<p>Hey, I didn't pull the rankings out of my ear!</p>
<p>Do a rank order yourself. There are 41 disciplines, which the good folks at NRC have already grouped into 5 "Areas".</p>
<p>I simply took the ranking in the top 4 of the 5 areas as my rank ordering criterion. I then subtracted two points to reward a school for being ranked in all 5 areas. That's it!</p>
<p>Yes, Berkeley is as prestigious as Harvard among academics. It is the most prestigious university in the world among academics. What other prestige matters? Take a look at the rankings yourselves... this is peer ranking by university professors. Berkeley pwns Harvard in the majority of the 41 areas. Harvard pwns Berkeley in two of the three professional schools. So I adjusted Harvard from #4 in the 5 Areas, to co-#1 because it is so strong in Medicine/Law/MBA. I have no particular bias here, I'm a Stanford & UCLA guy.</p>
<p>Gellino, you reveal a very narrow bias in your post #594. </p>
<p>You seem to assume by research: "research in the sciences". Do you have no clue that Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences have their own research? What do you think these Ph.D. candidates do all day -- simply summarize all known publications about a subject and then publish an opinion on existing research to get their Ph.D.?</p>
<p>Phead128: Duke has never been, and will likely not be for the next 50 years, top ranked in research. Your focus must be on the USNWR UNDERGRAD rankings, which mean squat to academics.</p>
<p>What you all don't realize is that academics means squat to most people who go to college, especially at the undergraduate level. Most ambitious high schoolers are more concerned with gaining critical thinking/oral/written skills through coursework, networking with high-quality peers and getting a great job. So maybe we should stop focusing on what "academic circles" think and focus more on what the actual US population thinks.</p>
<p>EAD - by "actual US population", do you mean truck drivers and gardeners? I'm having trouble with the word "actual", which in a technical sense, means "current".</p>
<p>Kid enrolled as a freshman at Cornell, transferred as a sophomore to Northwestern, transferred as a junior to Penn, and now is likely out there somewhere trying to get into Wharton.</p>
<p>His reasons behind the moves? Prestige. That's it. Just wanted to go to the "best school" he could get into.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You actually know this clown? I remember bball, he used to post here until last year. This kid applied to transfer to Columbia 3 times since hs, got rejected all the time. Funny, many Cornell kids who don't like Cornell almost always end up transferring to UPenn. (largely bc it is the only school they can get into.)</p>
<p>My Professor in ROTC said he graduated from West Point. Now that has an incredibly prestigious ring to it and given how discipline every cadet and midshipmen are at West Point, Annapolis, Airforce academy. Those are like the type of schools that give you a "wow" factor.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What you all don't realize is that academics means squat to most people who go to college, especially at the undergraduate level.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The OP didn't say anything about undergraduate. So Duke isn't tippy-top in its prestige or in its grad programs--so you go on about undergraduate quality. Newsflash: prestige isn't about undergrad quality. The end.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most ambitious high schoolers
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</p>
<p>There you go again, speaking for an entire group...</p>
<p>
[quote]
So maybe we should stop focusing on what "academic circles" think and focus more on what the actual US population thinks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>We've already discussed the different types of prestige--in "academic circles" (among faculty and to grad schools), employers, lay people, and internationally. The only one that really doesn't have any significance is among lay people--so why you'd want to focus on that, I don't known.</p>
<p>It all depends on in which "world" you are asking which is more prestigious.</p>
<p>For example in the International Community Georgetown is very prestigious.
However not so in the medial/hard science community. Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Harvard reign far supreme in that realm.</p>
<p>SOme universities have risen to that top in everything and it is undisputed....Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford...etc.
but others are very prestigious in their own areas of specialty</p>
<p>I can't believe someone at the beginning of the thread had the balls to suggest that Vandy was more prestigious than Uchicago. ON what premise?</p>
<p>Hot girls? - yes
Music School- yes
School of education- yes</p>
<p>EVERYTHING ELSE? No way. Not only is Chicago superior in terms of undergrad prestige, but it dominates Vandy in the three major grad schools. There's no way Vandy is the "Harvard of the south." I hate it when Vandy students claim something like that- they're definitely not the best in the south, and it's debatable on whether they're even top 3 (I'd claim that Duke, Rice, Emory, and, if you include UVA as southern, are all more prestigious.) Heck, with the new molecular engineering program they're thinking of doing, I'd rather go to Uchicago even for engineering. </p>
<p>Finally, I lead you to nobel prize affiliation-</p>
<p>Phead128: My Professor in ROTC said he graduated from West Point. Now that has an incredibly prestigious ring to it and given how discipline every cadet and midshipmen are at West Point, Annapolis, Airforce academy. Those are like the type of schools that give you a "wow" factor.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't see any other way that these schools aren't top 15 in the U.S. The world might be a question, but they are the world's best 3 military academies- you can throw Britian's Royal Military Academy there or the Turkish Naval Academy on the same level.</p>
<p>But yeah, what makes a program special is its selectivity. No question on these three institutions. At my school, I've never met more purely driven people.</p>
<p>Dude, stop spamming for the Naval Academy. These schools give a wow factor only to the people that really know what they are. Heck, I personally didn't know Annapolis and the Naval Academy were the same thing until last year.Going to one of the service academies is one of the most honorable things you can do straight out of high school, but to say that they're "wow" schools, or even top 15 academically is a bit of a stretch.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Gellino, you reveal a very narrow bias in your post #594. </p>
<p>You seem to assume by research: "research in the sciences". Do you have no clue that Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences have their own research? What do you think these Ph.D. candidates do all day -- simply summarize all known publications about a subject and then publish an opinion on existing research to get their Ph.D.?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm sure the majority of students at Harvard and Yale are majoring in English and History because of the cutting edge research that is being done. And I'm the one with a narrow view?</p>
<p>The midwest schools, Chicago and NU, are under-rated on most of these posts and the Berkeleyites posting here have an over-inflated opinion of Berkeley's relative ranking. USNWR has Berkeley as the number 21 "best" university, right around the other very good state schools, UMich and UVa. That strikes me as just about right for berkeley's undergrad programs. (please dont bother with the usual USNWR protests).</p>
<p>Berkeley sucks. It isn't even one of the top 20 schools in northern California. It goes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Imaginary School #1</li>
<li>Imaginary School #2</li>
<li>Imaginary School #3</li>
<li>Imaginary School #4
...</li>
<li>Berkeley.</li>
</ol>
<p>beefs -- come back after you've been in business for awhile. Aside from CHYMPS, the service academies compete equally with all the top 20 -- but it's bifurcated -- some employers would strongly prefer an academy officer, some would strongly prefer a Top 20 and wouldn't touch anyone ever associated with the military with a ten foot pole. On average thought, its of equal value.</p>