<p>I have just returned from almost a year abroad, mostly in Central America (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama).</p>
<p>One thing that really struck me is that virtually no one had heard of Yale. They also had never heard of most other universities. </p>
<p>I spoke to people who had never graduated high school, college students, and professionals with higher degrees. None had graduated from a US college or university. I did not speak to academics.</p>
<p>Results. </p>
<p>Almost everyone had heard of Harvard. </p>
<p>The only other well known university was Stanford.</p>
<p>A few had heard of other universities, such as MIT, UC Berkeley, New York University, and (depending on personal experience) random other places.</p>
<p>My question is the level of recognition of Yale in places other members of the list have lived. Try to be specific about the people you asked and when you asked. I am most interested in more average people rather than the elite or official views.</p>
<p>From my personal experience, the Yale name comes to be around 3-4 in terms of getting recognition from the average person around the world. The ususal ranking for us unis are 1. Harvard (without a doubt) 2. Stanford 3. MIT/Yale</p>
<p>I've worked abroad, traveled with students and been to a number of weddings in other countries. All of the "average" people I've met in traveling around Europe, Asia and the Middle East have heard of Yale, as well as Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago and others. The "educated" people in those countries obviously know of a lot more schools, even small LACs. Yale has a particularly large presence in China, because of the very long history (over 150 years) of Yale's involvement in China, much longer than that of any other American college. I don't know about Latin America since I haven't traveled there, but I know that like the other top research universities, Yale attracts a number of students from that region.</p>
<p>I'm interning in London for the summer, and pretty much everyone here has heard of it. I can't say I work and live among a representative sample of the British population, but whenever I'm outed as a Yalie, people do react in a fashion similar to how they do in the States.</p>
<p>I was in a small village in Africa with a Yale t-shirt on and people were excited to meet someone who had gone there. I agree with others that Harvard has the best name recognition internationally with Stanford, Yale and MIT being the other most widely known universities. In my TOTALLY NOT REPRESENTATIVE experience, Oxford and Cambridge grads think Harvard and Yale are tops and view Princeton and Stanford as somewhat lesser institutions. I'm not agreeing with this position, I'm just reporting what I've heard from numerous Oxbridge alums on numerous occasions for what's it's worth to this thread.</p>
<p>The experiences others have reported, that Yale is well known virtually everywhere, is so different from my own that I am left wondering.</p>
<p>It is hard to believe that people in small towns in asia and africa (away from the capitals) have heard of Yale while people even in some of the main towns of Central America have not.</p>
<p>In europe it's not as well known as Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, NYU, MIT. Probably on the level of UChicago, which is reasonably high. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. People whose opinions of your education could potentially affect you will think highly of Yale in most parts of Europe. If you wanted people to be simply amazed at your uni wherever you go then you should have gone to Harvard! :P </p>
<p>Heh just jokes, Yale is a well respected uni. My sis went there.</p>
<p>every summer at yale, dozens of international students (from most places you can imagine) arrive to take courses, just to put the yale name on their resume</p>
<p>Yeah, many people in Europe are a bit misguided about American universities. NYU is definitely better known than Columbia, but probably only because it has NY in the name. A large number of europeans (especially women) nearly soil themselves for anything related to New York.</p>
<p>To be fair though, most Americans are at least as misguided about European universities. Most think very highly of St Andrews but don't even know about Warwick, for example (the overall difference is about as large as that between NYU and Columbia; both good schools but not really in the same league).</p>
<p>And what's this about not going to Yale for the name?</p>
<p>Yeah, don't discount the fact that our past 3 presidents went to Yale not Harvard... The most visible representative of our nation for the past 15 years has been a Yalie. I'm sure this is done a lot for Yale's name abroad (then again... Well we won't get political. Those 15 years span both sides of the aisle.)</p>
<p>4 of the past 6 Presidents (5 of 7 once Hillary is elected); plus, a Yalie has been in the White House in every regime since 1980.</p>
<p>Even more impressively, a Yale alum has been on a major party (Dem or GOP) ticket in every U.S. national election since 1972: including 3 of the 4 candidates in the 2000 election and 3 of the 4 candidates in the 2004 election.</p>
<p>Yale alumni are also (or as of last year have been anyways) the U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., China, Russia, France and many others. There are also dozens of governors, senators and representatives.</p>
<p>The rest of the top 20 universities in America - COMBINED - don't even come close to that record.</p>
<p>I wouldn't suppose you'd know (or care) where Hu Jintao, Angela Merkel, or Stephen Harper attended university? So I doubt most non-Americans would know (or care) where G-Dub was educated. :)</p>
<p>Outside the US, Yale is not that very well known. Look at the world rankings, etc. Of course this doesn't have anything to do with the school's academics. In the future, people will say Harvard and Stanford.</p>