You folks must still be in HS or college because in the workforce, nobody differentiates that minutely (and I’ve worked in prestige industries).
In the workforce:
@xDFFmp3 UChicago is clearly at the very top of your tier 2. Hopkins is clearly in tier 3. Brown in your tier 4.
My list with caveat that the top tiers are all amazing dream schools where the sky is the limit.
MIT and Caltech are sui generis.
Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford
Tier 2: Yale, Princeton, MIT
Tier 3: Caltech, Columbia, Chicago, Wharton
Tier 4: Penn (non-Wharton), Northwestern, Duke, Brown
Tier 5: Cornell, Dartmouth (lots of downward momentum lately), Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, Michigan
Two signals of how well a university is positioned for future growth and sustainment are endowment and financial responsibility, and in both Northwestern measures well:
http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/EndowmentFiles/2016-Endowment-Market-Values.pdf
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/data-center/school/composite-scores (NU has perfect 3.0 score)
Cal tech is at least the equal of mit. And if you are looking at stem engineering mit and cal tech are both top of the top and in a specialty group. Yale has a lot of down ward momentum.
@Chrchill I agree Caltech is a powerhouse, but MIT is much more diversified (e.g, economics and management) and justifies a higher tier imo. Also, what is the source of Yale’s downward trend?
Dartmouth’s is not a surprise:
http://www.dartblog.com/data/2017/04/013199.php
http://www.dartblog.com/data/2017/04/013185.php
http://www.dartblog.com/data/2017/04/013187.php
Tier 1a: Harvard, Stanford,
Tier1b:Yale, Princeton, MIT, (Caltech)
Tier 2: (Caltech), Columbia, Penn, Chicago
Tier 3a: Duke, Northwestern, Dartmouth
Tier 3b:Brown, Cornell, JHU
Based on overall prestige, rankings, admit preference, alumni prominence.
That said the biggest difference is between HYPSM and the rest. HYPSM is definitely the top tier by itself.
Penn is a clear step below chicago columbia and cal tech
@Chrchill, I find it hard to take anything you post seriously as all you do is state and debate rankings. Regurgitating statistics is not a science.
Nobody forces you to take it seriously. And no I don’t just post statistics.
Jesus I should’ve never gotten in this. In the end does any of this arguing over small grains of prestige and vanity matter? It’s quite obnoxious. They’re all great colleges with extreme prestige. What more prestige do you want? What matters more is what you as an individual get out of your education, and where you take yourself with it.
Moreover, this OP numerous response asking for precisely that.
This thread is filled with an excessive level of elitist and vanity problems. There are literally people who are struggling to make a living, manage debt and finances, or take care of family, and here we are fighting over tippity top first world problems because you’re not satisfied on the way people view you and your alma mater.
Moreover, this OP numerous response asking for precisely that.
See fo m my 42. “My list with caveat that the top tiers are all amazing dream schools where the sky is the limit.”
Perhaps you succumb to too much drama …
@Chrchill Maybe that is your opinion, and you can tell yourself that all you want. But facts show otherwise.
You also seem to think Chicago is on the same level as Yale…just saying…
Yale is the top Humanities school in the nation, or at least the top Ivy for Humanities. Just because their Engineering and CS majors are still developing doesn’t mean they aren’t elite in just about everything else.
Ranking overall undergraduate academics/experience, private universities:
1a. Princeton, Yale (more undergrad focus than…)
1b. Harvard, MIT, Stanford
2. Caltech, Chicago, Columbia, Penn
3. Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, JHU, Northwestern
4. CMU, Emory, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Rice, Vandy, Wash U
5a. NYU, Tufts, USC
5b. Boston College, Boston U, Brandeis, Case Western, Lehigh, URochester, Tulane, Wake Forest…
(maybe I ought to get rid of a and b in tiers 1 and 5… meh, i’ll never recover the 10 minutes i spent on that. hehe)
@Penn95 Ultimately all these are subjective judgments and we all have our opinions. USNWR Also seems to think that Chicago is the same level as Yale. I think that @prezbucky has a creative approach. I would reverse their 1 group and put Penn in 3. Also do not believe Cornell and a Brown are same level as 3 group. As. Keys before , this is all hair splitting at the top 3 group end. It also depends, what one is looking for. MIT and Caltech are in their own exalted top for applied science and engineering. For those field, they are unrivaled. In social science and humanities, they would not make tier 4. Cannot compare apples and oranges.
People also seem to forget Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA and UVA. B and M are top schools.