<p>Who are you talking to, littlefalls?</p>
<p>people probably are saying ivy league is overrated as a whole, which is partially true. this is because people assume that it is better, when there are a decent amount of schools on the same level as them.
âI like how the best schools in the nation occupied by world-class faculty, state of the art facilities, and extraordinarily intelligent and diverse student bodies are deemed âoverratedââ
the problem with this is that there are schools that are not as highly rated but meat these same standards. also it is difficult for schools to reach the same level as these schools because of how established the ivy league is as the best.</p>
<p>Overrated: University of Florida, FSU
Underrated: Stetson, possibly University of Miami</p>
<p>Yay, Delaware! Iâm going to add Delawareansâ perceptions of OOS schools too, just because we do indeed have a sad collection of our own schools.</p>
<p>Overrated: UD (IS and OOS, at least from my experience), Penn State (some campuses are great, but oh my is this school worshiped a bit too much among my HS classmates), any of the Ivies that actually arenât that great (undergrad), Villanova, St. Josephâs, Drexel
Underrated: most LACs</p>
<p>Overrated: University of Florida, University of Miami</p>
<p>Underrated: Florida International University (33% admit rate), New College of Florida, Nova Southeastern</p>
<p>seems like many californians think USC is overated.</p>
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<p>This may be true for some people, but there are also many people who think such universities are overrated yet have never even attempted to apply to such schools and would therefore not know whether they would be able to get in or not if they applied. And there are also many people who actually attend these universities and also think these places are overrated.</p>
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<p>Even if they have world-class faculty, state of the art facilities, and intelligent and diverse student bodies, they can still be overrated simply because people praise the universities to a greater extent than is justified. I donât see how thatâs a hard concept to understand. Most people, when asked their opinion on what the best university in the world is, will immediately claim Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, without having any solid justification for WHY they believe this - they mostly claim Harvard/Oxbridge simply because thatâs what most other people seem to say. They simply follow common opinion because it means less research/work they have to do to form a more informed opinion. Sure, they may give some general reason like âworld class facultyâ, but I would like to see how many of these people can name names off the top of their head, names that they have done sufficient research on to have an informed opinion on. They may be using âworld class facultyâ as a justification for the same reason they say Harvard/Oxbridge are the best universities in the world - because (i) thatâs what most other people seem to say, and (ii) they havenât done enough research to form a more informed opinion. Sometimes I wonder whether most ranking lists have fallen into the same trap. Surely the #1 ranked university of one year is sometimes #2 or #3 depending on the year? But some ranking lists simply donât reflect this, and these lists especially lose their credibility.</p>
<p>if it is being based on those things then UChicago would really be on par with Harvard, and it probably is actually, but nobody thinks to say chicago over harvard when they are asked the best university. i think chicago has the most nobel prize winners on their faculty.</p>
<p>Praise a university to a greater extent than it is justified? Please enlighten me as to what you would consider âjustâ praise. Rankings are superfluous; true, people ought to do more research themselves and make their own judgments instead of piggy backing off popular opinion, but lets be honest- these schools have earned the reputation of being the best, I simply find pegging them with âoverratedâ is in any way, as you would say, justified.</p>
<p>
If y justifiably praises x, then y believes that there are qualities within x that are praiseworthy, and y has done enough research to form sufficiently informed beliefs about such qualities being praiseworthy, as opposed to piggy-backing off of popular opinion.</p>
<p>
Okay lol. So ⊠letâs see if you pass the test then. What are your reasons for believing this?</p>
<p>Virginia
(in alpha order)</p>
<p>Overrated - UVA and Virginia Tech*</p>
<p>Underrated - Mary Washington, Virginia Tech*, William and Mary</p>
<ul>
<li>Everyone knows about engineering, but architecture, animal science, and agricultural sciences are also very strong, are often overlooked and âunder-rated.â However, the schoolsâ reputation is based primarily on engineering; for those who arenât taking engineering, or one of the strong specialty programs, the school is overrated.</li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps I wasnât being clear enough. What Iâm trying to get across was that itâs simply too difficult to gauge the quality of these schools objectively- and as youâve already implied in your post, college rankings are inherently flawed. So how can we overrate them or underrate them in any respect when there are such a vast number of characteristics in each of those schools that lend it repute? Now, granted that some schools are, in the eyes of many, âunfairlyâ ranked and receive an amount of praise that you might even deem unreasonable. But in what context are we examining this view of justice? Research? Admissions? quality of student life? Do you see my point? Scores of presidents have graduated from Harvard- now, you would probably call this fact insufficient for making a sound judgment on the school. Then let me throw you a question, what aspect of a college should one consider to be able to make the right and just judgment? an âinformedâ judgment? Are there defined attributes of a university in which we can evaluate before considering it to be conducive for a students academic pursuit? Of course there are- but lets take it a step further, which ones are more important? The social life? the food? the perceived reputation? We may come to the conclusion that the school garners more praise than it deserves- but what good is that opinion? Who are we to call a school overrated when we have never set foot in those universities? There are so many factors to consider, and most of times this conversation is bogged down to âOh, well a lot of people think this school is amazing but it really isnât muchâ when the truth of the matter is that there is much that we do not understand, and so students tend to base their judgements off mere hearsay. But itâs also important to understand that much of that popular opinion isnât entirely baseless- it would be considered outlandish to call devry the top university in the nation, but wouldnât it be equally unreasonable to call it the worst? Should we, then, employ the blurred lenses of the likes of forbes and U.S news to rank the school in a manner that truly reflects its worth? As you can see, tt isnât so much black and white.</p>
