<p>Longevity alone doesn’t explain anything. William & Mary has been around for almost as long, and has had the denotation “University” longer. While respected, it isn’t close to second place. Clark University was one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities, which pretty much establishes its top-15 status as of a century ago, and it isn’t close now (and every other institution on that list is). Meanwhile, a bunch of relative newcomers – Cornell, Stanford, Chicago, MIT, Cal Tech – have clearly outpointed older institutions.</p>
<p>Moreover, I would submit that Harvard’s relative prestige has increased significantly in the past 20 years. When I was growing up, Harvard took 3-4 kids from my school every year. If the top boy wanted to go there, he could, and many did, but at least as many chose Yale, Dartmouth, MIT. All those schools are much more selective now, but Harvard’s increased selectivity is due in part to the fact that so few accepted students turn it down anymore.</p>
<p>There doesn’t HAVE to be a #1. I don’t have any sense that either Oxford or Cambridge has a clear advantage over the other as a general matter. Harvard’s popular-culture status is surprising, given how marginal its fundamental claim to superiority is. As an objective matter, there are at least 5 or 6 American universities that can claim equivalence (at least) with Harvard on all counts other than sheer wealth and popularity.</p>
<p>Re: Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s prestige is not limited to English-speaking cultures. Along with Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, and Dante, and maybe a few other candidates from the 19th Century, Shakespeare is shorthand for great literature throughout Western culture (and there’s a pretty big impact in Japan and India, too). Part of it is circular – he is the great author in English, so everyone reads him, so everyone uses him as a reference point, so he is great. But a big, big part of it is, he’s really great. Even apart from popularity, it would be awfully hard to frame an argument that any author in the past 400 years, anywhere, has a more impressive body of literary work.</p>