<p>“Yes, my opinion is based on my own observations as a student and TA/grader, and on the observations shared by faculty and other students at the colleges I have attended, as well as colleges I have visited. Your opinion is based on what?”</p>
<p>Same as yours, pretty much: my own observations as a student at a highly regarded university; my partner’s experience as a student in several top-ranked PhD programs in two different fields; opinions shared by faculty friends and students who have taught at/attended other colleges, both prestigious and not; and colleges I have visited.</p>
<p>Mostly, I agree with what ucbalumnus has said–that rigor can vary greatly within a specific department of a specific institution. And many PhDs from “top” institutions are now teaching at “lesser” ones, where they are presumably pushing their students to superior educational attainment wherever possible. The fact remains that we don’t have a fact-based way to correlate rigor against selectivity. You can suggest that in general selectivity is correlated with rankings, but that might be a chicken/egg thing. And selectivity these days has a lot to do with inputs that have little to do with intellectual aptitude (ECs, “hooks,” and so on.) So we’re probably spinning our wheels trying to answer such a broad original question…don’t you think?</p>