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Can anyone post the link to it?

By Regulus (Regulus) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 02:00 am: Edit

Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
UCD
the rest not sure...
UCI
UCSB
UCSC
UCR

By Sabzevarian (Sabzevarian) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 02:30 am: Edit

I'm looking for the one as Princeton being #1. Maybe it wasn't by prestige.

By hi on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:02 pm: Edit

he misunderstood the question as UC not US

By j on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:15 pm: Edit

Can anyone rank the UCs in terms of their computer science departments?

By j on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Here's the rankings by prestige by the way:

1. Princeton, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford
2. UC Berkeley
3. CIT, University of Chicago
4. Duke, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins
5. University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan

These are all based on the peer assessment score in the US News rankings.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:26 pm: Edit

I said this in a small out of the way thread but it bears repeating here:

Choosing a college based on prestige is a dumbass thing to do. People who do it are most likely at age 40 to be thrice divorced and making lots of money in a career they can't stand.

Choose a college that's a good fit for you, a place that will help you become the best you can be. Core curriculum vs. roll your own (Columbia vs. Brown), small town vs. urban, large school vs. small, places where the prof's know you by name vs. places where the T.A.'s know you by number, how strong and how interesting the courses in the department _you_ want to major in is, which school's social environment gives a chance for even someone like you to get laid now and then...all this for starters. There aren't right or wrong answers to these questions...but each school is going to have its own unique mix. You're going to spend probably a minimum of 4-5 percent of your life here...make the best of it.

By Regulus (Regulus) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 12:20 am: Edit

Woops =]

By asdf on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 12:43 am: Edit

What are the best universities in the world?

By Sabzevarian (Sabzevarian) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 01:06 am: Edit

Oxford and Cambridge

By Ancient Scholar on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 05:00 pm: Edit

Oxford and Cambridge? Not even close to Harvard and Yale these days. Not even CLOSE!!

Cambridge and particularly Oxford are going broke and falling apart. They've lost their best worldly professors to Harvard/Yale/Princeton long ago. Each of those 3 American schools has at least 5 to 10 times the amount of money to put into each student. Oxford and Cambridge would behind all 8 Ivy League schools in that department in this era.

By Mansoor (Mansoor) on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 02:18 am: Edit

One surefire way to measure prestige is to look at how the Universities view one another(peer assesment, like stated in a previous posting, the University of California, Berkeley is at the top of this assesment, especially when you consider the university as a whole and not just the three undergraduate colleges. As far as colleges go, none are more prestigous than Harvard, last year when Harvard was searching for a new president its trustees stated that they needed an "individual who could propel harvard into the 21st century so that it can be up to par with istutions like the Univesity of Cal, Berkeley"...and Berkeley has the highest concentration of nobel laureates anywhere....

By Blake (Blake) on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 06:30 pm: Edit

Can anyone tell me or direct me to a link where University's theater programs are ranked. I think I heard that UCLA had the best undergraduate, but I was wondering about the rest of the list. Any help is appreciated.

Blake

By Joshua (Joshua) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 03:47 pm: Edit

University of Cambridge has more Nobel Laureates
in one of its thirty-odd Colleges (Trinity) than all US Ivy Leagues combined. A large percentage of Nobel Laureates in the US are from Cambridge.

By Prestige (Prestige) on Monday, May 12, 2003 - 06:29 pm: Edit

Let us not forget that Harvards founder, John Harvard, was a Cambridge University graduate hoping to create a similiar university in the US as the prestigious Cambridge.

By Prestige (Prestige) on Monday, May 12, 2003 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Cambridge University is the best University in the world--let me repeat---in the World!! No US university is even in the same ballpark.

By Superphoton (Superphoton) on Monday, August 04, 2003 - 02:16 pm: Edit

I am going Cambridge. my college is fitzwilliam. I heard that it is not very established? is that right? Anyone knows how to find the tompkin's table?

