Which is generally considered more prestigious: Harvey Mudd College or Washington University in St. Louis?

In broad, everyday conversations about colleges, Washington University in St. Louis usually has more overall name recognition, while Harvey Mudd often carries very strong prestige in a narrower circle, especially in STEM. WashU is a larger national research university with visibility across more fields, so more people are likely to recognize the name. Harvey Mudd is much smaller and more specialized, but in engineering, computer science, math, and related graduate-school or employer circles, it is exceptionally respected.

For a student who wants a college name that more people outside academia will recognize, WashU often has the edge. It has a long-established national reputation, well-known premed and research pathways, and a broader presence across disciplines like business, humanities, and the sciences. That tends to matter in the kind of casual "prestige" conversations families, classmates, or non-specialists have.

For a student who is deeply STEM-focused, Harvey Mudd can actually feel more impressive to the people whose opinions most directly affect those paths. Its reputation is unusually strong for such a small college, and employers and PhD programs that know STEM education well tend to view Mudd as rigorous and elite. The Claremont setting also helps because students are part of a consortium, so the school has both a specialized identity and access to broader resources.

So the short version is that WashU is usually seen as more broadly prestigious, while Harvey Mudd has more concentrated prestige in technical and quantitative fields. If your question is about which name carries more weight in general conversation, the answer is probably WashU. If your question is about how serious STEM people view the school, Harvey Mudd is absolutely in that top-tier conversation.