"Ivy" School Status Forum

[crackberry]

If someone can show me a great overall university with a mediocre UG, I'll be shocked. They are mutually exclusive IMO.

ehh that seems about right, the only one I can think of is George Washington, I'm not even sure if that counts

NYU, maybe?

I can't think of a better example, and yet NYU's UG is much better than mediocre... so the hypothesis fails to be rejected

Yeah, it's all relative. NYU is not a Top-25 UG, but it may be Top-50.

That said, it has a great law school, a very good business school and a very good medical school. It also has one of the two best film schools in the country and, on the whole, very good graduate programs. So I think it qualifies as an extremely good overall university, but I would not call it an extremely good UG.

[JusticeHarlan]

Stanford University is rivaled only by Harvard and Berkeley in the United States. Period. Stanford University is better overall than Yale University and Princeton University. There is no question about that. Princeton shouldn't even be in the discussion. Sure, it has some great PhD programs, but it doesn't have law, business or medical schools. That alone eliminates it from contention. Yale Law School is the best in the country, but Stanford has a way better business and slightly better medical school than Yale. Also, Stanford's PhD programs are - by and large - better than Yale's. Again, not really a comparison. Only Harvard and Berkeley can compete. Seriously.

Why is Berkeley in this discussion, but Penn and Columbia aren't?

Law: Columbia > Berkeley > Penn (though Penn and Berkeley are pretty much a wash)
Business: Penn > Berkeley > Columbia
Medicine: Penn > Columbia > Berkeley (no med school?)

Are Berkeley's PhD programs that much better than Penn and Columbia you'd put the entire institution in a higher echelon?

I mean, I don't think there's any objective way to rank universities on as a whole, so its gonna be an impossible endeavor to prove or disprove any rankings we come up with; but I am curious why Berkeley is so much better than Penn and Columbia in your mind.

The better question, of course, is why hasn't US News come up with their "overall rankings" so they can sell another issue to people who buy those kinds of things?

[legends159]

And if you said that merely to goad me, congratulations.

Success!

I don't know much about UG rankings, nor do I care, but has Stanford ever been in the top 3?

I'm also from the east coast and I generally get the feeling (at least w/in the Asian community) that Stanford UG is a very good school but doesn't have as big of a wow factor as HY. Kind of like how CLS is a very good law school but doesn't have the same wow factor as HYS.

Not sure why that's the case, maybe it's just within the Asian culture. I know we lose a lot of Asian SLS admits to Harvard and Yale simply b/c they perceive the Harvard or Yale name as a garnering a bigger "wow" factor--even if they went to UG at HYP.

i remember last year at SLS's admit weekend, a couple of Harvard UG kids told me they hated Boston but couldn't it turn down b/c it's Harvard. I personally think having multiple institutions on your resume is better than having the same one, especially for networking, but that's just me.

[rayiner]

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

[crackberry]

I don't know much about UG rankings, nor do I care, but has Stanford ever been in the top 3?

I don't know, but US News rankings for UG are totally worthless. I can go into this if you really want, but I'd prefer not to - suffice it to say that many of the criteria they use to create those rankings are totally meaningless (percentage of alumni giving, for instance).

I'm also from the east coast and I generally get the feeling (at least w/in the Asian community) that Stanford UG is a very good school but doesn't have as big of a wow factor as HY.

That is definitely true on the East Coast. That's kind of my whole point. It's less true on the West Coast, where Stanford's name is superior to that of Yale for sure; Harvard is king everywhere.

I personally think having multiple institutions on your resume is better than having the same one, especially for networking, but that's just me.

Which is why I would seriously consider going to YLS over SLS if I eventually get in to Yale (big "if"). That said, I don't think having Stanford twice on my resume is going to be a career-killer - especially since I plan to work in Northern California.

[crackberry]

Why is Berkeley in this discussion, but Penn and Columbia aren't?

Law: Columbia > Berkeley > Penn (though Penn and Berkeley are pretty much a wash)
Business: Penn > Berkeley > Columbia
Medicine: Penn > Columbia > Berkeley (no med school?)

Are Berkeley's PhD programs that much better than Penn and Columbia you'd put the entire institution in a higher echelon?

