<p>^do you mean "hearsay" as opposed to "heresy"? :D</p>
<p>yes...heresy would mean something completely unrelated to hearsay. I did not mean to talk about religion. Lol...thanks for catching it. That's what spell check does.....ugg...so much for being a careful Harvard student...</p>
<p>Alright, I looked at every school thoroughly, so this isn't just me randomly making a list. I'll give a brief reasoning, too, if anyone's curious. </p>
<ol>
<li>Yale -- (Professors = more accessible than at Harvard)</li>
<li>Princeton -- (strong focus on undergrad)</li>
<li>Harvard -- (has the name going for it, but with TAs & such an emphasis on the graduate school, it's just not a better education than YP [in my opinion, of course])</li>
<li>Penn (Wharton) -- (Amazing school, in my opinion. If I get in there this year, I'd probably go over HYP--it's the best of its kind, after all)</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Penn (CAS)</li>
<li>Dartmouth -- (probably about the same as Brown, but I was very impressed by Dartmouth's language program, at least)</li>
<li>Brown -- (If you're someone who wants to specialize and not have a balanced curriculum, though, Brown's definitely ideal)</li>
<li>Cornell -- (Dunno about you guys, but around here, Cornell's considered the "easiest" of the Ivies, if only because of its sheer size / higher acceptance rate)</li>
</ol>
<p>Although I disagree with the way Yale, Princeton, and Harvard are organized at the top of sphairistic's list, I agree with the rest of the rankings that follow. He's also the only person who has offered reasons/justifications for why each college's undergraduate program earned its respective rank in his mind.</p>
<p>I would go "Princeton - Harvard - Yale" or "Harvard - Princeton - Yale", but that's just from what I gathered from my parents' and other alums experiences. I'm probably not as informed as I could be. My parents are both Harvard alums, which may lend a little bias to my opinions =) but I have great respect for all three institutions; as far as I'm concerned, the opportunity to study at any of them (and, for that matter, almost any of the Ivy League schools) would be incredible.</p>
<p>In terms of research impact/academic reputation (as measured crudely by the number of Nobel prize winners who were actually affiliated with the school at the time when the prize was awarded):</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] Harvard
[</em>] Columbia
[<em>] Princeton
[</em>] Cornell
[<em>] Yale (far below)
[</em>] Penn
[<em>] Brown
[</em>] Dartmouth (none).
[/ol]</p>
<p>In terms of financial resources (as measured by endowment):</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] Harvard
[</em>] Yale
[<em>] Princeton
[</em>] Columbia
[<em>] Penn
[</em>] Cornell
[<em>] Dartmouth
[</em>] Brown
[/ol]</p>
<p>In terms of student body quality (as measured by selectivity according to USN&WR):</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] Harvard
[</em>] Yale
[<em>] Princeton
[</em>] Columbia
[<em>] Penn
[</em>] Brown
[<em>] Dartmouth
[</em>] Cornell
[/ol]</p>
<p>My personal ranking (more or less a composite of the three criteria above, but putting slightly more emphasis on research/academic reputation):</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] Harvard
[</em>] Princeton
[<em>] Yale
[</em>] Columbia
[<em>] Cornell
[</em>] Penn
[<em>] Brown
[</em>] Dartmouth (the last two well below the others)
[/ol]</p>
<p>I'm going to agree with whoever said that these college simply cannot be "ranked" -- they all have their individual pros and cons. By name recognition (and many will go by it), HYP always comes out on top. What worries me is that too many go by an acceptance rate -- Cornell, for example, yes, has a current 25%. Do bear in mind that this rate takes into account ALL of Cornell's programs, including hotel, industrial/labor, i.e. contract schools. Cornell's CAS acceptance rate is considerably lower -- 18-20%ish. I've heard (HEARD) that Cornell is the easiest ivy to get into, but the most difficult to graduate from.</p>
<p>If I were to rank anything, I'd do it how Bruno did it -- by acknowledging that each school is strong in different areas. How, though, can we measure the strength of an undergraduate program?</p>
<p>A lot of people agree that UChicago is tops in that area, and the fact that it's not even ivy league doesn't make it any less so -- Harvard will always be a "brand name", but I have difficulty believing (what with the TA system and the inaccessibility of some professors) that it's really even that far apart from what any other undergrad program at a top-tier school could give.</p>
