# Schools of reknown **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2002, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359 "2002-04-13T01:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/1 "2002-04-13T01:48:16Z")
We’ve all heard of Harvard and Yale, and other blue chip schools such as MIT, Rice and Stanford. But they aren’t necessarily the cat’s meow in all fields. While my own degree hardly matters this far into my career (and it was out-of-field and from UT), it occurs to me that in the rock biz a degree from **Colorado School of Mines** carries as much weight as any, and more than the above named blue chips. So what say y’all as to what schools are truly the not widely recognized heavyweights in a (your?) particular field? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/2 "2002-04-13T03:56:29Z")
My university (the University of Virginia) has an excellent computer science department, and I believe that the English department is also held in high esteem. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/3 "2002-04-13T04:33:07Z")
The **University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine** is second only to Harvard in research publications. ---
**Author:** ![tiggeril](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tiggeril/32/7234_2.png) [@tiggeril](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiggeril)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/4 "2002-04-13T04:39:03Z")
The [University of Chicago](http://www.uchicago.edu) is a wonderful school that all too few have heard of. Really. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/5 "2002-04-13T04:46:47Z")
I’ll second that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/6 "2002-04-13T04:53:19Z")
And [here’s a cite](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/medicine/med_academic_plan.pdf) to back up my claim above about the **University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine** is second worldwide only to Harvard in research publications (see page 14 of the Acrobat document which is the same as page 1 after the “Executive Summary”). ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schools-of-reknown/103359/7 "2002-04-13T06:28:44Z")
For the field I studied (English Reformation history), Oxford University has an embarrassment of riches: the [top library in the subject](http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/), the best lecture series, and professors like Felicity Heal, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christopher Haigh and Susan Brigden. Yet there are _still_ folks who think The Other Place ([sub]Cambridge[/sub]) is better. Misguided Tabs!