<p>Overrated: Johns Hopkins, Emory, Vanderbilt, UCLA, WashU.</p>
<p>Underrated: Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, UPenn, Dartmouth, Northwestern</p>
<p>US higher education, especially at Elite privates is over-rated in general. That goes for almost all top 20s. Only a few of them still have legit challenging/useful academics. The experience is another thing though.<br>
UPeen is in no way over-rated. Georgetown, despite its rank has ttmore than its fair share of prestige. Putting us (Emory) as over-rated among those is crap. Most people don’t view us as prestigious or good even though the education is really solid and probably more challenging to its student than say HPYS, most Ivy’s education is with respect to its student body (their gpas reflect that it hardly challenges them at all). Same goes for JHU, Vanderbilt, and WashU, which have far more fame than us. We are at the bottom of the top 20 where many people think we belong, what more do you want. We have higher Stats. than most of those below us (except Georgetown and maybe Georgia Tech, with Georgetown being ranked a little lower because of research I guess) and our classes are smaller (and I’ve compared work w/the public Ivies and some lower ranked privates, theirs is somewhat challenging, but not as hard). We really just lack the reputation, which makes sense given that the Atlanta campus, is especially young (I mean seriously, we’ve come a long way for the 92 years its been open and only got “rich” 30 years ago). I think we deserve “at least” our spot at the bottom of the top 20 if you are simply looking at educational quality (which, unfortunately USNWR can’t really measure).</p>
<p>I also find it difficult to believe people say Duke is under-rated. More crap. My friend goes there and is a bio major like me. Apparently the quality isn’t really different at all. He’s supposedly really good at bio. I remember showing him my intro. bio problem set my freshman year, and he couldn’t help at all, even though he had AP credit and was supposedly in an “advanced” gen. bio 2 course. I can only imagine what type of crap goes on at Duke. Surely as much crap that occurs here. They, like the rest of us, are on par in terms of rankings, yet still over-rated in general.</p>
<p>Overrated: Brown, Georgia tech
Underrated: Purdue, Columbia (no one praises it!! ***!! )</p>
<p>Yes, no one praises Columbia lol. </p>
<p>I really like Purdue and Georgia Tech. Tech is across town from us, and I really respect that their academics are still rigorous with respect to the student body (just as Purdue). Many of the people here truly think it is easier simply because it is a public school (shows how stuck up students are here). They are certain a student-body that is somewhat intellectual and creative (in a sense) and are willing to talk academics outside of class (and not just grades), a culture I wish we kind of had. It’s kind of like a school for southern nerds, really interesting, I like it. People doing science because they like science, not because it’s ultimately connecting to med. school (to do engineering, you have to like its ups and downs). The only thing I’ll admit is that natural/life sciences seems easier than our respective departments in many cases and just generally less rigorous than the engineering programs. Almost seems as if far, far, far more resources go into engineering depts (whereas places like MIT and Caltech and some others poor a huge amount of resources into both). Also, the classes are huge. Despite any flaws, I don’t think it is over-rated. For an engineering school, its programs are excellent and still rigorous, in fact ranked as well as some top 20 peer engineering (which may be up there because of their endowments and research productivity),it doesn’t get that much recognition at all. As a natural sciences major, the thing about it seeming quasi-neglected disappoints on top of fairly large class sizes. That would be my only complaint, but I’m sure many public schools (and actually some privates in the top 20. I researched and was surprised that some schools had intro. courses twice as large as ours. For our size, we had some of the smallest, most actually being taught by lecture or tenure track professors).</p>
