Rank the top 20 national universities in terms of lay prestige (based on your region)

[tenisghs]

<p>^^ I agree with the statement that Stanford is well-known among educated circles, but the average American (including rural folk and those with some college or less) does not know how good Stanford is. Harvard and Yale are much more well-known than Stanford.</p>

[Phead128]

<p>That’s cuz Harvard graduates are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of the journalism circles…</p>

<p>They plaque r the Harvard name on everything exclusive and brilliant lol.</p>

[funk]

<p>why do people care about prestige?</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Yes, although I was referring to software engineering jobs that really do seem to benefit from college educated employees (people who can not only write code, but also understand and discuss the ins and outs of customer requirements, analyze alternative approaches, put together flashy presentations supported by reliable metrics, and think outside the box of vendor-proprietary solutions.)

</p>

<p>I’m not even entirely sure that software development jobs truly benefit from college education, apart from the signaling value that the degree provides regarding self-discipline. The truth of the matter is all of the attributes you named - to tailor solutions for customer requirements, to analyze alternative approaches, to package presentations backed by reliable metrics, and to ‘think outside the box’ - are not really taught in most computer science courses. Those courses demand that you solve a certain set of problems with a certain set of tools - for example, the exams will ask that you prove a particular computability theorem using techniques taught in the class - and if you don’t do that, then you fail the course. You can’t argue that a particular test question is not what the customer actually requires. You either provide the solution that conforms to the answer key, or you flunk. </p>

<p>Incidentally, this is also why many of the best developers do not have CS degrees, or in some cases, hold no degree at all. Richard Stallman’s degree is in physics. Will Wright never graduated from college. Janus Friis never even graduated from high school. </p>

<p>

My home is in a rural area on the edge of the east coast urban corridor.
The population is a mix of relative newcomers with long commutes and farm families that have been here for generations. I think high school students here are more or less vaguely aware of a bigger world of prestigious schools and other opportunities, but I doubt very many of them dream of jobs as management consultants and investment bankers. Those careers would not reflect the tastes and interests typical of people in this area. A Cornell ornithologist probably would command more interest and respect here than a Wharton financier.

</p>

<p>Yeah, but when that guy starts to study at Cornell thinking that he wants to be an ornithologist, because he’s now at an Ivy, he inevitably starts hearing the siren song of consulting and banking. Their recruiters are prolific and they inevitably generate immense interest in those fields.</p>

<p>I’ll put it to you this way. Before I went to college, and even during the first few years of college, I had never really heard of consulting and banking either. Nor had most of the other students I met. {And to this very day, the notion of corporate managers requesting strategic or investment advice from fresh college graduates still strikes me as preposterous.} But you discover those professions eventually - particularly when somebody you know manages to garner such a job offer.</p>

<p>People’s tastes change while in college, depending on the social environment. For example, it is almost certainly true that most students who matriculate at MIT intend a career in science or engineering. Yet the undeniable fact is that nearly half of all MIT graduates who enter the workforce take jobs in consulting or finance (and many of those who head for grad school will later take jobs in consulting or finance). If these students were more prescient about their future career choices, more of them would surely be majoring in Sloan management.</p>

[tk21769]

<p>

I’m not even entirely sure that software development jobs truly benefit from college education, apart from the signaling value that the degree provides regarding self-discipline. The truth of the matter is all of the attributes you named - to tailor solutions for customer requirements, to analyze alternative approaches, to package presentations backed by reliable metrics, and to ‘think outside the box’ - are not really taught in most computer science courses.

</p>

<p>That’s the role of a good liberal education, isn’t it? If you don’t cultivate them in CS, you certainly should be picking up related, transferable skills in your other courses.</p>

<p>

Yeah, but when that guy starts to study at Cornell thinking that he wants to be an ornithologist, because he’s now at an Ivy, he inevitably starts hearing the siren song of consulting and banking. Their recruiters are prolific and they inevitably generate immense interest in those fields.

