<p>1) Harvard
2) Stanford
2) Princeton
4) Yale
5) MIT
6) Berkeley
7) Columbia
7) Chicago
9) Penn
10) Caltech
10) Cornell
10) Duke
10) Johns Hopkins
10) Michigan
10) Northwestern
16) Brown
16) Dartmouth
16) Rice
19) UCLA
20) Wisconsin
21) Virginia
22) UNC-Chapel Hill
22) Illinois-Urbana Champaign
22) Vanderbilt
25) Notre Dame
25) U Texas Austin
25) U of Washington</p>
<p>My list of universities focusing mainly on a combination of overall wonderfulness of the undergrad experience and also opportunity for research and internship experience. Purely subjective. Omissions do not imply snubs. </p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Chicago
<ol>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>WUSTL</li>
<li>JHU</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UW-Madison</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Tufts/NYU</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<p>My List:</p>
<p>1) Princeton (best undergrad in IL, IMO)
2) Harvard
2) Stanford
4) Yale
5) Berkeley
5) MIT
7) Johns Hopkins
8) CalTech
9) Duke
9) Virginia
11) Michigan
12) Northwestern
13) Penn
13) Columbia
15) Cornell
16) UCLA
17) Notre Dame
18) Dartmouth
19) Chicago
20) Brown
20) Amherst
22) UNC-CH
22) 1Boston College
24) U-Washington
25) U-Wisconsin</p>
<p>I included LACs bc I think a few of them are among the best colleges anywhere.</p>
<p>UCLA > Notre Dame. Ha! Just b/c its grad schools are better does not mean ug is better too. ND provides smaller class sizes, less TA's, professors focused on ugs, personal attention, more seminars, etc. etc. It is an elite private school and better for ug than a huge public.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Wash U.</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
</ol>
<p>tonyspizza..are you serious..Chicago isn't in your top 25?</p>
<p>can someone tell me y publics like wisc or ucla are ahead of privates like ND?</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>WUSTL</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Virginia</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
</ol>
<p>my bad sheed...i didn't mean to do that...there are just so many colleges...figures i forget one</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Wash U.</li>
</ol>
<p>Here's an interesting link I got from another thread which shows the "winners" of head-to-head battles between colleges for admits:
The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices</p>
<p>Based on this, one can rank the following schools such that each school is preferred over every other school below it. Obviously, there are other top schools that are not included here.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Virginia</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
</ol>
<p>My top tenish:</p>
<p>These schools are the top of the list. They have small undergrad populations and lots of endowment money so they can afford to be the top of research and yet have a strong commitment at the undergrad level.
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Stanford
5. MIT</p>
<p>Drop </p>
<ol>
<li>Dartmouth - Arguably the most undergrad focused school on the list. Tons of endowment money, and the most spending on advising/ grants. Not as strong in research, however.</li>
<li>Columbia - Just after HYPS as a research institution but less money to commit to undergrads</li>
<li><p>Caltech - Tops in research, but narrow focus and not as wealthy as top tier</p></li>
<li><p>Duke - Small undergrad pop, not as undergrad focused, strong research</p></li>
<li><p>Brown - strong undergrad (not as strong as D though), minor research</p></li>
<li><p>Penn - weaker on undergrad (not that wealthy and doesn't spend a lot), but strong research.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Hopkins</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Rice
20.Vanderbilt</li>
</ol>
<p>princeton
havard
yale
stanford
mit
cal tech
chicago
columbia
dartmouth
penn
cornell
brown
jh
berkley
nw
georgetown
rice
vandy
mich
uva
tufts
w&m
brandeis
ucla
unc</p>
