<p>China’s universities short-comings:</p>
<p><a href=“China Daily Website - Connecting China Connecting the World”>China Daily Website - Connecting China Connecting the World;
<p>But seriously, Harvard.</p>
<p>Sent from my iPhone using CC</p>
<p>Harvard is DEFINITELY the most prestigious.
As for hardest, I dunno. MIT and Caltech seem pretty damn hard.</p>
<p>UChicago is tied with reed on the most rigorous for sure. The only reason current students dont seem to worried is because they are all brilliant. But what about Julliard? or West Point. Super Super Super selective.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech!</p>
<p>UChicago and Reed are not harder than MIT or Caltech. The average graduating GPA for UChicago is much higher than MITs (roughly the same as post-grade deflated Princeton if you exclude the pass/fail freshmen year, which lowers it closer to Reed’s) and the SATs are higher at MIT. UChicago is definitely not more rigorous than MIT given this. Also, Reed just grades hard. I think they certainly have a higher workload than most top 20s (as expected from an LAC), and they grade much harsher than top 20 RUs and their LAC counterparts. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I went on their site to look at some organic chemistry exams, and I’ve seen worse even here (in fact some of ours are harder than many other peers, so maybe it isn’t fair). I need not compare it to MIT and Caltech, which I’m willing to admit were “at least” (as in w/an easier professor) on par with ours (were more often much harder). You can do the same by simply looking through MIT’s OpenCourseWare and skulking through Caltech and Reed’s websites for course materials to come to such a conclusion (by the way, the material for chem. and bio courses at Caltech seems tougher than at MIT, but the only hook is that most Caltech exams are take home, whereas the MIT stuff is in-class, and is still very difficult considering that). If you do that, you will come to the conclusion that Reed does not compare in rigor of material and testing style to MIT and Caltech. Reed just grades harsher. The same could be said for UChicago which mimics the grading patterns of its peers. The graduating gpa of UChicago, Emory, Northwestern, Washington University, Rice, and Duke, are all roughly the same. UChicago probably has a higher workload than these other institutions, but it clearly is not grading but so much harder (in fact, the fact that the workload is higher, but the grades remain the same, suggest that something weird is going on). Either way, UChicago can simply be regarded as a “demanding” institution w/some grade inflation. It cannot be compared to the engineering dominated schools. Hell, due to its grades, it can hardly be compared to Reed or Princeton (both which have a grade suppression/more strict grading standards than the other institutions), and probably not even Johns Hopkins for that matter, which is closer to Reed and Princeton.</p>
<p>Just throwing out there that pictures and numbers speak louder than random bolstering of particular schools. It would be appreciated if one would actually post links to a sample of the work or an exam in a department at the schools you speak of so we can compare. Until then, there are only graduating GPAs and random conjecture.</p>
<p>Could you guys not refer to IIT applicants (and Indians in general) in such demeaning ways. I understand that it may seem pathetic to work so hard for one exam, but it’s just a different culture. I don’t think it’s right, but who am i to say, who are any of us.</p>
<p>/end rant</p>
<p>After having read the better part of this thread, I decided to register just to post this comment.
The majority opinion here (for best university) is off two kinds,
- Ivy Leagues and Such (I will refer to these people as the first kind)
- IIT (I will refer to them as the second kind)</p>
<p>The first kind pride themselves in having the most prestigious universities (which they do, according to most, albeit their, surveys). They also have a derogatory opinion of Indians in general. They feel that people who believe IIT is the hardest university to get into are fanboys. They could be accuses of the same thing, with the same arguments but I won’t get into that. The rest of their arguments are based on incorrect assumptions and nonfactual knowledge. Some say that it is a standardised test administered by the govt (it isnt), and then assume a large percentage of general population take the test. First off I’d argue that age-wise, the percent of population in question aren’t even eligible to give the test. Secondly, no doubt the test is FAR harder then SATs or any other competitive exam for that matter. The proof is in the pudding. Each time an example (students getting into harvard but not even securing a rank in IIT, laureates not being able to solve IIT question etc) is given, the first kind just brush it off and ignore it!</p>
<p>Then they say that IITians are not brilliant! I do not know many IIT graduates, but the few I know, are the most remarkable people I have ever met. (BTW my schoolmates dad is MIT grad, and I know several oxford and harvard grads).
Just because a standardized test is taken, doesn’t mean that everybody, even many people, who get in are idiots who study alot. I know people who work hard, who top in their Boards, and who don’t even secure ranks in IIT-JEE. Yes a sizable population gives the JEE, but saying that very few of them seriously prepare is a fallacy. How many people apple to harvard? 50k? Well theres a coaching centre for IIT, located in delhi called Fit-JEE. In just one area (colony) they have over 1,500 students in ONE of their batches. They have 2 batches (3k students) who have signed up for a TWO years course, 14 hrs a week (and extra classes) just for JEE. This is just one campus (they have several) in one city of India for just one coaching insitute, and the preference of admission in IIT Delhi are like 5 times less than Mumbai, so its fare to say Mumbai has at least 3-4x that amount. Also, the coaching centre I go to has several thousand students in Mumbai, and 600 in Delhi. And its not even one of the biggest!
Thats the amount of people who SERIOUSLY prepare of IIT JEE, by way of coaching institutes. And many who seriously prepare, prepare some way else. My neighbour, who secured a rank in 150s (phenomenal) didn’t go to any coaching centre, but prepared hard, and had a passion for sciences.
