<p>among Academia, Duke is not AS highly regarded. for a school of its reputation, it doesn’t have too many noble prize winners either in faculty, alums, etc.</p>
<p>Bjomount, I’ve worked among more Dartmouth grads I respect for thirty years than grads of any other school. Along with Princeton, I consider it a truly elite undergrad education. My youngest son is now a freshman there. My older two go to Amherst and MIT which I consider equally elite, but DH (who went to Berkeley) and I (Wharton grad) agree we’d choose Dartmouth knowing what we know now.</p>
<p>My personal belief is that the peer group is the most important element of the college experience. Deep Springs with fewer resources than many but a truly exceptional student body would be more interesting to me than most schools with Gothic towers and every bell and whistle.</p>
<p>mariambaby3, Cornell is a respected university in most places that I’ve been to, but that is only true amongst the educated people. In the UK, where I’ve lived for 4 years, it can be considered respected by those who care, but I can’t say it’s very well known. But then again, only a handful of US schools are well-known in the UK. (Harvard is the most well-known in the UK and the gap between it and the 2nd most well-known is wide.) Based on personal experience, the next most respected and well-known US schools in the UK are: MIT, Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Princeton. The list sometimes ends there, when we talk about super elite academic institutions. But if you wish to extend the list, random names of schools would appear including Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, Duke, Caltech and Chicago. Dartmouth and Brown are less popular than the name of the organization/league in which they’re both members of (Ivy League.)</p>
<p>That is partially because so much international notoriety is due to graduate level work at the colleges in question, besides Harvard, for obvious reasons (which has the joy of being synonymous with first or best). People are less likely in the UK to hear “researchers at Dartmouth College discovered something” than “scientists at the University of California Berkeley have isolated a new gene”, so they become more familiar with the latter, rather than the former. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the latter is more elite than the former.</p>
<p>amciw, that’s beside the point. The very reason why I’m categorizing Berkeley as SUPER ELITE is because it is packed with high caliber professors, many of whom are the leaders of their respective fields. Because of that, and coupled with their state-of-the-art facilities, the school has produced, and certainly still able to produce world-class researches that the world has benefited and will benefit in the future. “small-time” schools that pretend to be “elite” like Dartmouth and Brown do NOT have the funding or the MONEY and the capacity to do what schools like Cal, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, UMich, CMU, Chicago and the like can do, so their alibi that they’re undergrad focused has been emphasized. But the truth is, they don’t have the capacity and the resources to become SUPER ELITE academic institutions. Let’s not kid ourselves. Yes, I do agree that they’re selective. But we’re not talking about the students here. We’re talking about academic institutions. And as far as the topic -academic institutions- goes, both Dartmouth and Brown as not SUPER ELITE. Again, they don’t have the capacity at the moment to become one. They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the facilities. They don’t have the right people to turn the school to
SUPER ELITE. And, certainly, they don’t have the mission and vision to become SUPER ELITE academic institutions. I guess they’re happy for what they are at the moment. But I think they’d be happier if they’d be able to achieve what the SUPER ELITE schools have achieved.</p>
<p>Let me see if this would help to define the original question. Suppose that you’re 5-10 years out of college and at a reception interacting with people who you’ve never met before. In a one-on-one conversation, the other person asks where you went to college and you answer. Which schools’ names would stop the conversation long enough for the other person to appear impressed and comment on the quality of the school?</p>
<p>^ Well, in reality, I do check the guy’s accomplishments. I don’t easily be “wowed” by mere school affiliation. (Maybe I was when I was still a college student.) I’ve met many Harvard grads that honestly don’t deserve my admiration. I know someone who graduated Physics from Princeton that would leave you scratching your head every time she talks. </p>
<p>But, in general, talking with someone from HYPSM, Caltech and West Point would make you more careful with what you’d say. (They don’t necessarily impress me. just that- I don’t want them to misinterpret me. There’s nothing especial about them, but I have this impression that many of them (but not all of them) are so full of themselves…self-righteous, conceited…) That’s based on my personal experience. I think some grads of elite schools are just as competitive as grads of HYPSM. Chicago and Columbia grads, for example, are just as competitive as HYPSM grads. At least, from my experience that’s true. Also, I would put more “value” to a Berkeley EECS degree than to a Yale/Princeton politics degree. I cannot in the life of me appreciate politics even if it’s from Harvard, Yale, Berkeley or Cambridge.</p>
<p>“Elite” is not a precise term, so it can be mean different things to different people. and personal cutoffs also differ.</p>
<p>The is a difference in nuance between: elite research institution, and “branding” a graduate as possibly an elite student/individual. One has more to do with what goes on at the university, and owes more to those who work for it as professors. The other has more to do with who has applied to it as undergrads, and has relatively less to do with what actually goes on there, from an academic/ research perspective. (not familiar with deep springs’ research productivity…)</p>
<p>So it all depends on what you’re trying to get at.</p>
<p>Aside from these diverse meanings, there is a continuum of academic accomplishment and selectivity; where somebody draws a line and says" elite" is up to them individually.
