W

...and if so what do you know about it? Recently I have been amazed by the number of people (Americans) who have never heard of Cambridge and I'm asking this on here to see if this is indeed a trend...

I know all of the rankings. That's not what I'm looking for. I want to get an idea for what individuals think about these schools (and if it matters I'd be going for grad school)...

Stanford

Columbia

Michigan State

Ohio State

University of Hawaii

University of Oregon

University of California, Santa Cruz

I'm a soon-to-be graduate of a well respected public university with a top ten department in anthropology (my major and intended field in grad school). I have decent GRE scores (around 80th percentile and I intend to take them again), a 3.7 GPA, and over a year of research experience in biological anthropology. With that said, I only intend to get a Master's degree and was wondering whether it would be more beneficial for me to apply to elite universities with lower ranking anthro departments (such as Columbia) or schools with poorer overall academic reputations that have top notch anthro. departments (like U of Arizona). I know Prof. X always says to apply to the best departments and then follow the money, but the reason I asked this question is because I likely won't be working in the field of anthropology.