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Yeah, the three professional schools - while often cited the most - are only a small portion of an overall university. Berkeley's graduate programs, on the whole, are in a league with Harvard and Stanford alone. I think Berkeley may have the most graduate programs ranked in the Top 10 actually. In any event, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley are 1, 2, 3 in some order or another.

[AngryAvocado]

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Harvard's engineering is barely better than Columbia's (both of which are ranked about ~20th), so I'm not sure why that would disqualify Columbia from contention.

[AngryAvocado]

Why is Berkeley in this discussion, but Penn and Columbia aren't?

Law: Columbia > Berkeley > Penn (though Penn and Berkeley are pretty much a wash)
Business: Penn > Berkeley > Columbia
Medicine: Penn > Columbia > Berkeley (no med school?)

Are Berkeley's PhD programs that much better than Penn and Columbia you'd put the entire institution in a higher echelon?

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Yeah, the three professional schools - while often cited the most - are only a small portion of an overall university. Berkeley's graduate programs, on the whole, are in a league with Harvard and Stanford alone. I think Berkeley may have the most graduate programs ranked in the Top 10 actually. In any event, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley are 1, 2, 3 in some order or another.

I agree. Berkeley has an outstanding repertoire of graduate schools. What holds it back, in my mind at least, is it's relatively weak undergraduate.

[crackberry]

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Harvard's engineering is barely better than Columbia's (both of which are ranked about ~20th), so I'm not sure why that would disqualify Columbia from contention.

Columbia has great law and education schools. But both its business and medical schools are worse than Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford's. (FYI to an earlier poster - Berkeley's med school is UCSF, which is one of the best medical schools in the country.) Once you go beyond the professional schools, HBS (meaning Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford in this case) really shine. No, Harvard's engineering and science programs can't touch Berkeley or Stanford's, but Harvard's economics, political science, history, psychology, etc. programs are all fantastic (as are Berkeley and Stanford's).

Listen, Columbia is an incredible school and has some awesome departments, but as a whole, it cannot touch HBS.

[crackberry]

I agree. Berkeley has an outstanding repertoire of graduate schools. What holds it back, in my mind at least, is it's relatively weak undergraduate.

No doubt Berkeley has the weakest UG of any of the schools in question. But UG really is probably the least important measure here. UG is not what makes a world-class university (I use that term loosely - clearly all of these schools are world-class; we're just splitting hairs).

[holydonkey]

Jesus, this thread is ostentatious.

[Nom Sawyer]

I agree. Berkeley has an outstanding repertoire of graduate schools. What holds it back, in my mind at least, is it's relatively weak undergraduate.

No doubt Berkeley has the weakest UG of any of the schools in question. But UG really is probably the least important measure here. UG is not what makes a world-class university (I use that term loosely - clearly all of these schools are world-class; we're just splitting hairs).

The problem lies in the fact that Berkeley awards the "Hippie Power" Trophy.... really just TTT in comparison even with Stanford's Junior Award.

--ImageRemoved--

[09042014]

The Ivy League is an elaborate scheme by Cornell and Brown to steal prestige from HYP.

[crackberry]

The Ivy League is an elaborate scheme by Cornell and Brown and Dartmouth to steal prestige from HYP.

Fixed.

[Nom Sawyer]

The Ivy League is an elaborate scheme by Cornell and Brown to steal prestige from HYP.

theres a third member to this cabal but its not very successful... i can't even remember its name...

ahh Crackberry reminded me

[tomhobbes]

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Harvard's engineering is barely better than Columbia's (both of which are ranked about ~20th), so I'm not sure why that would disqualify Columbia from contention.

Columbia has great law and education schools. But both its business and medical schools are worse than Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford's. (FYI to an earlier poster - Berkeley's med school is UCSF, which is one of the best medical schools in the country.) Once you go beyond the professional schools, HBS (meaning Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford in this case) really shine. No, Harvard's engineering and science programs can't touch Berkeley or Stanford's, but Harvard's economics, political science, history, psychology, etc. programs are all fantastic (as are Berkeley and Stanford's).

Listen, Columbia is an incredible school and has some awesome departments, but as a whole, it cannot touch HBS.

UCSF isn't really Berkeley's med school, is it? I think it's a separate part of the UC system, much like Hastings.

[crackberry]

UCSF isn't really Berkeley's med school, is it? I think it's a separate part of the UC system, much like Hastings.

