<p>Combining the scores of these universities in all 4 league tables that measure the best universities for undergraduate in America, the result came as follows:</p>
<p>20 UNC 82.00
21 Virginia 81.50
22 Brown 81.25
23 Emory 81.00
24 Rice 80.25
25 William & Mary 80.25
26 Dartmouth 79.75
27 Brandeis 79.25 </p>
<p>28 Tufts 76.00
29 Georgetown 75.75
30 USC 75.50
31 NYU 74.00
32 CMU 73.75
33 Wake Forest 73.00 </p>
<p>Take note that I did not make this up; this is the result of the combination of the 4 major ranking league tables of American schools/universities.</p>
<p>30% - School Prestige
*10% - Ranking of the Best Colleges (National Colleges Ranking)
*10% - Peer Assessment Score
*10% - Best Colleges: High School Counselor Rankings of National Universities</p>
<p>This is the epitome of dumbness. Who made the arbitrary cut off between elite and super elite. Ignoring the methodology and claim that this measures the best undergraduates</p>
<p>The OP emphasized in the title post that he was looking for what other colleges could be considered as selective and prestigious as HYPSM. Caltech, Columbia and Penn are the only others that really rival HYPSM in undergraduate selectivity and prestige. It’s probably not as obvious as you say it is if this thread is already five pages long. </p>
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<p>It’s the name. University of Pennsylvania is a really awkward name that just too long and doesn’t sound as pretty or private as Stanford or Princeton. It prefers to be called Penn likely because the abbreviation of UPenn looks ugly on viewbooks, which leads to some further confusion. Chicago gets some of this as well.</p>
Alas, if only more universities were as mellifluous as Leland Stanford Junior University, William Marsh Rice University, Columbia University in the City of New York, and other elites!</p>
<p>“Caltech, Columbia and Penn are the only others that really rival HYPSM in undergraduate selectivity and prestige. It’s probably not as obvious as you say it is if this thread is already five pages long.”</p>
<p>No school rivals HYPSM in undergraduate selectivity and prestige. Dartmouth and Brown (despite Brown’s perpetual poor performance on US News) are more selective than Penn; both are arguably more prestigious as well. Columbia isn’t any more prestigious than Dartmouth, Brown, UChicago, or Duke. Therefore, the closest group after HYPSM are Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, and UChicago. (I have not considered the cases of top public schools; I don’t wish to be drawn into that debate. They may be in or out; I’m not advocating either). Anyone who tries to pick out a couple from the list and say that they are better than the rest simply illustrate ignorance or bias. Caltech should belong with HYPSM, but it is really an anomaly because it’s too different.</p>
<p>Ok, as the OP, I’ve decided. Hopefully my post will be the last one here.</p>
<p>1) HYPSM - Obviously most desired and the best. They have an acronym…
In order RIGHT after HYPSM:
2) Caltech, Columbia, Penn, Duke, UChicago, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Brown
I’ve put Caltech because its such an intense school. If it didn’t focus solely on math and science, I would have put it up with HYPSM. Columbia comes second because it’s selectivity, rankings, prestige are very high. Close enough to HYPSM status.
Penn comes next because its like Columbia’s little brother. However, its Wharton prestige gives it a strong edge as well. It comes second because it’s unfortunately confused with Penn State sometimes.
Duke comes next because it’s also another one of Columbia’s little brother in terms of selectivity, prestige, and research. The only downfall is that it doesn’t have as much Nobel Laurettes associated with it.
Which brings me to UChicago. While its selectivity and lack of engineering program isn’t as impressive, its collection of Nobel Laurettes are.
Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell come next because they’re Ivy League.
Next batch:
3) Northwestern, Georgetown, UCLA, UVA, UMich.</p>
<p>The only problem is whether to put Berkeley in (2) or (3). I’m still unconvinced. I might put it in a special (2.5) batch.</p>
Princeton used to be called, simply, the College of New Jersey (no relation to the current TCNJ). That doesn’t exactly flow either, but that didn’t hurt their rep back in the day.</p>
<p>The problem with MrPrince’s view on this is that s/he rates schools based solely on selectivity. Even school prestige for him/her is based SOLELY on selectivity. He disregards other factors such as school facilities, faculty caliber, school output, alumni products, etc…</p>
<p>MrPrince: Northwestern, Michigan and Berkeley are peer schools. They are just as good as, if not better in many areas than those schools you put in Group 2. NU, UMich and Cal do have strengths that those schools in your Group 2 can’t match, and vice versa. For example, Berkeley, UMich and Northwestern are superior to the lower-ranked Ivies in engineering. That’s just one example. Another example, those 3 schools are superior to the lower-ranked Ivies in sports achievements. (Have you watched one of the games of The Big Game?) That is why, it’s hard, and almost impossibly, if not stupid, to separate those schools and put them in different groups. the only schools that have clear advantages over the others are HYPSMC. All the rest are competing vigorously to improve their status so that one day they would join HYPSMC. Maybe time will come that the acronym HYPSMC will change. Maybe not. But at them moment, all the schools ranked below them - from Columbia to Northwestern - have valid reasons to be ranked close to HYPSMC, and again, Berkeley, Northwestern and Michigan are definitely some of those in the race.</p>
<p>Tier 1(closest to HYPSM) Columbia, CIT, UChicago, Duke, Berkeley Tier 2 (a step below HYPSM) Other Ivies, JHU, Georgetown, UMich, UVA
** tier 3 (other good schools to consider, not as good as tier 1/2)** Northwestern, WUSTL, Emory, Vanderbilt, Rice, UTAustin…</p>
<p>Tier 1 Schools have excellent academics, are very selective, focus on their undergrads and produce students that are highly competitive in the outside world.
Tier 2/3 is just listed fyi.</p>
<p>BTW: Berkeley is definitely similar to HYPSM. The analogy would be Harvard is to Yale like Stanford is to Berkeley. the differences are minute.</p>
<p>@scales1994
Vanderbilt has a relatively high acceptance rate compared to HYPSM.
JHU’s only well known for its medical side and that isn’t like HYPSM which is strong throughout.</p>
<p>^^Actually, I applaud your list RML. For the first time, I agree with you. The difference is that my cuttoff ends at 88.05 because the difference between 88.05 and 86.25 is significant…for me. Statistically speaking.</p>
<p>And I still stand by my claim to remove Berkeley and replace with Northwestern. But that’s just me. Numbers say otherwise. </p>
<p>I would also classify them using intelligent names for groups. You should think about doing so as well.</p>