<p>Or most prestigious?</p>
<p>“Best” depends on many factors, such as what your preferred criteria are (major subject, cost of attendance, size, social scene, etc.). Even “prestigious” varies by region.</p>
<p>Broadly for undergrad I would say Northwestern or UChicago.</p>
<p>LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES:
Carleton College
Grinnell College
Macalester College
Oberlin College
Kenyon College</p>
<p>PRIVATE UNVERSITIES:
University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Washington University-St Louis
University of Notre Dame</p>
<p>PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES:
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
The rest of the Big 10!</p>
<p>If by college you mean including universities, then my top 5 includes:</p>
<p>Northwestern, Chicago, Michigan, WashingtonUStL and Notre Dame – perhaps in that order.</p>
<p>As ucbalum pointed out, “best” can take on all sorts of meanings. For example, in addition to Alexandre’s categories, you have:</p>
<p>Best single-sex college: Wabash
Best evangelical college: Wheaton
Best small engineering college: Rose-Hulman</p>
<p>There are other categories, of course.</p>
<p>One way to approach the question of “what is best” is to first identify, for the thing you want to evaluate, the purpose that distinguishes it from other things. You can ask this question about governments, dishwashers, or universities.</p>
<p>What does a university (or college) exist to do? Some were created to provide religious instruction. Others were created to provide training in specific trades. Modern research universities and colleges that attract the best students (who are the students with the greatest freedom of choice) generally don’t exist for these purposes. Their purpose (which distinguishes them from other institutions) is to create and spread knowledge (primarily in the liberal arts and science subjects of general interest for their own sake).</p>
<p>All the colleges mentioned above do a pretty good job of that. Chicago does it more nearly to the exclusion of other purposes, and arguably with more effective results (in terms of attracting the most distinguished faculty, educating the most educators, or producing more significant innovations across many liberal arts & science fields). </p>
<p>Change my definitions and standards a little, and you could make the case for Michigan, Carleton College, or maybe one of the others. Analogy: the primary purpose of a dishwasher is to clean dishes. But what if 10 dishwashers are equally good (or nearly so) at cleaning dishes? Then it makes sense to ask “what is best” in terms of some other feature important to you. Personally, I like quiet … so I’ll pay more for that, even if the product is marginally less good at cleaning dishes. So it goes with some more important choices.</p>
<p>The question is so easy. Even a caveman can answer it.</p>
<p>The clear-cut answer here is The University of Chicago. It has the strongest student body academically, the most financial resources, the greatest reputation among academia/corporate America, the highest interaction between students and faculty at the undergraduate level, the most distinguished faculty, the most PhDs per capita, the greatest number of major fellowship winners, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Northwestern, Michigan, Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame round out the top 5 in roughly that order but Chicago is a cut above the competition.</p>
<p>Oh, gag with the “cut above.” This is like distinguishing between members of the Olympic team who are all head and shoulders above everyone else in the world when it comes to a given sport. The universities and colleges mentioned are all excellent, you can’t go wrong with any of them. Only dorks worry about parsing it more finely than that. At this level, what makes something “best” starts to get into personal preferences (smaller vs larger, urban vs suburban vs rural, or something else in the particular campus environment or experience).</p>
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<p>While UChicago, NWU, UMichigan, WUStL, and UND are all good in general, students can go wrong by choosing one that (a) does not offer the major that they eventually choose, or (b) costs so much (net after financial aid and scholarships) that they take excessively large amounts of student loans.</p>
<p>Given that you didn’t give us any real information, the only sensible answers are: Michigan, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. These three schools are excellent across the board.</p>
<p>Funny how when it comes to Duke vs UChicago thread, goldenboy8784 didn’t think “reputation among academia, distinguished faculty, and PhD per capita” were important factors. That would put UChicago “a cut above” Duke also. Just love how some Dukies on CC change the goal posts depending on what teams are playing.</p>
<p>I do know one thing though:
when it comes to most hated fans on CC, Duke is a cut above everyone.</p>
<p>^No, Chicago is better than Duke in terms of those measures as well as endowment per capita. Duke is more selective, has better employment outcomes, similar class sizes and library collections, stronger placement into professional programs, higher research productivity and a stronger alumni network. It’s up to each person to decide what is most important to him. I would say Chicago is a slightly better school than Duke overall so I’m no homer.</p>