By Randomnic (Randomnic) on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 10:35 pm: Edit

Hi.. i have a problem. I've been accepted at both Cambridge university (Trinity College for medicine) and at MIT (for an undeclared major, which means i get to select my major during my sophomore year there). I was wondering if any of you could help me regarding where I should go. I really am hopelessly confused. Financially, I have no problem at either universities as both have given me full scholarships. My career plans arent really clear, but from what i can gather, i'd like to be a medical doctor but more oriented towards the biomedical engineering kinda work. The full picture is that MIT will obviously allow me to experiment various fields before i decide a major, but it is NOT a medical school (but it'd give me a biomedical engineering degree). After MIT, I think it'd be pretty hard to have a second shot at a med school (who knows what my grades would be at MIT?). At cambridge, they're offering me less variety (i'm already enrolled in medicine there) but they'd provide me with a medicine degree atleast, though I'd have to compromise on the technology aspect of medicine (i wouldnt get a biomedical engineering degree). Would anyone help me on this.. I'm really kinda short on time here too.. MIT's preorientation starts on 17th August.. and if i decide to go to MIT, i can't miss it.. Cambridge is later.. somewhere in October.. btw, which is more reputed of the two unis?

By Yuiop (Yuiop) on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 11:08 pm: Edit

Yes people, Cambridge puts ANY US university to shame! Not that we don't have very good universities here in the United States, but seriously people don't fool yourself. As stated above, Cambridge has produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other university in the world... and in many cases you could lump together 3,4, or 5 different american "elite" schools and Cambridge would still top them.

By Londonguy (Londonguy) on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 12:07 am: Edit

Cambridge is not even close to the best in the world!

I’m afraid that some of you people are sadly misguided with regard to the level of international prestige Oxford and Cambridge have vs. their highly acclaimed American counterparts. There was a time when Oxford and Cambridge were considered the finest in the world, but sadly that day has past. Harvard alone has an endowment nearly twice that of Oxford and Cambridge combined, and selectivity wise Harvard is consistently FAR more selective.

In a list of International Centers of Excellence published a few years ago in the London Sunday Times - the Times article reported on a talk given by Dr. Robert Stevens, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, in which he expressed concern that Oxford was losing ground to universities in the U.S. in terms of international prestige. On the list of the world's best which accompanied the article, McGill appeared in tenth spot, behind Cambridge, Oxford, Sorbonne and Heidelberg. The top five institutions listed were American heavyweights Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago and Stanford.

Lets get real folks. A Master/Dean at Oxford acknowledges in a ranking released by Oxford, and published in the London Times; a ranking that places Oxford 5th and Cambridge 6th - that Oxford has lost ground to American heavyweights like Stanford, Princeton, Yale & Harvard. Please research before you post people. Anyone who does a little research will find that most rankings are done in specific subject areas, I.E. Oxford doesn’t hold a flame to MIT in many science related areas of research and study. Nearly all of the very few international peer assessment ratings done, have Harvard and Princeton ranked above Oxford and Cambridge.

I read the original article in the London Times, but lost track of it in their extensive archives. I found another copy on the McGill site that basically quotes the findings of the Oxford released study to the London Times. See Below…

http://ww2.mcgill.ca/alumni/news/s98/newsbites.htm

The ranking released by Oxford -Published in the London Times is as follows:

1)Harvard (US)
2)Princeton (US)
3)Yale (US)
4)Stanford (US)
5)Chicago (US)
6)Oxford (UK)
7)Cambridge (UK)
8)Sorbonne (France)
9)Heidelberg (Germany)
10)McGill (Canada)


You'll also find that selectivity wise Oxford and Cambridge both accept over 30% of their applicants - Oxford being the more selective of the two universities. This 30% acceptance rate is more comparative to that of Cornell, McGill, Dartmouth or Brown. Harvard's average acceptance rate was around 10%, Princeton was around 11% and Columbia and Yale both fell between 12 and 13%

FYI: General Prestige Rankings (Peer Assessment) are done by specific program, college/faculty, I.E. Columbia's Pulitzer School of Journalism's reputation as the most prestigous graduate school of journalism in the world has no bearing on the international reputation of Columbia's undergraduate engineering program.

Good Day,

London_guy77

By Londonguy (Londonguy) on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 12:42 pm: Edit

Please try not to forget that we are discussing the University of Cambridge today, not a century ago.

For those of you who want to dwell on Nobel Laureates and research acclaim, here is some food for thought: Albert Einstein turned down offerings at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford for a professorship at Princeton University. Einstein believed that the “Princeton” experience could not be intellectually matched anywhere on Earth. After leaving Germany, Einstein spent the rest of his life teaching, and doing some of the most groundbreaking work the world has ever seen in his beloved Princeton.

