<p>Duke went 9 for 9 in the UFL rankings and finished in the top tier of the privates. That's very impressive and better than I expected.</p>
<p><a href="http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research.html%5B/url%5D">http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research.html</a></p>
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You missed my point. All I'm saying is, given a choice between CalTech/MIT and a school of similar caliber (Columbia/Wharton/Stanford/Brown/Dartmouth), I would choose the other school of similar caliber in a heartbeat.
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<p>Well then why did you spend time harping about how ugly the MIT campus is? What does that have to do with anything? </p>
<p>Besides, while I agree that MIT's campus ain't going to win any beauty contests, the Caltech campus is actually quite attractive. But you say that you still wouldn't go to Caltech. Hence, I'm still confused as to why you talked about campus aesthetics if it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. </p>
<p>And besides, I rather doubt that Brown, Dartmouth, or Columbia are of similar caliber as MIT or Caltech. Even Wharton is a tossup. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that MIT and Caltech are for everyone. Inded they are not. But it's one thing to say that they are not for you. It's quite another to say that campus aesthetics is a determining factor or that the lower Ivies are of similar caliber.</p>
<p>Well, since the conversation's become more civil, I think I'll put my two cents in:</p>
<p>Overrated - Penn (just a tad, 5~10 spots), WUStl (maybe 10~15 spots or so), Duke (a little, 5~10 spots)
Underrated - Brown (5~10 spots), Chicago (~5 spots), Barnard (10~25 spots, LAC rankings)</p>
<p>Also, I think the entire University of California system is a bit overrated in terms of undergraduate education. The graduate school reputations of the system seems to spill over into undergrad rankings.</p>
<p>lewis, if you're going to move Brown up in the rankings, you should definitely move Reed up.</p>
<p>rather doubt that Columbia is of similar caliber as Caltech? CIT may be higher caliber for say, math, engineering, and hard sciences.. but CIT has nothing on Columbia for social sciences and humanities, or law.
it's like comparing MIT and Harvard-They are BOTH great schools! But if you got into MIT and Harvard, but you wanted to build state of the art robots.. where would you go? Duh, MIT. but what if you wanted to be a lawyer.. where would you go? </p>
<p>Also, aesthetics can influence your performance drastically. If you are in a "beautiful campus" (like duke!!), you will be "happier" (lol) but overall in a better mood and therefore more likely to learn and study and do well. IF you're at a campus that is, say, somewhat ugly (Harvard isn't that great looking), you're going to be more likely to feel down or depressed, and perform at a lower level.
Not to say that aesthetics WILL determine your performance, but if you were to somehow plot performance against quality of environment, you should find a (slighty to moderate) correlation.
btw correlation basically means a pattern-not to say a definite cause and effect relationship.</p>
<p>I would say that U Penn si overrated. One of the top 5 schools in the nation? I don't think so. It's certainly a top 10-15 school, but not a top 5.</p>
<p>BostonU, WashU, NYU</p>
<p>"oh, and i think berkeley is overrated. the student body just lowers berkeley's level. too many students get in. and since they get most of their students from CA public schools, most students are stupid and unmotivated."-hereiam</p>
<p>since when are students from CA public schools that get into Berkeley stupid and unmotivated? This is a ridiculously elitist statement that implies that you must go to an expensive prestigious private school to be smart or motivated. If you get into Berkeley you must at least be smart or motivated, if not both.</p>
<p>Maybe the UCs are overrated on undergraduate experience, but for the price in-state students pay, they help people who might otherwise be unable to pay for college go to a great university. The UCs are praised because they're an example of what other public universities could be.</p>
<p>I think most people, when talking about overrated/underrated, use Usnews rankings as their guide, so I can't believe that anyone would say that berkeley is overrated by those rankings. Which school on the usnews rankings should be ahead of berkeley? Sure, if you're talking about the other rankings that have berkeley as #2 and #4 in the world, you would have a better argument for it being overranked, but I don't think people put much stock into those rankings.</p>
<p>You're right warblers, I forgot about Reed (even though it's not too far from where I live)! Reed's ranked below the top 50 LACs, but I'd say it's got to be somewhere in the top 20. So yeah, it's ranked at least 30 spots away from where I think it should be.</p>
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rather doubt that Columbia is of similar caliber as Caltech? CIT may be higher caliber for say, math, engineering, and hard sciences.. but CIT has nothing on Columbia for social sciences and humanities, or law.
