OVERRATED: NYU, UCLA, USC, and some other privates/Ivies.
(People that I know mainly applied because of the location or name).
UNDERRATED: California State University at San Luis Obispo, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Washington, University of Michigan, University of California at Irvine, San Jose State, Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, and a bunch of other LACs.
(I’m from California so the majority of these are from here. I’m not sure if all of these are considered underrated, but here at my high school they are).
It would be useful to provide some sort of reasoning behind each school provided so that this doesn’t turn into a “bash-all-private-elite-schools-that-I-didn’t-go-to-and-hail-alma-mater” thread.
Underrated: NCF and Mount Allison
NCF is top 10 in the country in student awards won per capita and sends a ton of grads to grad school. Mount Allison has had an insane number of Rhodes Scholars in its history (and it’s a tiny LAC).
Overrated: Several schools that make their entering fall freshman test scores look artificially high and admit rate look artificially low to game the rankings.
Underrated: UBuffalo, Christopher Newport University, Temple (great scholarships), San Diego State, Santa Clara University, UC Santa Cruz, UNC Wilmington, App State, UNC Asheville, CU-Boulder, Central Florida, South Florida.
Overrated: GWU, W&M, WUSTL, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, BU, UMiami, NYU, Yeshiva (on USNWR), Rutgers, Clark (on USNWR), Binghamton, UMass Amherst, UAlabama (on CC).
Actually, it seems that the forums are filled with posts from NJ resident students who want to go anywhere except Rutgers. So Rutgers would be underrated on these forums.
@TomSrOfBoston, OK, I have to see why Mount Allison has such a poor graduation rate, but note that Reed once had a graduation rate below 50% (it’s still not so hot) and NCF still has a low graduation rate (UChicago had a poor one once upon a time as well). All three of them sent the kids who did make it on to PhD and other grad programs at tremendous rates, however (and NCF students win prestigous student awards at tremendous rates as well). A school could have a low graduation rate because it is very tough, but that also means that prepares a motivated student well.
@LBad96 what is it about UNC-CH that makes it overrated? The academics? The freshmen research opportunities? Maybe basketball? Internships? The outstanding aid? Professors who know their students and email them opportunities that come up? I am confused…
@twogirls Probably the acceptance rate. A lot of students apply because it has a low acceptance rate, thus driving their acceptance rate even lower, making more students apply, and so on and so forth.
The fact that LBad goes to UNCW, really. As CaliCash predicted, this thread is going to be very subjective. What’s underrated to some will be overrated to others. For instance, some would say Bama is underrated, considering the massive scholarships they automatically grant to high-stats students. A good option for many, but one that nobody in my area ¶ is familiar with.
Overrated
-Bloomfield College
-NYU
-Penn State (Out-of-state)
-Quinnipac
-UMiami
NYU & Penn State are great, although very expensive. With UMiami, I think many people focus on the parties. Quinnipac is okay, but definitely overpriced.
I threw Bloomfield in because students/staff in my school assume “private = good”, when it’s actually awful. Just a local thing that annoys me.
Underrated
-Beloit
-Bucknell
-Claremont Colleges
-Connecticut College
-Franklin & Marshall
-Grinnell
-Hobart & William Smith
-Kalamazoo
-Kenyon
-Macalester
-Muhlenburg
-Oberlin
-State Flagships
-St. Bonaventure
-St. Olaf
And many more!
Some of these schools are quite popular on CC, but I’ve never heard them mentioned in person. Maybe it’s my area.
I mentioned state flagships because some are great values. UVA, UMich, UWash, UWisconsin, & Rutgers are great deals. (I find it odd how Rutgers is cheaper than many of our lower-tier state schools…)
Underrated
UBuffalo: great pre-med and business programs, very friendly students. Really should have applied here in hindsight.
CNU: school president has really made the concerted effort on his own merit to improve the school’s academics, and it’s really shown. Really should be higher than its current USNWR ranking. Wish I applied here also.
Temple: great scholarships as I said, fast-rising academics as well.
