<p>
Yeah, pretty solid reference for an undergraduate education in an engineering field like chemical. Or someone who wants to study film…accounting…petroleum engineering…journalism…astrophysics… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Agreed UCB. Only half of the students out there wish to major in the traditional disciplines. The other half are interested in other fields, such as Architecture, Business, Engineering, International Relations, Journalism, Music, Nursing, etc… </p>
<p>But even in the traditional disciplines, I am not sure how one can say that Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Penn definitely and clearly belong in the top 10, but that Brown, Cornell, Northwestern do not (I am not going to mention Cal, Michigan or any other public university hear as that would only complicate matters). Is it really that clear cut? According to the USNWR (and evidently goldenboy), it is.</p>
<p>
Those are specialized fields; whenever someone on this site is referring to “undergrad education” in general, it is always in reference to the core Liberal Arts areas like Economics, Biology, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, etc.</p>
<p>
The first 4 universities you list Alexandre (minus Dartmouth perhaps and plus UChicago) are more well-rounded than the latter 3 when the 4 most important criteria to evaluating a university at the undergraduate level is concerned: academic reputation, postgraduate outcomes, financial resources, and selectivity.</p>
<p>Brown has poor financial resources as well as only moderate faculty strength, Cornell has lower selectivity/postgraduate outcomes (fellowships/professional school admissions), and NU has far worse postgraduate outcomes.</p>
<p>Overall, Columbia, Penn, Duke, and Chicago just excel a bit more. Although, Columbia and Penn could improve their financial standing, Duke could improve its faculty, and Chicago could improve its job recruiting/law/med school placement. That’s why these schools aren’t quite HYPSM.</p>
<p>I am not sure I agree goldenboy. First of all, you are assuming that people agree with your definition of undergraduate excellence. Most do not ascribe to a statistical approach to comparing universities since different universities have different charters, missions, cultures, etc…and therefore attract vastly different types of students. How does one compare Chicago to Brown or Caltech or Yale statistically etc…?</p>
<p>Secondly, you make many inaccurate assumptions. Brown’s endowment may be smaller than Columbia’s or Duke’s or Penn’s, but with only 8,000 students, a tiny Medical and Engineering complex, no Business or Law programs etc…, I think its endowment is just as potent. Selectivity is a very superficial way of judging a university. True intellectuals couldn’t care less about it, bur even to those who care, Cornell’s CAS and CoE are just as selective as Duke, Dartmouth or Brown. Its colleges of ILR, Architecture, Human Ecology and CALS may not be as selective, but those are not offered at their peer universities and they are #1 in the US in their respective fields. I am not sure what those fellowships have to do with anything, but Brown, Cornell and Northwestern do at least as well as Columbia and Penn. I see no difference between any of those universities in terms of overall academic institutional excellence. Is a student better of attending Duke instead of Brown, or Columbia instead of Cornell or Dartmouth instead of Northwestern? The the former in each of those scenarios provide the student with a better education, improve that student’s chance of getting into a graduate program or of winning the Rhodes scholarship? As far as I am concerned, the answer is clearly no.</p>
<p>Like asking “what is the best car”, it depends on what purpose for which you are asking . . .</p>
<p>aeronautical engineering . . . where is Lehigh? </p>
<p>for civil engineering . . . where is Cal Poly SLO?</p>
<p>for turf management . . . where is The OSU</p>
<p>for film . . . where is USC</p>
<p>for acting . . . where is NYU?</p>
<p>for ocean studies . . where is UCSC?</p>
<p>for computer games . . . where is RPI?</p>
<p>for generic purposes as if student’s specific interest didn’t matter . . . this and so many other “what is the best” threads on CC</p>
<p>P.S. Dartmouth is a college</p>
<p>
I see…then why not use a ranking that actually tries to measure those departments on an aggregate basis? Here’s one:</p>
<p>NRC Quality Assessment Rankings
For 32 Core Arts & Sciences Programs</p>
<p>100—Harvard</p>
<p>97.1–Princeton</p>
<p>89.5–Berkeley
86.8–Stanford</p>
<p>— gap—</p>
<p>62.0–Yale
61.8–Columbia
61.5–MIT</p>
<p>— gap—</p>
<p>48.6–U. of Chicago
47.3–U. of Michigan
42.6–Caltech</p>
<p>
Hmmm…why would the most selective schools have the best “outcomes” for employment and grad schools? Could it be that they’re just skimming the cream and not really enhancing skills, but providing a rubber stamp for the upper echelons of society?</p>
<p>
goldenboy,
I don’t see how Duke is necessarily better than Northwestern in economics, sociology, or psychology. What about chemistry, in which Northwestern is among the best? </p>
<p>As far as “post-graduate outcome”, you don’t have data showing acceptances vs applications. All you got are just some numbers of grads at, say, HLS…etc. You can’t really make any conclusion out of it. Duke has the second largest med school applicants among the top-20 schools (behind the much larger Cornell); it seems to be the most preprofessional school in the sense that more of them seem to be prelaws or premeds when compared to other peers while the ones that seek employment primarily go into finance/consulting. I think the lack of great engineering, the study hard/play hard culture, the strength in bio-related fields, and the lack of other specialty (non-business) schools just draw more students into medicine, law, or business. The apprent “success” has more to do with the sheer number and orientation of the student body than anything else.</p>
<p>Unbelievable. </p>
<p>The OP posts a simple (simplistic, too) 6-8 word question and then everyone is off and running, ensnared by the same old trap of arguing micro-differences among the same small batch of terrific schools, leaving every other quality school in the dust through omission. </p>
