<p>I hear about Penn State’s great engineering program :)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON</p>
<p>Overrated: Whitman</p>
<p>Underrated: University of Washington</p>
<p>Illinois</p>
<p>Overrated:</p>
<p>Eastern and Western.</p>
<p>They’re the schools that kids go to simply because they want to be “in college.” Overrated simply because you can’t say anything bad about either of them without offending someone in the room. I have a couple of friends at each that are actually there to get an education, but they’re kind of the minority. They throw A’s around like candy at a Christmas parade.</p>
<p>Underrated:</p>
<p>University of Illinois-Springfield</p>
<p>Up and coming school on the outskirts of the capital city. Hardly anyone pays attention to it. Smart kids because they are going to UIUC, dumb ones because they are going to Eastern or Western to be “in college.” Recently got D1 athletics, and have more land for expansion than any other school in the state.</p>
<p>^^^^^Wow. Never heard of that school at all.</p>
<p>Agreed about Eastern and Western, blueliner. They’re pretty much the dreams schools of a lot of people I know, which is sad.</p>
<p>UI-Springfield is the old Sangamon State, and is not D-1, but D-2.</p>
<p>NY</p>
<p>Overrated: SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Albany</p>
<p>Underrated: SUNY Geneseo</p>
<p>CT</p>
<p>UCONN i wouldn’t say is either over or underrated; rather, it’s a fine state university that serves the needs of the public well (and garners its fair share of recognition as the #1 public in New England).</p>
<p>I’d say Quinnipiac is underrated; it gets sort of a bad rep (or no rep at all) at least where I live, and it seems to be a decent private (and they’re always being talked about with polling).</p>
<p>My mistake, I just looked UIS athletics up, and they are indeed DII. </p>
<p>Last year I had talked to someone associated with the University, and was they were looking at moving at least their soccer program up to DI for this year. Evidently it fell through.</p>
<p>Severely underrated: St. Olaf College, MN</p>
<p>Cali:</p>
<p>Underrated = Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, UCSD</p>
<p>North Carolina:</p>
<p>Overrated = none
Underrated = Wake Forest and Davidson</p>
<p>Canada(Yes, Canada is not a state… I know)
Overrated: U of T (for undergraduates)
Correctly rated: perhaps Mcgill
UnderrateD: Queens University, McMaster</p>
<p>New York-- overrated:
–St. Lawrence
–Hofstra</p>
<p>New York-- underrated
–Cornell
–St. John Fisher College</p>
<p>I’m from Texas and was stationed in FL for a few years…so, I’ll do both</p>
<p>TEXAS
Over-rated: Rice
Under-rated: UT Austin. Also…UTSA. Now before anyone says anything – I don’t say that the school should be ranked higher. I just don’t think the school rec’vs the credit that it deserves. It is affordable, puts out some greats grads and many major corps recruit out of it. Retention is really poor, though. But meh…it’s poor elsewhere too.
I’d say the school is in the baby-stages. They finally got a football team, I heard. <em>laugh</em> After what – 20 years of saying that it was coming? After a while, you just tuned them out!
But…you know what’s next –> They’ll want to ‘up’ their prestige factor. They’re already implementing programs to improve the grad rate. Watch for changes in the admissions standards in the next 2-4 years. In a way, they remind me of USF (University of South Florida). </p>
<p>FLORIDA
Under-rated: USF for sure.
They are starting to raise standards big-time. I know that the transfer criteria has changed. You need 30 hrs (i think) and a 3.0 to transfer over…which makes sense, I believe. Plus, their accounting program is getting pretty good. I have to relocate to FL and was thinking about transferring there or Florida State U.
Can’t decide.
I realize that UF has a <em>slightly</em> better standard(which seems to depend on whatever list your looking at) – but…I just like FSU better. Plus, it’s in Gainesville. God…if I wanted to hang out in the boonies, I’d just stay in Texas and go to A&M, Texas State or Tech. </p>
<p>Florida State is underrated as well. </p>
<p>…and I’d agree with what someone else typed: Community colleges ARE under-rated. It is the cheaper route…and students use the same textbooks as the universities. In addition to this, community colleges are starting to offer online A.A programs. This is great for the working student/military students/ and those with family obligations.
This helps in a big way. Students in this group aren’t forced to throw money away at these ‘diploma mills’.
University of Pheonix</p>
<p>Michigan (lived there for a while)</p>
<p>Overrated: Central Michigan - see the Illinois comment about people in branch schools who just want to be in “college”</p>
<p>Underrated: Kalamazoo - one of the most underrated LACs in the country
Northern Michigan - suprisingly good English department.</p>
<p>Connecticut (go to school there)</p>
<p>Overrated: Wesleyan - Where students go to die. Great entering students, very un-academic environment.</p>
<p>Underrated: Quinnipiac - Polling much?</p>
<p>Right Where it Belongs: UConn - I feel it’s reputation is appropriate.</p>
<p>@ Parliament: UW is totally overrated. Can you honestly say that any university with more than 30,000 students ISN’T overrated?? (and UW has 45000 anyways). The graduate programs at UW are amazing, but the undergrad dept there kinda sucks. Most of my friends are going there next year, but their reasons for going mainly include: “my parents went there,” “my parents want me to go there,” “it’s cheap,” “they’ve got a good nursing program,” (which is impossible to get into), “they’ve got a good business school” (mainly good at the graduate level), “it’s in Seattle,” “I have friends that go there,” “there are good parties.” It really isn’t that spectacular of a school. </p>
<p>Washington State:
Overrated: University of Washington-Seattle, Washington State University, Western Washington University (is turning into the new UW)</p>
<p>Underrated: Whitman College (amazing LAC, superior academics), University of Puget Sound (really good LAC with big resources and great location), UW-Tacoma (no one wants to go there, but it’s a nice school).</p>
<p>Overrated: harvard, notre dame, upenn, nyu (dont know what all the fuss is about, really)
Underrated: all CSUs, claremont colleges, swarthmore, reed,</p>
<p>overrated: NYU (bad financial aid, long supplements. good school but not worth the money for the middle-class folks such as myself.)</p>
<p>underrated: University of Rochester! (great school all-around. even though i didn’t apply, i encouraged 2 of my friends who had never heard about it before to apply because it’s so great. haha.)</p>