Most Overrated and Underrated Colleges

<p>Overrated:
1. UPenn-ridiculously easy to get in, roughly a 25% acceptance rate for people applying early decision. Furthermore, it has a terrible campus in a mediocre part of Philadelphia and its anemic buildings are overshadowed by Drexel's down the street.
2. Emery-I can't believe people think its a top tier college...
3. Brown-People seem to think its an alternative to Harvard... While it is a very good college, its not the same tier.
Underrated:
1. Columbia-Should be considered in the group as Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
2. William and Mary-One of the original schools in the US, USNWR ranks it extremely low (i.e far from first).
3. Carnegie Mellon-Great college, not talked about as much as others...
Undecided
WashUSTL-I've heard both positives and negatives, comments?</p>

<p>Overrated:

  1. Wash U
  2. Upenn (except wharton)
  3. Brown</p>

<p>Underrated:
1, Chicago
2. Cal
3. Cornell</p>

<p>For the most part, I agree that brown and upenn are really overrated, especially brown.</p>

<p>Penn is absurd… Whats wrong with WashU(STL)?</p>

<p>Even though Columbia is great school, I don’t think it’s par with HYP. I think it’s in the same tier with Penn and Caltech.
CMU. everyone knows that CMU is well known for its engineering school and computer science programs. It is already well respected. (Maybe it’s not talked much because it’s social science/humanity programs are comparatively weak)
WUSTL… special case, it is overrated in USNWR, but underrated in terms of prestige. </p>

<p>I also think that Emory is not top 20 school, it is overrated. But still, it’s a top tier college.
And brown… people don’t think that Brown is on a par with Harvard.
It’s one of the lower ivies, usually compared to Dartmouth or Cornell, not harvard.
(But maybe some can prefer Brown to Harvard because of its liberal curriculums and more laid-back atmosphere)</p>

<p>my god. we have a million of these threads. when will we ever stop?</p>

<p>WUSTL is the most overrated by far. it’s really ridiculous.</p>

<p>i don’t think people understand what the search function does…</p>

<p>

I’ve said that before and gotten flamed for it.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Links to the dozens of other threads on this topic:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062261915-post11.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062261915-post11.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It’s a forum. And people are on here to express themselves. They don’t want to be the 9000th post of a thread that no one will read. And they don’t care to read about some irrelevant poster’s opinion. IMO, this is just akorn wanting to give his opinion and get the opinion of his peers, people who will be graduating in his year.</p>

<p>Meh, here we go again. Isn’t that why we’re here though?</p>

<p>I told myself I would’nt just repeat others but I have found myself doing so…</p>

<p>Overrated:
-WUStL (although I agree with ked9008 that it is too high in the rankings but too low in name recognition and prestige.)
-UPenn
-Brown
-Emory
-Vandy
-UMichigan, especially on this board
-Duke
-Northwestern
-Rice
-Notre Dame
-Tufts
-Wake Forest
-Tulane (on this board)
-American (in Prestige)</p>

<p>Underrated:
-Cornell
-W&M
-Many LACs (although some of them are way overrated)
-UPitt
-CMU
-UChicago (in terms of prestige)
-University of Wisconsin - Madison
-University of Washington
-GWU (in rankings)
-University of Maryland - College Park
-Clemson
-SUNY - Geneseo
-University of Colorado - Boulder
-American (In rankings)
-George Mason</p>

<p>Michigan is overrated eh? How so?</p>

<p>I actually think Carnegie Mellon is overrated. It’s strong in the tech fields, but there’s too much emphasis on it, leading the grads to pursue highly technical fields upon graduation, but not much liberal arts background. Recruiting seems to be majority tech roles.</p>

<p>Other overrated schools: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt</p>

<p>dc area schools are underrated(except gtown obviously)</p>

<p>I feel that on all of the “list the top tiers of schools” threads many people put it a tier too high or talk it up a tad too much in terms of academics. I don’t think the “official” overall rankings are off by a lot though. Just my feeling though - not that its not a great school, it deserves to be listed as one of the top publics and top overall!</p>

<p>In actuality Here<em>to</em>Help, Michigan is rated too low on CC if you are talking “in terms of academics.” Not too many schools are as highly rated academically department by department as Michigan.</p>

<p>Whenever I see overrated/underrated threads, I wonder what exactly overrated/underrated mean.
In terms of USNWR ranking or in terms of prestige/name recognition?
Sometimes, actual prestige and USNWR ranking are so different that I find it rather confusing.</p>

<p>WUSTL, Emory, Notre Dame are said to be overrated because of their high USNWR ranking and Georgetown and UChicago seems to be judged by their actual prestige.</p>

<p>Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Boston College, and Yeshiva are overrated.</p>

<p>Notre Dame is NOT overrated. It is a very competitive school which attracts students all across the country, and its current ranking, (18) by no means represents its competitive atmosphere…
Wash U STL is currently tied for Northwestern at 12, I don’t understand why everyone unanimously feels its overrated…?
UPenn is not better than Columbia, its ludicrous how they make USNWR ranks it at 6.</p>

<p>notre dame may be overrated little bit but vanderbilt is definitely NOT overrated. Vanderbilt is now wayyyy competitive than it used to be. Also, Rice is ovverated (w-t-f)…ridiculous, rice is as comparable to the ivys…Emory and WUSTL is definitely wayyyyyy overrated because they are just rich.</p>

<p>Cornell is actually overrated on CC. If you’re not an aspiring engineer, management, or hotel manager, don’t go there.</p>

<p>^ that is bull.</p>