<p>My votes are probably a tad biased; top 5 in semi-order</p>
<p>Yale
UChicago (they gave me a scarf!)
Cambridge
MIT (best sciency school)
Princeton</p>
<p>(the two at the bottom cause they were my top two choices, rejection and waitlist :P)</p>
<p>I agree, it’s interesting that nearly everyone included Cambridge on their lists but only some people included Oxford.</p>
<p>This is a little biased as I am familiar with some universities more than others.
Yale
Cambridge
Harvard
Stanford
Princeton</p>
<p>If it were for undergrad education:
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Harvard
Brown</p>
<p>Just a general question I like to pester people with. How many of you have actually attended any of these universities and would therefore have any concrete insight on where they would rank in comparison with one another?</p>
<p>^Excellent point. Which also brings me to this: You don’t magically get a better education at Harvard than at Iowa State. Or fine, lets say you don’t magically get a better education at Harvard than at UPenn, which hasn’t been mentioned in the posts. I sure as hell didn’t feel I got a better education at MIT than at Duke. They were pretty much as academic and intellectually exciting as they should be. </p>
<p>What this thread and the posters (most are probably high school students obsessed with prestige) are doing here is answering the question based on not the “Best top 5 universities in terms of academics” but by their name brand. This is very misleading. Its become into a “World’s top 5 biggest name recognition university?” and also morphed into a joke thread from the very start.</p>
<p>OP: By starting threads like this, you gain nothing. Opinions of others to boost your self esteem is very selfish, or just posting this thread for the heck of it is also “un-noble.” Others who attend excellent institutions such as Dartmouth, UPenn, or even UMich and UVA may feel that their university hasn’t been mentioned. You are unnecessarily putting Harvard, which is mentioned pretty much in every post, on a pedestal at tho cost of hurting others’ self esteem. </p>
<p>If you want to know the top 5 world universities, please refer to THES Rankings. Or USNEWS. Or ARWU. Or a combination of the two:[Top</a> 100 Colleges in America | Best American University](<a href=“http://www.plant-biology.com/Best-100-American-University-College.php]Top”>http://www.plant-biology.com/Best-100-American-University-College.php)</p>
<p>I hope this thread vanishes away.</p>
<p>^It’s a recurring theme throughout CC. It’s a forum, everybody is entitled to their own opinions, it’s true. But what I want some readers to get through their heads is that whatever some random people post on CC is not the law of the land. There’s a lot of people speculating on things they don’t REALLY know, including me.</p>
<p>ha ha this is so funny…</p>