<p>Absolutely perfect. :)</p>
<p>Although I just cannot help but want to see Rice be in that A- section. 5:1 student faculty ratio, great music dept., great professors, good research opportunities with Texas Medical Center, etc. But when I se Umich in B+, I feel as though Rice is in good company.</p>
<p>We could always switch over to this system and complain about how a "B+" school should be an "A-" or even "A" school.</p>
<p>while these groupings are somewhat accurate or what-not, the U of Chicago academically speaking is probably better than about 5-6 of the ivies.</p>
<p>and what is sooooo good about Cal-Tech. Can someone plz explain. No one talks about this school even in California. I am serious, half the ppl think its like one of those tech schools that you can enroll in for like 5,000 a year. I mean, if you want to go to med school, law school, business school, is Cal Tech a good school.</p>
<p>It's an engineering school, so you just answered your own question. It has the highest SAT avg. in the country and they excel in applied (or was it natural?) sciences over anyone else. Their workload is also quite ridiculously hard as well. By the way, who the hell cares what Californians think of a school? Half of the people in Texas don't even know Dartmouth is an Ivy. Does that stop Dartmouth from being one of the best schools in the country? No.</p>
<p>devil, i don't want to get into an argument. However, my pt is that how is Cal Tech classified with the top of the tops like Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Harvard when it is basically an engineering powerhouse, but nothing much more. MIT in someways is the same, but is top notch in like econ and other humanities.</p>
<p>move Rice up . . .</p>
<p>No, VANDERBILT is a B+!!</p>
<p>"However, my pt is that how is Cal Tech classified with the top of the tops like Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Harvard when it is basically an engineering powerhouse..."</p>
<p>First and foremost, Columbia is not classified in this group IMO....Caltech is. Second off, you made this announcement with what evidence? Yes, the evidence was that it is not as prestigious because people in Calli do not classify it as such. I confute that because normal people are irrelevant. I am not arguing with you, I am only trying to correct you by giving my POV.</p>
<p>Some random tidbits:</p>
<p>Nobel Prize: 30 recipients, 31 prizes
Crafoord Prize: 5 recipients
National Medal of Science: 47 recipients
National Medal of Technology: 10 recipients
California Scientist of the Year: 14 recipients
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 77 faculty
Member, National Academy of Sciences: 67 faculty
Member, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine: 3 faculty
Member, National Academy of Engineering: 30 faculty</p>
<p>Great...no?:)</p>
<p>I agree, Cal Tech is madd legit son.</p>
<p>But anyways, why are Duke and Stanford not on the same level...? </p>
<p>And how did WUSTL get no love?</p>
<p><em>thumbsup</em> on the grading idea. i like where the UCs are placed.</p>
<p>why aren't duke and stanford the same level??
b/c Stanford is overall the more prestigious of the two.</p>
<p>Devil, CalTech is not in the same league as H,M,P,S and Y. What do Nobel Prizes have to do with anything? Chicago and Columbia have 80 recipients each. CalTech is just too limited. It has no humanities, no social sciences, no Business, not arts, no music and no athletes. In short, it is an institute. Being good in 10 subjects is not enough to secure a university a spot among the top 5. I would certainly rank CalTech among the top 15, but not among the top 5.</p>
<p>And Cal, Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Michigan and Northwestern are as good as Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Penn. Maybe not to you, but to people who actual know their universities(like researchers, professors, university deans and presidents, corporate recruiters etc...)</p>
<p>Finally, comparing LACs to research universities is not possible. A school with fewer than 2,000 undergrads and no graduate programs cannot be compared to schools with over 4,000 undergrads and graduate programs. The only notable exception is Dartmouth, which is actually a LAC, despite having a couple of small graduate programs.</p>
<p>That is true. Duke is just not there yet. I think in another 5-10 years it could reach that level IF they keep progressing at the rate that they have been. HYPMSCaltech are the best schools in this country. Period. Then, there are those schools that are sort of in a purgatory between these schools, and the next tier (i.e. Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, etc.)</p>
<p>Do you see why it's so hard to put universities into numbers? How do you rank broad and shallow universities against narrow and deep universities?</p>
<p>Sorry for the double post, but slipper grouped Caltech in the first tier. Is he not "in the know" about universities? I don't want to start this again, but please stop countering me with the bastion that everyone "in the know" is on your side. IMO I DO believe Caltech is on that level (Usnews aside). </p>
<p>"And Cal, Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Michigan and Northwestern are as good as Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Penn. Maybe not to you, but to people who actual know their universities(like researchers, professors, university deans and presidents, corporate recruiters etc...)"</p>
<p>I agree with this statement completely save for a few of them. That is my opinion...you have yours.</p>
<p>"I would certainly rank CalTech among the top 15, but not among the top 5."
For the first time, you actually used the word "I." This elucidates the fact that it is YOUR opinion. I DO believe Caltech is top 6 (the other five being HYPMS). Just because a high level of specialization is involved, does not denegrade the strength of the place as a whole. I would not dare group Caltech out of the top 10 for sure. Which universities besides HYPMS are ahead? Michigan? I say that out of humor.</p>
<p>COLUMBIA.
10 characters</p>
<p>Very true, chowdy! Besides, you never know if you're measuring undergraduate or graduate programs when you rank universities (schools like Berkeley and Harvard are the best for grad school-but undergrad?). Is there really that much difference between most of the top schools in terms of undergraduate education? I doubt it. </p>
<p>As a side note, if any school deserves to be with HYPSM, it's Chicago. Besides being tops in numerous fields, it's racked up more Nobel prizes than any other school (except Cambridge), and 90% of those laureates actually teach undergrads-in small classes.</p>
<p>Alexander just told me that prize winners are irrelevant in determing prestige. Why? Who knows. If Caltech people weren't out doing cool things like changing Hollywood signs, they would be defending themselves. :)</p>
<p>Devil, when I said "I would not rank CalTech among the top 5", I meant it as a recommendation to others. You know, like when somebody tell you "I would not do that if I were you". I do not rank universities personally, nor have I ever heard anybody claim that CalTech is as complete as Stanford or Harvard. Maybe you can shed some light as to why you think CalTech is one of the top 5 universities in the country. </p>
<p>And when I state that Cal, Chicago, Cornell etc... are as good as CalTech, Columbia, Dartmouth etc..., I was not stating an opinion. I was stating the combined opinion of the country's leading academics, educators, intellects and industrialists. The Peer assessment scores and recruiters' ratings of universities. My opinion, just as yours and Slippers, is completely irrelevant. The difference between you and I is that you make up your own rankings. I do not profess to have such insight I merely state what the experts say.</p>