<p>You know, one thing I found incredibly important when looking at schools with my children was understanding the character of the students they tend to attract. It has long been my observation on CC, that Duke tends to attract a student body who is very into rankings, assessing minute portions of other colleges and comparing them favorably or unfavorably, and overall has a very arrogant we-are-good-and-I’m-going-to-prove-it-in-your-face mentality. Compare that to many other fine universities, Northwestern among them, that have much more of a welcoming, sincere, “hey, there are a lot of great places, we’re pretty proud of our own but we’re not horribly concerned with ‘beating’ others – it’s all good and there’s plenty of excellence to go around.” There’s an arrogance about the Duke spirit that is very evident and a real turn-off, IMO. It’s far more classy and gracious to say, “Hey, there are a lot of fine universities and it’s all good” than it is to engage in this tacky and immature “Let me PROVE it to you!” nonsense. It’s a shame, because I have a much more negative image of Duke after hearing its boosters on CC than I did prior to CC. </p>
<p>Whether Chicago is “better” than Duke on these things or vice versa is so totally irrelevant. The size of the library? Please, you’re not going to read all the volumes anyway. Why can’t you just be content with knowing these are all great places and this is where personal preferences (and finances, of course) come into play? Why does it have to be linear - this one > that one – why can’t it just be “this one is better for Person X’s set of needs, and that one is better for Person Y’s set of needs”?</p>
<p>goldenboy,</p>
<p>Duke is not more selective. Not sure where you got that from. UChicago has higher stats (make sure you are looking at enrolled stats for Duke since Duke advertises with admitted stats). Not sure where you got the “employment outcome” or how you measure it. But I do observe that more Dukies on here seem to be more obssessed with ibanking, a.k.a. the unethical business, than others.</p>
<p>Class size and library collections…blah blah. How about number of toilets? I don’t believe in generalization usually but you do fit what Pizzagirl says:</p>
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<p>I’ll second that. I suspect not all Dookies are like that, but you certainly get a lot of that on CC. I’ve always assumed it’s because Duke gets a lot of Ivy wannabes, very good students who would have been plausible candidates at HYP but didn’t get in, and who are now desperate to reassure themselves and prove to the world that Duke is “just as good as” or “better than” this school or that. On the other hand, schools like Chicago and Northwestern must get a lot of those students, too, yet the attitude seems to be very different. I don’t know what it is about Duke that attracts the insecure ones, or that inculcates that attitude. But it is very off-putting, and just leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you encounter it. Much to Duke’s detriment.</p>
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Sam, Duke’s acceptance rate was 13% for the Class of 2015 and the corresponding number for U of Chicago was 15.8%. Duke also has a 44.3% yield and the last stated yield figure for Chicago is about 39%. The test scores are hard to compare because Chicago doesn’t release a CDS for some reason and Duke’s most recent one is dated by a year.</p>
<p>By the way, Chicago advertises with admitted students stats as well. This is what most schools do. I doubt they are too much different from enrolled stats to be honest.</p>
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There’s no way you can generalize an entire university that’s as diverse as Duke or Northwestern or Harvard or whatever. There will be people with all sorts of personalities and attitudes. It sounds like you’re teaching your kids to be judgmental which is the exact opposite of the open mind philosophy you should be using when guiding your children.</p>
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<p>If you’re going to base your judgment of a university based on people who post on anonymous online forums, then that says more about you than the school you’re trying to criticize. I haven’t been on this site long enough to comment on the accusations you’ve made but the few Duke posters I see on this site like warblersrule and bluedog are incredibly helpful. In fact, there are a couple of state school representatives I’ve noticed that are a lot more vocal about their schools than any of the private schools but I won’t name names.</p>
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Sam, all I did was offer an opinion. Why are you so offended? The title of this thread was “What is the best Midwest college?” so I picked one instead of naming 5 or 10 like everyone else. Northwestern and Duke are peer schools. I don’t think I’ve suggested otherwise.</p>
<p>Carleton College!</p>
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I’ve been here for few years and unless it’s the same one or two individuals using different logins, Duke has more than its fair share of them on CC. I just haven’t seen (or if I’ve seen, I just don’t recall) anyone from any of Duke’s peers acting like this. So that’s why Duke stands out.</p>