top 15 most prestigious universities

<p>Before I started looking into various colleges a few years ago, Vanderbilt definitely wasn't on my radar living in SoCal</p>

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hallowarts: I never heard of Vanderbilt before coming to this forum.

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CWalker: Before I started looking into various colleges a few years ago, Vanderbilt definitely wasn't on my radar living in SoCal

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<p>thank god. finally we are agreeing on something. seriously, where the heck is this Vanderbilt?</p>

<p>I've heard of Vanderbilt once before. I knew it is a pretty good college in the South. Vandy is a good college, only recently did I know it was located in Tennessee. I always knew of it as a southern university.</p>

<p>TourGuide what if your barber went to Harvey Mudd?</p>

<p>Yeah, I had never heard of Vanderbilt before coming here. Or, perhaps I heard about it but blocked it out because I wasn't interested.</p>

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ND is a strong school, no doubt, but when rankings tout it as better than schools like Michigan, Berkeley, etc., it becomes a subject of debate.

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It is just as good as, if not better than, schools like Michigan and Berkeley. Arguably as good as, if not better than, the "second tier" Ivy League universities.</p>

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notre dame is definitely not prestigious nationally. I agee with xjis.

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<p>Although America is traditionally a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant country, with a history of intolerance and bigotry, there has always been a significant Catholic population--especially within the more tolerant states. There are more than 77 million Catholics in the United States.</p>

<p>Roman</a> Catholicism in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>Notre Dame is the most prestigious Catholic school. Georgetown may be better known as of late, but it is formally affiliated with the Society of Jesus, the liberal Jesuit order of Catholicism. ND embodies traditional, conservative Catholicism, and thus appeals to a more specific demographic: it has prestige that comes along with tradition, and it appeals to those older Catholic families--which is why it makes sense that it ranks among the "Dream Schools."</p>

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And very few laymen know of MIT, unless you're finding your laymen in Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and Amherst.

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<p>I went to a big public high school close to Chicago, with over 600 kids each grade. Every single kid from my hs knew what MIT was, even if we are lucky to send even 1 or 2 grad to MIT each year. Far more people knew about MIT than U of Chicago, ironically. Whenever anyone hears of MIT, people are very impressed and they usually associate the word "genius" with "MIT". Even those students ranked bottom 10% of the class and those not even attending college after graduating, they do know MIT. I would say that MIT has the biggest layman prestige only behind Harvard and Stanford.</p>

<p>there are teachers at my high school who don't know what MIT is. one of my friends (we're from Michigan) got in and his psychology teacher asked, "so is that Michigan Tech?"</p>

<p>we're a solid school (one of the top 1,000 high schools according to Newsweek), and we're an IB World School as well (in a rich suburb; graduating class of 350 students; 1200+ students total).</p>

<p>Adding fuel to the fire but some of the overrated schools like WUSTL/Emory/Vandy/NotreDame should actually be replaced by CMU/Berkeley/Georgetown.</p>

<p>^^^ agreed. (10 char)</p>

<p>Anyone who turns Yale down for Cal must know more drugs are available at Cal.</p>

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there are teachers at my high school who don't know what MIT is. one of my friends (we're from Michigan) got in and his psychology teacher asked, "so is that Michigan Tech?"

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<p>I can't believe how ignorant those teachers are. They are the academic folks, school employees, yet, they don't know about MIT? This is a crisis.</p>

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Anyone who turns Yale down for Cal must know more drugs are available at Cal.

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<p>That's unnecessary and inappropriate. If I didn't get into Stanford, I would've turned down Yale for Cal. Cost wasn't an issue (full scholarships). I simply like Cal more. Get over it.</p>

<p>(And more drugs available in Berkeley as opposed to New Haven? Hard argument to make there.)</p>

<p>^^^
I agree. Also, everyone knows that if you want drugs you go to SDSU!</p>

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Anyone who turns Yale down for Cal must know more drugs are available at Cal.
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<p>She turned down Yale, which gave her basically a free ride, because she liked Berkeley better. and because Berkeley is bigger in bio research than Yale. If you can't understand that then you're the one on drugs. Honestly some ppl don't find spending four years in cold, dreary, not to mention seedy New Haven that appealing. Have you ever even been to Berkeley?</p>

<p>I would turn down Yale for Berkeley.</p>

<p>^^^
Ditto</p>

<p>Except I didn't apply to either</p>

<p>it depends on wht you want. some folks have different tastes. Yale has more prestige, smaller size, smarter students, more attractive student body, relaxed attitude among student body. Berkeley has bigger campus, San Fran location, weather, more grad school presence, very liberal atmosphere, etc.</p>

<p>Prestige, my barber's barber college is more famous than Harvey Mudd.</p>

<p>Where do service academies fit into the list lol?</p>