What's the hardest/ most prestigious university in the world?

College Confidential Community
41

<p>Hi All,</p>

<p>Since the late 90s IITs have begun receiving the prestige and the recognition they deserve.</p>

<p>IITs are known not only for extremely difficult entrance standards, but also for the extent of difficulty in their course content and overall training. The best part of IITs graduation is that graduates from IIT have set up a strong collaborative network in top industry. Graduates from IIT are now either CEOs or comprise Senior Management in companies such as Infosys, Sunmicrosystems, Motorola, IBM, Microsoft, and Pepsi to name a few. Thus, being an alumnus from IIT can make a difference when looking for a job after graudating.</p>

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<p>Like Gryffon, I had never heard of IIT before I came to this thread. How prestigious can a university be if there's someone who hasn't heard of it..? :p When I watch documentaries and such, I always look for the institution with which the expert/interviewee is associated, and I don't recall ever seeing anyone from IIT.</p>

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<p>Ok, here comes the savior (me) to dispell all the myths.</p>

<p>Hi,
I am an international student LIVING in India.
So I guess I should know all about the IITs shouldn't I?
well, kind of yea :)</p>

<p>First,
Its not IIT that has a harsh and rigorous, its the entrance exam that is extremely difficult.
The entrance exam alone has very difficult questions and problems which you would not normally expect a high-school student to be able to do.</p>

<p>Second,
The competition for getting admitted into the IITs is intense.
around 200,000 students sit yearly for the entrance exam, and out of that only 2000 are admitted, and only 500 get the stream of their choice (i.e. you have to be ranked within the top 500 to be able to study Computer Engineering.)</p>

<p>Third,
No, its NOT true that people who apply to IIT have "Harvard" as their safety.
Just because a person who is sitting for the IIT exam can solve a lot of mathematical problems does NOT in any way mean that he has the extracurricular activities, or the rigorous course selection at high school which is needed for entrance to Harvard.
Most of them will lack even the ability to ace the SAT exam. (except well maybe the Math section)
To a lot of people, even to people who have been accepted to IIT, getting into Harvard would have proven much harder than spending 24/7 memorizing stuff and doing mathematical problems just for ONE entrance exam.</p>

<p>80% of the time, people who are crazy about getting into IIT, do nothing but study 24/7 and have almost no social life.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Fourth,
There are definitely IIT prep schools, which teach classes of around 4 hours a day, four days a week.
BUT, none of them start at 4 AM, I'm sorry.
And if 80% of the graduates were admitted lol, the entire population of India would make their kids join these prep schools....
And lol, they don't mind if you're late for even half an hour, cause its YOUR loss....</p>

<p>In the end,
my point is,
Its not IIT that is rigorous and hard,
its the Entrance exam.</p>

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<p>^^ I like your post :)
However, if you say that a kid in the US got into Harvard purely for academics and math/science stuff, they'd be pretty talented as well. From looking at the problems and previous responses, and with knowledge of possible course selections in the US, the kids who get into Harvard purely on math/science should do just fine on those tests. It's not too hard to take up to differential equations and linear algebra in math, AP Physics C, AP Chem, and AP Bio, and I bet many people with those qualifications (and more) still don't get into Harvard. The thing with admissions in the US is that after a certain point, it's a crapshoot, IIT (and a lot of other International University) applicants know what they are striving for. </p>

<p>ps. TSINGHUA PRIDE :) (parent's an alumni)</p>

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<p>Hahvahd Schmahahvahd. Elis Too (Yale Schmale).</p>

<p>Rah Rah Rah Tiger Tiger Tiger Sis Sis Sis Boom Boom Boom Aahhhhhhhhhhh...PRINCETON...PRINCETON...PRINCETON!</p>

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<p>Anyway back to the topic, I'm surprised MIT has not been mentioned yet. I heard it may be just as well known, if not MORE well known, than Ivies abroad. It is also the most selective school in the US according to a a few rankings.</p>

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<p>Hi Folks,
In my earlier post, I didn't mean to imply in any way that IIT is better known or more prestigious than MIT. Not at all.</p>

<p>IIT is to India as MIT is to US. That's all.</p>

<p>Secondly, IIT was not well known universally back in the 80s and early 90s I think......but is starting to get its well deserved recognition in recent years.</p>

<p>This is not to say that US kids should begin applying there......probably they may not even be able to do so (?). Not sure what sort of quota there is in IIT for foreign applicants.
But become familiar with the name. Because if you are endeavoring to become an Engineer, you will either have Grad students from IIT with you or when you begin working you are likely to have colleagues (Sr Management) from IIT.</p>

<p>Read up Thomas Freidman's 'World is Flat' . You will get the idea!</p>

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<p>Oxbridge if you are looking for a brewery absolutely NO way. MIT, Caltech,Harvard, Stanford and ITT.</p>