Yes, you're right, but the reason it exists is because Berkeley said, essentially, "Ok, we wont have a med school on our campus. Let's put one in San Francisco instead," so all the resources that would have been directed to Berkeley's med school instead went to UCSF.

[AngryAvocado]

So, by my estimation (I have no idea why I'm interested in this; I really have no dog in the fight)...

Columbia has better: Undergraduate (significantly), business, law, and medical schools
Berkeley has better: Engineering (significantly), graduate/PhD programs (in aggregate)

I think a case could be made for either, but Columbia certainly belongs in the discussion.

[showNprove]

So, by my estimation (I have no idea why I'm interested in this; I really have no dog in the fight)...

Columbia has better: Undergraduate (significantly), business, law, and medical schools
Berkeley has better: Engineering (significantly), graduate/PhD programs (in aggregate)

I think a case could be made for either, but Columbia certainly belongs in the discussion.

LOL. An argument can be made for Columbia, but I honestly think Berkeley has a better undergrad program.

[AngryAvocado]

So, by my estimation (I have no idea why I'm interested in this; I really have no dog in the fight)...

Columbia has better: Undergraduate (significantly), business, law, and medical schools
Berkeley has better: Engineering (significantly), graduate/PhD programs (in aggregate)

I think a case could be made for either, but Columbia certainly belongs in the discussion.

LOL. An argument can be made for Columbia, but I honestly think Berkeley has a better undergrad program.

Well, rankings and incoming students' statistics don't agree with you. It's not even close.

[bloodonthetracks]

The Ivy League is an elaborate scheme by Cornell and Brown and Dartmouth to steal prestige from HYP.

Fixed.

The Ivy League is prestige in the form of time's passage.

Founding Dates:

Harvard: 1636
Yale: 1701
Penn: 1740
Princeton: 1746
Columbia: 1754
Brown: 1764
Dartmouth: 1769
(Cornell: 1865; there's a reason everyone in the Ivy League shits on it)

This is all there is to it. These schools have a sterling reputation because they've been around (and good, and well-endowed) forever.

[showNprove]

So, by my estimation (I have no idea why I'm interested in this; I really have no dog in the fight)...

Columbia has better: Undergraduate (significantly), business, law, and medical schools
Berkeley has better: Engineering (significantly), graduate/PhD programs (in aggregate)

I think a case could be made for either, but Columbia certainly belongs in the discussion.

LOL. An argument can be made for Columbia, but I honestly think Berkeley has a better undergrad program.

Well, rankings and incoming students' statistics don't agree with you. It's not even close.

If US News ranked undergrads like it ranked grad programs, Berkeley would be top 6. Columbia would not.

[rayiner]

Penn and Columbia's lack of a serious engineering school automatically remove them from contention.

Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley are indeed TCR as far as "best overall universities" goes.

Harvard's engineering is barely better than Columbia's (both of which are ranked about ~20th), so I'm not sure why that would disqualify Columbia from contention.

Harvard engineering is TTT, but Harvard makes up for it with HBS/HLS/HMED.

Berkeley being a top 3 in engineering is a big deal. Engineering tends to be the second biggest draw of federal research dollars at MRU's, right after medicine.

[rayiner]

So, by my estimation (I have no idea why I'm interested in this; I really have no dog in the fight)...

Columbia has better: Undergraduate (significantly), business, law, and medical schools
Berkeley has better: Engineering (significantly), graduate/PhD programs (in aggregate)

I think a case could be made for either, but Columbia certainly belongs in the discussion.

LOL. An argument can be made for Columbia, but I honestly think Berkeley has a better undergrad program.

Well, rankings and incoming students' statistics don't agree with you. It's not even close.

If US News ranked undergrads like it ranked grad programs, Berkeley would be top 6. Columbia would not.

Yeah, look at the rep scores...

[im_blue]

The Ivy League is an elaborate scheme by Cornell and Brown and Dartmouth to steal prestige from HYP.

Fixed.

The Ivy League is prestige in the form of time's passage.

Founding Dates:

Harvard: 1636
Yale: 1701
Penn: 1740
Princeton: 1746
Columbia: 1754
Brown: 1764
Dartmouth: 1769
(Cornell: 1865; there's a reason everyone in the Ivy League shits on it)

This is all there is to it. These schools have a sterling reputation because they've been around (and good, and well-endowed) forever.

Blatant Penn trolling!