</p>

<p>What percentage of students in arts & science majors at various selective schools (not necessarily Ivies) lately go into consulting and banking compared to, say, academia? Or medicine and biomedical research? </p>

<p>Anyway … lest we lose track of what we’re discussing here with respect to regional perceptions of college prestige … Sakky, you seem to be suggesting that a high percentage of good students all over the country long for lucrative careers in banking and consulting; that good opportunities in these fields are reserved for graduates of a very few universities; therefore, those few schools are the most prestigious in the eyes of good students all over America. Is that what you’re saying? If so, I’d say there may be truth to that in some sectors of society, but it does not seem to describe the attitudes of young people in my area or among my kids’ friends. If nearly half of Harvard and MIT graduates are all flocking to banking and management consulting, then those schools become less not more prestigious in my eyes. They start to look like high class vo tech schools. Unless other career opportunities have become even scarcer, or comparatively less lucrative, than I’d thought. Certainly, academia can be a hard nut to crack if you aren’t willing to put in the years as an adjunct gypsy scholar at miserable pay.</p>

[MrPropapanda]

<p>So as an employer, would you recruit an employee from Harvard or from Simon Fraser (which you may have never heard of) if they both have the same talent? yes, this question is rhetorical.</p>

[RML]

<p>

But none of that is an acceptable excuse. As an engineering student, you just want to be well taught. If you’re not - and as you have correctly pointed out, you probably won’t be - you won’t care why. All you’ll care about is that you’re not being taught well.

</p>

<p>You’re not being realistic, sakky. Engineering is a harder subject than social sciences, humanities or any academic field, by nature. That’s a fact, and you cannot say that we’ll just ignore that fact. That’s the reason why tech/math-sy schools don’t perform considerably well on Teaching Standard.</p>

[RML]

<p>

Calculated through the deeply questionable methodology of asking academics about the quality of the teaching at other institutions. It may be acceptable to ask other academics about the quality of the research at other schools, for that is what they spend most of their time performing themselves. But to ask academics about teaching is an entirely different story.

</p>

<p>But it’s a scientific study, and is obviously better than our mere opinions. The result is also believable - no purely math-sy/engineering school has made it in the top of the list; and small, liberal arts-type of schools performed very highly. You can also observe the same thing for the Best Colleges: Undergraduate Teaching at Liberal Arts Colleges section.</p>

[tk21769]

<p>

So as an employer, would you recruit an employee from Harvard or from Simon Fraser (which you may have never heard of) if they both have the same talent? yes, this question is rhetorical.

</p>

<p>I’ll assume this question is addressed to me.
I already addressed it (sorta) above in post #177.</p>

<p>The Baltimore Washington corridor (including Northern Virginia) is a large, affluent market fueld by jobs related to government, including telecommunications and software development jobs. Federal direct hiring is barred from considering where an applicant went to college. Federal contractor hiring would tend to be focused on specific skills and personal qualities related to team collaboration. I don’t know how many Ivy graduates show up in these positions (according to Sakky, they are busy chasing those even more lucrative iBanking and consulting jobs). One may meet a Cornell engineer now and then; the HYP people you meet might be headmasters or department heads at local private schools, or perhaps your divorce lawyers.</p>

<p>What I’m saying is that, if a young person grows up in a neighborhood of nice houses where the parents are bringing in 6-figure incomes from jobs with SAIC or LHM after graduating from VaTech, then the siren song of Ivy-then-iBanking does not sound quite so loud or sweet as maybe it does to a smart 1st gen immigrant kid in Brooklyn. Hopkins (which manages a huge volume of federal research money) is prestigious around here among nerdy CTY kids who for sure also have heard of Harvard and MIT, but probably don’t quite get the value proposition of Yale or Princeton unless they are into some niche like theoretical physics or bioinformatics. Then there are the smart hippie kids who imagine saving the world in some future Green Economy; they’ll sniff and snort at the Ivies (other than Brown) and flock to Quaker schools, other top LACs, and more or less obscure “alternative” schools. </p>

<p>The whole country has become more homogeneous since WWII, but there are still ways in which regional and class differences assert themselves in the perception of things desirable and prestigious.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Such a person has heard of the Ivy League but probably can’t name all 8 members.

