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I agree. I’m not sure which mod made it a featured thread, but whoever it was exhibited very poor judgment.</p>
<p>One need only glance at this ranking to see that it is trash like the others. There is no disputing that Harvard is the most prestigious college in the US (arguably the world), and it is #2 on this list.</p>
<p>This is what happens when you adjust the weight of payscale from 30% to 20% and add the 10% to High School Counselors’ Ranking: </p>
<p>1 Princeton 98.30
2 Stanford 97.60
3 Harvard 97.50
4 Yale 97.40
5 MIT 96.20
6 UC Berkeley 92.00
7 Dartmouth 91.80
8 Duke 91.30
9 Penn 90.90
10 Caltech 90.40
11 Brown 90.10 </p>
<p>12 Columbia 88.70
13 Cornell 88.70
14 Chicago 88.20
15 Georgetown 87.20
16 Notre Dame 86.30
17 CMU 85.50
18 Hopkins 84.80
19 Virginia 83.60
20 Northwestern 83.30
21 WUStL 83.40
22 Rice 83.40
23 Michigan 82.60
24 UCLA 80.40
25 Vanderbilt 80.30
26 USC 80.30
27 Emory 79.10
28 Tufts 78.70
29 UNC 78.50
30 NYU 77.60
31 William & Mary 76.20
32 Wake Forest 73.50
33 Brandeis 71.00 </p>
<p>Princeton still number. Berkeley rose from 7th to 6th. Michigan and Northwestern did improve a little. Harvard fell to number 3 and Brandies still in last place. This, however, is a ranking of America’s most prestigious schools, so there is no loser here.</p>
<p>I’m going to try to include Selectivity Rank, as that’s part of “prestige” and let’s see if there will be some movements. Can someone post me the selectivity rank of these schools based on USNews?</p>
<p>Thanks hippo. Its falling on deaf ears anyway. They are simply insatiable in their desire to advance the cause of elitism and prestige hounds. They talk about jobs like its another opportunity for prestige based solely on one’s salary. It is apparent to me that they missed the boat in college themselves if they think that is what it is all about. </p>
<p>I don’t begrudge any school or the students/alumni who go there. I just have contempt for the superficial rankings games and the people who perpetuate them. Would you hire a person like that? Not me. </p>
<p>All we can do is help people look at college, hopefully, in a different light and direct them to the many colleges outside the prestige hounds radar screen.</p>
<p>Why do you need to weight the payscale according to region? There is no asterisk and a footnote in the college diploma for a Midwest college that says “Not valid in CA and NY”.</p>
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<p>hawkette,</p>
<p>I used the word, colleges, instead of universities, because I’m ranking the undergrad level, not the university as a whole. </p>
<p>College P,row.er measures teaching quality or education inside the classrooms. But since this is the view of the students, these can reflect the teaching prestige of the schools. Things like this travels to students and pass on from one to the younger relatives or siblings or friends. </p>
<p>Payscale measures the earnings of the graduates. Schools that often produce graduates that earn a lot are often look up highly.</p>
<p>USNWR Teaching has the least influence to prestige, but like my reason for College Prow.er, when you have excellent classroom education, such things are spread to other people as a sign of appreciation to the high quality of service they get. It’s like going to a fine restaurant that has the best ambiance, best food and price. You can’t help but recommend the place to your friends because you’re pleased with the services you got from the restaurant staff… </p>
<p>HS Counselors have a huge influence to prestige. This is the collective view of HS teaching/guidance staff of which colleges are the best. Most of the time, they make an impact to their HS students.</p>
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<p>They’re not in my list primarily due to absence of data. I’d love to include them for my next ranking though, even just the top 20 LACs as I’m curious how they would perform against the top colleges/universities.</p>
<p>Columbia is a ivy league school which doesnt really mean much anymore. Not that it should have mattered anyway, it’s a athletic league! saying that you’ll have an ‘ivy-league education’ is just as ridiculous as saying you’ll get a ‘pac-1o education.’</p>
<p>i think ND has a better dental dept but i think ppl know columbia more esp now cuz Obama is from Columbia. Both are good schools and i’m not saying one is better than the other</p>
<p>What some of you did not understand is that, you’re not the only one who determines which schools are prestigious and which schools are not. That’s why we need to refer to several sources.</p>
<p>RML – so you have made a thread titled “The Most Prestigious Colleges in America”, that’s your title, you picked it, but under your methodology you are unable to consider Amherst, Vassar, Middlebury, Wellesley, Pomona, Williams.</p>
<p>RML,
The error in your title is not “college.” The error is the word, “prestige.” Most of your metrics have little to nothing to do with prestige. For example, CP does not have anything to do with prestige. Thanks goodness for that! Same for the other metrics I referenced. </p>
<p>I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this country. America is not nearly as stratified a society as in your Italy or the UK where you went to college. The same applies to how we see the college world. Most of us aren’t obsessed with prestige. Those that are are usually either newly arrived in the USA or work in academia and have a vested interest. Yes, there are a few names that get everyone’s attention (HYPS), but after that the answers vary as you move around the USA. That is the beauty of America—we may dearly love our colleges, but our lives aren’t preordained by where we went. </p>
<p>If you want to measure prestige, the best rankings are probably Gallup’s which clearly shows the power of regionalism.</p>
<p>Pea, the schools in this ranking are the top 33 schools of USNews. The schools that you like me to include in my ranking don’t have sufficient available data. I would love to include them I have I have, however.</p>