<p>I don’t know why Brown may be over-rated other than its sky-high grade inflation. But several top 20s have it (we have it, but not as much as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Dartmouth…or at least not Dartmouth yet). I hear people like the place. If they (who attend) like it, it isn’t really over-rated. I don’t see how we judge a school w/o attending it or sitting in a class. Instead we look at SAT/ACTs and HS GPA (which is crap, many high schools inflate as much, if not more than top colleges) and decide that one school is somehow superior/inferior to another without every sitting in a lecture hall on the campus. I really don’t care about SAT scores after say the top 25-35 schools, as that does not affect teaching quality, mentoring, and rigor of the coursework (these are what I think are important in an undergrad. education, especially at privates that claim to have it). If anything, I’m gonna get curious and go plunder through the schools’ website and try and find exams, problem sets, and syllabi for courses that I’ve taken here and start comparing if they are available (surprisingly, many schools do have this stuff if you just look up the course number interests and put it in the search field. Not for all classes of course, but many fundamental/intro. courses can be found). If there seems to be a miss-match between the rigor of the work/content and the “quality” of the student body, then something is wrong at that particular school. For example, someone needs to explain why many of Berkeley’s organic chemistry sections are harder than many of those in the top 20s (also, why is ours tougher than most, why aren’t other top 20s tougher here. I mean most schools don’t ask legit applied questions, and yet they have “better” students and rank higher) WashU was giving fully multiple choice (and not multiple multiple, no partial credit, like a professor does here) exams in upperlevel bio courses (one which looked similar to one of our main neuroscience courses. It wasn’t a class like Human Phys or Anatomy, which one perceives to be about memory, and is thus often multiple choice. The material on this exam would have been better tested in short answer/problem format), why many teachers here for intro. bio do multiple choice only when many peers, including larger public schools, do not. Why is Duke just now revising the intro. bio curriculum/approach and making it sound innovative, even though most/many schools (including us) did the same thing years ago (ours started in 08’, and many peers preceded us, including many publics). How many schools are trying to implement problem based learning in an introductory series (we have one such section of bio each semester, and of 92 students at that! What about other schools? I’ve only come across traditional lecture style, but I’m sure that’s not right. The website only gives access to certain content)</p>
<p>I care about undergrad. education, not SAT/ACT scores (people keep saying this “enhances” the environment and increases motivation and a willingness to learn and work hard. If the work is pretty easy, how is anyone, especially those w/a high SAT/ACT, expected to motivated to learn or work hard in a course where they know getting an A is a rather trivial task?) and prof/grad. school entrance stats. The latter is definitely dependent upon testing ability (which students at places in the top 10 certainly already have) and perhaps the grade inflation present at the institution and thus don’t reflect on quality and rigor of the UG education offered. Instead of stuff like that and the “research” done (which outside of the opportunities provided I guess, don’t tell much about UG quality. In fact often, it makes for worse teaching. Like those working with Dennis Liotta here, the guy who isolated the most widely used HIV drug, are probably elated, but that doesn’t mean they’ll cure cancer) and incoming test scores. Let’s talk about the core curriculum if any, the nature of coursework at an institution in general, class sizes, etc. Does school have emphasis on good teaching even though it’s a research U?
Until I do research about the other schools, I don’t know enough to rate them, and certainly don’t know enough to say whether they are under-rated or over-rated.
