<p>when you say big are you talking about student body?if so what are chicago and northwestern doing on those lists?where is UT austin?</p>
<p>Pateta, we are talking about an athletic conference called the Big 10. It has nothing to do with the size of the universities.</p>
<p>Ok alexandre thank you!!!</p>
<p>Peer assessment is more a reflection of graduate programs/reputation of faculty in research than anything else (which is why a Dartmouth or Brown lags behind an elite state school with huge resources - Berkeley).</p>
<p>All the Big 10 schools except NU are very similar so PA is a good indicator of school quality.</p>
<p>Personally I would rank Purdue a little higher. What it lacks in some departments it makes for in others...ie Engineering. Obviously it wouldn't be top 3 but maybe 5th or 6th.</p>
<p>It's important to note that even the schools that are coming in at the bottom of these lists (Iowa, Purdue, MSU, Indiana, Minnesota, OSU) are really really good universities, and have some of the top scholars in their fields in the world (e.g. Van Allen at Iowa a while back). I went to the U of Iowa for a while, and was very impressed with the quality of instructors and students. Also spent some time at Indiana and thought it was great too.</p>
<p>Pateta, also be aware that the famous athletic conference called the Big 10 added Penn State a while ago, but kept the name, even though it now has 11 schools. Whereas the conference that was called the Big 8 added 4 schools when the Southwest Conference folded, and it became the Big 12. One should not infer from these events that the mathematics departments in 12 schools in the Big 12 are better than at the 11 universities in the Big 10. Also, now quite a few of the schools in the Big East Conference are not in the East, nor are they big (e.g., Marquette). All this will make sense if you ever walk into a club in the USA claiming to have 50 of the most beautiful girls in the world on duty taking off their clothes; and there will be a half-dozen bored gals there for the lunch "rush," the best looking of whom has an appendix scar just like my Aunt Phoebe's.</p>
<p>1) Northwestern University
2) University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
3) University of Wisconsin-Madison
4) Penn State-University Park
5) University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
6)Purdue University-West Lafayette
7) Indiana University-Bloomington
8) University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
9) Michigan State University
10) The Ohio State University
11) University of Iowa</p>
<p>To further clarify what the Big 10 is, it is arguably the strongest overall sports conference and one of the most complete. It has competitions in almost every NCAA sport and its teams are usually very competative. This is an important fact to many students especially its proud heritage of having outstanding collegiate football. There really is nothing like attending at football game in which over a 100,000 people are filling the seats.</p>
<ol>
<li>Northwestern University </li>
<li>University of Michigan </li>
<li>University of Wisconsin</li>
<li>Penn State University
illinois</li>
<li>University of Minnesota
purdue</li>
<li>Michigan State University</li>
<li>Indiana University </li>
<li>Ohio State University </li>
<li><p>University of Iowa</p></li>
<li><p>University Of Illinois</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I was under the impressoin that University of Michigan ranked higher than Northwestern due to its prestige, job placement for its students,etc..</p>
<p>Jai, Michigan and Northwestern are pretty even when it comes to prestige, professional and graduate school placement. In terms of students, I'd say Northwestern actually has the edge. Northwestern is 3 times smaller, so it can be more selective.</p>
<p>Taking into account the quality of the student body (based on % of students who scored above 500, 600, 700 on their m/v on the SATs).</p>
<ol>
<li> Northwestern</li>
<li> Michigan</li>
<li> Wisconsin/Illinois</li>
<li> Minnesota</li>
<li> Iowa/Penn State/OSU</li>
<li> MSU</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Indiana</li>
</ol>
<p>Is Northwestern the only private school and all the others are public??</p>
<p>michigan is the top obviously</p>
<p>northwestern is one of the worst schools...its like comparable to the university of chicago in crappy academics</p>
<p>VeryHappy, that is correct.</p>
<p>So does the fact that NU is private have anything to do with it's being at the top of just about everyone's list??</p>
<ol>
<li>Northwestern (wins in all undergrad categories like resources, recruiting, placement)</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>Minnesota</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Indiana</li>
<li>Iowa</li>
<li>MSU</li>
<li>OSU</li>
</ol>
<p>NU
MI
WI
IL
PSU
MN/IU/Purdue/Iowa
OSU/MSU</p>