Top 10 Best Colleges - Best Colleges in the U.S. According to Prestige

College rankings are arbitrary and of limited use, but when used responsibly they do serve a valuable purpose. Rankings give us a general sense of how college stack up against one another. They can also be fun.

Here's your Guide's best guess, from his own experiences as a college counselor, about what are the most prestigious 10 U.S. colleges--the best colleges that carry the most weight with employers, graduate schools, and the general public.

     1.     Harvard University

Harvard, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is America's oldest and likely its most prestigious university.
 

     2.    Princeton University

Princeton, along with Harvard and Yale, is one of the upper tier of Ivy League schools. Princeton is alone among the top Ivies in that it does not have professional schools (e.g. law, business, medicine).
 

     3.    Yale University

Yale is the last of the Ivy's "Big Three." While people have mixed reactions to Yale's location in New Haven, Connecticut, no one disputes the grandeur of Yale's campus or the brilliance of its faculty and students.
 

     4.   Stanford University

Sometimes called the "Harvard of the West," Stanford could easily make its own claim as America's top school. In addition to the academic rigor of its Ivy counterparts, Stanford has top-notch sports programs and, of course, beautiful California weather.
 

     5.     Dartmouth College

Dartmouth is a smaller Ivy located in Hanover, New Hampshire. While Dartmouth's undergraduates are among the brightest in the world, the school is also known for its prestigious Tuck MBA program.
 

     6.    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT is possibly the world's leading university in the areas of science and technology. While MIT students can receive a traditional liberal arts education, the school draws those with interests in such scientific fields such as physics, computer science, and biotechnology.

 

     7.     Amherst College

Amherst is one of the "Little Three" (Williams and Wesleyan are the others). Although smaller than their Ivy counterparts, these schools are no less competitive. Amherst's professors spend less time on big research projects and more time in the classroom.
 

     8.     Williams College

Williams and Amherst, although similar, are fierce rivals--Amherst was founded by defectors from Williams. Williams is slightly larger than Amherst, with about 2000 students. Very welcoming to student athletes, Williams consistently dominates Division III sports.
 

     9.     Columbia University

Columbia is a major university located in the heart of New York City. It's also an Ivy League school with a stellar academic reputation and a number of very strong graduate and professional programs.
 

     10.     California Institute of Technology

While sometimes neglected by those obsessed with MIT (West Coast bias?), Caltech is no less impressive than its Eastern counterpart. With average SAT scores off the charts, Caltech also boasts 32 Nobel Prizes.