<p>Uchicago has very little name recognition among the masses - absurd to think otherwise. It has an incredible reputation among academics</p>
<p>And people around here (Chicago) do know it, and don’t know half the Ivies (Brown? Dartmouth? whatever). </p>
<p>Quite the opposite most do not recognize Cornell as an Ivy (esp. in California).
Brown and Dartmouth have always been known to carry wide ranging name recognition in the Ivies.
Northwestern IMO has a bigger name draw than UofC, which is now gaining popularity due to US News rankings.</p>
<p>For the most part, name recognition and prestige to the masses is regional outside of HPYSM. On Main street 90% have never heard of Cal tech, 75% will ask if WashStL is near Seattle and 50% think UPENN is Penn State.
Your career will defined and impacted more by your effort and not so much by your undergraduate university.</p>
<p>What I could never understand is why people are so obsessed with what the “masses” think. By going to one of these top schools, there’s a very high chance that you’ll be surrounded by people with similar profiles post-graduation who know these schools. Those in law, med, and biz are all familiar with these schools. HYPSM have national recognition, yet I bet most people don’t know much about HYSPM except that they’re “good schools”, and after that, it really breaks down to state flagships and schools known for sports. You probably have people who view U of Alabama higher than WUSTL because they’ve never heard of the latter. Do you really care what these people think? Because I sure don’t.</p>
<p>Any time the issue of prestige comes up, try to identify your target audience. Except for maybe Harvard and Yale, every single other college gets the occasional “huh?” response and that includes Princeton and the rest of the Ivies. My DH went to Stanford and plenty of people we encounter never heard of it. Fortunately those people are not important to us! While individual ranking systems are often flawed, they all consistently rank Northwestern in the top 15 of national universities and among the top 30 in the world, year after year. Important people know this. So don’t worry, NU’s reputation is tops. You will never, ever be dinged for having Northwestern on your resume/CV/job application/graduation school application, and isn’t that the point?</p>
<p>I think Chicago has gone up due to Obama’s presence there. I just hope, as a parent of a kid who likes NU a lot and was even seriously considering ED, that NU does nt lower the admit rate even more just to get a higher ranking order.</p>
<p>The title of this thread is misleading. NU has been in the top 10 before. It’s not just once but three times. I guess that in itself shows that making top 10 again won’t make much difference.</p>
<p>Idic5, they don’t change the admit rate themselves. It depends on how many apply, and how many they let in (which is usually a set amount based on the yield, resulting in about 2000 freshman). Since NU doesn’t push for applications, the admit rate is really out of their hand.</p>
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<p>I disagree that even HYPSM have “national” recognition among the masses. Try it out. Go to your local Radio Shack, Hallmark store, whatever. Ask the clerk, “I’m doing a survey. What are the 5 best colleges / universities in the country?” See how long it takes them to come up with HYPSM. They won’t. None of these schools are on the radar screen of the masses. Which is, of course, totally irrelevant to whether they are worth going to, because recognition among the masses is meaningless.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in the south, the Midwest, in the Western part of the USA and overseas and I can assure you that everyone who matters (businesses and grad schools) has heard of Northwestern. It is considered an academically superior school without the elitist or ‘East coast’ attitude sometimes attributed to the Ivys. Some of the older people in the midwest still think Northwestern as a rich kid’s school because that’s how it was known in the past. But most people just think it is a really great school, with down to earth attitudes in a safe college city on scenic Lake Michigan. </p>
<p>If you can get good financial aid or can afford it, it is one of the best choices you can make for an undergrad or graduate program. The med school is in Chicago, not in Evanston. </p>
<p>The new rankings come out in September. I predict that NU will be in the top 12 again. </p>
<p>Honestly, when you get to the top 15 or so… they are all up there. Does it really matter if you are at #7 or #13 if one will make you miserable and the other really happy? </p>
