<p>Prestige differences at the level you’re talking about equate to angels dancing on the head of a pin. </p>
<p>And if I’m an employer, and I have two applicants for my job, and one is NU and the other Brown, or one is JHU and one is Dartmouth, the appropriate response is not “oh, NU has better grad than Brown / JHU has better grad than Dartmouth, so I should pick the NU or JHU grad.”. The appropriate response is “they are all academically qualified-- I will interview and see which one strikes me better during the interview.”. You seem to think prestige equals “pick me first.”. In the US employers place a very high premium on how someone comes across in an interview. With the exception of a HANDFUL of occupations. And even at that level, while certain college names may be all but required to get in the door, the choices are made on individual merit, not prestige differences. </p>
<p>And no one has the time or inclination to parse out grad programs from undergrad programs and create two different prestige rankings. I personally have no idea what Brown or Dartmouth offer on a grad basis. Nor do I care. Nor does anyone else. You are overthinking the whole thing.</p>
<p>I won’t disagree with that. However, that’s not what the OP needs. That’s not what the OP wants. What the OP wants was the general prestige of the UNIVERSITY instead of the general reputation of the undergrad college. Again, I encourage you to read the OP’s opening post.</p>
<p>You should blame his high school, not UMich. His high school, Detroit Country Day, produces 25% of top 100 math students in Michigan each year, and made Shane Battier to take Ap Calc, and sent Steve Ballmer to Harvard to study math, but failed to teach him to count.</p>
Is this supposed to be a rhetorical question? This is, in fact, what lots of people do. Whether they are “mature” or not is a valid question, I suppose.</p>
<p>I looked back at the OP’s question, and he does ask about the “overall” reputation of the two universities. I guess what a number of us are reacting to is the fact that this is a meaningless question. Even if you care about prestige and reputation, all that’s going to matter to you is the reputation of the particular program you’re in. Overall, you can’t beat Harvard for reputation and prestige. But how much does that help a person with an engineering degree from Harvard?</p>
<p>Exactly. The UIUC or Purdue grad might be well advantaged over the Harvard grad in such a case. Prestige as a whole may not translate to a specific field. Mizzou is not a prestigious school, but the journalism school certainly is. If anything, you disaggregate down to a field or program, not aggregate by throwing in the med, law, dental, and business programs. </p>
<p>S is looking at a given school that is fairly far down in the rankings versus other schools on his list, but has a top reputation in one specific area of interest to him. If that’s what he pursues, then so be it. The fact that this university isn’t the place to go to be a Classics major is irrelevant.</p>
<p>RML- like it or not, in the US, when moat people think about a university’s reputation, they think about the undergrad, and they don’t stop to parse out the med school, the law school, etc. That’s how it goes. Feel free to start a national campaign to try to get people to pay more attention to grad school ratings. Outside CC and academia, and some pockets of obnoxious d</p>
I never argued that all those 5 schools mentioned are top, top schools with solid names in America. I, too, believe that they all offer superb undergrad classroom instructions, and thus, a degree from any of those schools would put you in good stead. My claim was only about the general prestige of those schools, which I clearly defined in my previous post. And based on my definition of prestige, schools with solid undergrad programs coupled with great professional and postgrad programs with superb alumni who now occupy some top positions in large corporations have the edge in the prestige race. Like I said, I think Michigan or Berkeley would NOT be as prestigious as they are now if they don’t have great postgrad and professional programs.</p>
What you seem to be implying is that the “overall” prestige of the institution somehow bolsters the prestige of the parts. I just don’t think this is true, in the US, anyway. I think people generally choose undergrad institutions based on their reputation as undergrad institutions, and the same is true for professional schools. This is why, for example, Yales business school is not tops, even though Yale’s “overall” reputation is tops. Note that Princeton has hardly any graduate or professional education, and yet its reputation is part of HYP. As for the top LACs, my opinion is that their reputation doesn’t match that of the Ivies simply because they are so small. Still, top students go there.</p>
<p>Also, we’re seeing an interesting growth of “prestigious” honors programs within flagship state schools, like the Gemstone program at U. Maryland.</p>
<p>Why would it matter to you? What difference would it make to you if I put Berkeley (or any other school) on that list or not? </p>
<p>I haven’t really ever thought about my favorite “prestige” list. I think about a high quality list, which is a very different matter (although obviously there is a lot of overlap between the two). And in my current search for my two hs juniors, once a certain academic level has been established, a lot of what plays into the decision becomes personal comfort level and fit. The idea of taking schools that are within the same general band of excellence and arguing about which one is more “prestigious” is a silly game that adds nothing to our family’s discussions and decisions. </p>
<p>And btw, I don’t think I went to the most “prestigious” choice when I made my own choice. But that wasn’t the driver.</p>
<p>No, I didn’t, dimsum. Nice try. I didn’t appeal to their authority – I simply explained that that’s how most people think. I didn’t say it was good or bad.</p>
<p>Seriously. I think Deep Springs is simultaneously not well known at all (or known to only a select few), and at the same time, very prestigious. The two can easily coexist. </p>
<p>Your definition of prestigious is inextricably linked to the breadth of awareness.</p>
Then explain why the top LACs don’t have the prestige that the top universities have. For example, why is MIT superior than Harvey Mudd in terms of academic prestige, or why is Stanford prestigious than Pomona in terms of academic prestige?</p>
<p>Actually, come to think about it, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to parcel out prestige, I might say that Brown and Dartmouth have a slight edge over NU and JHU – but it would be based on perceived social prestige among the traditional east coast elite, which has little to do with actual academic quality and / or successful paths trod by graduates. Having said that, the only way that would impact me would be if getting into those circles was my defining life goal (and frankly those are circles you’re born into anyway, you don’t climb into them). So that extra measure of prestige from going B/D over NU/JHU wouldn’t really impact my life in any meaningful way in making a decision between any of them. It would still have to come down to personal preference, comfort and fit (in the absence of other considerations such as a special program offered only at one or financial considerations).</p>
<p>Once more, you’re confusing “prestige” with “broad level awareness.” </p>
<p>Fewer people are aware of Harvey Mudd compared to MIT. Fewer people are aware of Pomona compared to Stanford. That doesn’t mean that HM and Pomona aren’t prestigious – they are just prestigious among a smaller crowd, those who are more in-the-know. You keep mistaking “prestigious among a smaller crowd” for “less prestigious.”</p>
<p>Because I think there is some lingering <em>social</em> prestige from being part of the Ivy League. But it’s not academic prestige and it’s not based on the actual <em>quality</em> of the schools in question nor upon the performance of their graduates. That’s contrary to what you claimed upthread when you claimed * "schools with solid undergrad programs coupled with great professional and postgrad programs with superb alumni who now occupy some top positions in large corporations have the edge in the prestige race *.</p>
<p>If Brown holds any meaningful edge in this hypothetical, it’s based on longstanding SOCIAL prestige of the Ivy League.</p>
<p>But RML, since you’re not familiar with American social classes – if, indeed, in this scenario, Brown holds more social cachet than Northwestern and the schools are otherwise similar in academic quality, etc. – how will it affect the student choosing between the two? It won’t.</p>
<p>Unless you think that by choosing Brown, the student who desires to get “in that club” has a better shot of getting in if he chooses Brown? In which case I have to laugh, because we’re talking “clubs” that you don’t join no matter how many alumni decals you slap on the side of your car.</p>