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<p>I think we're talking about the general quality of the student body. At least, that's what I was talking about. I think even most Columbia students would concede that the average Columbia student is probably not as academically strong as the average Caltech student. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, aesthetics can influence your performance drastically. If you are in a "beautiful campus" (like duke!!), you will be "happier" (lol) but overall in a better mood and therefore more likely to learn and study and do well. IF you're at a campus that is, say, somewhat ugly (Harvard isn't that great looking), you're going to be more likely to feel down or depressed, and perform at a lower level.
Not to say that aesthetics WILL determine your performance, but if you were to somehow plot performance against quality of environment, you should find a (slighty to moderate) correlation.
btw correlation basically means a pattern-not to say a definite cause and effect relationship.
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<p>Well, it seems to me that Harvard and MIT students manage to perform very well. So whatever relationship might exist between aesthetics and performance has to be a very slight one indeed.</p>
<p>i severely doubt that notion about columbia sakky. youre looking at quality from only an engineering/mathematics point of view. you cant compare an engineering student to a student body that largely studies the social sciences.</p>
<p>however, when comparing SEAS to CalTech, it is obvious that CalTech is stronger in engineering, but kids that go to SEAS go so that they have have a wide exposure to the liberal arts...somethign lacking in CalTech.</p>
<p>By SAT scores, Columbia's SEAS is as high as Caltech's.</p>
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i severely doubt that notion about columbia sakky. youre looking at quality from only an engineering/mathematics point of view. you cant compare an engineering student to a student body that largely studies the social sciences.
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<p>By that same logic, I can't even compare Caltech's student body to a student body of a community college. After all, most community college students are studying social sciences or humanities. So is there no basis for saying that the Caltech student body is better than that of even a community college?</p>
<p>
[quote]
You're right warblers, I forgot about Reed (even though it's not too far from where I live)! Reed's ranked below the top 50 LACs, but I'd say it's got to be somewhere in the top 20. So yeah, it's ranked at least 30 spots away from where I think it should be.
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Reed was top 5 before the scandal with U.S. News.</p>
<p>READ THIS
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/shunning-college-rankings%5B/url%5D">http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/shunning-college-rankings</a>
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/nov1997/news/3.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/nov1997/news/3.html</a>
<a href="http://www.collegenews.org/x3451.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegenews.org/x3451.xml</a></p>
<p>I think we're going to have to go with the entire Ivy League:</p>
<p>Cornell: the "Just think how low I'd be ranked if I weren't in the Ivy League" Ivy.</p>
<p>Brown: the "Core Curriculum? We don't need no stinkin' core curriculum! By the way, who is Alexander Hamilton?" Ivy.</p>
<p>Princeton: the "All this studying is really putting a damper on my croquet game" Ivy.</p>
<p>Penn: the "Maybe we can bribe somebody at USNews; Oh, we already did?" Ivy.</p>
<p>Yale: the "It doesn't REALLY bother me that I didn't get into Harvard" Ivy.</p>
<p>Columbia: the "How can we not be #1? We're in New York City" Ivy.</p>
<p>Dartmouth: the "Thank God we're in the Ivy League, otherwise we'd be Middlebury's b1tch" Ivy.</p>
<p>Harvard: the "Thank God we were founded 400 years ago, otherwise we'd be MIT's safety school" Ivy.</p>
<p>good post ^</p>
<p>The point here is that the Ivy League is sort of a self-perpetuating good deal for its member institutions. It's sort of like the S&P 500 Index mutual funds, which stay artificially high because the funds themselves are buying the stocks of which they themselves are composed. In other words, those 8 colleges got in the Ivy League because they were good (not necessarily great) and met certain academically irrelevant criteria (in the Northeast, private, moderate size, etc). So they got in because they were good, and now they are [perceived to be] great because they are in.</p>
<p>So are you saying that they aren't good schools? I don't see your point other than for humor.</p>
<p>Yeah, it sort of goes in a circle...</p>
<p>The perceptinon is caused by people who are gullible enough to buy into the hype, ie the majority. The ivies are good, but not as good as people think they are.</p>