<p>I personally would never attend Cal Tech no matter how highly ranked it is… no would I ever attend Williams. But you only get one life so make it the best you can… Shakespeare had it right: ‘to each his own’</p>
<p>Ditto the sentiment above. The further out I get the less important it becomes, even in a prestige obsessed profession like mine. People care a lot more about your recent successes- it helps that I went to a superior undergrad, but, e.g., in law your law school eclipses that, then your firm, and then, perhaps, your judge.</p>
<p>The only people that pay this much attention to college rankings are college applicants and the terminally insecure parents thereof.</p>
<p>I mostly agree with that, arbiter, but it’s hard to deny that your “superior undergrad” might have had an effect on where you went to law school, and that law school on what firm you ended up in, etc. Tuition + room&board is now about $60K annually. So caring about prestige isn’t just a matter of applicant or parental preening.</p>
<p>Nope- Law School’s care 0 about where you went to undergrad.</p>
<p>This former Dean of Admissions of the Univ. of Chicago Law School disagrees with you:</p>
<p>[Does</a> It Matter Where I Went to College When Law Schools Evaluate My Undergraduate GPA? | Ivey Files](<a href=“http://www.annaivey.com/iveyfiles/2010/10/does_it_matter_where_i_went_to_college_when_law_schools_evaluate_my_undergraduate_]Does”>http://www.annaivey.com/iveyfiles/2010/10/does_it_matter_where_i_went_to_college_when_law_schools_evaluate_my_undergraduate_)</p>
<p>Besides, believe it or not, not everybody wants to be a lawyer. And where the undergrad degree came from matters a lot more in other fields.</p>
<p>^And reality disagrees with the law dean. U Chicago does have a reputation for caring slightly more.</p>
<p>And I agree- I was simply using law as an example. Generally, graduate degrees eclipse the importance of the prestige. My larger point was that the real value in a degree from an elite institution is the education, not the prestige. Though the prestige can certainly help somewhat for recruiting (e.g. if you want to be an MC) etc. Highschoolers are just inordinately obsessed with the seemingly vast differences between schools that are, for 99% of the country, functionally indistinguishable.</p>
<p>I think it is 6 years in a row now…</p>
<p>Re Rankings – NU is up a bit this year (hurray!!); It may be down a bit in some years (Boooo).</p>
<p>Can any one explain to me what the difference is between #10 and #12 in any meaningful way.</p>
<p>Let’s compare NU and Dartmouth – NU is a suburban school just outside a major city. Dartmouth is decidedly rural. NU is somewhat larger, a member of a Major Athletic Conference and has a big school feel (as opposed to Dartmouth – which is still Dartmouth College, if I recall).</p>
<p>This is not meant to criticize Dartmouth at all. It is absolutely fantastic!! It does, however, provide a different experience than NU. Personally, I can’t fathom why being ranked #10 as opposed to #12 would make the difference, given the difference between these schools.</p>
<p>Besides – we should all remember – that as Mark Twain (or was it Disraeli) said:</p>
<p>There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.</p>
<p>I think that says it all about rankings.</p>
<p>Agree with the above but just to clarify, NU has been 12 for 6 years in a row. I don’t think we should be complacent about that because it impacts perception. And NU deserves to be in top 10. Look at the peer assessment rank - tied with a bunch of ivy leagues / duke (ahead of Dartmouth) and look at sat range (one of highest - probably top 5-7). Some of the metrics are hurting NU - not sure why the selectivity rank dropped so much this year while its sat range is significantly higher than schools ranked higher.</p>
<p>Honestly, if it hits top 10 we get an influx of applications from kids just looking for prestige, who are usually kids I’d rather not have on campus. Most people here are so chill, I’d rather not have some Type-A, “look at me I’m at a top 10!” kids.</p>
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<p>It impacts the perception of the kinds of people who think that there is a meaningful difference between #10 and #12, or who don’t get that there are lots of great colleges and at this level, it’s all about personal preference and frankly, hair-splitting. People like that aren’t worth the time of day and they aren’t worth trying to “impress.” They are pathetic wannabes. NU’s quality speaks for itself. If someone is “unimpressed” that it’s only #12 versus #10, that person is the person who needs to up his or her critical thinking skills. We don’t need to cater to such stupidity at all.</p>
<p>Besides, the adoration of the Ivy League is mostly confined to the east coast.</p>