Rank Colleges on Prestige Alone

College Search & Selection
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<p>Berkeley is respected. I don’t think anyone thinks that its not respected. But bringing the discussion back to the crux of this thread which is about ranking undergrad programs purely based on prestige:</p>

<p>In that case, there are at least a dozen schools off of the top of my head that rank ahead of Cal (Ivies + Stanford / MIT) already get you to 10 very quickly. Add Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, Hopkins, Georgetown and you are already at 15. Not to mention the military academies, West Point and Annapolis. </p>

<p>Further, although more regional, one can make strong arguments about Rice, WUSTL, and Tufts. So, out the gate, you are arguing a Top 20 position at best (maybe a Top 15). Again, not bad considering the company you are in, but not the absolute BEST as far as prestige is concerned.</p>

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<p>Most people in the South have never heard of Berkeley. But they know Cal put a smack-down on Tennessee in football this past weekend. All depends on perspective.</p>

<p>As the philosopher “Bandit” said, “How smart you are depends on what part of the United States you are standing in.”</p>

<p>Pure brilliance.</p>

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<p>This is a very good point. I’ll add that I’ve heard people say on numerous occasions, “Isn’t that a law school?” after hearing the name Harvard or Yale – a very large number of people, I suspect, think of them only as that.</p>

<p>One thing, also, and this is just an afterthought: on these forums, especially in the ‘chances,’ very often I see students applying to Berkeley out-of-state. Just throwing that out there.</p>

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<p>I guess its time to dust off my old post regarding the difference between “familiarity” vs. “prestige”:</p>

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[quote]
I always like bringing this back to my “hamburger” analogy to illuminate this point:</p>

<p>99.9% of the American public will readily recognize (read: familiarity) Micky D’s Big Mac or Quarter Pounder (over a billion served!) vs., say, the “21” burger at the 21 Club (New York)… but does that Ronald McDonald more prestigious? Hardly.</p>

<p>Many people know (shop) at Wal-Mart vs. Bergdorf Goodman, but that hardly qualifies Wal-Mart to be categorized as “prestigious”.</p>

<p>Simply put, not anyone can afford to shop at Bergdorf or eat at the 21 Club, and conversely, nearly everyone “can” shop at Wal-Mart or eat at McDonald’s.</p>

<p>Similarly, not anyone can enroll into Harvard, but nearly anyone can enroll into a Community College - that’s what makes Harvard prestigious - and, more importantly, why it remains so. In other words, if Harvard increased its class size to 500,000 per year admitting nearly anyone who applied - its “prestige” would drop like a stone overnight - people from Joe Blow Community College would be transferring to Harvard.</p>

<p>This is what happens to certain “luxury” or “prestige” goods all the time - dilution of a brand which gets oversold, over-licensed or discounted at department stores (read: the Coach brand and even Armani)</p>

<p>Now to be certain, some brands have both “familiarity” AND “prestige” (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and some have “prestige” and less “familiarity” (e.g. Dartmouth, Brown, Caltech) - but don’t confuse the two terms - less familiarity doesn’t = less prestige. Just because your neighbor hasn’t heard of Ch</p>

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<p>Actually, the OP doesn’t mention whether we’re ranking undergrad or not – simply “colleges.” And we’ve previously established that in terms of prestige of colleges, the general public does not distinguish between undergrad and grad.</p>

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<p>But the very definition of a “college” = undergrad.</p>

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<p>"Just because your neighbor hasn’t heard of Ch</p>

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<p>But does the general population make such a distinction? No. In fact, most probably don’t know it. Hell, until I began to explore colleges, I didn’t even know that “college” usually denotes undergrad study – as in Harvard College or Columbia College. In addition, do you ever hear “Berkeley college” (to refer to UC Berkeley)? I don’t.</p>

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<p>So well put, Prestige. Distilled down to the very basic of what is the difference between familiarity and prestige. This seems to be the source of some confusion on CC.</p>

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<p>“This is NOT true at all. I was born and raised in Chicago but I have known Berkeley as a very prestigious school since I know how to read and write.”</p>

<p>-I’m glad you were so learned about colleges at such a young age. Nevertheless, are you seriously trying to tell me that an OVERALL poll of random people in Chicago will yield as many knowing about Berkeley as Northwestern - or as many thinking as highly about Berkeley as Northwestern??? Give me a break. You can go to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, You can watch NU games on local TV, many top students from the area attend NU, etc - in the area, the school is in-your-face, Berkeley though - not so much.</p>

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<p>The key difference is, of course, that it’s not your neighbor’s job to know the difference between Brown / Bowdoin / Bates just like its not your potential employer’s job to know which fertilizer is going to yield you the greenest lawn next spring – i.e. it is absolutely a potential employers job to know which schools are producing the best candidates… Which is why LACs do so well in the job market for undergrads belying their lack of name recognition on a national level… So while the name Swarthmore may draw a blank stare from your neighbor, its more than likely that a potential employer will give credit where credit is due when it counts (that is assuming that this employer is actually worth working for – i.e. not all employers are equal… the hiring manager at Starbucks is not the same as the hiring manager at Goldman).</p>

