It's bizarre that they felt the need to introduce MIT.

I've heard of the school but first thought wouldn't have been elite.

I'm Australian maybe elite has different nuances here I've always consider elite universities as the ones with centuries of pedigree Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard - the "sandstone" universities with their "old boys network" and all of that...

Compared to those schools I only have a passing familiarity with MIT, Richard Stallman was from MIT his really the only person I can think of off the top of my head compared to Cambridge which had people like Steven Hawking, Isaac Newton etc.

Surely that depends on how many schools you think the top tier should include. I don't think it's #1.

But as Armisael16 says, I think it's strange that Reuters had to qualify it as an "elite US school", implying that it isn't one. What would you think of a news article beginning "The Pope, a prominent religious leader, ..."?

What’s #1 then? :)

In terms of prestige? Harvard.

In terms of academic excellence? Cal Tech.

Found the Caltech student!

Jokes aside, why not include MIT or UChicago? The former is arguably a bigger Caltech, and the latter is extremely rigorous, even if not focused on engineering.

> Jokes aside, why not include MIT or UChicago?

...How many schools do you think can fit in the #1 spot?

Touché! I suppose I'm partially criticizing the idea of a #1, but that aside, there's a fair point to be made that MIT would beat a smaller version of it on any nominal measurement rather than per-capita.

Additionally, if you want to learn something academic that isn't technology, I'm not sure MIT or Caltech would win (or even be applicable), hence UChicago as a possibility for a general "best at academics" university.

If you want to learn something, top-tier universities aren't much better than many other options. They're top-tier by virtue of the glory they borrow from their students. We judge the "eliteness" of a school by what you can predict about an individual by the fact that they were admitted there.

And by that measure, Caltech is significantly outperforming in "academics".

> If you want to learn something, top-tier universities aren't much better than many other options.

Very true. In fact, at colleges like Harvard and Columbia, higher grades are often easier to achieve than at the mid-tiers like Boston University and NYU.

With that said, there are colleges that force you to absorb copious amounts of information and fail you otherwise. UChicago is known for this. Is that not symbolic of being top in "academic excellence?".

What you're implying seems more like the "prestige" category, in which Harvard was mentioned as the winner above.

All of this aside the point, this doesn't explain how Caltech would be #1 in academic excellence for a college, above UChicago, and Caltech's larger equivalent, MIT.