Most OVERrated and or UNDERrated Colleges in your State ?

College Search & Selection
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<p>“Uh, no mob here, just callin it as I see it. Besides, nobody said UF was not a good school, just that its supporters have an over inflated perspective of it relative to the universe of higher ed. Thus, overrated. Nothing to be done about that really- it is what it is.”</p>

<p>Well said by someone who presses an opinion without actually looking at UF’s objective data (student body quality, research money, faculty productivity, alumni support, acceptance rate, 6 year graduation rate, percent of minorities earning phd’s at the campus, etc) and how it lends to the school being underrated. It’s called sticking to an opinion, based on the fact that it’s your opinion. Quantitative facts be damned.</p>

<p>Nothing to be done about that really- it is what it is.</p>

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<p>“I hardly consider UF the “pinnacle” of anything except areas like agriculture and engineering.”</p>

<p>This is actually quite a compliment to be at the pinnacle of these areas, especially when coming from someone who seems to think low of a school :)</p>

<p>I would add that UF is “cusp”, or “bubble” pinnacle in MANY areas, including but not limited to law, business and medicine and in my opinion, most importantly, student body (SAT, ACT, and to a lesser extent, grades).</p>

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<p>overrated: your kids school
underrated: my kids school</p>

<p>**in any state you care to mention</p>

<p>such silliness</p>

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<p>State: New York
Over-rated: New York University (NYU)
Under-rated: SUNY Geneseo</p>

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<p>LOL. That “thirty-something percent acceptance rate” is actually 39.5%. Pretty selective for a public flagship, but nowhere near UC Berkeley or UCLA where acceptance rates tend to be in the low-to-mid-twenties range—yet you don’t see nearly as much bashing of those institutions by disgruntled Californians. Are Floridians just grumpier by nature? </p>

<p>To characterize 39.5% as “thirty-something” is technically correct but IMO misleading.</p>

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<p>I don’t want to state schools that I think are overrated, but I do think there are many fine schools out there that are not as well known as they should be.</p>

<p>Underrated schools: many of the LAC’s i/e All the Claremont schools in California(Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Harvey Mudd,Scripps)</p>

<p>Also, here are some not as well known as some bigger name schools that should be Carleton, Grinnell, Whitman, Occidental, Lawrence, St. Olaf, Oberlin</p>

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<p>From the U Florida admissions FactBook, there is data that says the admit rate for UF is 35.6%. See Table VII-1 in the following:</p>

<p>[Office</a> of Institutional Planning and Research - UF Factbook: Admissions](<a href=“http://www.ir.ufl.edu/factbook/admiss.htm]Office”>http://www.ir.ufl.edu/factbook/admiss.htm)</p>

<p>However, this data does conflict with what is in the CDS:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ir.ufl.edu/OIRAPPS/CDS/CDS_UF.asp?pagesource=admission[/url]”>http://www.ir.ufl.edu/OIRAPPS/CDS/CDS_UF.asp?pagesource=admission&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>which indicates a 39.5% admit rate. </p>

<p>I’m not sure what the Admissions data is including that the CDS is not (transfers??), but clearly it is not the same source. I believe that the new CDS is due to be released early in 2010.</p>

268

<p>I’m from FL and I’m one of the people who said UF was overrated.
I am currently a junior and UF is among my top choices of schools that I want to go to. I did not say it was a bad school. I merely said that everyone in my school is obsessed with it and think it’s amazing. I agree that it’s a GREAT school, but in my opinion, it’s a little overrated, especially among high school students.</p>

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<p>tomslawsky, you actually make my point very well. Even though no one actually specified any real criticism of UF, and even though several superior institutions were also tagged as “overrated” by virtue of a few random opinions, only the resident UF supporters are so troubled as to mount a post by post defense, Lol.</p>

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<p>Overrated: Princeton (it’s still damn amazing and top 10 in the nation, but I wouldn’t put it above 7 other schools. Doesn’t have a lot of top research programs compared to other ivies and misses “some important” grad schools. I’d put Columbia over it, even though a lot of people are going to hate me and place Columbia in low 10s)</p>

<p>Underrated: Rutgers (lots of good connections, decent research, excellent education, not top 20 material but definitely not as horrible as people make it out to be. Plus its pharm program is great.), TCNJ (same reasons, except replace pharm with dental program)</p>

271

<p>Jackpot, Cornell is not underrated at all in NC!!
Unless it’s actually like the best school in the world, then I suppose it can outdo its reputation. There are tons of kids from my school applying to Cornell and NC is not all that close to NY. Apparently the campus is gorgeous too; I haven’t been, though.</p>

272

<p>

…you’re kidding. I suggest you take a look at the NRC rankings. Princeton is a research powerhouse.</p>

<p>Number of rated programs
Columbia, Cornell, Penn 34-36
Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale 29-30</p>

<p>Average of ranked programs
3. Harvard
4. Princeton
8. Yale
9. Cornell
11. Columbia
14. Penn
25. Brown
49. Dartmouth</p>

273

<p>“tomslawsky, you actually make my point very well. Even though no one actually specified any real criticism of UF, and even though several superior institutions were also tagged as “overrated” by virtue of a few random opinions, only the resident UF supporters are so troubled as to mount a post by post defense, Lol”</p>

<p>Then apparently you weren’t reading the staunch defense of Michigan in this very thread. Actually, the defense of Michigan was done very well, it used objective metrics to prove it’s point.</p>

<p>You prove my point again, though. Almost every objective data point shows UF to be superior to the schools in it’s “Cluster”, but you chose to bash the school based on none of that. Then, instead of substantiating your claim, you turn attention to me. </p>