<p>Clearly, he/she wants an answer that speaks to status/ image (or else he/she would have given particulars of which fields of study he/she is interested in), which means going to the standard bearer (cough-cough) of rankings–USNWR. Simply tell him/ her to refer to that list AND BE DONE WITH IT!</p>
<p>(And good afternoon to you, too.)</p>
<p>Cornell’s CAS is not remotely as selective as Brown or Duke. Please stop spreading falsehoods.</p>
<p>My list for the best undergraduate education would be (in no particular order): </p>
<p>Brown
Columbia
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
MIT
Penn
Princeton
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>^ No particular order that just happens to be alphabetical… :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No wonder you’re so good in chemistry, figuring out all those letters and stuff. :p</p>
<p>I am surprised to see that some top liberal arts colleges such as Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, Pomona, etc are not mentioned in this thread, especially seeing as how we are talking about the best UNDERgradute colleges. That’s not to say that the elite HYPMS are not also excellent schools - they definitely are - but they may not be ideal for undergraduate studies. One could argue that smaller schools and more professor attention could help foster undergraduate development, but that type of school environment also is not for everyone. Some thrive more in a large setting such as HYPMS, where there are also some lecture-hall style classes. In no way am I trying to undermine the quality of education at those elite national universities. I just wanted to show the LACs some love and maybe bring up a perspective that is often overlooked in light of the prestige of the larger universities.</p>
<p>Thanks, 45. You’d easily make a top 10 CC poster list in my book. Haha! :)</p>
<p>OP asked for 10 best universities, no mention of undergraduate or otherwise. </p>
<p>I agree with earlybird that smaller universities/ LACs get short shrift on CC. Regrettable, since it’s also acknowledged that a number of the “top tens” are not necessarily the best environment for undergrad experience (with exception of schools like Dartmouth, which is strictly undergrad). Too many TAs teaching classes, competition for internships with grad students, general lack of focus on undergrads and more on graduate research/ publishing, etc. Nothing new, but somehow the allure of such universities for undergrad hopefuls persists here.</p>
<p>
Usually onlye a handful of courses have TAs leading lectures. In most cases, TAs are assigned to lead discussion sections, labs, tutorials. Is that what you mean by “too many TAs teaching classes”?</p>
<p>
Competition for what kinda internships? Could you give us a few real life examples?</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
Columbia
Duke
Brown
Dartmouth</p>
<p>I think Chicago, Penn, and Northwestern are more deserving than Duke, Brown, and Dartmouth…in my humble opinion</p>
<p>It seems that based on the responses in this thread, there is at least a clear set of 13 universities which most people besides a few partisans believe constitute the top 10. In alphabetical order:</p>
<p>Brown
CalTech
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
MIT
Northwestern
Penn
Princeton
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>I think most people would agree that Cornell is at worst 14th. Now, the question is who is the clear 15th best school to make this a nice round figure? My vote would go to Johns Hopkins but I bet some people would mention Wash U or Rice.</p>
<p>You all need to get a grip. Go over to the Vanderbilt site and they are already high-fiving themselves over Vanderbilt’s imminent leap-frogging over Duke and into the top ten. This, on the basis of an acceptance rate at Vanderbilt that is allegedly smaller than Duke’s. Unfortunately for them, acceptance rate is not very highly weighted by USNWR at all, but they’re lovin’ it in Nashville!</p>
<p>goldenboy, CC does not represent most people. It represents high school students, and some college students for the most part. You will not see many experienced and seasoned adults posting here, and those that do will not weigh in on this matter. They may point out flaws, as I have, but they will not actually rank the top 10. That’s because there is no such thing. There isn’t a clear top 10, or even 10 universities that are more “deserving” of top 10 consideration. It all depends on whom you ask. If you survey the most educated Americans (like warblersrules), you would get one list of top universities (more than 10 would be included, and there would be no difference within that group of universities). If you survey corporate America you would get a different result, depending on the industry (pharma and biotech would be different from Petro/chemical, which in turn would be different from manufacturing, which would be different from media and advertising which in turn would be different from Finance and Consulting). </p>
<p>To the OP, the only post on this thread that truly answers your question is post #2. There is no such thing as a top 10 university. Obviously, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT and Yale are clearly among the top 10, but other than those 5, you have a dozen or so universities that are truly exceptional. You really have to get very petty and delve into the insignificant and pretty superficial to differentiate between those universities, making tangential assumptions, in order to differentiate between those universities when attempting to establish which ones are better than the others.</p>
<p>“I am surprised to see that some top liberal arts colleges such as Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, Pomona, etc are not mentioned in this thread, especially seeing as how we are talking about the best UNDERgradute colleges.”</p>
<p>TheEarlyBird, you make a very valid point. The OP did ask, however, for the “top 10 universities”. I do not think it is possible, or fair, to compare major research universities to LACs, or to include both in the same ranking.</p>