<p>If prestige is based merely off familiarity and being mentioned in movies / TV / etc., then it is MEANINGLESS. It is merely familiarity and top-of-mind awareness. At least then be honest and say that the measure is which schools have broadest top of mind awareness, rather than say which schools are most prestigious. These are two entirely different things.</p>
<p>I’m not measuring top of the mind awareness. It should be obvious that some very well-known schools did poorly in the rankings. Prestige is the combination of awareness and esteem. As I’ve said, media mentions are just a proxy, but I am of the opinion, that they are a very good one, and I think that most people would agree that the rankings produced are basically what you would expect.</p>
<p>“I think that movies and media are adding up to school’s prestige.”</p>
<p>Transformers 2 was filmed in UPenn’s campus. Not gonna lie, that’s what got me interested in checking it out and learning about it. I’m sure it’s helped other people learn about it too</p>
<p>No, prestige is not a combination of broad awareness and esteem. It is esteem among those who count. The masses don’t have taste or knowledge.</p>
<p>I would add Caltech, Cornell, Georgetown, Michigan and Notre Dame to universities often mentioned in movies. For example, Michigan was mentioned in over 20 movies, including the following:</p>
<p>Air Force One
American Pie
Big Chill
Eyes Wide Shut
Good Will Hunting
The Program
Waterboy</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I agree with you. I am not impressed if a university is prestigious among 18 or 19 year old children or among the averagely educated masses. I am far more interested in what faculty at top universities, leading intellectuals and corporate leaders think. The PA of the USNWR is a pretty good indication of what faculty and leading intectuals think…and matches potatoes prestige ranking relatively well. There is no ptrestige ranking that reflects the opinion of corporate leaders.</p>
<p>Movies may play a marginal role in increasing university prestige among the broad public, but only some of them. Movies where the prestige and quality are a plot point tend to, I think slightly generate college prestige. For example, in the movie 21, the intelligence of MIT students and the desirability of going to Harvard Medical School are both significant plot points. This may do something for Harvard’s prestige. Similarly, in The Girl Next Door, the protagonist is depicted as very smart and one of his key desires is to go to Georgetown. This may do something for Georgetown’s prestige, though again only with the broad public. On the other hand, a movie like the Exorcist, set and filmed at and around Georgetown, doesn’t do much to boost Georgetown’s prestige. I’d argue that a film like Legally Blonde doesn’t do much for Harvard, but we could debate that. A lot of college movies are all about drinking and sex; being depicted in those probably has, if anything, a negative effect on prestige - which is probably why many are set at fictional universities.</p>
<p>On the whole, though, I don’t think that which universities are in the movies says much about prestige. If anything, it reflects rather than defines prestige.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I disagree. What does the president of Davidson College in NC, say, know about what is going on at Drake in Iowa? What does the president of Purdue know about what’s going on at Occidental? To some extent, even those rankings reflect “Well, I’m being asked to rate Harvard, so it’s got to be good” or “I’ve never heard of Drake” as opposed to any kind of real awareness or knowledge.</p>
<p>Texas is not in the top 20. Northwestern should be higher.</p>
<p>quote: “None of those schools has enough Ph.D. production”</p>
<p>Sad commentary on education.</p>
<p>I have to agree w pgirl re PA scores. They seem to be unverifiable-surveys filled out by administration folks rather than academics (though some may have been academics in the past). It’s sort of the light weight academic barometer. I prefer to know the amount of actual scholarly production or faculty awards like Fulbrights, McArthurs and Nobels. And membership in the national academies. It’s important to separate marketing from academic prestige.</p>
<p>
Actually there is, but some people argued that it is primarily based on postgrad.</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> A simple overview | Top Universities](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/methodology/simple-overview]Methodology:”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/methodology/simple-overview)</p>
<p>Employer Review</p>
<p>Similar to the Academic Peer Review, this indicator is based on a global online survey, this time distributed to employers. Results are again based on three years worth of “latest response” data. Geographical weightings are again applied to ensure fair representation from key regions of the world.</p>
<p>Here’s the top 15</p>
<p>1 Harvard
2 MIT
3 Stanford
4 Berkeley
5 Yale
6 Cornell
7 Chicago
8 Michigan
9 Columbia
10 Duke
11 UPenn
12 UCLA
13 Princeton
14 CMU
15 Northwestern</p>
<p>West Point must be in the list of schools often mentioned on media, movies and tv.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the ranking of prestige in academia (medical school, law school, research, the sciences, graduate school, university leadership, teaching, etc) which may differ from general, laymen prestige. </p>
<p>Here is my version of prestige in academia:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard</p></li>
<li><p>MIT and Caltech</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford</p></li>
<li><p>Yale</p></li>
<li><p>Washington University in St. Louis</p></li>
<li><p>University of Chicago</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, Berkeley</p></li>
<li><p>Duke</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell</p></li>
<li><p>Brown</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is going off the opinions of key people in academia in my life (doctors, researchers, professors at local university) as well as from noting the authors of scientific publications (I know, I’m a nerd).</p>
<p>Interestingly enough- do you guys remember that #1 dream school thread that was here awhile back? I decided to look at the results so far and compiled a list of the schools that had most votes on CC. It’s interesting that the list contains all the topmost prestigious universities, but at the same time, certain parts of the order is surprising (I knew that Georgetown is a great school, but didn’t know it was so coveted!)</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford University
2. Cornell University</li>
<li>Columbia University
Yale University
4. Brown University
Massabchusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Princeton University
**6. University of California Berkeley **</li>
<li>Dartmouth College
8. Georgetown University
University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Harvard University
**10. Washington University in St. Louis **
11-15. Duke, Pomona, Rice, UVA, etc.</li>
</ol>
<p>The list had at least 100 universities, and these were at the very top (I think further down there was Duke, Pomona, UVA, Rice, and a bunch of other top schools as well)</p>
<p>muchoschocolate, when discussing prestige in academe, it is hard to justify including Brown, Duke and WUSTL while leaving out powerhouses such as Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Northwestern, Penn and Princeton.</p>
<p>I agree with Alexander. </p>
<p>Here’s the Top 15 top academics according to the Times:</p>
<p>1 Harvard
2 berkeley
3 Stanford
4 MIT
5 Princeton
6 Yale
7 Chicago
8 Cornell
9 Columbia
10 Caltech
11 michigan
12 JHU
13 ucsd
14 UPenn
15 Duke</p>
<p>Repeating a survey of “academics” borders on navel gazing. How about something measurable other than unverifiable opinion surveys? </p>
<p><a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf</a></p>