<p>This is my top 25 in terms of what schools I would go to if I got into every one. Nobody will agree with it, but it's my personal top:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>NYU</li>
<li>Pitt</li>
<li>Syracuse</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>BC</li>
<li>Rutgers</li>
<li>UConn</li>
<li>Florida</li>
<li>Maryland</li>
<li>Marquette</li>
</ol>
<p>...Yes, I have an unabashed East Coast and big city bias, but this is my honest list and I am probably the only one on this site who does not consult US News to come up with their own rankings.</p>
<p>The revealed preference ranking working paper top 25, from the same underlying data set mentioned in the</a> post above. </p>
<p>1 Harvard University
2 Caltech
3 Yale University
4 MIT
5 Stanford University
6 Princeton University
7 Brown University
8 Columbia University
9 Amherst College
10 Dartmouth
11 Wellesley College
12 University of Pennsylvania
13 University of Notre Dame
14 Swarthmore College
15 Cornell University
16 Georgetown University
17 Rice University
18 Williams College
19 Duke University
20 University of Virginia
21 Brigham Young University
22 Wesleyan University
23 Northwestern University
24 Pomona College
25 Georgia Institute of Technology </p>
<p>I think the data set must have oversampled students who prefer religiously affiliated rather than secular colleges. </p>
<p>After edit: I would prefer a different list of colleges, personally, and my son has his own preference list too that excludes some of those colleges entirely.</p>
<p>It’s always fun to read how others rank colleges, but I am often left scratching my head at some of the choices and I wonder what the individual methodology was for some of these. For my own list, I’m likewise sure that there are a few rankings, up and down, that will startle (some were even surprises to me!). </p>
<p>I am most interested in which colleges provide the best undergraduate experience for their students, in and out of the classroom. For instance, I believe that, for undergraduate students, the classroom teaching experience is far more important than the research reputation of a school. I also think what happens outside of the classroom can be very important in measuring the full undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>I based my rankings on a combination of factors:</p>
<p>40% USNWR Ranking
30% USNWR Classroom Teaching Ranking
25% Social Life ranking drawn from input on previous CC threads
5% Athletic Life ranking as measured by 2007 Directors Cup standings</p>
<p>Here are the scores for each UNDERGRADUATE college and their ranks:</p>
<p>Rank, Score, College</p>
<p>1 , 3.7 , Stanford
2 , 6.85 , Duke
3 , 7.55 , Princeton
4 , 12.25 , Yale
5 , 12.65 , Dartmouth
6 , 12.65 , Notre Dame
7 , 12.95 , Brown
8 , 13.35 , Harvard
9 , 13.75 , Northwestern
10 , 14.1 , Rice
11 , 14.15 , U Penn
12 , 14.25 , Vanderbilt
13 , 14.4 , U Virginia
14 , 17.6 , UC Berkeley
15 , 17.7 , U Chicago
16 , 17.8 , Cornell
17 , 18.2 , Caltech
18 , 18.5 , Columbia
19 , 18.6 , U North Carolina
20 , 18.85 , UCLA
21 , 18.95 , U Michigan
22 , 19.8 , USC
23 , 20.4 , Wake Forest
24 , 20.65 , Wash U
25 , 20.7 , Emory
26 , 20.8 , MIT
27 , 22.95 , Georgetown
28 , 22.95 , Boston Coll
29 , 23.1 , Johns Hopkins
30 , 24.75 , U Wisconsin</p>
<p>Hey beefs,</p>
<p>Why isn't Duke on your top 20?</p>
<p>Oh my bad, seriously that wasn't supposed to happen.</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Hopkins</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Rice
20.Vanderbilt</li>
</ol>
<p>Chicago does not get a lot of love in this thread. Ive seen it ranked tops for undergrad experience. It was ranked #1 for best undergrad experience by Princeton Review, and has smaller class sizes than basically every undergrad college at a research university.</p>
<p>For undergrad:</p>
<p>1 Harvard<br>
2 Yale
3 Princeton
4 Stanford
5 MIT
6 CalTech
7 Columbia
8 Penn
9 Amherst
10 Cornell
11 Brown
12 UC Berkeley
13 Duke
14 Dartmouth
15 U of Chicago
16 Johns Hopkins
17 Northwestern
18 Georgetown
19 U of Michigan
20 U of Virginia
21 UCLA
22 Notre Dame
23 Rice
24 Emory
25 Vanderbilt</p>