<p>For Americans who have never crossed their borders, it´s MIT
For the rest of the world, there are more challenging universities…</p>
<p>Having really difficult tests and a super low acceptance rate does not mean that your school is prestigious. It’s more like the other way around, really.</p>
<p>For engineering and sciences, MIT is probably the most prestigious school around. Followed by CalTech, though you could change the order any given year probably. Stanford, Berkley, etc are also big names. Go to any country in the world and ask the potential engineering majors how many have heard of these schools, and I’d guess that every single one of them has. IIT? Who’s that?</p>
<p>There’s a big difference between cramming students full of information and having them learn. An engineer who only knows book learning is useless in the job market. If that’s all you needed, then you could have a computer do an engineer’s work. An engineer must be creative in his problem solving. Math and physics are merely the tools and constraints that he must work with. No textbook ever designed a bridge, the ideas originated in an engineer’s mind first.</p>
<p>Hawkwings makes a good point; I’d like to add that sometimes universities that set high entry standards have much lower graduation standards, since they are satisfied that they are getting the best students, they do not make it particularly difficult to graduate.
Moreover, the most prestigious universities depend on the field of study or course offered; for example, Harvard is arguably the most prestigious in the world for Law and Medicine, whilst MIT is for technology and engineering, Carnegie Mellon for Computing Science and Oxford for English.
A notable example here would be RWTH Aachen; not particularly well-known outside of Germany, it is held in high regard in the fields of engineering and science. However, even in most German University rankings, it is only just placed within the top ten, and a long way behind the likes of Heidelburg, Hamburg, etc. What is so special about Aachen? It’s legendarily low graduation rate (below 50% on some counts), and the reverence it is held in by German Engineering students. Certainly not the ‘most prestigious university in the world’, one could easily argue, yet it is clearly very difficult to gain a degree from Aachen, even after one is accepted!
As for all the IIT fans out there, I have had a look at the link, and have to agree with many commentators previously; most of it involves rote learning, and there is not much lateral thinking involved (which is often much more difficult - have a look at the IMO to see what I mean). A reasonable candidate should be able to prepare for, and do very well in it (provided that the problems are of a similar difficulty as in those found in the link) within a couple of years. In fact, the Chinese equivalent is arguably more challenging (and why does everyone mention Peking, but forget Tsinghua, by the way).
The real difficulty comes from the educational background the candidates likely have. A student from a poor socio-economic background, say from some isolated village in the foothills of the Himalayas, would obviously find it almost impossible to gain entry to any university, let alone any we have discussed so far. Compare him to some rich kid who went to Eton; who has a better chance to get in to Harvard?
P.S. The typos in the problems (and answers) are so annoying! One that sticks out like a sore thumb is ‘Baye’s’… Who the heck is Baye? It’s Thomas Bayes! Bayes! Sorry for my little outburst. I wish everybody well for 2011…</p>
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</p>
<p>Correct.</p>
<p>IITs are brutal, BTW.</p>
<p>Well I thought Caltech was the hardest of all to get into :/</p>
<p>I’ve indeed heard of Aachen!! But as much as I agree that it’s a very prestigious and competitive school, I’d say it’s unfair to include it since generally only german’s or possibly dutch and belgians would attend that school, (I visit Aachen every year myself, am a dutch citizen myself).</p>
<p>She’s dead now, but to be accepted to Nadia Boulanger’s studio at the Conservitoire in Paris was without question the most respected position that a student musician could reach. And IMHO more prestigious in it’s field than any position in any other field of study… Just look at the list of her former pupils and you will see what I mean.</p>
<p>Bemidji State University accounting graduates pass the CPA exam at a higher rate than the state average, and the model making / exhibit design program is nationally-recognized. The school also controls a 240-acre private forest.</p>
<p>/thread</p>
<p>Obviously here, 90% of the population hasnt heard of IIT because it is in India, and out of sight and out of mind but there is no way that it is any less prestigious or difficult than HYP. Everyone knows Harvard because we are at the epicenter of news, although we dont have the educational results to back it up. India has over a billion people, China has more AP students than the US has people, the schools there are much more competitive and much more prestigious.</p>
<p>Ahhh…and so why do not these schools like IIT appear on the rankings? Or, if they appear, not in a fantastic position… [India</a> Universities in Top 500 - 2009](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/Country2009Main.jsp?param=India]India”>http://www.arwu.org/Country2009Main.jsp?param=India)</p>
<p>Anyway, I love the idea that unknown schools rules, and they are the very best. I mean, sure, they have their values, and yes, they can be exceptionally selective like ITT (hmm, in a country with a population more than 1.1 billion, why I’m not wondering about the selectivity…), still, it seems that the research and new technologies comes from top US and European schools; money, brain drain, whatever; it’s a fact.</p>
<p>A lower graduation rate (as with some German universities) does not necessarily imply that its graduates are of a higher quality. MY own experience in one of these supposedly top German universities enables me to have a glimpse of their examination system and I believe there are three main reasons for the lower graduation rate.