SDSU: school that is far better than its USNWR ranking suggests. Students there are very happy and school is very good academically.
Santa Clara: has both ED and EA options and is often recommended and discussed on here as a good CA private option. Also very good academically and produced a Women’s World Cup winner (Julie Johnston). Probably would have given it a look had I been allowed to go that far from home.
UC Santa Cruz: one of the underrated UCs, very solid school.
UNC Wilmington: 10th best public school value in the country, always ranks high on lists for best beach/coastal schools. Superb marine bio, film studies, business programs. The school community is a family. Gaining more recognition and respect every day. It just flies under the radar for many OOSers especially those in my neck of the woods (NJ).
App State: great business school, beautiful mountain scenery, lots of school spirit, excellent overall academics. Gaining a lot in respect by the day just as UNCW is. Really a great hidden gem of a school.
UNC Asheville: excellent Psychology and sociology programs, generally just a really good public LAC. On its way up for sure.
CU-Boulder: is home to the 2013 Professor of the Year. Enough said. Awesome school all-around despite what its acceptance rate may suggest.
Central Florida: very good school that is underrated on US News. Excellent for engineering.
South Florida: same as UCF.
UScranton: added for its excellent business school and beautiful Poconos surroundings. Another school I wish I had applied to.
Ohio University: excellent scholarships and in an awesome college town. Definitely wish I applied here.
Overrated
GWU, WUSTL, NYU, BU, UMiami: all are notorious for giving very little/poor financial aid to students and/or favoring the wealthy in their admissions process. Not worth as much as they charge. BU is known for gaming the rankings and holding their noses up in the air. UMiami is WAY too homogeneous and too much of a party school for my tastes.
Duke and Chapel Hill: known for having pretty elitist students who think every student who goes to a different NC school is inferior to them. UNC also is currently on accreditation probation for that scandal @bodangles
W&M: just an old school to me, kinda gives off a pretentious vibe to me. Love beating them in sports.
Yeshiva: No one has ever heard of this school. have no idea why on earth they would ever be ranked higher than Penn State, Pitt etc…
Rutgers: held in higher esteem out-of-state, but for what possible reason? no one in New Jersey likes it. It’s way overpriced for an in-state school.
Clark: a combination of being slightly overrated on US News as well as being in the wrong category to boot (should be an LAC). Isn’t at all pretentious or snobby, but suffers from a dim social scene.
UMass: great aura of pretentiousness and snobbery amongst the admissions folks in their email/phone communications, I know this firsthand. A little bit from the students as well. More importantly, while they did the right thing by taking Bill Cosby’s degree away from him, what they failed to do was show common respect by giving back all the money he donated to the University. Also the campus informant scandal which was conveniently swept under the rug. Just a lot of pretentiousness and sketchiness/dishonesty going on up there.
Binghamton: also had a terrible scandal which was swept under the rug, tries to brand itself as being better than it really is.
Bama: all the boosters and cheerleaders on here…has a (recent) history of non-Caucasian students feeling ostracized and unwelcome in campus. I guess it comes with the territory…
Northeastern: added for gaming the rankings and also having an aura of New England pretentiousness, just like BU. Feels AMAZING to beat them in sports, though. Especially basketball.
NJIT: added because it’s presumed to be good because of the “IT” suffix when it’s really a very average school. Graduation rates are all-around weak. Severely lacks in social scene and school spirit.
Seton Hall: legit has zero appeal on the undergraduate level, the only reason anyone cares about Seton Hall at all is because it has a law school.
You asked for an expansion of my position, I gave it to you all. There. Don’t flame me.
NOTE: Generalizations, positive or negative, do NOT reflect the entire 100% of the student body, and should not be taken as such.
The reason why Yeshiva is virtually unknown is because it basically only services a tiny religion, aka orthodox Judaism. If you’re an orthodox Jew who wants to go to college, you’ll probably at least consider applying there. If you’re not, then it’s not going to be on your radar.
That has nothing to do with its academic strengths.