Fun Fact: (for those of you who deemed it necessary to exaggerate University of Cambridge’s Nobel History in comparison to that of “all US institutions combined.”) The University of Chicago since 1904 to date has had direct affiliation with over 73 Nobel Laureates – with many more expected in the next few years. The University of Cambridge to date has had 77 direct Nobel affiliations. University of Chicago alone is expected to surpass the University of Cambridge in the next 6 years.

More Fun Facts: From the Wolfgang Schoellhammer - Nobel Prize Survey 1999 – Numbers of Current Nobel Laureates and the faculties to which they serve. http://intl.fh-pforzheim.de/PUBLICA/NOBEL99/3plus.html
If you look closely you’ll see that Harvard is #1 on that Nobel Survey. That means that Harvard currently has more Nobel Laureates on it’s faculty than any other university in the world. Harvard has 8 more Nobel laureates than the University of Cambridge. While the list is a few years old, Stanford and Harvard have only acquired more Nobel Laureates (including the Head of Trinity College, Cambridge), and Stanford is now #3 in the world with over 17 Nobel Laureates. You may also notice that 10 of the top 15 institutions for Nobel Laureates are American (Oxford was in 12th place).
FYI: These statistics come from The Nobel Prize Survey 1999 The Nobel Prize as an Indicator for the Quality of Research at Universities. Harvard toped the list of this study released by the University of Applied Sciences, Pforzheim, Germany, October 1999.

Finally, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of India, who left Harvard in 1998 to become master of your beloved Trinity College, Cambridge University, announced that he would step down and return to the American Cambridge in January 2004, resuming his research and teaching in economics and philosophy as Lamont University Professor. Sen is considered the world's leading scholar of welfare economics, and a powerful moral force.

Interesting how the Head of Trinity College, University of Cambridge was a Harvard Professor before becoming the Head/Dean of Trinity. I also find it interesting that he is giving up his position as Head of Trinity College, University of Cambridge to take up a simple professorship at the lowly Harvard University. Dr. Sen could just as easily have stayed at Cambridge to continue his research endeavors in the UK, and yet he left his position as Head of Cambridge University’s most prestigious, and selective college - to teach and do his research at Harvard University, thousands of miles away. These statistics are quite the oddities for universities that, in some of your opinions, “can’t compete with Cambridge”.

Some of you truly need to inform yourselves before you open your mouths about things you know nothing about.

Good Day

London_guy77

By Misogynist (Misogynist) on Friday, November 28, 2003 - 11:52 am: Edit

To London guy 77 and everyone,

Your statement is completely rubbish.

If you live in London as your name implies, you must have known that the selectivity processes of Oxford and Cambridge are quite different from those in US.

Any A-level students who CANNOT apply both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year. The applicants MUST choose to apply EITHER Oxford or Cambridge. They are NOT allowed to apply both universities. This is the reason WHY the selectivity rates are high. Also, any a-level students who do NOT have all 3As and excellent grades are not encouraged to apply to these two universities.

So, what you have said is not based on what really happens. Please do not jump into a stupid quick conclusion.

"You'll also find that selectivity wise Oxford and Cambridge both accept over 30% of their applicants - Oxford being the more selective of the two universities. This 30% acceptance rate is more comparative to that of Cornell, McGill, Dartmouth or Brown. Harvard's average acceptance rate was around 10%, Princeton was around 11% and Columbia and Yale both fell between 12 and 13%"

By Harvardchick (Harvardchick) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 02:00 am: Edit

Londonguy,

I agree with you in principle, that America’s most renowned universities (namely Harvard and Stanford) are academically and prestigiously on par with (and in some cases exceed) those of Britain. I also agree that the statement made by an earlier poster which blatantly proclaimed that Cambridge is without peers, i.e. it has no rival amongst the world’s great academic institutions, is completely unfounded. That being said, I must take issue with your apparent attempt to cast Oxbridge as a sad and crumbling duo. For the only two things that appear to be in danger of collapse are your arguments and your assertions. Being that this forum is meant for students who are looking for fair and unbiased advice, I would like to now debate each one of your points in the order in which you presented them.

