The value of an Ivy is the prestige that comes with it. CMU is only prestigious in computing. Academically Duke is better than most Ivies, and it's got some pretty nice name recognition because of its outreach programs, but it doesn't really have the prestige of most Ivies.

I'm mostly just entertained that in a discussion like this, MIT is completely absent. For obvious reasons, granted, but it's still funny.

CMU has a tremendous reputation in fields other than CS--engineering, fine art, psychology. However, it may be that those fields themselves are less prestigious than law, finance, and politics.

As a CMU undergrad in the 90s, most of us in technical majors talked and thought about the school as a deliberate act of self-flagellation. I don't imagine Harvard students fell into similar ways of thinking.

It makes sense that MIT is absent as large donations can’t guarantee your kid gets into MIT.

I don't think that's exactly fair. There are plenty of other great ways to look good to MIT that are primarily available to people in higher income brackets; it's not controversial that MIT caters more to the middle-class than most universities, but the middle class is small now, and the upper class has learned to emulate it over the years.

It still has many of the same flaws the rest of them do.

Oh really? They can't?