Top university in your city/general area

[ThePhun1]

I say general area so that, for example, San Francisco can't claim Stanford. It's complicated because if you live in the city, you still can claim Stanford but work with me. I'm trying to avoid having people naming a school just because it happens to be in their metro. Another example would be UC Riverside for LA whereas those in near suburbs such as Harvard and Arizona State qualify.

Rice is the standard around here but it's so tiny and exclusive, so for the general population Houston would be a better choice.

[Steely Dan]

By far, the two most prestigious universities in Chicago (hell, in the entire midwest) are:

- The University of Chicago (#6) - Hyde Park
- Northwestern University (#9) - Evanston


There are also four more national universities located within the city that are not nearly as highly regarded as the first two, but are still considered good schools:

- Loyola University Chicago (#104) - Rogers Park
- Illinois Institute of Technology (#117) - Douglas
- Depaul University (#125) - Lincoln Park
- University of Illinois - Chicago (#132) - Little Italy


Additionally, there are three other universities of note on the FAR peripheries of Chicago's sphere of influence:

- Notre Dame (#15) - South Bend, IN
- The University of Illinois (#48) - Champaign/Urbana, IL
- Purdue University (#57) - Lafayette, IN



the numbers in parentheses are national rankings according to USN&WR.

[SIGSEGV]

^ Quite a few people commute from SF to Stanford. Maybe not as many now as when I was there due to prices going up, but plenty of grad students / postdocs / staff /faculty do the commute.

UChicago and Northwestern are the best schools in Chicago by a long shot. Northwestern's main campus is in Evanston, which is adjacent to Chicago, but their law school / medical school are in Chicago. UChicago generally has a better reputation, but not by much and of course it's highly field-dependent and I don't think it's possible to argue that one is clearly better than the other (similar to Harvard and MIT in Cambridge).

The second tier of Chicago schools are IIT, LUC, UIC and DePaul which are all decent but not super well-renowned. Valpo is also in the metro area and probably about equivalent to these schools.

Notre Dame deserves a special mention because they do have some presence in Chicago (even though the main campus is 90 miles away and in a different state). If you counted them (sometimes it seems like they like to pretend they're in Chicagoland), they'd be #3. UIUC ("Illinois") is also potentially increasing its presence in Chicago with the planned Discovery Partners Institute, although its main campus is even farther away, and would be a clear #4 if you wanted to really stretch and count them.

edit: yeah, Steely Dan beat me by a lot .

[Comrade]

The University of Utah

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Rice is the standard around here but it's so tiny and exclusive, so for the general population Houston would be a better choice.

Texas (and Florida for that matter) seems drastically underserved by top universities for its size.

Here are the top ten CSA's and the best schools within:

NYC: Colombia,Princeton,Yale, NYU
LA: Caltech, UCLA, USC, UCI
Chicago: UChicago, Northwestern (Notre Dame in periphery)
Washington/Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, Georgetown
SF/SJ: Stanford, Cal
Boston: Harvard, MIT, Brown, Tufts, BC
DFW: SMU?!?, TCU?!?
Houston: Rice, Houston?!?
Philly: Penn, Villanova (Princeton in periphery)
Miami: Miami!?, FAU!?

I wonder if some day Miami and SMU will become much more elite. Those metros seem too large to have zero top schools.

[samne]

Top universities in Toronto Region:
University of Toronto
McMaster (in Hamilton)
University of Waterloo (periphery)

[Innsertnamehere]

University of Toronto, as mentioned above.

The “big 5” in Ontario are as follows. UofT is generally considered the best of the bunch, but it’s a bit more murky on which of the other 4 are “better” than each other.

University of Toronto
Queens University (Kingston)
University of Waterloo
Western University (London)
McMaster University (Hamilton)

These also happen to be the 4 oldest universities in the province from my understanding, other than Waterloo which is newer.

[TexasPlaya]

DFW- University of Texas at Dallas/SMU. Not a top research school but not exactly a slouch.

[Centropolis]

Washington University

[TexasPlaya]

Houston- Rice, UH, TAMU (I could go both ways on TAMU being tied to Houston).

