Top 50 Colleges in America (undisputable ranking)

<p>George Washington University and American University?!?!</p>

<h2>Rochester/UC-SD/Brandeis/Boston College/Harvey Mudd/Lehigh/UIUC/Wisconsin (and maybe Reed and other NESCAC schools) have legitimate claims for the 50th spot. They could all be considered "Top 50" schools and the others would be 51-57, etc. GWU would make the list if we didn't add LACs.</h2>

<p>numberone, can you honestly say Bowdoin and W&L should be replaced with Purdue and St. Olaf?? Nathaniel Hawthorne is probably turning in his grave.</p>

<p>Lets make a bracket, like the ncaas. Then we can have seeds and argue about that. Then we can really find out what is the best. I'll start with the top 4 seeds. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT. Fill in the rest.</p>

<p>2 seeds would be Princeton (I think this should be #1) , Penn, Cal Tech, and Duke! 3 Seeds would be Dartmouth, Northwestern, Cornell, and Columbia....</p>

<p>And any comments on my earlier vote for George Washington and American...</p>

<p>Definitely Kenyon, Remove Bowdoin From The List!</p>

<p>Having 64 colleges (65 with a play-in game) will solve a lot of arguments here...Wisconsin, Brandeis, Illinois, and Reed would get in, no problem. Still kind of doubt American, GW, Purdue, and St. Olaf are contenders. St. Olaf is in a small town in frigid Minnesota, and it's not even the best college in its town... Still think all the Claremont colleges (Mudd, Pomona, McKenna, etc.) should go in as a group.</p>

<p>It's impossbile to seed without arguments. Even in the tournament people disagree with seeds. More importantly, what schools would you take out and what would you replace them with. Nevertheless, it is safe to say these colleges below are some of the best in the nation. </p>

<p>Number One Seeds – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford
Number Two Seeds – MIT, Caltech, Williams, Amherst
Number Three Seeds – Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia
Number Four Seeds – Brown, U Chicago, Swarthmore, John Hopkins
Number Five Seeds – Cornell, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Berkeley
Number Six Seeds – Wellesley, Pomona, Rice, Carleton
Number Seven Seeds – Georgetown, Notre Dame, Emory, Bowdoin
Number Eight Seeds – Haverford, UVA, Davidson, and Michigan
Number Nine Seeds – Middlebury, Vassar, Washington & Lee, UCLA
Number Ten Seeds – Claremont McKenna, Carnegie Mellon, Vassar, Tufts
Number Eleven Seeds – William and Mary, UNC, Grinnell, Colgate
Number Twelve Seeds – Hamilton, NYU, Harvey Mudd, Wake Forest
Number Thirteen Seeds – Brandeis, Rochester, Boston College, Smith
Number Fourteen Seeds – UC-San Diego, Lehigh, USC, Wisconsin
Number Fifteen Seeds – Colby, Bates, UIUC, Georgia Tech
Number Sixteen Seeds – Reed, Case, University of Washington, Tulane
Play-In Game – Whatever School I Missed or Your Favorite School</p>

<p>Ah, College2332 -- All very nice, but you omitted Wesleyan.</p>

<p>I don't see why Vassar shouldn't be in the top 50...it's getting close to being top 10 LAC on USNWR rankings, and in many other rankings, such as one based on seniors with multiple acceptances and their preferences, breaks top 50 even with LACs and Doctorate granting universities combined.</p>

<p>Oh, wait. Vassar was "seeded" twice (8 and 9 seed) in that list above. Should drop one to make room for another school!</p>

<p>Vassar is in there. In fact, I listed it twice by accident. Replace one of the Vassars with Wesleyan and we would have a field of 64.</p>

<p>I couldn't edit the other post so I have fixed the errors. Also -- nothing really seperates the seeds 5-12. They can be mixed up in so many different ways. I think we have included most of the schools that would go to the tournament though. But like in basketball, every year some school gets "snubbed". </p>

<p>Number One Seeds – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford
Number Two Seeds – MIT, Caltech, Williams, Amherst
Number Three Seeds – Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia
Number Four Seeds – Brown, U Chicago, Swarthmore, John Hopkins
Number Five Seeds – Cornell, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Wash U
Number Six Seeds – Wellesley, Pomona, Rice, Berkeley
Number Seven Seeds – Georgetown, Notre Dame, Emory, Carleton
Number Eight Seeds – Haverford, UVA, Davidson, and Bowdoin
Number Nine Seeds – Wesleyan, Michigan, Washington & Lee, UCLA
Number Ten Seeds – Claremont McKenna, Vassar, Middlebury, Tufts
Number Eleven Seeds – William and Mary, UNC, Grinnell, Carnegie Mellon
Number Twelve Seeds – Hamilton, NYU, Colgate, Wake Forest
Number Thirteen Seeds – Brandeis, Rochester, Boston College, Harvey Mudd
Number Fourteen Seeds – UC-San Diego, Lehigh, USC, Wisconsin
Number Fifteen Seeds – Colby, Bates, UIUC, Smith,
Number Sixteen Seeds – Reed, Case, Georgia Tech, Tulane
Play-In Game: Your school or any school I missed.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Number Sixteen Seeds – Reed

[/quote]
Actually, in terms of overall prestige, Reed should be a no. two seed along with Williams and Amherst. Just because they stopped sending scores to the biased US News doesn't mean it's not prestegious. ;)</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
Actually, in terms of overall prestige, Reed should be a no. two seed along with Williams and Amherst. Just because they stopped sending scores to the biased US News doesn't mean it's not prestegious.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>They can be the lowly seeded team that upsets everyone and makes it to the Elite Eight, like George Mason University this year! ;)</p>

<p>
[quote]
in terms of overall prestige, Reed should be a no. two seed

[/quote]
</p>

<p>it's so prestigious that noone has ever heard of it... though it should battle for a no. 1 seed for heavy drug users...</p>

<p>In terms of those seedings, I don't think it's a good idea mixing LACs with Research U's: they should be in separate tourneys (like NIT and NCAA)</p>

<p>
[quote]

it's so prestigious that noone has ever heard of it... though it should battle for a no. 1 seed for heavy drug users...

[/quote]
Yeah, like the average person has heard of Amherst or Williams, hahahaha. Get real.</p>

<p>Most intellectuals, however, do know about Reed, since it's one of top producers of PHD's, comparable to MIT, Yale, Caltech, etc.</p>

<p>Northeastern could be the #65 team, playing Boston University #64 in play-in game.</p>

<p>maybe you guys should just go to <a href="http://www.usnews.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com&lt;/a> ? lol</p>

<p>First of all, MIT is better than Yale. Second, why are Williams and Amherst seed 2. Theres no way they should be that high. And third, Berkeley should be a lot higher than that.</p>

<p>Brandeis, Rochester, UC-San Diego, Lehigh, USC, UIUC, Smith, Tulane over connecticut college and trinity college???? helllllllllllllll no!</p>

<p>The problem with the USNews rankings is that they take into account too many stats that have little to do with your undergrad experience (e.g., alumni giving %), and their peer assessment scores are skewed in favor of places with large and famous grad schools (look at Indiana U's peer assessment score). The letter grades given out to colleges at c011egepr0w1er.c0m seem to be much more focused on relevant aspects of the undergrad experience.</p>