Purdue, Duke, Vanderbilt and so on I would consider B-tier.
I went to a B-tier school. Interestingly, I recently learned that one of my smartest friends only applied to one school (Stanford) and got rejected, and afterward applied to the school I went to because it was only 10 miles away from where he lived.
While we're on the subject, one other thing --
There's a lot of Russians, Indians etc. who recently came here and have poor English, and so a lot of people just look past them. But a lot of them are the most persevering and focused folks you'll ever meet, and in my experiences they learn English quickly enough anyway (considering they got to America before they were 15 years old or so).
The way I'd define it in terms of engineering schools:
A-Tier: International reputation for engineering
B-Tier: The school is known internationally (or nationally in the U.S.) but not specifically for engineering
If you're at a B-Tier school you'll probably notice a lot of your professors did their PhD at an A-Tier school.
I say this with the caveat that obviously all manners of university ranking are highly contentious, fluid, and usually say more about the ranker than the ranked.
I worked with what i refer to as the "Croatian Coalition" at Lockheed Martin. DAMN smart people. One of my best friends is from this group and I am constantly bouncing ideas off him and seeking to find a way to work together again.
I would never underestimate the skills of anyone based on where they were from....
Also, don't overestimate the skills of someone either...
I like how you guys are arguing about A. vs B. when many of us went to schools that are in a tier so low that there aren't even enough letters to give the tier a letter-based rank. (Maybe that's why Unicode exists!)
Trust me going to a big school is as much about having rich parents, exposure and massive social/financial push from people around you as much it is about personal genius and hard work.
I would say big schools only act as a hub for smart people to gather learn from each other and become more smart.
Despite many people who go to big schools never make it big, and many people who go to small school make it big.
Tiers are highly subjective. I know many will disagree with tiering. But Purdue is at the very least a tier below A. I'm speaking of undergrad.
We at least know it's not A tier (Harvard Princeton Stanford MIT, I think I'm missing a few). Or if you want to get even more resolution, it's not necessarily A- tier either (Berkeley, "lower" Ivies, etc.)
I went to a B-tier school. Interestingly, I recently learned that one of my smartest friends only applied to one school (Stanford) and got rejected, and afterward applied to the school I went to because it was only 10 miles away from where he lived.
While we're on the subject, one other thing --
There's a lot of Russians, Indians etc. who recently came here and have poor English, and so a lot of people just look past them. But a lot of them are the most persevering and focused folks you'll ever meet, and in my experiences they learn English quickly enough anyway (considering they got to America before they were 15 years old or so).