- Time allowed for examinations is typically insufficient. IT is a well-known fact that the candidate will most likely not be able to attempt all the questions. In fact, the reason given by the professors for allotting such a short exam duration is because they ‘do not want to stress the students’ with long hours. IT is really an oxymoronic argument if u get what I mean. Anyway, this would mean that the really ambitious and hardworking students will try to practise all past exam problems so that if he/she encounters similar problems in the exam, he can immediately write down the answers even without thinking. This will most likely lead to rote learning. There is simply very little time for thinking about the problems on the spot if one wishes to complete the paper.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Foreign students find it difficult to integrate themselves in the German academic environment. The Germans are well-known to be xenophobic and do not easily make friends with foreigners. This would mean that drop-out rates are exceptionally high among foreigners. You can check this out.
[AFP:</a> German universities struggle to keep foreign students](<a href=“http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQ_xk936jOQTJ0UG5Zgw2IoGpBqQ]AFP:”>http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQ_xk936jOQTJ0UG5Zgw2IoGpBqQ)</p></li>
<li><p>The teaching is archaic - simply pedantic. This may not apply to all professors but this is what I figured out after going through an entire M.Sc. course. They somehow believe in cramming all facts into the curriculum. Emphasis is on knowing facts and application to problems and not on appreciating the principles and ideas.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You may have missed my point; I wasn’t trying to say or even imply that Aachen was ‘on the list’ or even a contender for the title of the ‘most prestigious university in the world’, but merely using it as an example of why difficulty in studying for the degree is not equivalent to prestige, and the most prestigious institutions are not necessarily the most demanding. I wasn’t trying to say that a lower graduation rate equals prestige, but they are not equal! This is pointing to the fact that the title of the thread is ‘What’s the hardest/ most prestigious university in the world’.</p>
<p>Sorry to double-post, but
@ footballthuggin2: if 90% of the population hasn’t heard of it, then how can it be considered prestigious? Prestige, reputation, and how well-known the university is are all connected; the Harvard is (partly) so prestigious since it attracts the best in the world, and the best in the world are attracted to Harvard because it is so prestigious; IIT may enjoy having the best - in India, but Harvard gets to choose from the best - in the world. Asian universities have to reverse this brain drain to move themselves up the rankings…</p>
<p>Harvard is quite simply the most prestigious university in the world. In fact, all top American Universities enjoy exceptional recognition around the world. Oxbridge, Imperial, and UCL follow closely. Then you see the likes of MCGill, UBC, Sorbonne, and a few high-end Asian Institutions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyway, I love the idea that unknown schools rules, and they are the very best. I mean, sure, they have their values, and yes, they can be exceptionally selective like ITT (hmm, in a country with a population more than 1.1 billion, why I’m not wondering about the selectivity…), still, it seems that the research and new technologies comes from top US and European schools; money, ** brain drain **, whatever; it’s a fact.
[quote]
</p>
<p>Brain drain from where? If you’re saying this wrt US and european schools then I beg to differ</p>
<p>“A notable example here would be RWTH Aachen; not particularly well-known outside of Germany, it is held in high regard in the fields of engineering and science. However, even in most German University rankings, it is only just placed within the top ten, and a long way behind the likes of Heidelburg, Hamburg, etc. What is so special about Aachen?”</p>
<p>in engineering it is constantly considered to be number one in Germany (btw Heidelberg doesn´t offer any engineering science)</p>
<p>I wonder why people actually bother which is supposedly the most prestigious/hardest university in the world. Does it commensurate with the power of the nation? Chinese is now No. 2 in the world and yet none of its universities is ranked within the top 100 in the SJTU survey. Despite having no university in the top 100, China has managed to achieve the following feats within a span of just a few decades:
- Fastest supercomputer in the world.
- Manned space flight and lunar exploration.
- Anti satellite kinetic weapons.
- Anti aircraft-carrier ballistic missiles (first in the world).
- Fifth generation stealth fighter J-20 (second in the world after F-22).</p>
<p>Many leading nations of western Europe do not even own such technology.
What is the point of having the best universities when you are the largest debtor in the world and that your universities are funded by some other nation?
lol</p>
<p>Harvard no doubt.</p>
<p>Harvard, hands down.</p>
<p>^@Focker…Mind if I call you mother?</p>
<p>Seriously, well that’s a very good point, however you are forgetting that these people in China are educated in US Universities, hence strengthening the argument that Harvard and the likes are the best, similarly with ITT, most of the famous applicants from ITT (I chose them since they represent the model ITT students) went on to Harvard, MIT, Oxford for their Masters and Ph’d’s hence again proving MIT, Harvard to be the top ones up there, (as far as which one specifically? That i cannot answer)</p>