@SlackerMomMD I think when you typed, “in the suburbs of Philadelphia” you instantly removed yourself from the average list.
There will definitely be regional exceptions, but overall, I think we’re agreed, when it comes to schools, the average person cares more about football, then basketball, than they do academics, and they often confuse all three.
Plus what perception of any given school people might have is highly dependent on what fields they chose to pursue on a professional level, on top of geographical areas.
Back home, the only people who even know about UPenn and NWU (I always refer to Northwestern as NWU) at all, all work in international commerce, in which case Wharton and Kellogg are household names. But stray outside of international commerce, and no one will have any clue about what UPenn or NWU might be.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan are better known at home because they are major hockey schools.
@urbanslaughter, but I never even saw Swarthmore until two, three years ago! 
Even the Main Line has “average” people, not everyone is wealthy,.having gone to an elite school. Plenty of Penn State grads, not to mention Villanova, and Temple… An “average” person on the Main Lee may very well confuse Haverford with Harvard.
Everyone saying that the average person couldn’t name 25 private universities: this, I think, is also a regional thing. I live in a wealthy, gentrified part of MA where just 10 percent of my class goes on to study in the University of Massachusetts system. The name of your college is viewed as powerfully indicative of your intelligence and achievement. I think the average parent here could name 50 private colleges, and I say that without a hint of hyperbole! My family in middle of nowhere, Kansas? They probably couldn’t name a single LAC or any elite university outside of Harvard or Yale.
It all depends on region. In my area, most people would never have even HEARD of Georgia Tech or maybe even Dartmouth. Average is such a subjective term but I would take it to mean, if you walked into your local supermarket and asked thirty people what the top 25 colleges were, what would they say?
Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Columbia
Duke
Johns Hopkins
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Georgetown
NYU
UNC Chapel Hill
Penn State
Penn (What’s the other Penn…wait they’re not the same place? :p)
Temple
Pittsburgh
Villanova
Drexel
Northeastern
Northwestern
American University
USC (Southern California)
Boston College
Boston U (Wait, they’re not the same place either…? :p)
Rutgers (NJ people rank Rutgers low)
Around here in NYS it’s:
HYP, Duke, colleges with good football/basketball teams, SUNYs
Yes, because people in wealthy areas are not “the average person.”
@Pizzagirl Average is relative. That’s average where I live. Your idea of average is likely biased by where you live.
This would be an odd topic for the average person. I’m average and would have never considered ranking colleges and doubt I could even come up with twenty five, let alone ordering them in some sort of insightful hierarchy.
This thread is pretty dumb.
Sigh. The average person. Not “the average person in my suburb where the homes start at a million” or “the average person on Harvard’s faculty.” Never mind.
An average of lists from random people is not the same as a list from an “average person.” Some (maybe many) people would produce a list with HYP plus a handful of big state flagships. Some (far fewer) would produce a list that includes prestigious academic institutions that the regular Joe has never heard of. With enough people sampled, the list would average out into some kind of useless Top 25 that is nevertheless fun to contemplate. 
“Should” is not the point. “What actually is” is the point. I love Penn - grew up in Philly - and that doesn’t prevent me from acknowledging the average person doesn’t know the difference between that and Penn State. thats not a reflection on Penn though. It’s a reflection on the average person and how little they care.
In Oklahoma, the average person will not be impressed by UPenn, Brown, or UCSD. If you asked some random guy which is better, the University of Oklahoma or Brown, I seriously doubt he’d say Brown unless he happened to be from Rhode Island. Same with most of the schools listed here.
In Colorado, where I’m interning, CSM is seen as a top school and CU is great. How many people in Boston even know about Mines or CU Boulder?
How come the service academies aren’t on a lot of people’s radar screens?
You must not live in western Pennsylvania…lol. When I was applying to Penn, a typical conversation went like this:
Me: “and Penn…” (pause) “in Philly.”
Person: “Penn State has a campus in Philly??”
You’re treating this as a ranking created by someone who knows both schools, and their relative academic reputations. That is not what this thread is about. Consider three people: two of them aren’t familiar with the Ivies, and provide a ranking that doesn’t include UPenn, but does include the more familiar Penn St at #20. The third person, from CC, excludes Penn St and ranks UPenn at #15. The consensus ranking (depending on how rankings are consolidated) might well have Penn St appear above UPenn.
I can only speak for New York. Here people aren’t so familiar with schools like Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Notre Dame, UVA, and other schools outside the northeast that some people here consider to be universally known, but they definitely know Penn, Chicago, Northwestern and Tufts (among many others).
How come the service academies aren’t on a lot of people’s radar screens?
@albert69 because most people don’t think of them. A lot of people do not even realize they’re schools and not just an extension of the military.
@bodangles
The same thing happened to me when I was applying to UPenn.
I’m from the South. I was speaking with a guy who lives in Pennsylvania:
Me: “I’m also applying to Penn. Not sure if I’ll get in though, lol… The chances are really low.”
Him: “Naw, don’t worry man! You’ll definitely get into Penn State, I know it.”
Me: “I actually meant the University of Pennsylvania.”
Him: “Oh… That’s the one in the IV League, right?”
IV League…Never heard that one before.