<p>“These lists do not accurately portray lay prestige. The average New Yorker does not realize that Columbia is in the Ivy League and/or mistakenly assumes that Stanford and MIT are…”</p>
<p>uh i think the average nyer knows columbia is in the ivy league…</p>
<p>^ Visit the outer boroughs and see for yourself…</p>
<p>This Gallup Poll shows, BY REGION, what the American public thinks are the top schools:</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)</p>
<p>I’ve long held suspicions about the sampling process of that poll.</p>
<p>The idea that southerners hold Texas A&M in such high esteem is laughable, and UTK is considered overrated even in Tennessee.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go by that gallop poll, as it is nearly 7 years old.</p>
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<p>Aren’t you a native southerner?</p>
<p>^
I am, which is why I can say with some confidence that most people couldn’t care less about Texas A&M. Engineering is really all it’s considered good for, and people would rather go to Georgia Tech for that. College Station also has a reputation for being close-minded and homophobic, even by southern standards.</p>
<p>(Apologies to any Aggies reading this.)</p>
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They probably don’t even know what ivy league is.</p>
<p>I think we should include this discussion outside of the top 20, sometimes local state universities can be considered very prestigious</p>
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<p>I am from the outer boros and I can tell you that anyone who reads the Post and Daily News knows that Columbia is an ivy, especially since the Post despises that school…</p>
<p>Anyway, undoubtedly Harvard is in a class by itself…</p>
<p>“They probably don’t even know what ivy league is.”</p>
<p>Average nyers aren’t dumb</p>
<p>^Depends on what you mean by “average”; if you hang out on this board, it’s likely the average crowd you interact with are more educated than the actual average. only a quarter of the NYC population have college degrees (US census)…are the people you’ve interacted with mostly not college educated?</p>
<p>IMO, most CCers probably don’t really know what “laymen” think.</p>
<p>With only 3% of its students from outside of the great state of Texas, I don’t think many folks outside of Texas know much about Texas A&M. But inside Texas, with its 23 million+ population, A&M most definitely scores high on the prestige meter. </p>
<p>IMO, Texans don’t give a lot of weight to the Ivy League labels. They’re perfectly happy sending their best and brightest to UT, A&M, Rice, Vandy, Duke, etc. I’d guess that after these, the most popular non-Texas school would be either Notre Dame or Stanford.</p>
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<p>Enough people think that Stanford and MIT are ivies, and can not name the 8 schools. It has nothing to do whether people are dumb or not, people just don’t care that much.</p>
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<p>Tell me about it. What’s worse is these people get behind the wheel and drive absolutely terrible. Seriously, it is a miracle there aren’t more traffic fatalities in Florida than there already are.</p>
<p>The average New Yorker probably does not care if Columbia is in the Ivy League. They do know, however, that it is the best school in NYC and therefore tend to rate it as high as Harvard or anything else.
Source:Extensive experience in the depths of the forgotten borough.</p>
<p>From Mass:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale/Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford/ MIT</li>
<li>Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia</li>
<li>Duke, Penn, Amherst, Williams, Caltech</li>
<li>Cornell, Northwestern, Chicago</li>
</ol>
<p>As the survey posted above reveals, there are MANY, MANY factors that could influence perceived reputation, including location within the United States, location within a particular state (rural/city, etc.), education background, etc. I think this is a relatively pointless thread…</p>
<p>Suburban NY (the whole region is wealthy and educated so even laymen are in-the-know generally):</p>
<p>HYPSM
Caltech (hard to place, almost nobody applies but everyone reveres it)
Columbia/Wharton (Wharton goes up to the 1st tier if you got in without mommy and daddy :P)
Dartmouth/Duke/Brown
Penn (loses a little respect because it’s basically a legacy feeder)
Chicago
Cornell/WashU/Northwestern/JHU
Emory/Vanderbilt
Rice/ND (nobody ever talks about these two)</p>
<p>Nothing radical, maybe a few idiosyncrasies.</p>
<p>From Minnesota:</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Northwestern
Stanford
CalTech
Columbia
Cornell
Chicago
Duke
Brown
Penn
Dartmouth
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
WashU
Johns Hopkins
Emory
Rice</p>