<p>Under-rated: Grinnell College</p>
<p>All LACs are under-rated but if Grinnell were located on either coast, it would have all the name recognition it deserves, given the facilities, exceptionally small class sizes, faculty mentoring, and caliber of the student body. Of course, if it were located on either coast, it wouldn’t have that great understated, unpretentious mid-western vibe.</p>
<p>Under-rated: Transylvania University (Kentucky). Oldest college west of the Mississippi. Awesome pre-med program. New President (this year) comes from Yale PhD and Cambridge, so knows what quality education should look and feel like. Over the next few years, this instittion will begin to accelerate in prestige and rankings. You heard it here first.</p>
<p>There is really a school called Transylvania? lol.</p>
<p>Wait, all of Kentucky is east of the Mississippi.</p>
<p>Over-rated: UCB</p>
<p>Under-rated: Vanderbilt</p>
<p>“UMich (overrated on CC, underratedon rankings)”</p>
<p>The above of course makes no sense whatsoever…</p>
<p>^ CC people love it, the USNWR people not so much</p>
<p>Overrated: Notre Dame</p>
<p>Underrated: Reed</p>
<p>On CC:</p>
<p>Overrated: Notre Dame, Berkeley, and Rice</p>
<p>Underrated: Columbia, Penn, Duke, Reed, Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, Harvard is BY FAR the most overrated university.</p>
<p>I’ve come across many Harvard students and a huge number just seem like people with average to slightly above average intelligence who just happened to be the biggest nerds on the planet (hence the top grades). Based on what they said and the way they acted, most of them didn’t exactly come across as genuinely highly intelligent.</p>
<p>The lectures I’ve seen are also very underwhelming, with the pace often being slower than at many lower-ranked universities, and the material often being taught in a very elementary manner.</p>
<p>And then there’s the fact that there are many, many universities with a significantly greater number of Nobel Prize winners, Abel Award winners, Academy Award winners, other prestigious award winners, citations in notable papers, top-ranked departments or professors, etc. than Harvard has.</p>
<p>… Yet so many people continue to tout Harvard as being the absolute “best” university. Why?</p>
<p>It’s down to crowd mentality: a very flawed human behavior that manifests itself in irrational beliefs.</p>
<p>Ask the average fan why they think Harvard is the best. Chances are they can’t give you a specific reason other than something along the lines of “cuz every1 else dose lol”.</p>
<p>One more for Stony Brook:
2011: Somebody outside of the state of New York hears of Stony Brook.</p>
<p>Overated: Columbia,Washington University of Saint Louis and Notre Dame</p>
<p>Underated: Smith College and Bryn Mawr College</p>
<p>I would imagine that colleges like Boston U., American, and George Washington U. would be places where lots of professors would want to teach because they are in interesting cities with a lot of other colleges nearby, and therefore options for meeting and collaborating with professors from other collegess would be easier than at more isolated colleges. If this is so, then the quality of professors in relation to the quality of students would be quite high…and since a lot of people rank colleges by the level of students there rather than the quality of faculty, these schools are probably underrated.</p>
<p>Conversely, a place like U of Miami in Florida might be more attractive to students (due to weather, sports, and nightlife) than it would be for faculty.</p>
<p>I’m just speculating here…no need to nuke me if you disagree…it just seems like some people automatically assume the quality of students mirrors the quality of faculty, when that might not always be the case.</p>
<p>^^^A very reasonable approach to the question at hand and I agree with you.</p>
<p>Agreed. American benefits by havin GULC and GW next door. BU benefits by having BC, Northeastern, Tufts, Harvard and MIT right in its backyard. </p>
<p>You can also usually audit or take classes at a nearby school, which is great if your program doesn’t have a specific class or professor.</p>
<p>Overrated: WUStL, Emory, Vanderbilt, arguably HYP for undergrad (please don’t shoot me I’m just giving my opinion)
Underrated: most top LACs, Gtown</p>
<p>I’ve noticed a lot of people on this thread mention Notre Dame along with the other overrated schools, which mystifies me, although I am obviously biased. Why in particular would you say Notre Dame is overrated? And I assume you mean in the USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>"Overrated: WUStL, Emory, Vanderbilt, arguably HYP for undergrad (please don’t shoot me I’m just giving my opinion)
Underrated: most top LACs, Gtown</p>
<p>I’ve noticed a lot of people on this thread mention Notre Dame along with the other overrated schools, which mystifies me, although I am obviously biased. Why in particular would you say Notre Dame is overrated? And I assume you mean in the USNWR rankings."</p>
<p>I’d say ND is no more overrated than WUStL, Emory, and Vanderbilt. Does that make you feel better?</p>
<p>Underrated: State Universities such as Berkeley, Michigan, UVa, UCLA, William & Mary and UNC. And to a lesser extent, Wisconsin, UIUC, Penn State, UCSD, UCSB and UT-Austin. </p>
<p>Overrated: some Privates such as Emory, Vanderbilt, UNC, Duke, Brown, Columbia and Chicago.</p>
<p>Overrated: Vanderbilt
Underrated: Drexel</p>
<p>ND is overrated in the sense that most people have only heard of it due to its recently mediocre football team. Good school academically, but probably not T25 material.</p>
<p>Overrated: NYU. Tisch School is one of the most overrated programs for acting. Overall academics are hyped up due to the NYC vibe; Harvard, Yale, and sometimes Princeton.</p>
<p>Underrated: UChicago, Washington U.-St.Louis, Top LAC specifically Carleton College and St. Olaf College, flagship state universities</p>