<p>Floridadad55: Oops. Sorry for my carelessness. I’m currently trying to finish my last final exam haha.</p>
<p>Truth is, most universities aren’t well known nationally, either. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and to a lesser extent MIT are exceptions. Apart from that, the reputations of even some of the very best universities are pretty spotty outside their home regions, or sometimes even within their home regions. </p>
<p>Even in the midwest (outside of Illinois), many people think the University of Chicago is a public institution, and they assume it must be a second-tier state school because it’s not as famous as the University of Illinois which they know from Big Ten sports. Outside the northeast (and perhaps to some extent even there), many people either confuse Penn with Penn State, or assume it must be the secondary public flagship in Pennsylvania, as Michigan State is to Michigan. In Boston more people have heard of Northeastern than Northwestern. When my D1 was applying to colleges most people she spoke to here in Minnesota (outside of academic circles) had either never heard of Brown, were only vaguely aware of it without having much of an opinion about it one way or the other (e.g., they didn’t know it was in an Ivy; if you tell them it’s an Ivy, it means something, but the school itself is just not on their radar), or they assumed she must be talking about Brown College, a mediocre local liberal arts and vocational college. And on down the line.</p>
<p>Here are the (somewhat dated) results of a 2003 Gallup survey that asked respondents to identify the best and second-best universities on the country. Harvard led easily, nationally and in all regions; Yale was second in all regions except the west where it trailed Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley; and Stanford was somewhere among the top finishers in every region. MIT did well in the northeast and in the west, but not in the south or midwest. After that it’s heavily regional; schools like Duke,Michigan, Notre Dame, and UC Berkeley scored well in their home regions but not elsewhere. Even Princeton was strong only in the northeast, as was Penn (but then, so was Penn State); the other Ivies barely registered a blip. Even Stanford did roughly twice as well in its home region as it did in any other region, and 4 times better than it did in the northeast. Schools like Caltech, Chicago, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins are nowhere to be seen, either nationally or even in their home regions.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public) </p>
<p>Bottom line: don’t kid yourself about how well-known and “prestigious” your school is. Unless it’s HYSM, chances are most people you’ll ever meet will have never heard of it, or if they have heard of it, they will not know enough about it to have a well-formed opinion. People who do hiring for major employers will be somewhat better-informed, but even that has its limits; they’ll also have their blind spots, biases, and regional favorites, and your school may or may not be on their A-list, notwithstanding its academic reputation or US News ranking.</p>
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<p>In fact, I think it’s fair to say Nixon is Duke Law School’s most famous alum. Second would be Jay Bilas, the ESPN basketball analyst.</p>
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<p>According to TLS, Michigan and Duke are neck in neck, at 10 and 11 respectively.</p>
<p>[Top</a> 2012 Law School Rankings](<a href=“http://www.top-law-schools.com/rankings.html]Top”>Law School Rankings)</p>
<p>EDIT: Technically it’s not according to TLS, but rather USNEWS.</p>
<p>In fact, I think it’s fair to say Nixon is Duke Law School’s most famous alum. Second would be Jay Bilas, the ESPN basketball analyst.</p>
<p>Another more current big name would be Ron Paul, he got his MD at Duke. </p>
<p>Sent from my Incredible using CC</p>
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<p>A lot of work is being done by these schools, and they’re getting results. You brought up Middlebury, which has marketed itself quite well as of late. In the 70s, Middlebury was a small, rural college with around 1,500 students, mainly from the Northeast. Today, Middlebury has 2,500 students, and the third most represented state among the student body is California. In the 80s, Middlebury averaged 2,000-3,000 applications a year. Last year, they had close to 9,000 applicants for a class of 600. Furthermore, Midd just acquired the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in California, greatly increasing brand exposure on the left coast. Add to that 37 schools abroad in 16 countries, the Broad Loaf School of English, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the summer language schools, and new programs in language instruction targeting high school kids, and its no surprise that Middlebury’s national profile is on the rise. Don’t get me wrong–Midd and other LACs have a long way to go before the average person on the street in Cedar Rapids has heard of them, but LACs are getting increasing exposure and won’t remain hidden gems for long.</p>
<p>“You just made someone in Dubai ecstatic. Probably enough to make him order another dozen shirts for his little prince!”</p>
<p>Hehe! xiggi, you made my week! I have already stocked an entire closet of Michigan shirts/hats and diapers for the little brat! ;)</p>
<p>I personally cannot stand Italians, primarily because I hate the Azuri, but that comment moved up a couple of notches in my book, which granted is not much of an improvement.</p>
<p>Lots of people in my neighborhood have never heard of the LAC where I work - and that’s only an hour away. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I have to smile and nod when they want to talk about their specialized interests…my knowledge of wwe wrestling or contemporary bulgarian folk music is even less evolved than their awareness of educational institutions.</p>
<p>Michigan diapers?</p>
<p>Maize and Poo? ewwww</p>
<p>Back to the OP, I think you trying to compare rankings paralled like Bates being equivalent to Emory is off base. But don’t worry about name recog of small colleges. You can look a statistics of which schools produce the most PhD’s and find it dominated by LAC’s. A friend who went to Bates got good grades and went to medical school, is now an M.D. I used to work for a small company where we had one from Harvard, Yale, Middlebury, Bates and WashU. Companies like Google are very brand name aware and they will know these schools well. Man on the street just doesn’t matter. We had plenty of people here in CA who had no idea what Brown was. Quite disappointing when you feel you’ve made a big coup by getting into a prestige school with low admit stats, so I feel ya. Of course for grad school and job market she’s doing more than fine.</p>
<p>Why would anyone care what Joe on the Street thinks? I would only care what “connoisseurs” (for lack of a better term) think. And they’ll know the top LACs.</p>
<p>Joe on the Street’s knowledge base is familiarity and football. Joe on the street doesn’t really KNOW why Harvard’s good - he’s just heard all these years that Harvard is a school for smart people, so he repeats that.</p>
<p>I’m sure most of this has already been said, but here’s what I think.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>They are almost always smaller than Universities. Therefore they’ll have less of an impact outside of their area, less notable alumni, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Universities are more likely to engage in big-name research activities, bringing attention to them. On-campus events are also much more likely to be shown on the news because of their size. </p></li>
<li><p>Universities tend to have better funded sports teams that are more likely to be Division I teams. As unfortunate as this may be for small schools, having good sports teams significantly increases the level of recognition.</p></li>
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<p>Why Joe SixPack drinks Bud Light and not Westvleteren XII. The fact that both are Belgian but a world apart in quality and reputation is not important to him. The reputation comes from watching football or waiting for a NASCAR pile-up.</p>
<p>Not much different for colleges.</p>
<p>PS I seriously doubt that many know much about the research that takes place at “big name” schools. They just assume it exists and is relevant. Just like they believe Fat Al invented the Internet and is saving the planet.</p>
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Ken Starr (Whitewater Scandal anyone?), Gerard Louis-Dreyfus (French billionaire and father of Elaine on Seinfeld, Tucker Max (infamous playboy), Charlie Rose (hosts Charlie Rose Show on PBS and CBS This Morning), Drew Rosenhaus (one of the most famous football sports agents), and John Adams (Co-Founder of the NRDC) are all pretty famous too.</p>
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That Gallup poll tells you how parochial the views of Americans with regards to what they consider to be the best universities in the country but it doesn’t really inform us what schools are thought of as just being plain good at the very least nationwide. The question prompt asked to the survey respondents would have to be phrased differently to ascertain that information.</p>
<p>For instance, I suspect the reaction to someone graduating from Wisconsin-Madison would range from a shrug of the shoulder to “that’s a good school”. Similarily, a nationwide reaction to hearing that someone went to Duke would rage from “that’s a good school” to “WOW THAT’S INCREDIBLE!”. A Harvard grad probably gets the WOW reaction all the time without fail.</p>
<p>“Similarily, a nationwide reaction to hearing that someone went to Duke would rage from “that’s a good school” to “WOW THAT’S INCREDIBLE!”.”</p>
<p>Wisconsin-Madison? That’s a good school. Duke? That’s a good school. Harvard? WOW, THAT’S INCREDIBLE!</p>
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<p>Because sometimes Joe-on-the-Street, is the father of Joe Jr; and he isn’t paying for JJ go to some LAC he’s “never heard of.” Reputation does, at least, have indirect implications for some students.</p>
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<p>Wisconsin probably gets a simalar “WOW” in its home region, or somewhere nearby. UCLA, at least, certainly gets both ;)</p>
<p>Wouldn’t locals know that half the applicants, and probably every competitive student get in at Wisconsin. </p>
<p>Seriously, the stuff some like to say about Duke is simply nuts. There is a world of difference between schools such as Wisconsin and those other silly-named public Ivies and highly selective schools that have a national appeal, starting with the enrolled student body.</p>
<h2>“Wisconsin probably gets a simalar “WOW” in its home region, or somewhere nearby. UCLA, at least, certainly gets both.”</h2>
<p>Sorry, but here in Wisconsin a lot of us only know UCLA as a huge urban school of no particular repute (which is not to say it’s not a good school). We hear “Berkeley” and our ears perk up, but UCLA does not have the same reputation as Michigan or even UW-Madison among public universities.</p>
<h2>“Wouldn’t locals know that half the applicants, and probably every competitive student get in at Wisconsin.”</h2>
<p>No, because plenty of us IN Wisconsin have seen smart kids get rejected or deferred at UW-Madison. Even kids IN Madison at the city’s most competitive high school.</p>
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<p>Surprisingly, not xiggi. We have relatives in WI with high schoolers and they are always whining about how difficult Madison is for admissions. I point them to the 70% admit rate (for females), which includes OOS apps, which are supposedly more difficult, but that does not persuade. It’s probably due to recent ‘competitiveness.’ It wasn’t to long ago when that 70% was in the nineties. (sorry barrons).</p>