</p>

<p>YES. And, they aren’t particularly bothered that they don’t know all 8, or if they throw Stanford in there when it’s not, oh well. It’s just not all that important to them. It’s a signal of smartness, but not the only signal out there.</p>

<p><a href=“S”>quote</a>he knows that Johns Hopkins has a world-famous hospital system and may assume that this correlates with undergraduate academic quality, but probably could not make a principled distinction between the academics at Hopkins and the academics at its lacrosse rivals.

[quote]
</p>

<p>Again, yes. The same way that people “know the Mayo Clinic is good.” JHU has a specialized brand name in medicine.</p>

<p>

Size and sports success play a big role in the perception of prestige in this demographic. If a school is smaller and is not (like Notre Dame or Duke) a sports powerhouse, or has not (like Harvard and MIT) entered popular lore as a metaphor for exclusivity and brilliance, then all sorts of factors may come randomly into play to grab attention (such as the alma mater of the incumbent POTUS).

</p>

<p>Again, right on the money – which is why caring about “prestige” among the lay demographic is silly. </p>

<p>

If he or she runs a business, (s)he’d just as soon hire an affable kid with good grades from Penn State as pay a premium for the same grades from Princeton (or put up with any hint that the applicant has a sense of entitlement based on where he’s been or who she knows).

</p>

<p>Yes. It’s hard for people on CC to believe, but there are people who run businesses – and yes, even big businesses that offer well-paying jobs! – who aren’t automatically going to choose the prestige u grad over the state u grad every time under some assumption that all that counts is book-smarts. </p>

<p>

I think the days are gone when the tastes (or hiring practices) of upper class families in New York City and New England dominated the rest of the country in defining prestige in colleges or anything else. Compared to 50 years ago, many more people from all over the country attend college. Financial and cultural influences are more dispersed. So the Ivy brand image may continue to have a lock on the imaginations of recent Asian immigrants, but not so much when it comes to the average smart kid from Minnesota, Texas, or Nevada.

</p>

<p>Right. The OMG-Ivy-or-bust is really the province of a very dated mindset. Not today’s mindset. Today’s mindset is much more expansive.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

What I’m saying is that, if a young person grows up in a neighborhood of nice houses where the parents are bringing in 6-figure incomes from jobs with SAIC or LHM after graduating from VaTech, then the siren song of Ivy-then-iBanking does not sound quite so loud or sweet as maybe it does to a smart 1st gen immigrant kid in Brooklyn.

</p>

<p>Ditto for here in Chicago. Plenty of nice suburbs where parents bring in 6 figure incomes with U of Illinois degrees (and not necessarily engineering, either). There doesn’t need to be the siren song of Ivy-then-iBanking when you can look around you and see that successful people have all different backgrounds.</p>

<p>

Then there are the smart hippie kids who imagine saving the world in some future Green Economy; they’ll sniff and snort at the Ivies (other than Brown) and flock to Quaker schools, other top LACs, and more or less obscure “alternative” schools. </p>

<p>The whole country has become more homogeneous since WWII, but there are still ways in which regional and class differences assert themselves in the perception of things desirable and prestigious.

</p>

<p>Right. There seems to be a whole cohort on CC who is concerned with prestige because they think that’s how some mythical upper class lives, and that entering a handful of schools will transport them there – but ironically, how they go about is and their single-mindedness is actually the opposite of how the upper class really lives. “Prestigious people” see the strengths and the opportunities in a whole host of areas, directions, careers and colleges. Not just ibanking and mgt consulting.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

I think most lay people across the entire U.S. (except in the regions where these schools are located) don’t realize that WUSTL, Rice, Emory, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, and Middlebury offer as great of an education in many fields as their more prestigious counterparts (and in some instances, a better education in certain fields).

