Most overrated/underrated school on the USNWR?

<p>Over-rated for undergrad: penn, washu, and stanford because they game the ranking criteria. Berkeley because it trades on the rep of its grad programs which are excellent. [The undergrad programs and student body are not.] Columbia because, let's face it, it wasnt your first choice and Morningside Heights isnt really NYC. Barnard, because contrary to what the girls sometimes claim, they dont really go to Columbia. And, Brown, because it's not enough to be a member of that athletic conference and have the rep as its party school [unless of course you want to party with trolls who dont know the meaning of the term party school]. UCLA, ASU, UT and UF do the party scene right and without all that cellulite.</p>

<p>Hm. Interesting question. No school is overrated nor is any school underrated on USNWR. USNWR dictated what counts to them and how much it counts and that's how they rank the schools. I think people say certain schools are overrated because they don't like them and some people say certain schools are underrated because they attend them. In the long run, these rankings don't mean squat other than some formula that uses arbitrary data and weightings. For me, my school will always be number #1, and your school should be number #1 too! :)</p>

<p>
[quote]
Over-rated for undergrad: penn, washu, and stanford because they game the ranking criteria. Berkeley because it trades on the rep of its grad programs which are excellent. [The undergrad programs and student body are not.] Columbia because, let's face it, it wasnt your first choice and Morningside Heights isnt really NYC. Barnard, because contrary to what the girls sometimes claim, they dont really go to Columbia. And, Brown, because it's not enough to be a member of that athletic conference and have the rep as its party school [unless of course you want to party with trolls who dont know the meaning of the term party school]. UCLA, ASU, UT and UF do the party scene right and without all that cellulite.

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<p>Here you go again...</p>

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Berkeley because it trades on the rep of its grad programs which are excellent. [The undergrad programs and student body are not.]

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<p>Hmmm...</p>

<p>USNWR Undergraduate Rankings in Engineering for 2009:</p>

<p>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.7927
2 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.6615
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA 4.651
4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.5134
4 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 4.5155
4 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 4.4503 </p>

<p>USNWR Undergraduate Business Programs for 2009:</p>

<p>1 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 4.8156
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.6192
3 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.4475
3 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.4366 </p>

<p>As for the undergraduate student body at Berkeley, you may want to know that Berkeley enrolls more top SAT scorers than any other university. 99% are in the Top 10% of their class, average SAT score range is 1220-1470 when it enrolls triple the class sizes of its elite private peers and has one of the highest percentage of Pell Grant receipients...</p>

<p>Berkeley is the top public school in the nation...yeaaaah, I guess it is very overrated at No. 21...:rolleyes:</p>

<p>^and the SAT range for this incoming class is 1280-1500....and that's not superscored. The average was a 2060 and thats for an incoming class of approx. 4450</p>

<p>Don't be ridiculous. The top privates may have less enrolled high sat scorers but if they wanted to they could fill their whole school with 2300+. Berkeley, however can not. While the privates school carry a wholistic admission process, public schools lke Berkeley are admitting almost exculsively by the numbers. </p>

<p>Berkeley's SAT score is already as high as they can get. </p>

<p>Take Princeton as an example. Their website quotes that about half of their 21,000 APPLICANTS this year had SAT scores of over 2100. lol, that's 10,500 students that already have a higher SAT score than the Berkeley median.</p>

<p>apple2pie9 no ones saying that Berkeley, a school of 23,000 can acheive the SAT range of Princeton, a school of 4,000. We were refuting the idiot who said Berkeley students aren't high caliber when they are...but clearly on CC the only way your even seen as high caliber is a minumum of 1400 on the SAT. You obviously don't know much about Berkeley because it too does a wholistic admission. If its so numbers based then why did the school reject over half of the applicants that scored over 2100. With approximately 50,000 applications could Berkeley admit more high scorers, yes it could, but since beginning it holistic approach Berkeley actually stresses GPA which is why 99% are in the top ten percent of their class. To say Berkeley's SAT score can't get higher is bs...first it could superscore like the privates and it could also admit more instate high scorers and also admit more OOS like Michigan and UVA. This year, and probably the next due to the budget, the school has been admitting more OOS. With over 4,000 1500 plus scorers, which is equivalent the whole UG population of princeton, UCB and I were saying its ridiculous to say UCB students aren't excellent.</p>

<p>Also Apple2pie I find it funny that when asked about Cornell, a school with about the same average SAT score as Berkeley</p>

<p>
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"Apple2pie, let me ask you this. Do you think Cornell is as good a school as other Ivies (say, Brown, Dartmouth, or Penn)??"

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<p>you say </p>

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I believe that are institutionally equal. Yes.

