<p>The thread asks for the top 10 schools in our opinion so it's not limited to your definition of a 'national university'. ( I do agree though that if one was to use your definition of a national university, one shouldn't include Caltech due to it's narrow focus)</p>
<p>And for you Wharton example, of course people don't consider it a university as it is a part of UPenn. Perhaps if Wharton was a stand alone business school that wasn't attached to UPenn it might be considered a university. And to be fair, a stand alone Wharton would be narrower than Caltech in that it doesn't offer classes from other fields.</p>
<p>Definition of a University from webster.com:
An institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees.</p>
<p>Cornell Architecture School
The Wharton School of business
The Medill School of Journalism
Yale Law School
Berkeley Engineering School
Johns Hopkins Medical School
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Road Island School of Design
The Julliard School
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First of all universities cannot exist within universities. You suggest this when you say your top universities include The Wharton School of B, YLS, etc.</p>
<p>Here's the definition of a university once again:
an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees</p>
<p>None of which I consider to be academic disciplines.</p>
<p>Juilliard is all about Drama, Dance, Music. Heck, if you log onto their website you immediately see the Juilliard Logo with the words Dance Drama and Music right next to it. Once again, I do not consider these things to be academic disciplines.</p>
<p>Caltech is about science, which is certainly an academic discipline and fits the definition of a university rather well. Of course, if I was to submit to your definition and concept of a 'national university', I would agree that Caltech isn't a 'national university' because of it's narrow nature. (although no where near as narrow as Julliard and RISD imo)</p>
<p>kk19131 if you wanted to say Wharton is a top school in this thread I wouldn't argue with you. But in your post you said specifically 'My Top Universities' include and then listed Wharton and YLS etc. </p>
<p>If you consider subjects like jewelry + metalsmithing, furniture design, Dance, and others to be academic ones then you should have no trouble in accepting that RISD and Juilliard are universities. Furthermore you shouldn't have any trouble accepting Caltech as a university either according to that logic.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Cornell Architecture School
The Wharton School of business
The Medill School of Journalism
Yale Law School
Berkeley Engineering School
Johns Hopkins Medical School
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Road Island School of Design
The Julliard School
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is that better than the Rhode Island School of Design?</p>
<p>
[quote]
A lot of people I've talked to regarding my college choices seem to be pointing me towards Pomona instead of Brown. So it's interesting when somebody keeps sticking up for the school. Any reasons? (I do think it's a bit underrated.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>brown is the fourth most preferred ivy (after HYP), it is most definitely underrated as a school</p>
<p>WUSTL and Chicago are both overrated as schools, Chicago clings to an age-old reputation as being a place that basically sucks to be a student at, so therefore people believe it must be a good school. it is neither true that chicago is any harder than any top 20 school, nor is it true that this makes it a better school.</p>
<p>because they met with usnews editors this year to contrive a higher ranking, suddenly many people jump on the chicago bandwagon.</p>
<p>and wustl.. well.. you know. (ahem, 65th preferred school in the country?)</p>
<p>"Chicago clings to an age-old reputation as being a place that basically sucks to be a student at, so therefore people believe it must be a good school."</p>
<p>I love it! Not that I dislike Chicago. But I hate when nerdyness is perceived as intelligence and fun is perceived as worthless.</p>
<p>My biased and uninformed opinion:
Harvard (Prestige with a capital P)
MIT (brilliant people, exciting research)
Yale (Prestige with a slightly smaller capital P)
Caltech...A little hard to tell where to put in the list - as people pointed out, it's somewhat of a specialty school, but it's a good one, and has enough research clout to be visible.<br>
Princeton (something about it rubs me the wrong way, but being part of the famed HYP + supposedly having a strong undergraduate focus should earn it a place)
Stanford (ask datalook about recent innovations at Stanford "<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=30761&page=6">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=30761&page=6</a>" )
Columbia
Dartmouth (higher if you like the outdoors and or the fraternity scene)
Cornell (higher if you don't like the sun...kidding - Ithaca's actually a great place)
UC Berkeley</p>