[samne]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

University of Toronto, as mentioned above.

The “big 5” in Ontario are as follows. UofT is generally considered the best of the bunch, but it’s a bit more murky on which of the other 4 are “better” than each other.

University of Toronto
Queens University (Kingston)
University of Waterloo
Western University (London)
McMaster University (Hamilton)

These also happen to be the 4 oldest universities in the province from my understanding, other than Waterloo which is newer.

Agree those are the top schools in Ontario. I excluded Western and Queens because they are not in the Toronto area.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Texas (and Florida for that matter) seems drastically underserved by top universities for its size.

But not if you consider their politics. The best universities are in ultra-liberal states, regardless of state size.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ocman

The best universities are in ultra-liberal states, regardless of state size.

generally true (especially for the creme de la creme), but there are some big exceptions like:

U Penn (#6) - PA
Duke (#10) - NC
Notre Dame (#15) - IN
Vanderbilt (#15) - TN
Rice (#17) - TX
Wash U (#19) - MO
Emory (#21) - GA
Carnegie Mellon (#25) - PA
U of Michigan (#25) - MI


so that's 9 of the top 25 universities in the nation (as ranked by USN&WR) located in states Trump won in 2016.

[southoftheloop]

Originally Posted by ocman

But not if you consider their politics. The best universities are in ultra-liberal states, regardless of state size.

If there's any correlation it's that elite schools tend to be older, and older schools are inevitably on the east coast.

As the country expanded west, some others joined the club, especially as big money founded mid-late 19th century schools: 1st tier like UChicago and Stanford, and 2nd tier like Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, WashU, among others.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by southoftheloop

If there's any correlation it's that elite schools tend to be older, and older schools are inevitably on the east coast.

As the country expanded west, some others joined the club, especially as big money founded mid-late 19th century schools: 1st tier like UChicago and Stanford, and 2nd tier like Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, WashU, among others.

Yeah, Rice is by far the newest of the elite private schools.

[MolsonExport]

Newest (published June 2020) 2021 QS World University Rankings, Canadian schools:
(world ranking)
University of Toronto (21)
McGill University (Montreal) (33)
University of British Columbia (Vancouver) (45)
Universite de Montreal (118)
University of Alberta (Edmonton) (119)
McMaster University (Hamilton) (144)
University of Waterloo (166)
University of Western Ontario (London) (203) Woot Woot!
Queens University (Kingston) (246=)
University of Calgary (246=)
University of Ottawa (279)
Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) (323)
University of Victoria (370)
Universite Laval (Quebec City) (420)
University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon) (465)
Concordia University (Montreal) (477)
York University (Toronto) (531-540)
University of Guelph (571-580)
Carleton University (Ottawa) (601-650)
Universite du Quebec a Montreal (601-650)
University of Manitoba (Winnipeg) (601-650)
Memorial University of Newfoundland (St. John's) (701-750)
Universite de Sherbrooke (701-750)
University of Windsor (751-800)
Ryerson University (Toronto) (801-1000)

all four of Montreal's universities rank in the top 1000. Toronto has 3, Vancouver has 2, as does Ottawa.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Washington University

For sure. WashU is currently ranked #19 in the nation. I'll also give Saint Louis University a shout out since they're also in the top 100 at #97.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Yeah, Rice is by far the newest of the elite private schools.

No. Rice was founded in 1912. Duke became Duke in 1924 when a small Methodist school named Trinity College took James B. Duke's money in return for changing its name and transforming itself.

The creation of Duke U. virtually from nothing in 1930:



The effort shown required the purchasing of a stone quarry, the building of a rail line and the hiring of an army of Italian stone masons who were brought to the US and the campus and set to work--all during the Depression.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Emprise du Lion

For sure. WashU is currently ranked #19 in the nation. I'll also give Saint Louis University a shout out since they're also in the top 100 at #97.

If you are using the US News rankings, frankly I don't trust them but any system has its flaws I suppose.

[craigs]

Of the top 100 USNWR ranked 'National Universities,' the greater Bay Area has:

Stanford - #6
UC Berkeley - #22
Santa Clara - #54
UC Santa Cruz - #84