<p>Hereâs an example of how schools with âworld-class faculty, state of the art facilities, and intelligent and diverse student bodiesâ can be overratedâor underrated. For its entering class of 2013, Harvardâwithout question a school with world-class faculty, state of the art facilities, and an intelligent and diverse student bodyâreceived approximately 30,000 applications. For its entering class of 2013, the University of Chicagoâalso unquestionably a school with world-class faculty, state of the art facilities, and an intelligent and diverse student bodyâreceived 13,565 applications, less than half Harvardâs total. Now Harvard might indeed be a better school than Chicago, but if it is, itâs by a very slender margin. Itâs certainly not more than twice as good. Either Harvard is overrated insofar as large numbers of applicants vastly overestimate how much better it is than Chicago; or Chicago is badly underrated; or both. I think itâs both.</p>
<p>Now one might quibble and say, âHow could Harvard possibly be overrated if itâs the very best?ââas it arguably is, though to my mind thatâs far from obvious. At the high end, a large number of people might place even a small premium on a shot at getting the very best, and that might tip the application numbers into a landslide in Harvardâs favor. Fair enough, I suppose. But I also think thereâs an overwhelming tendency to overrate the Ivy League in general, and that is a factor in Harvardâs popularity. </p>
<p>Consider Brown. Brown is a terrific school, one of my favorites in the Ivy League (and the only Ivy my own D likes well enough to apply to). But itâs no Harvard. By any objective measure, itâs not even Chicago. Yes, Brown has a world-class faculty, but very few objective observers would argue its faculty matches Chicagoâs across the board. Yes, Brown has state-of-the-art facilities, but I see no evidence that theyâre better than Chicagoâs. Yes, it has an intelligent and diverse student body but by objective measures Chicagoâs students are slightly better on the whole. (I have no ready indicator of diversity, but both make serious efforts in this regard). Yet Brown received 24,998 applications for its Class of 2013âvery nearly double the number who applied to Chicago. Why? Well, for some Brown wins on style points; the open curriculum, its reputation for being laid-back v. Chicagoâs reputation as a meatgrinder, locational advantages perhaps. But really, twice as appealing? I think a lot of whatâs going on here is the Ivy effect. Thereâs just more cachet in attending an Ivy League school because . . . well, because facts to the contrary notwithstanding, theyâre perceived to be the best of the best. That is, relative to most of their non-Ivy peers (with the possible exception of MIT), theyâre overrated, while schools like Chicago are badly underrated.</p>
<p>I completely agree, Bclintonk. I believe that to deem a school as âoverratedâ or âunderratedâ in your sense of the word would require that we examine it relative to other universities in the nation. I just donât agree with calling universities overrated if you simply believe that its overrated because itâs receiving more attention than you think it deserves- which is just plain shortsighted and unjustified. But, at the same time, I think itâs also important to be able to discern specific characteristics of a university that is responsible for the hype, or lack thereof. Only then can there be a sort of constructive and informative dialogue in which we can all benefit from instead of a litany of meaningless over-generalizing labels that provide no relevant information whatsoever.</p>
<p>DE: </p>
<p>Overrated: University of Delaware (Seriously, you would think that it was the ONLY school in Delaware)
Underrated: Wilmington University, Widener U - Delaware Branch </p>
<p>NY: </p>
<p>Overrated: NYU, SUNYs,
Underrated: RIT, URochester</p>
<p>PA: </p>
<p>Overrated: UPenn, Lehigh, Villanova (all great schools but seriously)
Underrated: Lafayette, Drexel, Temple, UPitt, Duquense</p>
<p>Overrated: THE Ohio State University</p>
<p>Underrated: College of Wooster</p>
<p>OSU is considered âitâ, basically. Wooster is an excellent school, but everyone sort of forgets about it (possibly because itâs in Wooster).</p>
<p>Tennessee</p>
<p>Over-rated: University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt
For a majority of AP high school students in Tennessee, UTK and Vandy are some of the only schools applied to. </p>
<p>Under-rated: none. The education in Tennessee is not up to par with any state in the north.</p>
<p>Iâll rate the state of Illinois (while I no longer live there, itâs where I attended college as an undergraduate.)</p>
<p>Overrated: UIUC. Already mentioned by several other posters - although my opinion is based on actually having attended.</p>
<p>Underrated: Community colleges. They still have a stigma to some people, especially in status-conscious Chicagoland. But they offer small classes taught by actual professors, and at an affordable price to boot. College of DuPage, which I attended, was quite rigorous. COD offers an Honors Program which meets the needs of strong students. Note that while I was in the Honors Program, even the non-Honors classes I took were usually academically solid. Iâve heard positive reports about many of the other community colleges in Illinois as well.</p>
<p>Note that many of the schools in Illinois are tough to classify one way or the other. The âdirectionalâ schools are viewed highly by some people and negatively by others. So they could be overrated to the first group and underrated to the second group.</p>
<p>The trend is evident hereâŠ</p>
<p>let me just point out the idiocy of this thread:</p>
<p>Overrated: (insert top public school(s) in the state according to US News, or Stanford/MIT/NYU)</p>
<p>Underrated: (random liberal arts college)</p>
<p>Overrated- None
Underrated- Dayton, Case Western</p>