<p>Carnegie Mellon has many students in its 5 year Masters in Engineering/Business programs as well as the 4+ year drama/musical theatre students. It is also an orange omg!!! How can we stand by and watch this injustice!! Curse those 5 year programs!! Also there are many international students who study abroad. CMU will even pay for such students to study abroad and it ruins our student/faculty ratio! The campus in Qatar should not be counted in the student/faculty ratio!!! How dare students study abroad and be international! I demand CMU be a top 10 based on its top 10 programs in engineering/business/drama/Comp sci/etc. Us news is the DEVIL! </p>
<p>Okay. But in Northeastern's case we are dealing with up to 5000 students (1/3 of student body) who are off campus interning at companies who are being unfairly counted as being in class at the same time paying tuition. These students can't be in two places at the same time (unless they are clones). Plus we are not talking about summer internships here since the co-op rotations overlap with the fall or spring academic semesters when students at traditional schools and the portion of neu students who are not interning are in class. BTW. Northeastern has a failry large study abroad program too. But let's not go there.</p>
<p>I'll say it again, Northeastern is severley underrated.</p>
<p>funny how I live in Portland and nobody here talks about Reed (well I go to a weak public school so that might factor in). In fact, I knew just 3 months ago that Reed is a good school. They've been given me mail half my life and I never noticed Reed.</p>
<p>Overrated: WUSTL, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, and Georgetown (people claim its the Stanford of the East Coast!) </p>
<p>Underrated: Claremonts, Bowdoin, Haverford, Rice, and some State Schools (Cal, UVa)</p>
<p>University of Chi-town just rose to #9 so I don't consider it underrated anymore. I think Northwestern is good at where it is. There can be arguements made about JHU being higher though.</p>
<p>I don't see how anyone can say any of the elite universities are overrated (ie all Ivies, stanford, UCB, MIT, Caltech, I could go on and on) because they have done many great things to put themselves in that position.</p>
<p>Why can we say elite universities are overrated?</p>
<p>I think it's because we're talking about undergraduate educations, not always their strengths.</p>
<p>When I was visiting Harvard, many of the student I talked with said they were there because once hey were accepted, their parents wouldn't let them go anywhere else. In this way, being so elite actually hurt Harvard, since they enrolled students who didn't really want to be there.</p>
<p>Also, this is purely anecdotal evidence, but...
You know the Harvard statue with the guy sitting on the chair and everyone rubs his toe for luck? Some little kid asked our tour guide (Harvard student) why the toe was shiny, unlike the rest of the statue. She answered that she guessed they painted it that way or something. Ok, so she wasn't a science major, but PLEASE. Needless to say, I was unimpressed.</p>
<p>I'm not saying Harvard is a bad university, only that an undergraduate education there might not be all it's cracked up to be.</p>
<p>Olin, on the other hand....</p>
<p>I would argue that Olin is rarely underrated.<br>
The problem is that it is rarely rated at all (it's STILL not in the US News rankings). When it <em>is</em> rated, it does very well.</p>
<p>xela, you hit it. Most of the prestigious universities are so because of the graduate schools, which are indeed among the best. Exceptions are Cal Tech, MIT and U Chicago, which also feature top undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve heard in a long time. I’m tired of people assuming that because schools have top graduate programs, their undergraduate programs are overrated. These claims are largely anecdotal and unfounded.</p>
<p>Also, why randomly Caltech, MIT, and Chicago? What qualities of these schools give them top undergraduate programs that other, similar, schools do not have?</p>
<p>This is true for large public schools, not for Harvard or Yale or any of the schools consered among the best few.</p>
<p>However, the reputation in the international communities for these schools is largely based off of science grad programs, so that is true in that respect.</p>
<p>in the end, the publics are generally underrated moreso than anything else if overrated. Harvard will give you a first class education, regardless of what anyone here says. I am almost positive that given the opportunity to attnend a Harvard or Princeton or Yale almost anyone would except or heavilly consider it.<br>
Generally, its schools like Berkley, UCLA, UVA WM and Umich which are thought of too infrequently because they have lesser endowments and rely on state funding. Even in these forums i have seen poeple speak against Cornell's state school because its associated with the SUNY program, however its still Cornell. Public Universities get by far the tuffest rap, jus look<br>
at US news and these boards. and How could anyone say chicago is underrated, last time i checked top 10 was pretty damn good.....</p>
<p>the name for one thing. the professors as another. the resources a third ie libraries etc. funding umm location competitive student body the list goes on and on. how wonderful it must be to wallow in ignorance.....</p>
<p>River Phoenix - the fact it sends hundreds of students to top law schools, business schools, and med schools every year would be just one - the most of any undergrad institution</p>
<p>I guess if you aren't intent on studying law, business or medicine that doesn't matter, or if you transfer from a community college, go to a 4 year college, go to professional school, and succeed anyways independent of pedigree</p>