Most Overrated and Underrated Colleges

<p>A little biased here but why is Emory overrated again? An Emory diploma will surely get you a pretty darn good job nowadays. In response to the topic, on the other hand, I haven’t been to all the colleges and have not experienced all of their academic curricula in order to make a statement regarding which college is overrated and which is underrated. An educated guess for underrated would probably be UChicago. I have heard that the academics are more demanding than most Ivies.</p>

<p>Grinnell is cursed/blessed by its location; cursed because a lot of good students, who would otherwise be beating themselves up to get in if it were located in California, don’t bother applying so the kids who do are ones who really would consider going to school in the middle of the cornfield. They are often the odd-ball creative types. That said, it is blessed because of its relative wealth and high caliber of students so it is able to provide amazing facilities, opportunities and a lot of personal attention. Soooo if you are looking for research opportunities etc yet don’t want to be fighting for attention it is your place to be. Like any LAC it does not have the extreme variety of courses but it is very strong in humanities and science. But really why care about the rankings; it is more about programs and feel of the place that should matter! You will get good and bad professors everywhere …</p>

<p>To be honest, liberal arts colleges are underrated by nature. There are large pockets of people all over the United States who have not even heard of the top ranked liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Swarthmore, others). That, however, certainly does not change the fact that LACs produce a very, very high percentage of PhDs every year. In general, a liberal arts curriculum is more intellectually stimulating and that is why people who have a profound love for academics (and sometimes, unfortunately, only academics) find themselves in these colleges.</p>

<p>Am I the only one on these boards to consider Dartmouth VERY underrated?</p>

<p>I think for the most part </p>

<p>Underrated : Publics </p>

<p>Overrated : Privates</p>

<p>^ Wow, that’s not a sweeping, trite generalization</p>

<p>He did say

which is kind of an acknowledgment that it’s a

and it could still be true in that general sense. Although I believe the “lesser” privates may also be underrated.</p>

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<p>Isn’t that exactly what this dumb thread is for?</p>

<p>Underrated: Any school that I’ve considered going to or like for some reason.</p>

<p>Overrated: Any school that I dislike for some reason (quite often a wait list or rejection)</p>

<p>That’s pretty much the formula for these kinds of therads.</p>

<p>Monstor,
I would agree with you in that Dartmouth is underrated on these boards. That’s because although it’s a national university by virtue of being an ivy, it’s closer to an LAC. Dartmouth gets compared to other national universities, but, by having less research, gets less attention/reputation (this is accentuated by being on a board with a slight natural science lean).</p>

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<p>It doesn’t strike me as a sweeping, trite generalization at all since the elite private institutions tend to receive the most attention on CC.</p>