One final note before we begin, there is a difference between prestige and academic excellence, so I hope to discuss both.

1) “Harvard alone has an endowment nearly twice that of Oxford and Cambridge combined, and selectivity wise Harvard is consistently FAR more selective.”

It seems to me you that you are suggesting that a university’s selectivity and wealth directly translate into prestige and excellence. First, I grant you that many of America’s top universities have very low acceptance rates (during the 2002-2003 admission cycle Harvard admitted a mere 9.8 percent of its applicants). But, to continue with Harvard as an example, some students with 4.0 GPA’s (higher with AP courses) and 1600 SAT’s were rejected along side the less than scholarly hopefuls. This suggests two things: One, Harvard (or any other universities with similar acceptance rates) is able to be extremely prudent in selecting their incoming freshmen classes and 2) prestigious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge can still manage to matriculate brilliant students with a much higher acceptance rate. In short, what I see is Harvard turning away many deserving students, not Oxbridge accepting many undeserving ones. For example, the average A-level score of students admitted to Cambridge in 2000-2001 was 29.8 out of 30. For those not familiar with the British A-levels, a 29.8 is equivalent to all 5’s on ones AP exams or a 1550+ on ones SAT; and these are not my estimates, rather this is how Princeton accesses applicants from Britain. Consequently, I find any attempt to deduce a student body’s academic quality and scholarly potential from its university’s acceptance rate foolish at best. Prestige on the other hand is in part dependent upon acceptance rates, for if people perceives acceptance into one university as being more difficult than acceptance into another, undoubtedly the former university will garner the most attention. Still, though the balance may be tipped toward American universities (namely Harvard) in terms of prestige, few would argue that having Oxford or Cambridge on your resume would be considered ordinary. Secondly, a large endowment does not necessarily translate into higher spending per faculty member, as Harvard’s president Lawrence H. Summers can attest to. A recent article (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350141) on Nov. 19, 2003 in Harvard’s student-run newspaper, the Crimson, illustrates this point precisely. In the article, many professors welcome the funding increases by Harvard’s governing board, but emphasize that their research budgets are still very tight (this coming from a University with an endowment worth 19.3 billion dollars). What you don’t seem to understand is that universities are a lot like corporations in that they spend their money wisely. For example, Harvard is at this very moment preparing to expand across the Charles River into the community of Alston. Though they have been considering this expansion for many years, they are still unsure of what exactly they will put there in terms of facilities and specific schools (e.g. the Law School, the Kennedy School of Government, etc.). This is because universities do not lavish money on each and every whim that happens to pop into its head, regardless of how much they have in the “bank”. This caution is exercised by poor and rich universities alike. Therefore, it should be said that although a large endowment certainly has its benefits, it does not necessarily amount to a more academic university.

2) Your ranking of international centres of excellence is incredibly misleading.

First and foremost, it wasn’t a ranking at all, but rather a list of the top 10 universities in the order of the countries in which they reside. You cited a McGill Alumni Newsletter from the summer of 1998 as your proof, but I seriously doubt (rather I know) that McGill University itself interpreted the list in The Sunday Times article in the same way. I submit to you a paragraph I found on McGill’s Department of Law’s web site (http://www.law.mcgill.ca/welcome/overview_mcgill-en.htm):

“McGill remains the best recognized Canadian University internationally, a fact highlighted by McGill's inclusion on a list of 10 Centres of Excellence prepared by the Sunday Times of London a couple of years ago. McGill was the only Canadian school, alongside Oxford, Harvard, and the Sorbonne, to make the list.”