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<p>Tokyo University in Japan is the most prestigious college in the world.</p>

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<p>Ah Tokyo Daigaku, the University of Tokyo. They actually have a lot of foreign students going there. I wouldn't say its the most prestigious university in the world, but in Japan I'm sure the competition to get in, or even just to walk through the Akamon is horrendous. </p>

<p>All of my Japanese friends say that many top Japanese Universities, the so called "Ginkgo League", including University of Tokyo, Waseda, and Keio, compete with Harvard, MIT and UC-Berkeley (not to mention Oxford and Cambridge) because its believed (and may be true) that they have a better chance of getting in US/UK universities (Japanese students are still a very small segment of the US college population, especially in the East), and on top of that in Japan those US universities are just as prestigious and have been since the late 19th century.</p>

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<p>Let's take it this way, who make more money/are easier to get job after graduation? People with degrees from this IIT or Ivies?
Who get more Nobel prizes, publish more papers in big journals?</p>

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<p>We cannot just determine prestige from Nobel prizes, published paper in big journals, etc. because some countries have more advantages over others.</p>

<p>so, let's put it this way: we can never determine the most prestigious college in the world, but only the most prestigious college in each countries.</p>

<p>For example:
-United States (Harvard)
-India (IIT)
-Japan (University of Tokyo)
-England (Oxbridge)
......, and so on.</p>

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<p>undoubtedly, IIT is THE hardest university to get into
what is their acceptance rate like? 1% or .5%?
I talked to this guy who graduated from IIT and now works at a water treatment plant,
IIT picks the high-ranked students from millions of applicants.
Now, you realize, some of these kids have been second in their lives.
they are not used to being second in anything
some of the kids end up committing suicide. You can ask this from anybody who has graduated from IIT.
somebody was telling me that education is the reason why Japan has the highest suicide rate? Is that true?</p>

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<p>ITT = ITT Technical Institute</p>

<p>IIT = Indian Institute of Technology</p>

<p>IISc = Indian Institute of Science (just as hard as IIT)..but idk anything about india.</p>

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<p>DefTech, I think you have the right idea! It is much easier, and indeed fairer, to judge by country, since:</p>

<p>1) Within one country, there is likely to be some consensus as to which is the top university.</p>

<p>2) In countries with their own prestigious universities, it is the norm for the best students to study at home rather than abroad.</p>

<p>If we want to judge which is the most prestigious university in the world, we will all have our own cultural filters and it will be impossible to agree. For argument's sake, I would say Harvard is the world's most prestigious university. It may not be the best place to study, or even the most competitive to get into, but it does top every world league table I've ever seen, so it wins by all objective measures.</p>

<p>(That said, go Oxbridge! :p)</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>No one's saying that a kid in the US who gets into Harvard or MIT purely for academics and math/science stuff isn't talented. However, the basic requirement of even dreaming of the IITs is to know how to solve gazillions of complex mathematical problems and answer extremely hard questions related to physics and chemistry.
But for say Harvard, a student who has amazing ECs/hooks and essays will have as good a chance as a student who is a genius in Math/Science related stuff. That won't work for the IITs.</p>

<p>Oh yes, one more thing, I believe the IIT entrance exam is a LOT more difficult than the APs.
(Just get a kid acing Calculus BC to attempt some of the problems which come in the IIT entrance exam and the result should be obvious)</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Yeah, when they finally ask the question, after so many years of studying 24/7, "what was the point of my life?"</p>

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<p>I saw one of IIT's entrance papers yesterday, and I have to say it looks forbidding but doable - with adequate preparation. It certainly isn't the type of paper I'd like to just sit down and take. (Maybe that's because it's a long time since I stopped studying maths and physics!!) It does seem to me that entrance to IIT must be a battle of the bloody-minded, though. After all, there can only be so many of those mathematical/physical problems, and once you've learnt how to solve them all, what else can they throw at you?</p>

58

<p>when I get my digicam back, I'll upload a photo of my 'IIT Mathematics book'.
Its around 3000 pages.
And since its a competitive exam and entrance is based solely on your rank,
people who get into IIT usually do around 3-5 of those books just for Mathematics.</p>

<p>And then there's Physics and Chemistry.</p>

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<p>Yeah IIT is hard to get into, and I'm sure the level of teaching is high -nobody's disputing that. But in terms of worldwide prestige, it just isn't that great. Whether that's justified or not is another discussion, but I hope nobody actually thinks IIT is more prestigious than ivy league universities, oxbridge, MIT, Stanford, imperial college, UC Berkeley, Northwestern, UChicago, UCLA, Caltech, and a host of other very good schools all over the world.</p>

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<p>IIT... Although I'm basing this entirely off of acceptance rate.</p>