<p>There is a difference between lay prestige and academic prestige. Schools like Chicago, Berkeley, and Cornell for example are academic powerhouses with current top-notch faculty and a legacy of important research across many fields but the common person would certainly not put them at the top of any prestige list. If you look at any respected university faculty list, you will see it populated with professors trained at these three schools, among others. On the other hand, there are several schools such as Georgetown, Dartmouth, Brown, and even Yale that hold loads of lay prestige, especially in New England, but do hold similar academic prestige because their research and standing in academia are simply not as strong.</p>
<p>Don't put Yale in the same category as Georgetown, Dartmouth, and Brown. It's one of the top research universities in the world. It's not at the level of Stanford, Harvard, or Berkeley in all of its graduate programs (though it holds its own pretty well in the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences), but it's a research powerhouse, which is in no way true of Georgetown or Dartmouth (and not really true for Brown).</p>
<p>I think he was referring to lack of research in the SCIENCES with emphasis on LACish education. Yale does not dominate the sciences, Yale's strengths are in the humanities. With that said, Yale somewhat fits into the GTown, Dartmouth, Brown group, with less research focus on sciences and more focus on undergraduate education.</p>
<p>You're aware that Yale is one of the top 5 or 6 best universities in the biological sciences and top 10-15 in the physical sciences, right? And that Georgetown and Dartmouth have exceptionally weak graduate programs in all areas, while Brown does in almost all areas? It's just not a good comparison - Yale is by any standard a research powerhouse. Unless you think that the only strong research universities in the country are Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT, Yale belongs in the category of exceptional research universities (in the sciences as well as in the humanities and social sciences). This idea that Yale is weak in the sciences (other than engineering) is a myth</p>
<p>And yeah, Yale focuses on undergrads. So does Princeton, but nobody puts them in the category of schools that are basically not research universities (if Dartmouth didn't have a business school and wasn't in the Ivy League, it might well be classified as a LAC).</p>
<p>When you put Yale in the same category as Brown, Dartmouth and GTown you really lose credibility. Believe it or not Princeton ranks 48th in the world, in research impact, suffice it to say, they've had better days... (HEACT) Here are some universities many Americans would consider "prestigious", but really aren't that notable to the rest of the world (and for good reason):</p>
<p>Brown, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Boston College, Notre Dame, Georgetown</p>
<p>Sebma your post would be true if we were living in the 1950s. Ecole Polytechnique in France barely competes with its namesake in Universite de Montreal in research output and I only know too many graduates from ETH...</p>
<p>USA (top-tier: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Duke, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins...) > UK (top-tier (not overall, overall the UK is weak): Cambridge and Oxford) > Canada (McGill, UofT) > Australia (ANU, Melbourne/Sydney) > France (Poly, Paris) > Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto) > Germany (Heidelberg, MPI-affiliated/Munich/TUM) > Sweden (Karolinska and Royal Inst. Tech)...</p>
<p>Honourable mentions: NUS, ETH Zurich, Moscow State, Hebrew University, Technion (and for undergrad many universities in the developing world like Sharif, IIT...)</p>
<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>Why is the UK weak overall? And you really place Tokyo behind all of those other universities?</p>
<p>To clarify, I did not mean to imply that Yale is at the same level as Brown, Dartmouth, or Georgetown. Yale is obviously a cut above the rest. What I mean is that compared to its lay prestige, Yale's academic prestige is somewhat less because several of its programs, in the basic sciences and engineering fields particularly, are weaker than its peers. Lay prestige is more analogous to undergrad rankings - no one would deny Yale a top spot. Academic prestige is more akin to grad school rankings and research productivity. Yale's academic strength in the humanities and social sciences matches its lay prestige. It's strength in the sciences - not as strongly. And I am in no way harboring any bias against Yale - I am a grad student there myself.</p>
<p>Re: Yale -- I do think it gets shorted for some reason at the grad school level.</p>
<p>From this link, you will see:NRC</a> Rankings</p>
<p>Arts/Humanities: #6
Biological Sciences: #6
Physical Sci/Math: #12
Soc. & Behav. Sci: #6
Engineering -- n/a
Law School: #1
Bus. School: #14
Med School: # 10</p>
<p>Taking these ranks and creating two rankings, one for Ph.D. Programs and one for the 3 Professional Schools, and doing this for all the top 30 schools, combining the Ph.D. rank and the Prof. School rank, Yale is #6. FYI, here are the combined ranks (Ph.D. rank + Professional Schools rank)</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
</ol>
<p>I think since Yale is well known for Humanities/Fine Arts, and Law School, and is smaller than Harvard or any other highly ranked Ph.D. + Prof. degree awarding institution, people naturally assume it must be humanities focused. This is clearly a poor assumption.</p>
<p>While we're on the subject of prestige, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that Princeton, the #2 ranked institution by NRC in Arts/Humanites Ph.D. programs, has NO LAW SCHOOL? NO MBA?</p>
<p>Is that not strange? If Princeton were to have such programs at a similar quality to its other graduate programs, its global prestige would be in the Top 5, in my view.</p>
<p>People don't short Yale. They only imply that it's no longer deserving of being considered with H/S because it no longer has the UG/Grad resume to compete. Because it is Yale, it's held to higher standards.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's true -- Princeton does have Woodrow Wilson which is the best of its kind. Even KSG.</p>
<p>You guys are seriously splitting hairs if you are trying to make a distinction between Yale and Harvard/Stanford.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They only imply that it's no longer deserving of being considered with H/S because it no longer has the UG/Grad resume to compete
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well maybe only in engineering and some sciences, which will rapidly improve given recent investments. However, it definitely has the UG (undergrad) resume to compete and even top those schools; Yale's focus IS undergrad while Stanford and Harvard are both clearly grad focused.</p>
<p>I'm a little sick of Yale and Stanford getting lumped in with Harvard, MIT and Caltech. Yale seems like the place where people would go who didn't get into HMCtch, and nobody I've met from Stanford has floored me...if you can't hack the cold weather, just admit it, but quit acting like your lack of meteorological toughness makes you Ivy-worthy.</p>
<p>Sam Lee my good Berkshire friend: granted, the Marine haircuts aren't aesthetically pleasing, but be aware they are such so that guys who are trying to kill them don't have something to grab onto.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yale seems like the place where people would go who didn't get into HMCtch
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Many people also apply to Yale EA out of sheer convenience.
35 percent choose Yale over Harvard.
59 percent choose Yale over MIT.</p>
<p>The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices</p>
<p>Tourguide446- How many people pick Cal Tech over Stanford or Yale?</p>
<p>^^ Nice edit =).</p>
<p>Tourguide has his opinions based on his experiences like we all do. Hard to argue with that... </p>
<p>Not like he's generalizing or anything?</p>
<p>This thread makes me lol.</p>
<p>haha I didn't want my duke-ness to show bourne.</p>
<p>We all have our faults.</p>