Nothing is mentioned in terms of rank; rather they are clear to state that McGill and apparently all of the universities on the list sit “alongside” one another. I also found the original article in The Sunday Times’ archives (which you have to be a subscriber to access) and though it does not paint a pretty picture for Oxford specifically (and all British universities in general) it is nonetheless is explicit in that these are the opinions of one man (Dr Robert Stevens) and there is by no means a consensus on the subject. Furthermore, your “ranking” as is pasted from the site directly looks like this:

Centres of excellence
Harvard (US)
Yale (US)
Princeton (US)
Chicago (US)
Stanford (US)
Cambridge (UK)
Oxford (UK)
Sorbonne (France)
Heidelberg (Germany)
McGill (Canada)

First, notice that there are no numbers next to the universities (i.e. #1, #2, #3 and so on). Secondly, notice that the universities are grouped by country; I find it hard to believe that the five American universities chosen to be in the in the top ten happen to in fact be the top five. The British universities too are grouped next to one another. Thirdly, the article itself states that the jury is still out on which universities are the best and it makes no mention to this list other than what I have pasted here for you. The article sites no source and no methodology for this list, as The London Times/The Sunday Times does for every other ranking they compile (e.g. the British University rankings and the British secondary school rankings). Face it, this “ranking” is nothing more than a hastily put together list created by the authors of the article to give the reader a point of reference when referring to the world’s other prestigious universities…that’s it.

3) You, like those you are trying to argue, are putting way too much emphasis on Nobel Laureates who are connected, directly or indirectly, to any one university.

“University of Chicago alone is expected to surpass the University of Cambridge in the next 6 years.”

I seriously laughed out loud when I read this. Do you honestly think that Nobel Laureates are similar to a country’s GDP or a saving account, where you can predict growth many years in advance? Do you presume to know which universities will win Nobel prizes and which ones won’t? Because if you can I am sure the Nobel Foundation would like to have a word with you.

“If you look closely you’ll see that Harvard is #1 on that Nobel Survey. That means that Harvard currently has more Nobel Laureates on its faculty than any other university in the world.”

And if you will look closely, you will see that Cambridge is in second place (hardly the crumbling institution you describe). I realize that you did refer to Cambridge’s ranking, but I find it hard to understand why you seem to hold Harvard’s number one ranking in such high esteem while mocking Cambridge’s number two ranking. Further inspection reveals that Cambridge has more Nobel Laureates on its faculty than does Stanford, Chicago, Princeton, MIT, et al. In fact, by its very nature, being ranked number two means that you are better than every other university except the one ranked number one, I know it’s difficult to comprehend. Also, I looked at the Nobel Laureates from 2000 to the present to make the ranking current and I discovered that Harvard and Cambridge would still be ranked one and two with 28 and 20 Laureates respectively. That’s right, neither Harvard nor Cambridge won a single Nobel over the past four years, while such revered universities as the University of Colorado, UC Santa Barbara, the University of Illinois, and Rockefeller University all won two a piece. Now, either Harvard must be slipping or one must concede that the number of Nobel Laureates on a university’s faculty is not directly interdependent upon that university’s prestige or academic excellence as a whole.

4) Finally, your misrepresentation of the eminent scholars Amartya Sen and Albert Einstein is appalling.

It is one thing to make broad statements about matters which you obviously have little understanding, but it is something entirely different when you pretend to know the minds of other individuals to further your own agenda.

Let’s start with Albert Einstein…You state that “Albert Einstein turned down offerings at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford for a professorship at Princeton University.” This is incorrect, for Albert Einstein never worked for Princeton University, but rather the Institute of Advanced Study, which is in the town of Princeton, New Jersey. Though he gave lectures on occasion at Princeton, it is safe to say that it was the Institute (which also employed the imminent scholar and friend of Einstein, John Von Neumann) and the town of Princeton’s rural location and agreeable climate that drew Einstein there. You also seem to forget what Einstein’s field of study was…it was during this period of American history that the American government was dumping billion of dollars into institutions and universities to further there place in the cold war. These circumstances undoubtedly provided Einstein and his colleagues with opportunities for research not available in other countries. Consequently, I don’t believe Einstein was making a statement about Cambridge’s or Oxford’s inferiority when he decided to move to a small American town to work with close friends of his. Furthermore, much of this can be found on Princeton’s own website.

Concerning your statements about Amartya Sen, it is unfortunate that you didn’t take the time to heed your own advice to educate yourself about the subject at hand. First and foremost, Amartya Sen worked at Harvard from 1987 to 1998, a period of eleven years. During this time he apparently enjoyed himself and his research very much, he collaborated with close friends of his (namely John Rawls, now deceased, and Stephen Marglin), and he essentially made a home for himself in Massachusetts. Being that he was working for one of the greatest research universities in the world, Harvard, it would take an offer of great prestige or of great personal value to entice him to leave. Apparently the Mastership at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge was such an offer, because he immediately uprooted and left for England.

