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Typical Purdue alum not ranking them by weight

The ladies from Iowa and Nebraska would probably have tipped the scales--pun intended--too far that direction in the ranking. 

And would you agree that it's probably not because of the quality of the education they received, but more of a "well if they were good enough to get into those schools, they were already a little ahead of the rest of the pack"?

That's probably part of it, but I also believe those schools place more emphasis on their engineering schools and dedicate more resources to it, so would tend to produce a better final product.

But do I believe that because they tend to have more prestige and it's all nothing more than a self-fulfilling circular feedback loop?  It's possible.  Perhaps I should check into the "how do you know what you think you know" thread.

Stopped reading it a while back.
I'm looking for more input on my question, but maybe if I didn't make people commit...
My theory is that most people when they hear: University of Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, Purdue basically think "large, public, respectable midwestern college," without much differentiation between which one is which. I think Michigan has a little bump as far as national prestige. I'd like to think Wisconsin is generally viewed as towards the top of that bunch, but realistically it's not that different from the other large, public, midwestern universities. Purdue has an engineering reputation, among people who know something about engineering. Other than that, I think most of the schools' general reputations come from their sports programs, which basically have nothing to do with the quality of the education.

I largely agree with BRAD that a lot of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy related to subjective prestige, and I think sports programs have massively benefitted schools in generating that prestige. Michigan may be the poster child of that. As an example, I think Notre Dame is a great school (particularly for undergrads, where ND places more emphasis), and I think that while its student body is very high powered that is--as BRAD suggests--largely a function of the applicant pool more than the school itself. And, I think that much of Notre Dame's reputation was built on a powerful, and well-marketed football program.

I will add one caveat: there can be a benefit of having a more selective group of students, not unlike sorting athletes by skill. The student body pushes itself to achieve at least in part as a function of how high achieving it is. Using a sports analogy, you get better by playing people who are as good or better than you. I think that impact happens, in part, in education as well. 

The other thing you need t o consider is where do you want to end up?  Pitt is a top 30 law school.  I didn't know Duquesne had a law school until I moved here.  But Duquesne takes care of their own.  Pitt Law attracts a ton of kids from everywhere, and I guess we have a more noteworthy diploma.  But I was planning on staying here, and every time I went into an interview with a Duquesne law diploma behind them, I knew I wasn't getting the job

this is interesting to me, nor necessarily unique to Duquesne (private school taking care of own).   I've seen that for a long time (my world of that would include: St. Norbert, Depauw, Marquette, Wabash, etc.)  very obvious (nothing wrong with it) strong network of alumni.

i have a neighbor who is an alum a large public Univ (now a B1G school). far from here and  not native to Indy, he hires a bunch of people for a big F500, and is pretty foul about it:  IU/Purdue, same, makes no Fing difference, we're not hiring engineers.

That thread went to shit.

Yeah.  Thanks for that.

For engineering:

1. Michigan
2. Illinois
3. Purdue
4. Wisconsin
5. Northwestern
6. Washington
7. Penn State
8. UCLA
9. Ohio State
10. Minnesota

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