Rank your top 20 colleges by Prestige.
Also note down where you come from
YAWN!!!
Yeah, let’s NOT.
Google it. No need to DIY.
I don’t think that such a ranking exercise would be particularly productive, but I would guess that the main differences would stem less from the various posters’/rankers’ geographical origins (i.e., “where you come from”) or even fields of interest than from their ages: The younger the ranker, the more likely his or her hierarchy to conform quite closely to the current USNWR lineup.
The primary exception might be Chinese and other East Asian rankers, for whom Stanford and UCB will always be the top two (tech + Pacific Rim + venture capital = the Gold Mountain).
Everyone’s top 20 is going to be different depending on what they want to study and their personal preferences. There are too many “top” colleges in the country to try and squeeze into 20 spots.
You could go by the US News Peer Assessment scores.
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2013/02/28/which-universities-are-ranked-highest-by-college-officials
That one is 6+ years old, but probably won’t have changed too much.
Everything changes including changes.
As tk21769 points out, the PA rating is probably a good indicator of “prestige” within academe. Below are the top 30 according to the latest PA rating:
- Harvard University 4.9
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9
- Princeton University 4.9
- Stanford University 4.9
- Yale University 4.8
- California Institute of Technology 4.7
- Columbia University 4.7
- University of California-Berkeley 4.7
- Cornell University 4.6
- Johns Hopkins University 4.6
- University of Chicago 4.6
- Duke University 4.5
- University of Pennsylvania 4.5
- Brown University 4.4
- Northwestern University 4.4
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 4.4
- Carnegie Mellon University 4.3
- Dartmouth College 4.3
- Georgia Institute of Technology 4.3
- University of California-Los Angeles 4.3
- University of Virginia 4.2
- Vanderbilt University 4.2
- Emory University 4.1
- Georgetown University 4.1
- Rice University 4.1
- University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 4.1
- University of Notre Dame 4.1
- University of Texas-Austin 4.1
- Washington University-St Louis 4.1
- University of Southern California 4.0
- University of Wisconsin-Madison 4.0
I believe the most recent official rankings are at http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17812358/#Comment_17812358 . The mH unit of measurement is milliHarvards.
Oh boy. Really, this is the most trite topic. There are dozens of different rankings. Some colleges have extremely prestigious programs that are better than anything at HYPSM, yet that college might not be anywhere near the “top 20”. There are many different types of colleges. And so on and so on…
What purpose will this post serve?
2014 peer rankings. Thank god we have that type of timely data. Lol.
I would expect the big schools with so many grads out there to do well. Kind of hard to say your own school isn’t very good.
What a stupid survey imho. How about peer assessments outside of academia and where people are responsible for signing paychecks too
Personally I don’t think academic elites surveying themselves in a circuitous echo chamber of eliteness means a hill of beans. Except to those who use it to reinforce their own life choices and college representing an important part of one’s self worth.
Also many of these peers where educated decades ago and their opinions get kind of hard coded into their belief systems. Lots has changed.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I’m in the “Let’s Not” camp. This question has been asked many times before (and generally ends up getting closed for debate). The OP can look through past threads on the topic as well as numerous rankings from other sources. Nothing to be gained by trying to reinvent the wheel. Closing thread.