“I also find it interesting that he is giving up his position as Head of Trinity College, University of Cambridge to take up a simple professorship at the lowly Harvard University.”

What you don’t seem to understand is Trinity College has regulations in place which require a master to step down at the age of 70. Being that Amartya Sen was born in 1933 and retired in 2003…well you do the math. In other words, he did not step down because he was becoming tired of Cambridge or Trinity, but rather because he had to. Also, though he will be moving back to Harvard (which you will remember is where he lived for a full eleven years and remained an adjunct professor even while a Cambridge) he will remain a fellow at Cambridge. I think it is safe to say that Amartya Sen has only love in his heart for Cambridge, both the one in Massachusetts and the one in Britain.

That all being said , I personally believe that, regardless of the problems being faced by many of Britain’s universities (and have no doubt that they are facing some serious problems), that Oxbridge remains elite and will continue to be so, lest the British are willing to lose these two national treasures, which I don’t see happening.

Here are two articles which illustrate some of the problems being faced by Oxbridge (though mainly by Oxford):

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,9828,561734,00.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/fmarchives/fm_04_19_2001/article9A.html

You will see in the second article that Harvard is apparently the new “must have” academic brand name in the world, namely in Asia. Though, I don’t necessarily disagree with the article, I do think their interviewing was selective, i.e. they were all Harvard students or alumni. I also think that the comments made by the interviewees were less than informative; i.e. “An American education is a valuable thing to go for: it is really resounding because it is more exotic in Asia than Oxford or Cambridge. Oxford and Cambridge are outdated.” Well this seems to suggest that Oxford and Cambridge have become to the World what Harvard has become to Americans, great universities but not that special. Look at how much Americans covet the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships and how “exotic” Oxford and Cambridge seem to them. I think this is a testament to the diversity in opinion depending upon where one lives as opposed to the establishment of one absolute most prestigious university.

That being said, I personally do feel that two universities clearly make up the top tier of the Worlds most prestigious universities and those are Harvard and Cambridge (with some people including Stanford). As for the obvious exclusion of Oxford, I honestly feel that the university is in a bad spot right now in terms of governance and leaving faculty, but I would still put them alongside Yale, Princeton, Chicago, et al. in the second tier.

By Stanfordnualum (Stanfordnualum) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 01:48 am: Edit

I don't know if better schools necessarily have smarter student body. But I do know on average, Harvard, Pricenton, Stanford students are smarter than Oxford/Cambridge's. My friend went to Oxford and found a lot of people there just very "average". I took a GRE prep course in one summer few year ago and one of the the girls in that course went to Cambridge (architecture major). I expect her to be sharp but she was pretty average instead, asking quite a few questions on GRE math which to me is super easy.

By Kitji (Kitji) on Monday, April 19, 2004 - 03:39 pm: Edit

I was wondering, why are we judging a university's prestige rank based on its students' strength, who enrolled there, its financial endowments, AND how many Nobel Laureates it produces?

I may sound like a retard here but nowadays who really gives a damn to whether you earned your degree from Harvard or Cambridge, or whether if your degree is from the country or should I say, the world's #1 (in terms of prestige ranking) universities?

Do we really need to blow this 'most prestigious university in the world/US' topic out of proportions, hoping to win people over to agree with our arguments? As a matter of fact, we are more likely confusing concerned high school and A-level graduates than assisting them in making choices.

Let's get real: with the present economy, so what if you are a Harvard or Cambridge graduate? If you can't help in any way to boost the economy for the better and/or you can't do much in creating greater profits for the companies you are working for, or even your very own company, all those prestige-attached degrees are nothing but just rubbish pieces of paper.

I'm not insulting anyone or any educational body here. But all of us really should get in touch with reality. Experience in field is invaluable and many MNCs are paying big bucks to people who have experience than fresh grads from Ivy League or world's most prestigious Uni to do the job. I'm not ruling out or making any statement that these graduates are being paid peanuts cuz i know there are some who get paid rather well but am I able to generalise that most prestige uni have the best grads in the universe base on that ground then?

Choosing a good university is, no doubt, essential cuz all of us want to get the most out of the uni that we enrol in.