The very fact that so many suicides are recorded for IIT JEE, tell you how many people, who believe they have a realistic chance, who wager 2-3 years of their life on it, who work hard, dont make it to IIT.
For these people failing is not an option, they can either go to IIT, or to some second-rate inconsequential college in India.
Also to say IIT students don’t have passion for science is being extremely presumptuous.
I love science. I spend half my day online just watching random lectures on number theory and have read dozens of books on relativity and quantum mechanics, aswell as 4-5 on cosmology, and none of them count for anything in the JEE (which I plan to give)
Indians do have some of the brightest minds, and many of them are poor and cannot afford to go abroad. They percolate to IIT. India has some of the most hardworking students, who can excel in their fields, if not by virtue of sheer brilliance, then by working so hard that they make up for their shortcomings.
Lastly IIT is now rapidly becoming extremely prestigious. Warren Buffet (the worlds greatest and richest investor) was asked that if he could choose only one university to hire from (invest in) which one would that be. IIT.</p>
<p>Oh and BUMP 
PS: sorry for my shabby English, I wrote this in a hurry</p>
<p>maybe seoul national university in korea.</p>
<p>I heard a lot about the hard-working korean students for their s-k-y universities.</p>
<p>What is IIT, I never heard of it for my 19years of living and you boldly talk about prestige?
You must be joking!!!
Prestige = 1.cambridge, 2.MIT, 3.Havard, 4.Oxford, 5.Caltech</p>
<p>This, from a Harvard grad: “In all my traveling in 80 countries around the world, I have never had to say the name of my college twice.”</p>
<p>In terms of name recognition, Harvard wins hands-down. I don’t know how you measure “prestige” but to the average person, Harvard is #1.</p>
<p>Real life is harder than any pseudo-challenge thrown your way in college.</p>
<p>I was seeing the IIT dicussion of the first few pages and decided to chime in. 
Well, I am from India and I study for the IITs. The exam is called IITJEE, and no one applies for it. You get 60% in 12th finals and you qualify for it. You qualify the exam with under 7000 rank out of total 600000 and you are in at the IITs. I study at an IITJEE prep coaching class along with going to school. Every coaching class has its own entrance examination and one needs to qualify the exam to even study at a good coaching institute. So, after the coaching admission process, we study for 2 years on a roll to qualify the JEE. The exam is one of the toughest in the world( if not the toughest) and the syllabus is a lot harder than what the school offers. People at the IITs are the geniuses of hard work. IIT is a place where rote memorisation does not work. Even though, people slack of in the first year and they study their brains out for the next three years.
The IITs are indeed one of the most hardest colleges to get into. They have 1% acceptance rate, for the top 7 IITs, 0.4% acceptance rate.
Anyway, that is the way education in India works. But, needless to say; the admission process is becoming really really arbitary year by year( Yes, I am a 17’er :eek: )</p>
<p>Just by 2 cents…</p>
<p>Everybody should read Mrinal2207’s post really carefully.</p>
<p>That’s your competition. A sub-continent of extraordinarily motivated, unbelieveably disciplined, really smart individuals separated from your future hoped-for employers by nothing more than a high-speed broadband connection</p>
<p>In other words, by nothing at all.</p>
<p>Party on, kids…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Haha, that cracked me up:D
Yup, every country has its own education system and comparing one country’s education to anothers is no fair. The way IITs are India; the same way HYPMSC are in the US. The only difference being that admission criteria is completely different. There should be no comparison whatsoever.
Even though, it doesnot undermine the face that in some ways, the IITs are in some ways more tough to get into( The acceptance rate as a measure). But I think I may be biased. 
This was just my view, everyone should keelp on the discussion.</p>
<p><em>grammatical mistakes</em>…arghh…</p>
<p>The QRS has one IIT school ranked among the top 200 in the world…</p>
<p>So true, Mrinal. People are mad crazy about the IIT’s here in India. They’re one of the hardest colleges to get into with a great reputation for engineering worldwide and amazing job opportunities. And all this at the cost of what? $6000-7000 for the entire four years? Thats a bargain if there ever was one.
Also, whoever thinks that people who make it to the IIT are anything short of geniuses are kidding themselves. These guys work their heads off for two years. Intelligent or not, whoever can do that, with persistence, for over two years deserves well earned respect.</p>
<p>I like the University of Phoenix</p>
<p>IIT may certainly be among the hardest to get into, mainly based on the country’s population and competition because of the economic situation. Same argument goes for some universities in China. The University of Tokyo is also extremely hard to get into because of the entrance exam. However, that doesn’t add to their international prestige. Most people (of non-indian descent) growing up in Europe or the US will never have heard of IIT.</p>
<p>No doubt, dedicated smart people are studying at IIT. They spend all their free time studying and solving math problems to get in. On average, they probably study more than their US counterparts that get into Harvard and MIT. Chinese and Japanese students are crazy about university entrance exams as well, with a whole education system targeted towards passing these, up to people killing themselves because of it. But you may want to ask yourself, is this really the right way?</p>
<p>The most influential and prestigious universities in the world are US- and UK institutions, arguably Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford. They produce bold <em>leaders</em> that go out and change the world, not academic robots crazy about solving math problems and passing exams. That’s where prestige comes from. Pure intelligence (most associated with Math/Science by Asian countries) is not enough to succeed in this world, and not enough to make a university prestigious.</p>