<p>what determines and how do you find out what tier a school is in?</p>
<p>it's just an arbitrary division of schools. something like "top 200 in US News" is 1st tier, "200-400" is 2nd tier, etc. (or something like that, I'm not sure)</p>
<p>I think its vastly different. Doesnt first tier go from 1-30 and second from 31-100 or something?</p>
<p>It depends whose definition you're using...it's very ambiguous.</p>
<p>According to US News, it is as ugen64 said...an arbitrary division of schools.</p>
<p>That said, many people consider ivies + Stanford, Caltech, MIT etc to be first tier, top-25 to be second tier, top-50 to be third tier...it really depends on who you ask</p>
<p>I hardly consider my school at #57 to be third tier. That's rediculous.</p>
<p>It's in the first tier....</p>
<p>That's the problem with lists that glorify the first 50 or so schools, it makes them SEEM so much more important and so much "better" then those which fall outside of it, although there is not a large or impled drop in quality, since USN is the one that chooses how to weigh each sub-factor.</p>
<p>That is why ranks, like USN, can sometimes be rather unreliable as to a schools educational worth.</p>
<p>"That said, many people consider ivies + Stanford, Caltech, MIT etc to be first tier, top-25 to be second tier, top-50 to be third tier...it really depends on who you ask"</p>
<p>if you're going by US News this is not consistent with their rankings, as you're leaving out the three midwestern schools and duke that are in between the higher ivies and the lower ivies.</p>
<p>and i don't know anyone who would consider georgetown or notre dame to be second-tier</p>
<p>The "etc." implies all schools of that caliber...ie chicago, northwestern...Don't everybody get angry with me, this is just the type of thing I've seen on this site...people say things like "first tier school" and it's totally ambiguous..according to USN some schools considered mediocre by CC students are first tier...many people when referencing first tier are talking about ivies and ivy-caliber schools</p>
<p>oh i missed the etc</p>
<p>How bad are Tier 3 and Tier 4's?</p>
<p>Yeah, but if schools LIKE the ivies, etc. are tier one and only top 25 are tier two, then that would leave, like, 3 tier two schools :-/</p>
<p>Tier 3/tier 4 are like CSU's and other places like that.</p>
<p>I would basically agree with JYankees on this. There's no hard and fast, objective tiers and I wouldn't go that much by what USNWR says. When I was applying, I considered 12 schools first tier (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore), so it all depends on your definition and what you are seeking.</p>