Updated Top 20 Colleges by Prestige

College Search & Selection
1

I’ve seen other threads like this but they were from like 6 years ago so they’re kind of out dated. I want to know how you guys would rank the US News Top 20 schools by prestige. Here are the schools for reference:

Berkeley
Brown
CalTech
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
UChicago
UPenn
Vanderbilt
Wash U
Yale

I’ll start it off. I’m from Tennessee by the way:

  1. Harvard
  2. Princeton
  3. Stanford
  4. Yale
  5. MIT
  6. Columbia
  7. Duke
  8. Vanderbilt
  9. Brown
  10. Notre Dame
  11. CalTech
  12. Johns Hopkins
  13. Cornell
  14. UPenn
  15. Rice
  16. UChicago
  17. Northwestern
  18. Dartmouth
  19. Wash U
  20. Berkeley

Take into consideration that I’m Catholic and from the South when looking at the rankings, I know some of these schools are actually better than others, but that just how I’ve heard of them growing. Living near Nashville, Vanderbilt might actually even be a few spots higher. How would you guys rank the schools based off of what you’ve heard?

2

Emory is in the top 20. Georgetown could also be argued in the top 20.

3

@FreaksAndGeeks Not on the US News rankings. Those two are tied for 21st.

4

Looks good. Reverse it? Still fine. Randomize 'em? Great.

5

It is probably better to split them into the top 10 and the second 10. Your top 7 are ok in the top ten. Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Brown should be in the second 10. They should be replaced with Cal Tech, Penn and either UChicago or Dartmouth. Within each group of ten you can rank them as you see fit.

6

Berkeley? #20?
bruh, Berkeley better be at somewhere around 5-10

7

I’d remove Wash U

8

What’s with all the student rankings lately?

I prefer Hunt’s prestigiosity ranking myself.

9

@lost account, why would you remove Wash U?

10

So if I’m only ranking US New’s Top 20…
-----------Tier 1------------------

  1. Harvard
  2. Stanford
    3)Princeton
    4)MIT
    5)Yale
    ------------------Tier 2--------------------
  3. Berkeley
  4. Columbia
  5. Cornell
    9)Duke
    10)Penn
    11)UChicago
    -------------------Tier 3------------
  6. CalTech
  7. Johns Hopkins
  8. Dartmouth
    15)Northwestern
  9. Vanderbilt
    ------------Tier 4---------
  10. Notre Dame
  11. Rice
  12. Wash U
  13. Brown

I personally don’t think tier 4 should even be in the top 20 but whatever US News…

Changes from yours:

Berkeley +14
Cornell +5
UChicago +5
Penn +4
Dartmouth +4

Northwestern +2
MIT +1
Stanford +1

Harvard N/A
Wash U N/A

Princeton -1
Yale -1
Columbia -1
CalTech -1
Johns Hopkins -1
Duke -2
Rice -3

Notre Dame -7
Vanderbilt -8
Brown -11

I think larger schools gain a boost in prestige, so Berkeley and Cornell are more well-known than you think.

11

what is this hunt’s prestige that keeps coming up?

12

Prestigiosity, not prestige. Important distinction.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18399007/#Comment_18399007

13
  1. Harvard/ Stanford
  2. Princeton / Yale
  3. MIT
  4. Penn / Columbia
  5. U Chicago / Duke 10.Cal Tech
  6. Northwestern
  7. Johns Hopkins
  8. Brown
  9. Dartmouth
  10. Berkeley
  11. Cornell
  12. Vanderbilt
  13. University of Virginia / University of Michigan
  14. Notre Dame
  15. UCLA
  16. Rice
  17. Carnegie Mellon
  18. WUSTL
  19. North Carolina

Just for fun, here is my opinion.

14
  1. Stanford
  2. Princeton
  3. Harvard
  4. Yale
  5. Berkeley
  6. Columbia
  7. University of Michigan
  8. UCLA
  9. Duke
  10. University of Virginia
  11. Penn
  12. U Chicago
  13. University of North Carolina
  14. Johns Hopkins
  15. Northwestern
  16. Cornell
  17. Tufts
  18. Brown
  19. MIT
  20. Notre Dame
  21. UIUC
  22. Rice
  23. Carnegie Mellon
  24. WUSTL
  25. Georgetown
15

Isn’t the USNWR ranking intended to align with the notions of prestige within the US, averaged over all of the people who care about school prestige (and filling in schools that are not universally known)?

So why not just the overall USNWR ranking if you just want “general school prestige”?

Of course, whether that actually matters for a given student is another matter entirely.

16

@ucbalumnus "why not just the overall USNWR ranking if you just want “general school prestige”?

Because it would not be any fun, UCB. lol

17

Prestige according to whom? Prestige depends on region of the world, age group, instructional philosophy (intimacy vs depth and breadth of academic offerings, caring faculty vs world class faculty etc…), academic and professional speciality (engineers will have a very different opinion of prestige than historians), athletic preferences, athletic or religious affiliation in some cases. For the most part, the notion of prestige on this thread, and in CC in general, is very narrow (according to high school students, and very much influenced by the US News ranking) and does not reflect the much wider notion of prestige as it would manifest itself in the real world.

18

“Isn’t the USNWR ranking intended to align with the notions of prestige within the US, averaged over all of the people who care about school prestige (and filling in schools that are not universally known)?”

Is it aligned ucbalumnus? Even within the USNWR ranking, you have a slight variation between the overall ranking and the opinion of prestige according to academe (Peer Assessment rating). I think the USNWR overall ranking is a fair representation of prestige amongst high school students, and “impressionable parents”. But as I explained in the post above, I prestige is a high nuanced concept, and will mean different things to different people.

19

From the public’s perspective:

1). Harvard
2). Princeton/Yale
4). MIT
5). Stanford
6). Columbia/Duke
8).Cornell
9). Penn (often confused with Penn State)
10). Hopkins

From an academic’s perspective:

1). Caltech/Harvard
3). Princeton/Stanford/MIT
6). Columbia/Yale/Chicago
9). Cornell/Duke/Penn

From a sports fan’s perspective:

1). Stanford/Duke
3). Notre Dame/Northwestern
5). Vanderbilt

From a doctor’s perspective:

1). Harvard
2). Hopkins/UCSF
4). Stanford/Duke/Penn
7). Yale/Columbia
9). WUSTL

20

The major components of the US News rankings each offer a different spin on university prestige and academic quality. I would think the Guidance Counsellor ranking is the component most influenced by social prestige. Relative to the overall rankings, it bumps up Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and NYU; it bumps down UChicago, Caltech, and WUSTL.

I would think the Peer Assessment ranking is influenced by academic research output. Relative to the overall rankings, it bumps up Berkeley and Michigan strongly. It bumps down WUSTL, Penn, Duke and Dartmouth a bit.

The overall rankings temper the opinion poll biases by bringing in objective data that presumably reflect the quality of the undergraduate academic environment (class size data, graduation and retention rate data, student selectivity data, etc.) In my opinion, it does seem to be a slightly better representation of overall undergraduate academic quality than either the GC or Peer assessments (for arts & science education at the top 20-30 schools, anyway.)

Of course, your perspective is likely to color your choice of any “objective” measurements you use to validate your personal opinions. Nevertheless, most of the major college rankings (despite using fairly different methods) do point to pretty much the same set of top schools … just not in exactly the same order.