Why don’t we post course websites for those courses that students at “X” under-rated school or “Y” over-rated school consider difficult? That seems better than the traditional arguments over prestige and SATs and how many Nobel Prize Laureate on faculty. Put the emphasis back on the undergrad. experience at the institution, not their testing ability, and the existence of their “humble presence before a superior being” (the Nobel Prize Laureate), many who know their stuff, but can’t teach that well (just as non-prize winning researchers). These things contribute to prestige and selectivity of a school which shouldn’t be the most important thing about the UG experience. Seriously, we were already selected by the institution, after that, HS stats. don’t really matter, especially when you speak of the top 25-35 institutions. If it did, the argument would at Caltech having the best teaching and mentoring b/c those students came in w/the highest SATs. I assure you, that at researchUs (especially the top ones), most profs. can care less about that type of stuff when they design a syllabus, or begin to lecture. I don’t think they say: “Well, the SAT average here is a 1450 so I better lecture well, and make the course challenging”. No, in fact the opposite is often true because they don’t care for undergrads. at all as their research endeavors will not allow time for mentoring needed for a lot of success in a course that is “beefed up” content wise. Their research is at interest, not your SAT/ACT scores. That’s one reason we created “lecture track” (they mainly focus on good teaching and mentoring, not research as opposed to tenure track, though they are more than welcome to do research) a while ago. It has worked wonders on maintaining the quality of many classes here (especially the weed-outs, which I’ve seen are particularly bad at public schools, and apparently aren’t great at many privates for that matter). I’m sure other research Us have to have that. Stuff like this matters.</p>
<p>Most Overrated: The schools that rejected you.</p>
<p>Most Underrated: The one you attend/graduated from.</p>
<p>Most Overrated: Most recently schools that accept celebrities or child actors like its the newest trend (go figure)- Most notably HYP and N.Y.U. I would bet that most, if not all, wouldn’t have been accepted or have been competitive if they didn’t have an IMDB page. I’m looking at you Natalie Portman and Shia LaBeouf. It’s all about the perception of the public eye. </p>
<p>Most Underrated: Northwestern, Tulane University</p>
<p>most overrated: Harvard
most underrated: Community colleges</p>
<p>Based on popular conceptions of the schools:</p>
<p>Overrated: Harvard
Underrated: Chicago</p>
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<p>Actually, a lot of schools (not just highly rated ones) have “legit challenging/useful academics”. However, many of them also have less rigorous courses and majors that some or many students slide through and graduate without needing to work or learn very much. For example, Harvard has its famed Math 55 course that packs six semesters’ worth of intermediate and advanced math into two semesters, but it also has Math M, a two semester introduction to calculus covering what is usually covered in one semester of freshman calculus (of course, there are several math courses in between).</p>
<p>Overrated: UCLA
Underrated: USC.</p>
<p>Trololololol. Seriously though…</p>
<p>Overrated: Harvard, UMiami, Virginia Tech
Underrated: William & Mary, UCincinnati, most LACs</p>
<p>Overrated: Oberlin, Brown, Bucknell, U.of the South, Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Underrated: Rice, Naval Academy,Davidson, Delaware, Cornell</p>
<p>Notre Dame may or may not be overrated. It is a totally johnny-come-lately to highly selective higher education, and as such is playing catch-up that few fail to recognize because of its national constituency among Catholics. Conversely, they are doing pretty well in playing catch-up. So …not as good as most perceive it … but far better than it recently has been, and making progress that would only be possible because of its unique status. Thank you Knute Rockne and Pat O’Brien! Who’da thunk it. Well, maybe a whole bunch of Friday fish-lovers.</p>
<p>Overrated: University Southern California, Boston University, and American University
Underfated: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Overrated & over hyped: Harvard, NYU, USC, Yale
Underrated: Northwestern, UChicago, Knox College, Most LACs (especially Bowdoin), any “lower” Ivies</p>
<p>Underrated: Notre Dame</p>
<p>Overrated: USC & Michigan</p>
<p>Overrated: Duke, Stanford, Umich, Virginia Tech, NYU, Boston University.
Underrated: Tulane, Brown, Upenn, Uchicago, Emory, UNC Chapel Hill, Elon, Rice, High Point.</p>
<p>Overrated: Notre Dame</p>
<p>Underrated: Michigan</p>
<p>Overrated: Brandeis, Tufts, Lehigh, </p>
<p>Underrated: University of Virginia, Pepperdine, Tulane, Wake Forest, LACS</p>
<p>Overrated: a highly-ranked school
Underrated: my school</p>
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<p>Columbia is very much considered an elite school. Penn is often labelled the ‘Ivy safety’ even though it’s just as good.</p>
<p>I predict that, if Columbia continues to rise the way it recently has, in 10 years we’ll all be saying HYPSC:</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia.</p>
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<p>QFT. The only thing it has is name prestige, no matter how shallow and pathetic that is.</p>