> there's also two such places in the UK

Oxford and Imperial?

Hah! No, the reason I'd say against Imperial isn't the college itself (but even then, is still third on the list of Oxbridge and), it's similar to why I'm not tripping over smart people here in Berlin: fantastic public transit means the smart people aren't all squished together.

Town and gown, massive town. Diluted organisational opportunity, less room for serendipity in meeting fellow nerds of whatever topic of interest.

That said, I do not know the social organisational structures of much of the USA, so it's plausible that this reasoning doesn't work because the USA has the same spread-out-ness from all the cars, or perhaps everyone in both just knows how to find the nerdy and geeky Schelling points…

But (Old) Cambridge? Geeking opportunities are as densely packed in Cambridge as archeology is within 2km of the Parthenon in Athens. Oxford certainly looks similar to Cambridge in this regard. At least, when I visited, as a tourist, given I didn't live in Oxford at any point.

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petesergeant 3 days ago | parent [-]

With the caveat that I have degrees from Oxford and Cambridge but not Imperial

> but even then, is still third on the list of Oxbridge

Is this still true? Any ranking I’ve seen recently generally has it right up there. It feels like it’s a name recognition thing rather than quality meter at this point, like Caltech vs MIT.

Your points about geography are well taken though.

	▲	ben_w 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Any ranking I’ve seen recently generally has it right up there. Really? Hm. The listings I've seen, and the first I found, were UK-focused ones, which put Oxford and Cambridge in the top two, sometimes with others as joint-second, then after that Imperial, e.g. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universiti... But to support your claim, I did just find an international ranking that is confusing me by giving rankings for 2026, and for 2025 and 2026 puts Imperial before (and previous years, behind) both of Oxbridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings