What it should be
Harvard
Princeton
Columbia
Yale
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Chicago
At least in the town where I live, students seem to accept admissions in the following order with cross admits.
Harvard/Stanford
MIT
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Duke/Penn
Chicago/Hopkins
Not able to comments on Caltech as it attracts very tech.oriented students for whom it will be MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley in that order. Of course if someone gets into SCS at CMU that may be their first choice.
Of course, this is what I observe - nothing to do with how US news rankings go.
Continuing on the above email, my sample size is very small over the past few years and based on the information I heard from my daughter who was a student in the high school. Some did choose Cornell and Dartmouth it seemed because of their IVY league status over some of the non-ivies above. Other schools may be very different…
It looks the order of preference at highly competitive high schools is close to the @MusicToTheEars list above.
For a generic student I would suggest the following.
If it is a decent fit, focus on the highest group you are admitted to.
Within a group, go for fit. I would waste zero brain cells trying to sort within these groups.
Group 1 (alphabetical)
Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Group 2 (alphabetical)
Cal Tech
Chicago
Columbia
Duke
Penn
Princeton
Yale
Group 3 (alphabetical)
Berkeley
Brown
Cornell
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rice
Vandy
@Much2learn - if we are talking about undergrad institutions, I’d suggest a sub group for Group 2 and add Rice / Vandy to another group along with a few others. I think the gap between 1 and 2A is rather significant and I think the gap between 2B and 3 is pretty significant too. There are a couple schools that are border-line for different groups.
Group 1 (alphabetical)
Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Yale
Group 2A (alphabetical)
Cal Tech
Chicago
Columbia
Duke
Penn
Group 2B (alphabetical)
Brown
Cornell
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Group 3 (alphabetical)
Carnegie Mellon
Georgetown
Notre Dame
Rice
UC Berkeley
UMichigan
UVA
Vandy
WashU
Why is ucla being disregarded when they’re higher ranked than most universities in group 3. Does the new rankings come out promptly at midnight? Is there a timeframe?
In your group 1 think the gap between Harvard, Stanford and MIT and 2A is significant. However, I see the 2A pulling a decent number of students away from Princeton and Yale.
I agree that there will be a fair amount of overlap between 2A and 2B, and a some overlap between 2B and 3 also.
I agree with @ylfsef that I would add UCLA to group 3.
tufts in 3
I really do not see any schools in 2A pulling students away from Princeton and Yale except CalTech which will attract engineering and may be physics students. There is a chance that 2B pulls from 2A depending on the major. For example, except for CalTech in 2A, for engineering students, Cornell in 2B may be a better option than other 2A schools. For neuroscience and molecular/cell biology, Hopkins may be a better option than some of the 2A schools. For international relations, Hopkins in 2B or Georgetown in 3 may be a better option than certain 2A schools and so on. Don’t know much about the strengths of other 2B schools (Dartmouth, Brown, NW) to comment.
I say “may be” 
Do not want to get into trouble with the supporters of 2A schools! Peace.
You guys are funny. Its bad enough to deal with the actual rankings.
yes it always devolves into people making their own rankings up…btw its Harvard, then the rest…
And I thought some of us were trying to help folks like @ThankYouforHelp find a way to deal with the actual rankings when they come out tomorrow - by pointing out there is no such thing as “absolute” ranking! Oh well, at least we provided some laughs
2018 rankings have now gone live on the US News website.
Top 10 National Universities (ties indicated by “=”):
- Princeton
- Harvard
=3. UChicago
=3. Yale
=5. Columbia
=5. MIT
=5. Stanford - Penn
- Duke
- CalTech
Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges (ties indicated by “=”):
- Williams
- Amherst
=3. Bowdoin
=3. Swarthmore
=3. Wellesley
=6. Middlebury
=6. Pomona
=8. Carleton
=8. Claremont McKenna
=10. Davidson
=10. Washington & Lee