<p>Ranking should be taken with a grain of salt -- especially by those who are susceptible to applying to schools based on name recognition and the imagined pride to swell one's chest when they say, "ah, yes, I attend an ivy league school."</p>
<p>Uh to the post above who listed Nobel Prizes... it's not in the right order</p>
<p>AMONG THE IVIES</p>
<ol>
<li>Columbia (81) - 2nd in the world after cambridge (83)</li>
<li>Harvard (76)
(MIT 63)
(Berkeley 61)
(Stanford 50)</li>
<li>Cornell (40)</li>
<li>Yale (32)</li>
<li>Princeton (29)
6 UPenn (18)</li>
<li>Brown (3)</li>
<li>Dartmouth (0)</li>
</ol>
<p>Columbia and Harvard clearly stand out from the pack in terms of Nobels at least- probably indicative of the research quality/support going on at these two institutions.</p>
<p>Many people underestimate Penn's academia; their joint-degree programs (<a href="http://www.upenn.edu/huntsman%5B/url%5D">www.upenn.edu/huntsman</a>, <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/fisher%5B/url%5D">www.upenn.edu/fisher</a>, <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/lsm%5B/url%5D">www.upenn.edu/lsm</a>) are one of a kind, as is the Wharton school. Just all depends on what you wanna do. Princeton has Woody Woo, Harvard has JFK, every school has gems that you can find only at that school.</p>
<p>go cornell!</p>
<p>1 comment in regards to the joint degree programs
like, they're specialized and seem really prestigious, (i was interested in M&T), but then i did some research and realized that penn isnt that great at engineering, nor med.
so maybe some schools create progs that accepts 60 kids or so to seem prestigious?
like, if school X created a prog that only accepts 20 kids, im sure it'll tempt a lot more ppl to apply for it and stuff right?
just a thought
correct me if i'm wrong</p>
<p>By the way... again ranking in order of Selectivity is not correct as listed above either.</p>
<p>For the Class of 2010:</p>
<p>Yale 8.64%
Harvard 9.27%
Columbia College 9.64%
Princeton 10.2%
Stanford 10.88%
Columbia (overall) 11.42%
MIT 12.96%
Brown 13.79%
Dartmouth 15.43%
Penn 17.69%
Duke 19.52%
Columbia SEAS 22.74%
Cornell 24.65%
Northwestern 28.23%
UVA 35.87%</p>
<p>any ivy can yield great educational results if you know how, but you can also make your time there a joke easier at some places than others. so in order of difficulty in making your undergraduate education a joke:
1. columbia
2. harvard
3. princeton
4. yale
5. penn
6. dartmouth
7. cornell (a hotel school? this school is pretty softcore)
8. brown (brown is a joke. i mean, come on)</p>
<p>as for my bias, i go to uchicago.</p>
<p>I'd say from a strictly academic standpoint:
1. Princeton
2. Yale
3. Harvard
4. Columbia
5. Penn
6. Cornell
7. Dartmouth
8. Brown</p>
<p>And as for bias... I've applied to Penn RD (top choice along with Amherst), I've visited Yale and Harvard... and I know people that have attended all eight of the Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Uh to the post above who listed Nobel Prizes... it's not in the right order
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You should read better what I wrote before jumping into conclusions. The Nobel list I posted considers only laureates who were affilliated with the university at the time when they were awarded the prize. That contrasts with the Wikipedia list that counts anyone who at some point was at the university (as a student, faculty, post-doc,etc.) but may have left long before getting the Nobel. BTW, the stats I posted, using the first criterion, are the official stats recognized by the Nobel Foundation, see link here.</p>
<p>As far as selectivity is concerned, the ranking I posted is from US News & World Report (2007) and presumably takes other factors into account besides acceptance rate.</p>
<p>You think Cornell's the bottom Ivy because it's easiest to get into? So that's it, the acceptance rate?</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard (unfortunately couldn't apply to b/c of three SAT II requirements :( )</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>
<p>btw, those nobel prize lists are so inflated. Every school considers everyone who ever set foot on their campus to be "affiliated" with them.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>
<p>why does verybody rank brown last? i think its really cool, provides a ood undergrad education and has an awesome campus.</p>
<p>mY LIST of the best overall college(undergraduate) experience: 1. Princeton 2. Stanford 3. Yale 4. Harvard 5. MIT 6. Amherst 7. Williams 8. Columbia 9. Penn 10. Duke 11. Brown 12. Dartmouth 13. Pomona 14 Cornell</p>