</p>

<p>Right. They don’t. Which should influence someone considering any of those schools, how? Again, the people who know what’s what know these things. The people who don’t – who cares? Do you always make major life decisions by taking polls of people in the street?</p>

[Schmaltz]

<p>Brilliant posts, Pizzagirl.</p>

[funk]

<p>Why isn’t happiness the main motivator?</p>

[rjkofnovi]

<p>That’s why this whole “lay prestige” thread is silly Pizzagirl. Well said.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Well, I’ll put it to you this way. Until the college application rounds of my senior year of high school (which was in the United States), I had never heard of the LAC’s, nor had practically anybody else in my high school.

</p>

<p>This means nothing and cannot be extrapolated to “most high school seniors.” Nor is it really important that the kids in your hs never heard of the top LAC’s. It doesn’t reflect badly or poorly on the LAC’s, nor does it mean that they aren’t “prestigious” just because a bunch of hs seniors never heard of them. Hs seniors don’t define “prestige.” If they did, then Ugg boots and North Face jackets would be the most prestigious outfits in the country.</p>

<p>

In fact, one of the great benefits of the USNews ranking is it popularized the LAC’s in a manner that had never happened before.

</p>

<p>There’s always been a cohort that knew of Amherst, Williams, the (remaining) Seven Sisters, Swarthmore, et al. You just weren’t part of that cohort, that’s all. Don’t mistake your sudden awakening / knowledge to be universal. </p>

<p>

Moreover, I suspect that many (perhaps most) Berkeley students have never heard of most of the top LAC’s either. Let’s face it: many Berkeley students were successful California high school students but are not particularly concerned with the minutia of the college rankings. They know that Berkeley is the flagship school of the UC system and they have some awareness of the Ivy League and MIT, and they are well aware of Stanford, but have little awareness of any other top schools.

</p>

<p>Right, and the same could be said of much of the East Coast, where Berkeley is known as oh, the flagship school of the UC system, it’s supposed to be good, and some vague awareness of historical associations with hippie culture, and that’s about it. The fact that half of Berkeley’s class couldn’t tell you about the LAC’s means nothing, because half of the East Coast and Midwest couldn’t tell you much about Berkeley either. Because it’s all regional in nature. Berkeley’s big in YOUR mind because you’re on the west coast. That’s all. The fact that Berkeley-ites don’t know top LAC’s means nothing whatsoever.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

So as an employer, would you recruit an employee from Harvard or from Simon Fraser (which you may have never heard of) if they both have the same talent? yes, this question is rhetorical.

</p>

<p>You’re kidding, right? You’d interview both of them and see what you thought based on the interview, of course. Which one presented himself better, thought better / more quickly on his feet, appeared to have better people skills, was creative / original in his thinking, etc.</p>

[DunninLA]

<p>From California, attended Stanford and UCLA about 30 years ago:</p>

<p>Caltech (only if applicable)
Harvard
Yale/Princeton/Wharton
MIT/Stanford
Columbia
Chicago
Dartmouth
Cornell/Penn non-Wharton
Northwestern
Duke
Brown
Johns Hopkins
Rice
WashU
Emory
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt</p>

<p>My ranking is influenced by MBA school rankings. We all have areas of interest that will shake up the published Top 20.</p>

[Schmaltz]

<p>“You’re kidding, right? You’d interview both of them and see what you thought based on the interview, of course. Which one presented himself better, thought better / more quickly on his feet, appeared to have better people skills, was creative / original in his thinking, etc”</p>

<p>Or you can simply hire the one who doesn’t show up for his interview wearing a baseball cap backwards.</p>

[MrPropapanda]

<p>

@Pizzaguy

You’re kidding, right? You’d interview both of them and see what you thought based on the interview, of course. Which one presented himself better, thought better / more quickly on his feet, appeared to have better people skills, was creative / original in his thinking, etc.

</p>

<p>I said with the same talents and skills. That means they are the same person.</p>