<p>Rice - dumb name syndrome, not talked about
Case Western - see above
Maryland - almost everyone seems to bash this school for some reason
UCSD - completely ignored in favor of LA and Berkeley, when it's not that far behind either.
University of British Columbia - by far the best North American college without a CC subforum
Wake Forest - apparently a good school, wouldn't know this just from reading CC</p>
<p>Davidson is extremely underrated on CC. Superb LAC with a great social scene, but almost always overlooked because it's in the South. Perhaps CCers don't like decent weather?</p>
<p>Female CCers looking for single-sex schools focus almost exclusively on the 7 Sisters, when there are excellent women's schools in the South as well (Agnes Scott, Hollins, Sweet Briar).</p>
<p>WUStL and Duke get FAR more bashing than any other top university.</p>
<p>Contrary to Post #1, I consider UCSD to be one of the most over-rated universities due to large class sizes & funding issues. UCLA &, especially, UCal-Berkeley deserve their rankings & should be praised. I agree that the Univ. of British Columbia deserves more attention, but the lifestyle is much less campus centric for EC type activities than at the typical American university. UBC, UCSD & UC-Santa Barbara all have spectacular locations. The two best opportunities in the country are the Univ. of Chicago & Northwestern University for those seeking stellar academics without the miniscule microscopic acceptance rates of H,Y,P & Stanford. I also think that Rice University is a great school with palatable acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Rice actually is talked about a lot here
case western, i agree isn't
maryland, same
UCSD's forum is actually quite large so I think they get a good attention although not as much as LA or B.
UBC, agree
Wake Forest, i don't know anything about.</p>
<p>Tufts
Oberlin
Reed</p>
<p>The top 25 Us and LACs on CC get special links under the "Colleges and Universities" forum. The most underrated schools are likely to be those just outside the top 25, for which you'd have to search the "Alphabetic List of Colleges." That would include Wake Forest, Southern Cal, Bucknell, Furman, etc. which are all wonderful schools, but which get relatively little CC love.</p>
<p>We had best define underrated before this thread goes much further. Underrated by the hoi polloi non-CC'ers but appreciated by the CC cognoscenti would be probably be best.</p>
<p>JW: haha...laugh of the day for me, thank you.....</p>
<p>How about underrated schools are the ones without posts for 30 days or more? (so you can't even find them here....?)</p>
<p>I think one problem with Case Western is that it is in Cleveland and not everyone appreciates that fact. Actually, not a bad city. The other problem is that the school is expensive, and while they do give merit money, it's STILL expensive and so other schools win out.</p>
<p>Wake's problem is that it is known as a school with intense grade DEflation, which scares some people off.</p>
<p>Whitman
St Olaf (I have so much trouble getting past their battle cry of Um Ya Ya!)</p>
<p>
No, you have it backwards. It's often the arrogant and, shall we say, prestige-seeking CC posters who underrate schools. The kind of posters who put AWS head and shoulders above the other LACs in post count.</p>
<p>@IBclass06: I agree, but I would like to point out that many of my friends (non-CCers) don't even know what LACs are.</p>
<p>Macalester. Probably overlooked because it's in the shadow of Carleton. Amazing school, though, in a great metro area.</p>
<p>Occidental has a pretty dead forum. Well any uni that has an acceptance rate above 40% is seen as crap on CC lol. Tufts seems to get the most crap though.</p>
<p>University of Guam! Speaks for itself:College</a> Search - University of Guam - UOG - At a Glance and chance me @<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/636445-safety-hypsm.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/636445-safety-hypsm.html</a></p>
<p>University of Mary Washington
Gettysburg
Furman
Bucknell
Lehigh
Ursinus</p>
<p>
[quote]
prestige-seeking CC posters who underrate schools. The kind of posters who put AWS head and shoulders above the other LACs in post count.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Very well then, if we are going to define underrated as follows:</p>
<p>Underrated quotient = (desirability) / (CC interest as defined by #posts) </p>
<p>...then we should know the denominator. Below are the number of posts for CC Top LAC's subforums. Maybe someone can configure the numbers for greater readibility. Right off we see that Amherst, far from being heads and shoulders above its peers, isn't even #1 in posts in the Pioneer Valley.</p>
<p>IMO, Pomona has a lot of desirablity in relation to its 7,702 posts.</p>
<p>Amherst College (10,357 Posts | 1,074 Topics ) **
Barnard College ( 7,090 Posts | 740 Topics )
Bates College ( 2,350 Posts | 329 Topics )<br>
Bowdoin College ( 5,583 Posts | 654 Topics )<br>
Bryn Mawr College ( 2,377 Posts | 285 Topics )<br>
Carleton College ( 4,537 Posts | 487 Topics )<br>
Claremont McKenna ( 3,403 Posts | 485 Topics )<br>
Colby College ( 1,710 Posts | 266 Topics )<br>
Colgate University ( 5,720 Posts | 637 Topics )<br>
Davidson College ( 2,074 Posts | 303 Topics )<br>
Grinnell College ( 3,342 Posts | 356 Topics )<br>
Hamilton College ( 1,986 Posts | 256 Topics )<br>
Harvey Mudd College ( 2,936 Posts | 269 Topics )<br>
Haverford College ( 3,084 Posts | 399 Topics )<br>
Kenyon College ( 3,275 Posts | 334 Topics )<br>
Macalester College ( 1,801 Posts | 268 Topics )<br>
Middlebury College ( 6,411 Posts | 784 Topics )<br>
Mount Holyoke ( 2,852 Posts | 290 Topics )<br>
Oberlin College ( 3,528 Posts | 393 Topics )<br>
Pomona College ( 7,702 Posts | 891 Topics )<br>
Reed College ( 2,482 Posts | 314 Topics )<br>
**Smith College ( 11,346 Posts | 781 Topics )<br>
Swarthmore (13,413 Posts | 1,069 Topics )<br>
Trinity College (CT) ( 1,515 Posts | 189 Topics )<br>
Vassar College ( 6,094 Posts | 698 Topics )<br>
Washington & Lee ( 3,983 Posts | 328 Topics )<br>
Wellesley College ( 8,721 Posts | 894 Topics )<br>
Wesleyan University ( 7,707 Posts | 786 Topics )
Whitman College ( 1,416 Posts | 176 Topics )<br>
Williams College ( 12,335 Posts | 1,082 Topics )</p>
<p>I think the point of this thread is that it should be based on quality of education, rather than desirability. In fact, I would say that the number of posts on it's board is a direct indicator of desirability, so the above "quotient" doesn't really make sense. </p>
<p>I agree with Mary Washington as posted above, but also many "second tier" state universities (top 130 or so) and some of the higher third tier state schools are not discussed on this forum at all. If you're motivated, you can get just as good an education at a school like this as you can at a "top" college. The difference is, of course, that the average student at one of these lower tier schools is less impressive than a student at a "prestigious" college, but that's simply a measure of selectivity, it has no relation to the quality of the education at the school (the "value added" by the college)</p>
<p>It's true that your education may be improved in a small way by being around students with higher SAT scores and high school GPAs, but the effect of this is minimal and only a tiny component of how good a school educates it's students.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that ___ State will have professors that are as good as Harvard profs, but if you're studying any of the more common majors (political science, psych, engineering. etc) there really isn't anything you can learn at Harvard that the ___ State professors couldn't teach you.</p>
<p>The reasons for what I consider to be the most underrated university at CC I compiled on my thread...</p>
<p>It may not be in the top university category, but USC is not underrated by any means. It's a fine school, but just as highly rated as it should be.</p>