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<p>Actually, the “would be” is mistaken. ARE is more like it. The University of Paris is the Sorbonne, which is world-renowned (although perhaps not in the barbershops of Skokie), and the University of London is within the top ten world universities rankings (see Times survey). Places many of us have heard of are there somewhere classed with the University of Upsala or the University of Guelph – in otherwords, non-entities.</p>
<p>informative,</p>
<p>You do not need to re-iterate that they are not Ivies – that just perpetuates their supposed deference to that (athletic) league.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Tufts, But BC has never (or should not ever!) aspired to be “Ivy”. It does, after all, have its Jesuit heritage, which precedes even the oldest of the Ivies – yes, you know which one – by nearly a century. If BC does not adhere to its mission as a Jesuit college, then it is not the BC it used to be. (ahem, Georgetown…)</p>
<p>BC is called a Jesuit ivy because of JFK when he gave a speech there long ago. The new ivies are premised upon a newsweek article in 2005 (which did include Tufts).</p>
<p>The little ivies, however, exist as a contrast to the other ivies to distinguish liberal arts and small schools. Heck, the student population at Harvard is twice that of Tufts. Tufts, for its part, started out as a liberal arts and then became a national university. Just like the “ivy league” is really a sports league (because I don’t think anyone thinks that each ivy is better than every non-ivy) the NESCAC is a sports league in that realm.</p>
<p>Just food for thought. I agree there is one ivy league, but that’s the reason people use such a term (it includes the Amherst and Williams of the world).</p>
<p>No reason to get all crazy, yo. But back to the original point, it’s all regional.</p>
<p>She needs to join Collegeconfidential</p>
<p>Although all of those schools are good, the patients know those two in particular because they are Northeastern</p>
<p>This thread title made me laugh quite a bit.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest…</p>
<p>…if not for the term “Tufts Syndrome,” I would not even know a university called Tufts existed, and that term hardly reflects positively on the school. As for BC, it took me about three minutes of brainstorming before I realized it stood for Boston College–eh, at least I think that’s what it stands for.</p>
<p>IMHO, Tufts is no where near the top of the spectrum. I generally think of HYPSM, then Columbia and Penn, then the rest of the “Top 20”, including Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WUSTL, Northwestern, Brown, Cornell, UC Berkeley, etc. </p>
<p>Granted, I am a Southern/Midwestern girl. It is probably little surprise that BC and Tufts are virtually never mentioned where I live.</p>
<p>If you really want an accurate reflection of national prestige, I think the US News rankings do nicely. After all, they’re often criticized for ranking more based on prestige than actually important factors, e.g. academic excellence.</p>
<p>BC is an outstanding school, but the non-Ivy ivies are not on the same level as the actual ivies.</p>
<p>Tufts is a pretty good school too, even though no one has heard of it outside of the northeast.</p>
<p>BC and Tufts? I don’t think so… There are many schools that are ahead of those two i.e Georgetown, berkeley, Columbia, etc</p>
<p>I disagree that people haven’t heard of Tufts outside the Northeast. I would argue if you are educated, you have heard of Tufts (Heck even the high school counselor’s on US news puts Tufts tied with U of Chicago…disagree with the use high school counselors but they definitely are scattered across the US). Tufts recruits a lot of international students and a lot of students from California and Texas (I mean, 17,000 kids applied this year).</p>
<p>Plus, the Times Rankings ranked Tufts 53rd in the world! That’s based on “objective” criteria (whatever that means). They essentially get citations, etc. So it’s more premised upon academia “prestige.”</p>
<p>Plus, the new president of Tufts is (or rather was) the Pro Vice Chancellor at Oxford.</p>
<p>So I guess it depends on who you talk with. Some will definitely be like, “Tufts, what’s that?” But to be fair, I have heard people ask what Columbia and Upenn are. Then on the other hand, I have heard people say “wow, Tufts!” Makes sense, Tufts stats are on par with some ivies and definitely is giving itself a name in different areas (Wall Street, Computer Science, IR, Medical, whatever). So it’s pretty humorous.</p>
<p>Informative goes/went to BC and likes to bash Tufts and other schools whenever he can. Ignore his posts as they are typically inaccurate and promoting his own agenda to push BC and downgrade other colleges.</p>