<p>hawkette, when you have a top-notch teaching standard and your students are quite satisfied with it, that will travel. Those students who’ve experienced first-class treatment or “accommodation” will surely tell other people about their great experience. They will do the marketing of the school themselves. That will add to the school’s prestige, in the process. And, please take note that that constitute a small percent of this ranking. </p>
<p>I will rearrange the methodology next time to include Student Selectivity and let’s see if we will see some movements.</p>
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<p>I think the sample size for the Gullop survey is too small to form a substantive conclusion. I think. Aside from that, the Gullop was targeted to mainstream people, so they’re a different set of people from those that made up the PA and HS Counselors’ ranking. </p>
<p>In case, you missed it, here’s the ranking based on Gullop:</p>
<p>Average People’s opinions
Gullop - 10%</p>
<p>10 Harvard
8.7 Stanford
8.7 Yale</p>
<p>8.4 UC Berkeley
8.4 Princeton
8.4 Notre Dame</p>
<p>8.2 MIT</p>
<p>7.9 Duke
7.9 UCLA
7.9 Michigan</p>
<p>7.8 Penn
7.8 UNC</p>
<p>7.7 Columbia
7.7 Cornell
7.7 Brown
7.7 Georgetown
7.7 NYU
7.7 Virginia
7.7 USC</p>
<p>7 Caltech
7 Chicago
7 Dartmouth
7 Northwestern
7 WUStL
7 Hopkins
7 Emory
7 Rice
7 Vanderbilt
7 CMU
7 Tufts
7 Brandeis
7 William & Mary
7 Wake Forest</p>
<p>RML, I thought you made a noble attempt at using germane criteria in an effort to pin down something as elusive as “collective perceptions of prestige from a wide arena of resources.” I also think it is a useful representation of collected perceptions. I find the negative responses rather telling if not at times downright amusing. For example, your rankings are “superficial” (true enough that the data is quantified but the sources are qualified) and apparently are driving some elitist agenda (at what point is it okay to say something along the lines of “Where’s a good place to get the best education possible?” Is this like all those little league games where it’s no longer fashionable to WIN or exhibit talent and skill, because somehow we need to peddle the lie that all the players are exactly equal? And yet we wonder where the innovation has gone when excellence is under the chokehold of exalted sameness! My goodness!)
Apparently, you also don’t understand the nature of our country – yes, that would be the same country that ranks itself in every possible way at every possible moment, completely obsessed with market or political dominance or the erosion of same, but heck, not when it comes to EDUCATION. Hi ho. Just don’t let that self-selection ranking be based on objective metrics ; )</p>
<p>As they say in the news world, you know you’ve hit it right when EVERYONE is angry at you! Thanks for taking a swing at it!
Cheers,
K</p>
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Hawkette, I find it hilarious that you used to mention the old (1995) USNWR “Teaching Survey” when it confirmed your perceptions…and we criticized you that it was conducted in the same manner as PA (which you so revile).</p>
<p>Now that the new 2009 USNWR “Dedication to Undergraduate Teaching Survey” includes some schools that don’t jive with your perceptions, you’ve dropped it like a hot potato and now tout the “CP” gradings. But I’ve always thought you wanted USNWR to reintroduce that “ranking” and have said that things change… </p>
<p>Glad that you found a new data scource you can be at peace with.</p>
<p>RML,
The CP rankings, which reflect the views of students about the actual classroom experience, are great and much more valuable than the PA rankings. But they are the antithesis of prestige. That’s the whole point of the ranking. It is deliberately intended to separate the hype (read: Prestige) from the reality that students will experience. </p>
<p>BTW, in the CP grading, 73% of the schools that they graded at B or better were LACs. Does that make them more prestigious? Nope. It might make them better college choices for many students, but it doesn’t do a thing for their prestige. </p>
<p>UCB,
Read more closely. I’m not objecting to RML’s use of the Teaching Survey. I’m objecting to his characterization of it as a student source.</p>
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<p>BTW, interesting that you failed to mention that while I repeatedly preferred the Teaching results to the PA results (still do), I also repeatedly stated that the rankings would be much improved if neither were included. </p>
<p>College P.wle.r is much better than either and is a truer reflection of what the student will receive when they get to the school.</p>
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<p>Once again, any “prestige” ranking that doesn’t have Harvard as undoubtedly the most prestigious school is flawed… Harvard is in a league of its own! Why you can’t figure this out is beyond me. What’s your agenda for grouping the rest with H?</p>
<p>Also, how can Princeton outscore Harvard on a prestige ranking!?</p>
<p>^^^ Thanks for stating the obvious again and again and again…</p>
<p>Can people just stop making threads ranking prestige??? I agree with Hawkette that most of the data used has nothing to do with prestige in the first place. RML- why is it that you think other people’s rankings are bad when you defend yours? Is it because your favourite institutions are higher on this one? Or is there some other reason? Every ranking trying to make a prestige rating will be bad and grossly inaccurate.</p>
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<p>confidentialcoll – I want to see any statistics that back this up, specifically the statement that the vast majority of students at top schools do well in life. From any college some of the alumni go on to do quite well and some never find their niche. That’s true for any college, including the schools being featured in this thread.</p>