<p>Let's have some fun. If nationwide prestige were the only factor, what would your ranking be?</p>
<p>My top ten would be something like:</p>
<p>Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Cornell
Columbia
Dartmouth
UC Berkeley
Duke</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Columbia/Wharton
Penn CAS
Dartmouth
Cornell/Duke/Chicago</p>
<p>Something like that. Caltech is too small and specialized to compare with liberal arts education.</p>
<p>only for fun:
harvard
princeton
yale
stanford
mit
caltech
columbia
duke
chicago
upenn
dartmouth
cornell
northwestern
brown
washu
johns hopkins
berkley
georgetown
emory
rice
vandy
cmu
notre dame
virginia/ucla/umich</p>
<p>Although they're extremely good at what they do. (Caltech that is)</p>
<p>No doubt Caltech attracts a talented bunch. But just imagine each ivy admitting just the top 300 of their 20,000+ applicants. I bet they can create a class as talented if not more so than Caltech's 3000 applicants and 300 acceptances.</p>
<p>harvard
princeton
stanford
yale
mit
columbia
duke
cornell
berkeley
chicago
caltech</p>
<p>I believe the quality of Caltech students far exceeds the quality of Ivy students, academically speaking. If they both had around the same applicant size and class size, then I would suspect they would get around equal. But then again, the size is part of what makes Caltech so awesome.</p>
<p>^ definitely. i used to live up the street from caltech in pasadena; the quality of people i met there is mind-blowing.</p>
<p>harvard
princeton
yale
stanford
mit
caltech
columbia
dartmouth
duke
brown
penn
cornell
chicago
northwestern
johns hopkins
georgetown
berkeley</p>
<p>drsaith: you put... Chicago ahead of Notre Dame? Chicago lacks national prestige, sadly, and Notre Dame's name is out there because of its athletics.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Amherst</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>
<p>Caltech isn't well known enough to make the list, despite the fact that they have the smartest students in the country (by a pretty wide margin)</p>
<p>Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
Columbia
UPenn
Dartmouth
Duke</p>
<p>And I disagree that Caltech has the smartest students in the country. While I do agree that an average student at Caltech might be smarter than an average student at Princeton or Harvard, the smartest students of the country still attend Princeton or Harvard. My reason behind this: results from Putnam Math competitions. Caltech hasn't won since 1983, and it doesn't usually place in top 5 either. Caltech just has less diversity in its student body: everyone is a math/science whiz. Princeton and Harvard just have more diverse student body, with students of different talents.</p>
<p>^^ I don't think any one measure can determine "smartness"; there is no definitive test for intelligence, not even IQ, and I think it's rather stupid to say that Top College X's students are on average not as smart as Top College Y's students -- whether that's Northwestern vs. Yale or Harvard vs. Caltech.</p>
<p>Prestige alone is stupid but...</p>
<p>Undergrad</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale/Princeton
Stanford/MIT
Caltech
Dartmouth/Columbia/Chicago
Wharton
Cornell/Brown
JHU/Georgetown/Berkeley
UPenn (without Wharton)
Northwestern/Wash U
Notre Dame/Emory/Rice/Vanderbilt/CMU
UVA/UCLA/UMich</p>
<p>
[Quote]
My reason behind this: results from Putnam Math competitions. Caltech hasn't won since 1983, and it doesn't usually place in top 5 either. Caltech just has less diversity in its student body: everyone is a math/science whiz. Princeton and Harvard just have more diverse student body, with students of different talents.
[/Quote]
</p>
<p>The caliber of student's mathematical ability should not be determined by the results of a meaningless exam.</p>
<p>How is Putnam meaningless? It's like IMO of North American colleges.
Putnam definitely helps to show a student's mathematical abilities. Doing well on those exams require natural mathematical sense.</p>
<p>Contest math is different than actual math.</p>
<p>What kind of prestige are people talking about in this thread? Prestige in academic circles? Or prestige in the eye of the general public? I surmise the latter, since that's generally what 'prestige' is. If that's the case, I don't see how so many people put Chicago among the likes of the Ivies. While here on CC Chicago is pretty prestigious, in the general public it's not. Hell, even residents of Chicago think that 'University of Chicago' means 'University of Illinois at Chicago.'</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing school. But I think even students there would agree that U Chicago has little national recognition, much less prestige.</p>
<p>coolness is right.
The smartest average students are at Caltech.
The smartest few students are at Harvard, with a few others sprinkled amongst Princeton, MIT and Caltech.</p>
<p>its pretty safe to say that caltech has the most intelligent average student body, but trying to say which schools have the most intelligent kids is pretty pointless, theres always someone more intelligent. Keep in mind theres a distinction between intelligence and smartness. IQ wise caltech tears every school apart because of its extremely small and concentrated brain power in the student body. But in terms of smartness, that is how much they know, caltech is far too concentrated in a few subjects - science and engineering. A major university eg HYP would easily take the spot for smartness because the breadth of its departments and student body.</p>