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<p>But this is PRECISELY the point I am making. People HAVE heard of Harvard College, just as they have heard of UC Berkeley (read: with a capital “UC”)… i.e. when people think Cal, they think grad school, they think research, they think granola hippie.</p>

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<p>“knew” even… so, let me get this straight, you went from the ABC’s to Dr. Seuss to Berkeley is = a very prestigious school? Let me guess, your 1st grade teacher was the Unabomber?</p>

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<p>“it is absolutely a potential employers job to know which schools are producing the best candidates”</p>

<p>This is true. And if you are looking at a regional employer they will be aware of the quality of the students in their area. In this case, a known quantity from local U may be preferable to someone with an ivy degree and an attitude.</p>

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<p>“when people think Cal, they think”…of the recent football game against the Volunteers. :D</p>

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<p>A very, very small slice of employers will care about the prestige of a school attended, and even in the investment banking industry, I’m not sure how much it matters. I was looking at the biographies of top people at an investment banking firm in NYC and elsewhere called Shattuck Hammond, and I tallied up where the people listed attended undergrad and graduate schools.</p>

<p>Source:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.shattuckhammond.com/About/professionals.shtml[/url]”>http://www.shattuckhammond.com/About/professionals.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The highest-ranked employees completed undergraduate work at:</p>

<p>Berkeley
SUNY- Stony Brook
Baylor
Brown
UConn
Wash + Lee
Louisiana Tech
U. Mississippi
U. Wisconsin
NYU (Stern)
Illinois State
LeMoyne College
RPI
Wesleyan (2)
Siena C.
Wabash
Wayne State
Johns Hopkins
Catholic U
Duke
Conn Coll
Adelphi
Penn (Wharton)-- 2
Chicago
Cornell (Ag school, not arts and sciences)
Franklin and Marshall</p>

<p>They received MBA’s at…</p>

<p>SMU
Emory (2)
Louisiana Tech
U. Alabama
Columbia
Chicago (3)
Syracuse
Vanderbilt
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Adelphi
Dartmouth
Northwestern
NYU (2)</p>

<p>and other masters’ degrees at…</p>

<p>Harvard (Health Policy)
Columbia (Law)
Harvard (Design)
Duke (Health Administration)</p>

<p>Obviously, there are a lot of prestigious names on this list, but not quite as many as one may think. Then again, Shattuck Hammond is not as “brand name” as Goldman Sachs. At the same time, though, how many graduates from elite schools end up working at Goldman Sachs?</p>

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<p>ShattuckHammond is probably not the best example (not many think of them when making judgments about mainstream practices on Wall Street), but you’re on the right track as Wall Street has a much broader representation of undergraduate schools than is commonly supposed here on CC. The rubber really meets the road when it comes time to recruit from MBA schools and then the school name matters A TON. But for undergrad, not nearly as much although undoubtedly certain schools have large embedded alumni groups and hiring histories across various Wall Street firms and this provides a recruiting advantage when the time comes. </p>

<p>I will also say that The Street is not a homogenous place at all in the sense that what goes on on the trading floors with their recruiting practices differs quite a bit from the asset management side which differs even more from the investment banking side. For the most discussed jobs on CC (the two-year analyst investment banking jobs in corporate finance or M&A), there is a higher premium placed on undergraduate college name, but students from outside the normal paths do commonly find their way in. And all of this may differ from how the hedge funds and the private equity players recruit (although their undergrad hiring numbers have been considerably smaller). However, coming from a lesser known college, it can be hard and requires diligence, planning, savvy, great communication skills and persistence…and smarts. But it can be done and it happens all the time.</p>

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<p>Top 10:</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard
(Gap)</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton
(Gap)</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT
(Big Gap)</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>

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<p>To answer your question, unalove, lots of kids from top schools wind up at Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Morgan Stanley, and the like. These firms look for grads from these top undergrad schools, who will get interviewed and hired at a much higher rates. There is even a hierarchy within the top group. The best firms have their pick of the crop.</p>

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<p>This is where Hawkette is completely on target for the NY area: It is very difficult for grads from schools with a lower perceived prestige factor to obtain positions in these top banks, especially in the 2 year investment banking programs. The chances of this happening without having done an undergraduate summer internship program-which are very elite, and very difficult to get into, especially if your school is not highly respected-are virtually nil.</p>

<p>In terms of the grad school mattering a ton…It certainly does. But getting into a top grad school is often dependent on a high gpa, stellar gmats, BUT, having done well at a top-flight firm is a huge help.</p>