<p>When you say the term "top college" what exactly is your cut off point for a school to be no longer considered a "top college"? For instance when one person says it they may be only referring to the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Duke, and Cal Tech. But when another person says it they may be referring to all the colleges that are considered to be Tier 1 on US News' National Universities and LACs list.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what is normally considered a "top college" around here.</p>
<p>It's a meaningless term.</p>
<p>top 35 colleges</p>
<p>on CC, ppl like to believe that if you dont go to Ivies or MIT/Caltech/Stanford you're life is not worth living.</p>
<p>On CC, top 10. In reality, top 30 or so.</p>
<p>^^ agreed completely. Sadly, in some cases, people think the only top schools are HYPSM. Really, it's top ~30, going by US News's 2006 rankings (the magazine's good at putting schools into tiers, for the most part).</p>
<p>"on CC, ppl like to believe that if you dont go to Ivies or MIT/Caltech/Stanford you're life is not worth living."</p>
<p>And if you're not a business major at Penn, you're screwed</p>
<p>I frequently use that phrase. All of the colleges in the Fiske Guide are, in my opinion, top colleges. The colleges in Princeton Review's book or the Tier 1 colleges of US News are equivalents, I suppose. Essentially this is the top 8-10% of all colleges.</p>
<p>I use the phrase elite colleges to designate the top 30 or so universities and LACs. Essentially this is the top 1% of all colleges.</p>
<p>That's a good distinction to make, warblersrule86. I never really thought about it like that, but I seemed to have forgotten that even UC Riverside, with its #88 rank, is still considered "Tier 1," especially when you consider that there are over 4,000 colleges in the US. The real elites would then be the top ~30.</p>
<p>top 25 schools IMO</p>
<p>Personally, I try to make distinctions that make it (relatively!) clear what I am saying. I tend to say highly selective colleges when I am talking about the top, probably 20 or 25 universities and the top 10-15 LAC's (selectivity tends to drop off faster on the LAC list). Basically, I mean the 30 or 40 schools in the country that are generally considered the hardest to get into (note: hardest to get into means a combination of tests, rank, and acceptance rate, not acceptance rate by itself). </p>
<p>I guess it's a confusing term...I try to stay away from it in general. I think it is more helpful to say "colleges with selectivity similar to X college" when the person mentions the college(s) that they are interested in, but there isn't always that benchmark in place, so sometimes I do have to say highly selective or top colleges.</p>
<p>only top ivies, some ivies r TTT also...it's just HYPSCM, all other schools are just simply TTT =D
lol, jk, all top 100 schools r pretty much the same =D</p>
<p>
[quote]
all top 100 schools r pretty much the same
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I wouldn't consider UC Riverside "pretty much the same" as Harvard O.o</p>
<p>Top Schools:
1st Tier: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Caltech
2nd Tier: Other Ivies, UChicago, Northwestern, Duke
3rd Tier: WUSTL, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, Notredame, CMU, Berkeley, Michigan
4th Tier: Virginia, UCLA, UNC - Chapelle Hill, Texas - Austin, USC, some others</p>
<p>Stone me to death.</p>
<p>How are you defining elite? You really should be looking at the peer ranking. After all, what you are looking for is an elite ACADEMIC institution. Hopkins peer ranking is much higher than the category you placed it in. In fact, at a 4.6/5, it is higher than Penn's, Brown's, Dartmouth's, and either the same as, or higher than, Columbia's. It is much higher than WUSTL, Emory, Notre Dame, etc.
Other factors the the US News have used in their formulation have been altered before, in terms of categories and percentages weighted. NO doubt, at some point, they will be, again. The one factor that generally does not change, is the peer ranking. How much a professor gets paid (part of "academic resources"), for example, can be changed by the university at any time...so can the number of students in a classroom, or the professor to student ratio. ..etc. You get my point. Also, the weight that US News decides to give a certain category, can, and has changed in the past. So when you use the term, "elite" be sure that you are looking at the right picture.</p>
<p>PA is a considerably subjective criteria (and one that is biased towards research-oriented institutions - students at Brown, Dartmouth, etc. or top LACs aren't going to get any lesser of a quality of an education than at more research oriented schools) - however, it does deserve consideration.</p>
<p>Just as crucial (if not more) is the quality of the school's student body.</p>
<p><em>stones dhl</em></p>
<p>You asked for it. This is why it's best not to try and classify schools into exact, five-schools-per-slot tiers.</p>
<p>When I think top college I either think:</p>
<p>A) Top 20 College
B) The Highest Tier of Unis(for undergrad) in the US, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Caltech</p>
<p>I think in terms of pure prestige in the Ivy League based on name recognition, nobel laureates, award winning professors, and selectivity...</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton (interchangeable with Yale)</li>
<li><p>Columbia College (Or Wharton here)</p>
<hr></li>
<li><p>UPenn CAS</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth</p></li>
<li><p>Brown</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Agree/Disagree?</p>
<p>There can be no argument, here. Of course, these are all phenomenal schools. But the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins have peer assessments that are higher than some of those listed, albeit, Ivy. For my tuition money, this is the most important and most valuable ratings number, because it is the most enduring.</p>