<p>Now, to your argument that most who know about academia don’t agree that UF is underrated. Take a look at the schools with a peer review (US News) of 3.4, the only metric I can think of that directly addresses your point. UF is a 3.4, 3.5 ish. This is tied with schools like Boston College, etc… Based on academic opinion alone, UF is ~ 15 spots under ranked.</p>

<p>My guess is that you will respond again with a comment about me, or those that are capable of looking at the data for what it is and not being closed minded. </p>

<p>But, again, it is what it is. Some people think they’re right, objective data be damned.</p>

274

<p>^ Tom, I think the point FLADAD and others are making is relative to the frame-of-reference of (perhaps) “typical” florida high-schoolers…kids that may see UF as the ultimate in higher education. I do <em>not</em> think they are saying UF is “overrated” relative to US News, NRC, Gourman, of other more objective standards.</p>

<p>You can perhaps see how a typical florida high-schooler may have a distorted perspective…after all, in florida, at least, there are NO elite privates to compare with, so UF becomes the de-facto standard for higher education.</p>

275

<p>What irks me as an FSU alumnus about all this rah-rah UF stuff is that it is very likely based in part on things like athletic performance. FSU also enjoyed unprecedented FTIC success when the football “Dynasty” was evident, even superior than UF. I don’t recall us alumni running around with self-aggrandizing pronouncements of superiority. Likewise, some of the essential undergraduate US News ranking UF currently enjoys is based on favorable treatment UF gets due to state and federal agricultural funding, which is really overstating where UF probably is vis a vis other publics and the favorable plus relentless publicity UF gets as they have one of the few state journalism programs. Such free publicity was VERY evident when UF won a sports crown, but their conspicuous defeat recently in football was quickly glossed over and forgotten, like all the promises of dominance to come this year… </p>

<p>But this is an old argument…see: <a href=“http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19880130&id=XsQMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E2EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6367,7738501[/url]”>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19880130&id=XsQMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E2EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6367,7738501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Yes, that’s it exactly. Thank you rogracer.</p>

<p>As for you tom, try not to be so easy. Please put your sword back into its sheath and relax. While your hypersensitivity is entertaining, it’s surely misplaced in a thread such as this one. You do realize it’s not a serious discussion, right? No need to be offended. UF is indeed a fine school that stands on its own merits.</p>

277

<p>parent2noles,
What is funny about your post is that you took the opportunity to criticize the UF “self aggrandizing” posters while aggrandizing Florida State. By building up FSU in a post thinly veiled as a “those gators are such homers”, you took the focus off of what you were doing. </p>

<p>Bravo!</p>

<p>Next time, just come out and say what you think- UF is underrated compared to FSU. Was that so hard?</p>

<p>Besides, self aggrandizing, based on facts and reason is not wrong. Why would you think it is? You sound bitter that FSU is ranked 100+ and UF is ranked top 50.</p>

278

<p>FLVADAD,
you casted the first stone:
“Uh, no mob here, just callin it as I see it. Besides, nobody said UF was not a good school, just that its supporters have an over inflated perspective of it relative to the universe of higher ed. Thus, overrated. Nothing to be done about that really- it is what it is.”</p>

<p>I simply countered it. Besides, there are many actually in academia that agree with me, and dont see it “as you see it”. In fact, based purely on prestige and subjective quality as judged by the academic world, Florida is underrated by ~10 spots. </p>

<p>USNWR Peer Assessment Ratings:</p>

<p>3.8 , NYU
----------------------3.6 , U FLORIDA-------------------------------------
3.6 , Tufts
3.5 , Wake Forest
3.5 , Brandeis
3.5 , Boston College
3.5 , Case Western
3.5 , Rensselaer
3.4 , U Rochester
3.4 , George Washington
3.4 , Boston University
3.3 , Tulane
3.3 , Syracuse
3.2 , Lehigh
3.1 , U Miami
3.1 , Pepperdine
3.1 , Fordham</p>

<p>3.7 , PURDUE
3.6 , UC IRVINE
----------------------3.6 , U FLORIDA-------------------------------------
3.6 , OHIO STATE
3.6 , U MARYLAND
3.6 , U MINNESOTA
3.6 , INDIANA U
3.5 , UC S BARBARA
3.5 , TEXAS A&M
3.5 , U IOWA
3.4 , U PITTSBURGH
3.4 , U GEORGIA
3.4 , MICHIGAN ST
3.3 , RUTGERS
3.3 , VIRGINIA TECH
3.2 , U CONNECTICUT
3.1 , CLEMSON</p>

<p>Also, it is just funny that you say this:</p>

<p>“While your hypersensitivity is entertaining, it’s surely misplaced in a thread such as this one.”</p>

<p>Followed up almost immediately by this:</p>

<p>“No need to be offended”</p>

<p>It must be weird ■■■■■■■■ through life blatantly offending people and then calling them out on being offended, eh?</p>

279

<p>Rogracer-
You are 100% correct- UF is no Harvard, MIT or even Berkeley. At least in most majors- in some like engineering, there can be an argument made. Agreed.</p>

280

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<p>No, that wasn’t a stone. It was just an opinion - still is. </p>

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<p>Ah, see there tom - I try to extend an olive branch; I even go out of my way in agreement that UF is a fine school which you seem all about proving, but yet, you still can’t dump the weight of that 10 ton chip on your shoulder. So unbecoming. But okay, suit yourself, go ahead and be offended if you like.</p>