A term reserved for schools in the Midwestern United States that are strong in science, technology, engineering and mathematics(STEM) . This term primarily is used to refer to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as many of its college of engineering graduates and faculties have founded large successful technology companies such as Oracle, Tesla, AMD, Youtube, Paypal, and Yelp among others. The University of Illinois is also home to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
A term reserved for schools in the Midwestern United States that have similar qualities as Harvard University. The University of Notre Dame with its large endowment, strong alumni support, a highly selective undergraduate body, good faculty salaries, strong academic and athletic traditions is usually cited as the unofficial Harvard of the Midwest.
Other candidates include Northwestern University, University of Michigan (though non-private), and the University of Chicago. The latter is usually referred to as the "MIT of the Midwest" instead.
Hailed as the "Harvard of the Midwest," the University of Notre Dame would rather Harvard be called the "Notre Dame of the East."