Many people have duke or Johns Hopkins as their reach school, many others wouldn’t remotely have the stats to apply, Whether that be for undergrad or grad/ professional schools. From their perspective, duke or Johns Hopkins are plenty “elite”. On the other hand, many alums of about 5 schools in this country probably confine that description to themselves and that little group of five only. Everybody else, they can decide for themselves what is"elite".</p>
<p>NU is Northwestern right?</p>
<p>What about top LACs?</p>
<p>RML, if you think about it, which school people at your average cocktail party know is just the opposite of what is truly elite. Elite by definition means only open to a few. The masses are typically unaware of things that are elite as they’ve had no access to them.</p>
<p>Brown, Dartmouth, Williams and Amherst are more elite than Berkeley and others on your list in many quantifiable measures–wealth of student body, those who have attended elite high schools and come from elite neighborhoods, the stats to get in, the type of jobs open to the average graduate to name a few. And there are far fewer grads from these schools making the diploma also more elite.</p>
<p>So to use the measures of fame and research output (which has little to do with the school’s wealth and everything to do with what the profs draw in) to assess the ‘eliteness’ of undergrad education makes no sense.</p>
<p>machiavelli2:</p>
<p>just as Deep Springs is an excellent school, but doesn’t ellicit any “WOW” responses, most great LACs go unnoticed by the general public and the world as a whole. Some exceptions include Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and maybe one or two others. Generally, these schools ellicit similar receptions as a school like Brown or Dartmouth. People know it’s good, but don’t know exactly what it’s good for.</p>
<p>Super elite: H S M C Cal</p>
<p>Elite: Y P </p>
<p>Also ran: rest of ivy (minus Brown & Dartmouth), Williams, Amherst (Swarthmore is too weird), Chicago, Northwestern.</p>
<p>Before I started college, I used to think Cornell is the worst ivy. Now I think it’s fit to bestow that honor upon Brown and Dartmouth. Somewhere, CayuraRed must have let out a big sigh of relief. =). Enjoy this gem from a new Dartmouth grad. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, if measured by endowment size, Dartmouth actually has more financial resources than Cal does. That’s right - more. And that’s on an absolute basis, and clearly if measured by an endowment per-capita basis, Dartmouth would exceed Berkeley by an order of magnitude.</p>
<p>…UC Berkeley’s endowment was $2.9 billion in 2007</p>
<p>[9.19.2009</a> - UC Berkeley launches major multi-year campaign to raise $3 billion](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/09/19_campaign.shtml]9.19.2009”>9.19.2009 - UC Berkeley launches major multi-year campaign to raise $3 billion)</p>
<p>On June 30, 2007, Dartmouths endowment value was $3.76 billion.</p>
<p>[Ask</a> Dartmouth - Administration](<a href=“Home | Dartmouth Admissions”>Home | Dartmouth Admissions)</p>
<p>As of June 30, 2007, Browns endowment was worth almost $2.7 billion</p>
<p>Brown’s endowment was almost as large as Berkeley’s.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boldly.brown.edu/lib/Endowment_June_2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.boldly.brown.edu/lib/Endowment_June_2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>CMU has a surprisingly small endowment.</p>
<p>*Carnegie Mellon University ranked 65th, surpassing the $1 billion mark. It had an endowment fund of $1.1 billion in 2007, *</p>
<p>[Pitt</a>, CMU endowments rose in '07 - Pittsburgh Business Times:](<a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2008/01/28/daily3.html]Pitt”>http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2008/01/28/daily3.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would actually argue that they do have the resources (or at least they did before the crash that has crushed many an endowment). How much money does it really take to develop a world-class research center? Granted, the natural sciences and engineering are tough because of the pricey equipment they require, but I don’t think it would cost very much to build a world-class humanities & social science faculty. Dartmouth could spend half a billion (yes, that’s billion with a ‘b’) and STILL have more money left over than Berkeley does.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So now a super-elite institution is solely defined as one that produces huge quantities of high quality research?</p>
<p>Because I have to say, I’d seriously question the facilities/resources question when it comes to being able to produce top research at Brown as well as the “people” comment, as we have many top scholars here. However, our mission and our model values the education side as much as the research side and therefore, as an academic institution we view ourselves as having a far more complete package-- we do a service both as producers of knowledge and as the training ground for the future producers of knowledge. Our view is that we’re not Brookhaven National Labs or Bell Labs or Los Alamos connected to some set of people paying us tuition to keep us running while they watch over our shoulder, but rather, that as an academic institution there is an educational mission as well.</p>
<p>There many top schools considered elite in all the circles that matter that believe in that mission as well. Look at the top graduate programs and the top scientists even at your listed super-elite schools and their undergraduate institutions and you’ll see a list that extends far beyond what you deemed super-elite, and one that often will take some schools you hold in less regard and show them to be far, far more valuable.</p>
<p>The question here was America’s Elite Colleges-- this is not an academic institution question, and your definition of academic institution truly is a matter of research production which is just one facet of the totality of an academic institution. Top colleges, elite colleges in the US are defined by their students and how those students interact with the world, either in academia or industry or civil service, once they leave their undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>So no, I still think you underrate many schools and overrate the large publics in your list. Like I said, unless you’re looking at graduate education and research output almost exclusively as a measure of the college can your list be seen as reasonable. Even in that case, you’ve got the right answer to the wrong question.</p>
<p>And no, I actually am positive that many people at these less than super-elite institutions have no interest in mimicking the powerhouses you mention. In fact, there is considerable push back right now at Brown against a highly popular president because some are perceiving her changes as adding up to an attempt to move Brown away from what makes us distinct and successful.</p>
<p>“Wealth of student body” is a poor proxy for eliteness. Many second-tier private schools have overwhelmingly wealthy student bodies, but they are hardly elite. The truly elite schools like HYPS try to promote socioeconomic diversity and recruit academically talented low-income students. The lesser Ivies and the LACs cannot be as generous with their financial aid so they will keep losing out on the best students, regardless of income. That’s hardly “elite.” </p>
<p>And say what you want about Berkeley, but at least it has a long history of offering a top education to people who otherwise could not afford one. The lesser Ivies and the LACs are now just trying to copy what Berkeley and HYPS started.</p>
<p>Well, first there are the AWESOME schools…</p>
<p>And then the EPIC ones…</p>
<p>and then the OK ones…</p>
<p>and I forgot the “You go to __? OMG your so clever!111!1!1!” schools at the very, very top…</p>
<p>but let’s not even mention those. :)</p>
<p>P.S. Sorry, lol… couldn’t resist. We could do with some humour, what with all the rejections and so forth coming out these few weeks.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t a pioneer for offering education to those who cannot afford it-- it just happens to be a public institution. All of the large land grant universities are just as much a pioneer as Berkeley, hell, Cornell’s state side certainly is as much a pioneer, etc. Private institutions had to build the financial capacity to be more open to students who couldn’t afford the price of admission because they don’t have state backing. To call the public schools pioneering is to give them credit where it’s not due-- give credit to the pioneers of a public education model in general and the state legislatures and governors who established those schools, not to the school itself.</p>
<p>That being said, if any system is truly pioneering it’s probably the Texas top 10% rule which has increased diversity (racial, geographic, socioeconomic) tremendously at the top UT schools and has produced student bodies which are more successful when they enter college than those admitted by other means.</p>
<p>Brown’s and Dartmouth’s endowments are bigger than Cal’s. But in term of operating expense per student, Cal isn’t that far behind. Plus, all major equipments and what not are already at Cal. Didn’t Intel donate some fab lab to Cal? Those intangible values are like securities the investment officers at Brown and Dartmouth are holding. They are worth something that aren’t easily converted to actual money. Sakky is crazy to think Brown can plunge 1/2 a billion down to improve their “world-class research center” They can’t and won’t.</p>
<p>The majority of the money at Dartmouth and to a lesser extent Brown, is spent to educate their undergrads. Not anywhere near the case at Berkeley and it’s public peers.</p>
<p>To address earlier posts, Elite is synonymous with exclusive. See below definition.</p>
<p>And as modest pointed out, state schools have the directive of providing affordable education to all, and are subsidized by tax payers. You can not compare Berkeley’s reaching out to the low income to what the ivies and other privates do or don’t do.</p>
<p>[elite:</a> Definition, Synonyms from Answers.com](<a href=“Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions”>Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions)</p>