Choosing to enrol in a prestigious university is more like a desire to get a very much better quality education due to better lecturers teaching there.

BUT we can't let our pride and ego to rule our mind!!!!

Let me ask you guys a simple question:

What's the difference between getting a degree from Yale and a degree from Harvard? The difference between a degree from Cambridge and one from Harvard?

Other than location, I see no difference. DUN give me reasons such as students from this school are smarter than those from the other cuz how do you gauge that? From those SAT tests or whatever prep courses the students sat for, or the academic results the students used to apply for a placement in the university?

Bill Gates may have spent some years in Harvard but he gave it up and started his mega-business, Microsoft. He didn't earn a degree from there but people respect him NOT because he's a former student there, rather, he has the brains to create this business dynasty of his.

Current US President, George Bush graduated from Yale University but many of his reforms and policies for the country and the world have been very much been attacked and harsh criticisms were shooting directly at him. But hey man, he's a graduate from Yale!!!!

Bill Clinton may not be the best US president ever but he's able to sustain a surplus in the US government budget during his presidency (while Bush causes an incur directly or indirectly a huge deficit) and he's a graduate from Oxford and followed by Yale.

What's the similarity here? Both the presidents graduate from Yale, with Clinton an addition degree from Oxford.

Difference? Gates has a billon dollar business attached to his name, without his prestige degree, Bush and Clinton may be graduates from Yale but both produce different results to the economy. Can we still conclude that enrolling into the best or most prestigious uni means we are the smartest?

People look up to you when you graduate from a prestigious university BUT they respect you more for all the great contributions made by you, not just because of a piece of paper.

My advice to prospective students to various universities:

1)Dun let prestige and/or fame of universities rule your reasonings. Your future is not determined by your educational birth from the uni or college u graduate from.

2) if you want to get into a prestigious uni, dun go digging for more opinions from others which uni is better cuz it's the real life working experience that adds value to your degree, not the other way round.

3) No one will regard you double standards if you graduate from Brown Uni instead of Harvard, or Oxford instead of Yale cuz they are top uni. Understand this: not everyone can get into these top uni. Count yourself blessed cuz you can.

4)It's the dumbest act ever done by people who judge your intellectuality based on which uni you graduate from.


In my conclusion, please dun try to convince and/or confuse people to believe what you want them to believe. A good, prestigious uni is judged based on how much can it offer to its students and equip them with the most neccessity skills and knowledge to take the world and making it a better place for all of us.

By Harvardchick (Harvardchick) on Sunday, April 25, 2004 - 01:26 am: Edit

Stanfordalum, I could make the same claim about some people I have met from Harvard and...yes, even from Stanford. I myself have met some brilliant people from Cambridge, so who knows. All I would like to point out is that in terms of sheer resources available to diligent students Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge offer the most "complete package," where as they are above average to excellent in everything they do.

As for Kitji, you reek of an inferiority complex. We have all heard the advice that one should go to a university that suites them best, this is something that I wholeheartedly agree with. But, each and every prospective student coming to this board has already heard such a tirade and some are still not dissuaded from the pursuit to discover “which university is most prestigious?” etc. I, myself, was simply trying to correct a previous poster who essentially lied about the University of Cambridge. But, this is aside the point, students have a right to ask these questions and people with an opinion (be it right or wrong) have a right to answer them. What would make the whole experience a lot more fun is if we didn’t have to read the ramblings and an individual hell-bent on saving us all (whether we want to be or not) from our “egos.” I completely agree that it is stupid to judge an individual’s intellect based upon which university they attended, but I find it ironic that you chose to make your non sequitur argument on a message board titled “US University ranking by prestige.” You concluded with a sickeningly sweet and utopian plea:

“In my conclusion, please dun try to convince and/or confuse people to believe what you want them to believe. A good, prestigious uni is judged based on how much can it offer to its students and equip them with the most neccessity skills and knowledge to take the world and making it a better place for all of us.”

So let me finish with an equally sweet rebuke. These pure and innocent cherubs whom you are trying to shield from us manipulative and conniving prestige whores are the very people who started this message board to begin with. In conclusion, it appears that you, Ms. “I Wanna Make the World a Better Place,” are too late.