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<p>How does Cornell deserve to be as high as 12th and by you seen as equivalent to Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown.... yet Berkeley which blows all those schools away in number of ranked programs and research isn't underranked at 21? It seems like public school bias....whenever someone argues in favor of Berkeley being ranked higher...... all the CCers attack because it doesn't have the SAT range of Princeton.</p>

<p>I wasn't talking about any of the rankings when I addressed Berkeley. I responded because I kept reading about how Berkeley had more top SAT scorers than most of the privates.</p>

<p>You guys simply failed to recognize that the privates practice a much more holistic admission process than the publics. I never claimed that Berkeley uses the SAT score as the most important criteria. At every single school it's always the transcript. At public schools, however, the second most important criteria is almost always SAT scores. Sure they consider essays, extracurriculars, but less so than the top privates.</p>

<p>Sure, Berkeley is a little underrated in US News. It should probably be in the high teens IMO.</p>

<p>I'm wondering what kind of difference superscoring makes. </p>

<p>At the level of student that Berkeley is admitting, a lot of them test well in general, and I would think that most would perform pretty consistently across various test dates--or would improve on both sections. </p>

<p>That's just my gut feeling--maybe I'm wrong. But it feels to me like superscoring would more likely help the students who perform more in the middle (whom I'm assuming have more variable scores from one test to the next), and thus it would be a bigger boost to schools that rank somewhat lower than Berkeley. </p>

<p>On the other hand, I suppose in a close ranking, even a few SAT points might matter.</p>

<p>
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Do you, yourself, have ties to U of Chicago, sakky? Are you a U of Chicago grad who feels unloved? I guess I'm not quite seeing why it bothers you so much. What do you care?

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<p>Well, let me ask you: are you a Chicago grad who feels threatened? Are you unable to handle opinions that you don't like? Why do my posts bother you so much? If you are connected to Chicago and you feel confident about your education, then why are you acting so threatened about it as to ask me what my connections are to the school? If you are not connected with Chicago, then why do you care what my connections are to the school? Do you feel unloved? </p>

<p>Look, I've never asked you about your biography. Don't ask me for mine. </p>

<p>
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If the U of Chicago felt it was a problem, they'd do something about it. Obviously they don't. Ah well. So it goes.

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<p>And I would argue that that's the biggest problem of all: that they don't even think there's a problem. </p>

<p>Yet I'm quite surprised you would entertain this line of inquiry at all. All I am saying is that Chicago should be trying to improve, and in fact, Chicago seems to want to improve. You seem to be saying that Chicago should not do this; that the school should not be trying to improve at all. If you're not interested in having Chicago improve, then come right out and say so. </p>

<p>
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Why do you <em>think</em> that? if you have data to suggest that your hypothesis is true, then by all means share it.

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<p>Oh, I don't know, yield data perhaps? How about cross-admit preferences, such as the Hoxby study? </p>

<p>
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Well, shrug. If every college had the exact same strength of brand name, then the concept of brand name would be meaningless.

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<p>And who ever said that every college would have the exact same brand name? I have never disputed that Chicago has a better brand name than the vast majority of other schools out there. </p>

<p>I am simply saying that Harvard has a better brand name than Chicago, and Chicago might want to do something about that, just like Toyota has a better brand name than Ford. But it seems to me that you're not interested in having Chicago improve its brand. </p>

<p>
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What IS it with you and U of Chicago? Really. It's like you have some ax to grind. If it's not your school, what difference does it make to you if they're not marketing it as well as they allegedly could / should?

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<p>What is it with you and Chicago? It seems to me that you're highly defensive about the school - why would that be, I wonder? Again, if you went to Chicago and you're so confident about it, then why would you care so much about these anonymous posts on the Internet? </p>

<p>Again, I don't care about your connections to Chicago, and you shouldn't care about mine. You and I both have freedom of speech and hence are free to talk about Chicago or any other school that we feel like, whether we are connected to them or not.</p>

<p>Otherwise, Pizzagirl, if you don't like my posts, then simply don't read them. Nobody has a gun to your head.</p>

<p>
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Why do you always resort to such petty replies? You do it over and over again, and it makes discussion with you not worth it at all.

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<p>And yet you keep coming doing it! So, let me ask, why do you keep making petty remarks, over and over again, that you won't discuss any of my posts, and then proceed to do just that?</p>

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And that's exactly why I'm not going to bother debating this issue with you. I've proven my point, and your argument still stands as a weak one.

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<p>If you didn't want to bother debating the issue, then just don't do it! Nobody is holding a gun to your head. </p>

<p>Kyledavid80, your arguments and justifications are just as weak as they always were, if not weaker. I've said it to you countless times before, I have the freedom of speech to write posts regarding whatever I want, and you have the freedom to not read them. You don't want to participate, then just don't participate.</p>

<p>As far as whose arguments are 'weak', let's let the readers decide. But I would simply point out, as always, you are the one who decided to get personal. Not me.</p>

<p>I guess I have the hope that you'll finally substantiate your nonsensical claims--then you resort to petty tactics when you can't. Silly me.</p>

<p>
[quote]
While the privates school carry a wholistic admission process, public schools lke Berkeley are admitting almost exculsively by the numbers.

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<p>How about a source for such a statement? I have plenty of sources that contradict that, if you’d like to see them. ;)</p>

<p>
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Berkeley's SAT score is already as high as they can get.

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<p>Wasn’t that the case last year, when the average SAT score was lower? And then this year, it went up? Wasn’t that the case with every other school, whose admissions became increasingly competitive, and their average SAT still hasn’t stopped increasing (perhaps at a slower rate, but not stopped increasing altogether)? Harvard, for example? Berkeley’s will continue to grow as more and more competitive applicants apply.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Take Princeton as an example. Their website quotes that about half of their 21,000 APPLICANTS this year had SAT scores of over 2100. lol, that's 10,500 students that already have a higher SAT score than the Berkeley median.

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<p>But most of those applicants would be rejected at Berkeley. Why? Because many other factors in their admissions decisions. Berkeley has enough high scorers to fill its class; but it doesn’t admit all of them. In fact, the majority are rejected (see the UC site for admit profiles).</p>