public relations.</p>
<p>ken285: That's very true. I used to confuse UPenn with Penn State. I think that the lesser ivies are definitely YMMV. That is, depending on the person and the region it's definitely going to vary. Most people seem to know a few of the lesser ivies though. UPenn seems to be a little bit like UChicago, that is, it's extremely well known to intellectuals and in the fields it's good in. In fact, in the fields it excels in (namely business), it is put on some type of holy pedestal where it's a head above everyone else.</p>
<p>coolman123: Good point. I've been hanging around CC too much ha. I'm not sure how it is on the west coast but if I ask any of my friends if they know what Caltech is they will almost certainly say no. Not sure how it is on the west coast but near where I am (and where I lived in New York) it is completely unknown.</p>
<p>Caltech should definitely be added to the list. I think that's the most screaming example of the prestige really varying all over the country.</p>
<p>I live outside Philadelphia, and virtually no one knows about Caltech</p>