<p>You all have your bases, I have mine.</p>
<p>If by backwards, you mean forwards, then sure. You seem bitter about something...perhaps you know you can't get in to Stanford? Stanford is hard to get into, yes you're right there. You're also right that there's a substantial amount of rich white folk. However, I am not rich nor white, and most of the students there are both rich and white. Stanford offers a more personalized experience than UC's, including Berkeley. It has top-notch academics, research, faculty, the works. The handheld prettiness you speak of ...I'm not sure what you mean by that so I'll pretend you didn't say that. While grade inflation is an issue, a large amount of work is still required..it's not like people are just sitting there doing nothing and recieving A's for it...and yeah crazymaster is right-everyone does have their own taste in their number 1 college...so let's not attack everyone else's choice(yeah I'll shut up too).</p>
<p>If you want to rank by what students think, then you should look at the Prowl'r College Guide rankings.</p>
<p>i would put dartmouth higher</p>
<p>Amused: I agree with Illinois as #1 (hah). I mean, it truly is the full package for a college experience.</p>
<p>you guys dont give cornell enough credit. it has one of the best science programs in the world. it teaches based on theory which is the style taught to most of the people you hear of often (einstein etc). at cornell you work with professors in research and also have great training. cornell's science majors are often more successful than the other ivies' because cornell is undoubtedly the most science-oriented. granted, if you major is not in science other colleges would be better. but cornell has the most majors in science of all the ivies and is by far the best for research. here's my top 7 FOR SCIENCE:</p>
<p>1: Princeton
2:Cornell
3:Stanford
4:MIT
5:CIT
6:UPENN
7:Columbia</p>
<p>with the rest of the ivies (other than harvard and yale who are famous for humanities) making up the next several.</p>
<p>for science? you crazy? MIT/CIT at 4 / 5 .... def 1/2 dont know which order however</p>
<p>dont be fooled by cornell's acceptance rate (30%) that's only because they can afford to fit the many qualified applicants into their school. if you look at the program they offer vs. the other schools, you notice cornell's obvious and true superiority in science. i have researched for years into which school is the best for my major (physics) im a sophomore now and find cornell to be the wisest choice for science.</p>
<p>soph. in high school that is.</p>
<p>haha i think amused was misinformed, it should just be academics. but march madness is next week so it should get exciting!</p>
<p>but lets try and keep the board on topic.</p>
<p>If anyones looking to choose a school for a reason other than that you cant get in, PRs top ten list of Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates includes some interesting entries:</p>
<ol>
<li> University of Chicago</li>
<li> Marlboro College</li>
<li> Reed College</li>
<li> St. John's College (MD)</li>
<li> Swarthmore College</li>
<li> Haverford College</li>
<li> St. John's College (NM)</li>
<li> Harvey Mudd College</li>
<li> Sarah Lawrence College</li>
<li> Carleton College</li>
</ol>
<p>But the college ranking service I find most useful is this one:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rankyourcollege.com/ranking.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.rankyourcollege.com/ranking.html</a></p>
<p>My Top 30:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale </li>
<li>Stanford </li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Upenn</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Columbia </li>
<li>Northwestern </li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
<li>Cornell </li>
<li>John Hopkins </li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Wash U</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Emory </li>
<li>Wake </li>
<li>UC-Berk</li>
<li>UVA </li>
<li>New York University </li>
<li>Tufts </li>
<li>Michigan<br></li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon </li>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>William and Mary</li>
</ol>
<p>what about the military academies? WESTPOINT AND ANNAPOLIS MAYBE? their acceptance rate is like 10%</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Berkely</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>CIT</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>U Chicago</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>NWestern</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>
<p>If I were to rank based on selectivity, it would look different. Berkley, UChicago and Cornell would drop alot.</p>
<p>My Top 20 :</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Wash U</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>UVA</li>
</ol>
<p>lol wake above cmu? and @jaug it seems like you're peddlin' for columbia.. . ;)</p>
<p>who wants to go to the military? lol</p>
<p>berkeley is not known to be better than stanford in cali, everyone in cali knows berkeley is the stanford-reject school</p>
<p>"but lets try and keep the board on topic."</p>
<p>This is the very thing I was trying to prevent. I hate rankings obsessed prestige whores.</p>
<p>shrek, you're from arizona, im from san francisco, and we do not know berkeley as the stanford reject school. We know berkeley as the affordable school. Anybody hear who knows you went to cal probably assumes that you made yourself something out of middle or lower class roots. The stereotype of stanford is of a handheld rich boy. Employers have these biases too, if you are trying to get employed in cali.
With that said, stanford does have more respect for things like pre-med and pre-law than berk, but certainly theres no comparison with engineerings, berkeley is one of top 3 in the world, whereas stanford might not even crack the top 15.</p>