In fact, when making this post - max planck institute and cern so on came to mind, but was not confident it was a schools vs research Institute ? Certainly there is no shortage of great minds from universities around the world, it’s just they don’t seem to nearly have the US BRAND awareness

* edit: on second thought i suppose I am not adequately equipped to talk about global brand awareness as it originally stated. Curious how other countries see collegiate prestige outside of their own or if US colleges have some extra factor?