<p>Princeton
Harvard
MIT
Yale
CalTech
Stanford
UChicago
Northwestern
Brown
Cornell</p>
<p>In that order, peace out</p>
<p>"this is the first thing, ramses, that you've said that i agree with, and i think is a very accurate picture of the difference between a chicago or swarthmore and a northwestern or upenn." </p>
<p>Hehe, it may be the first time you've agreed with me but I don't think it's any different from my saying over and over that Northwestern is a fantastic school(better than Penn) but shouldn't be compared to Chicago. IMO, both schools offer the finest in educational opportunities but service two different kinds of students.</p>
<p>I think you are right, kk, that one can find intellectuals at NU (or insert other school mentioned on this thread here). It would be sad if you couldn't. However, I will again bring my own experience up-- I went to an elite college prep school where most of my friends went off to Ivy Leagues and cohorts. I felt like I was their peer in the classroom, but I never fit in socially because they never or rarely wanted to talk about smart things, but rather grades and scores. I spent a lot of time succeeding academically and somewhat succeeding socially, yet feeling alone.</p>
<p>Chicago reversed that for me in wonderful ways. I feel like I share my love for school with every student who attends the school, and when I walk around campus, I feel like every person I meet is a potential best friend. The demonstrations against the common app (which will retain the uncommon questions as a supplement, so while the format is changing, the content will remain as wacky as ever) shouldn't be offputting (though I'm sure they are to some), but should rather be seen as a demonstration of school spirit and school character. We like our essay questions, and we like that we require something a little different from almost any other college out there. Does that make us superior? No. But it's a tradition.</p>
<p>top ten colleges according to me</p>
<p>brown
brown
brown
brown
brown
brown
brown
brown
brown
brown </p>
<p>yes i am biased and i am going to brown . ;)</p>
<p>1) Harvard
2) Stanford
3) Yale
4) Princeton
5) MIT
6) Caltech
7) Columbia
8) Penn
9) University of Chicago
10) Dartmouth</p>
<p>That is my ranking just based on overall excellence across all areas. I might be biased though - Go Crimson!!!</p>
<p>1) Harvard
1) Stanford
3) Berkeley
4) MIT
5) Caltech
6) Princeton</p>
<p>7) Yale
8) Chicago
9) Columbia
10) Cornell</p>
<p>The top 6 schools have contributed most to make our life better. Without these 6 schools, USA may be much less attractive to international students. The future of science and technology is roughly determined by these 6 schools.</p>
<p>The future of science and technology is partly determined by Princeton of all places? - wow.</p>
<p>datalook,
The future of science and technology is determined mainly by corporate America. Yes, there is important research going on at many American universities and I don't want my comments to be misinterpreted as diminishing their contribution, but the corporate sector (pharmaceutical, biotech, all forms of computer technology, etc) spends far, far more on R&D.</p>
<p>Not that I'm challenging you, hawkette, but do you have data for your claim? I don't think most of technology comes from those six -- though obviously by comparison they output more than most -- but I'm not quite sure corporate America has it.</p>
<p>The key word in the question is "Opinion" - which of course everybody has one. This website is obssessed by rankings and reputations. It's a love fest amoung probably the alumni, professors, admssions folks of the schools always mentioned. With around 3000 colleges and universities in the US, it's funny that the same 30 or so are talked about over and over and over again. There are many many good schools to attend. Your life will not be ruined if you don't go to the traditional best schools. In the end it's what you do where you're at that counts.</p>
<p>kyledavid,
Just looking at pharma by itself, the total R&D spending in 2005 was $53bn and was estimated to be $62bn in 2007. This is a worldwide estimate, so the major Euro players are also included (Novartis et al), but the point is still the same-the corporate sector is where the biggest dollars are being spent. There are multiple sources that can be found quickly on the internet that reference pharmaceutical R&D spending. The one that I found just now was a report by consulting firm Barnett International. Here is the link where the quoted figures came from:
<a href="http://www.barnettinternational.com/bi-news-20050907.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.barnettinternational.com/bi-news-20050907.cfm</a></p>
<p>If you include biotech, computer tech, telecommunications tech, etc, you quickly see that the corporate sector is spending boatloads on R&D. Again, this is not meant to disparage the contributions at the University level where some breakthrough technologies have been developed, but they are just part of the overall scene.</p>
<p>joshua007,
Over time, Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT have produced graduates that have tremendous impact on the business world, particularly in the technology and science worlds. However, please be careful on how you associate these schools with their true role in the success of the companies that these graduates built. The connection is often zero and this is especially so for their undergraduate studies (two well known examples are Bill Gates, Harvard dropout, and Steve Jobs, Reed College dropout). At the graduate school level, I think that the schools you referenced (Stanford/UCB/MIT) are well known for their engineering prowess. Graduate programs at these three universities have been prominent players in sending graduates to Silicon Valley/Route 128 and other hotbeds of computer technology development.</p>
<p>Wait, </p>
<p>Are we talking about best 10 schools ever or best 10 schools to attend today?</p>
<p>Smart graduate researchers never meant great undergrad.</p>
<p>harvard
yale
brown
dartmouth
MIT
Upenn
Amherst
Tufts</p>