<p>I'm just curious if anyone here goes to a school that they expected to love, but don't. Also, what are some schools you go to/know of of that are much better than you expected?</p>
<p>Overrated:
Upenn-it's really not that great, except for wharton, and if it wasn't ivy or had wharton, it wouldn't be as recognized as it is</p>
<p>under: Georgia...Honors program is solid. Not considered by kids outside the south. Cheaper than most and merit aid available. Great town.Good weather.</p>
<p>Overrated: Any school that is my school's rival school, or is within a few rankings of my school in the US News and World Report rankings.</p>
<p>Underrated: My school (of course)</p>
<p>Northeastern is definately the most underrated school of them all!</p>
<p>Overrated: MIT</p>
<p>Underrated: most LACs</p>
<p>Overrated: WUSTL, </p>
<p>Underrated: Brown, Dartmouth</p>
<p>overrated: Penn, WUSTL, Brandeis, Tufts
underrated: Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Rice, Northwestern, John Hopkins.</p>
<p>As a disclaimer I will say this is biased since I attend here...</p>
<p>but I think Lehigh is severely underrated. This school has done nothing but impress me. Top notch faculty, small classes, great technology in the classrooms, great career preparation, very strong recruiting base( i do business but the same goes for engineering), campus and school as a whole is very aligned with an ivy (old school, similar architecture, similar size)... </p>
<p>.. all the students here are extremely intelligent.... the patriot league gives the same feel as the ivy league with the old tradition bound rivalries within it....the school hosts some really great events: michael moore will be speaking here in a few weeks, def poetry (hbo show) will be recording live in two weeks and oh yea the social life is awesome</p>
<p>To take it a step further I would say the whole patriot league is pretty much underrated... Colgate (best school in the league) is just as good as the lower ivies... Bucknell is often overlooked... Holy Cross as well... boo to lafayette... cant say Army and Navy are underrated because I think most people already recognize their excellence</p>
<p>are we talking USNews rankings here? if so,</p>
<p>Overrated: WUSTL, Duke, Penn</p>
<p>Underrated: Dartmouth, Berkeley, Michigan</p>
<p>This really gets into a game of whose truth is the truth? You can come at these judgments with all sorts of personal criteria. Bearing that in mind, here are some of my observations:</p>
<p>Overrated: Harvard, Penn, Bowdoin, Cornell, Emory, WUSTL, Wellesley, Brandeis, NYU, Smith, Washington & Lee</p>
<p>Underrated: Princeton, Stanford, Cal Tech, Georgetown, Duke, Swarthmore, Boston College, Chicago, Bucknell, Connecticut College, Dickinson, Furman, Holy Cross, Kenyon, St. Lawrence, Skidmore, William & Mary.</p>
<p>From personal experience.....two sons both graduates of Harvard and PENN...one daugher at Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Overrated: PENN
Underrated: Carnegie</p>
<p>HArvard is HAHR-VAHRD!!! you go if you get in....its the experience and the prestige</p>
<p>scubasteve, do you think you could post your email address or screen name? I'm considering Lehigh very strongly, but I had some questions that I've been hoping a current student could answer.</p>
<p>just curious why the people who think penn is overrated do...
i'm not disagreeing, but are there some specific things that let you down?</p>
<p>They probably just don't like that it's with the "impenetrable" ring of elites:HYPMSC</p>
<p>I would say that public universities in general are underrated - esp. Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina & UCLA. A private education is not necessarily a better one.</p>
<p>I agreew/ davidrune that most lacs are underrated</p>
<p>Yes but having 200 students in a lecture at a UC << 50 students in a lecture at a private</p>
<p>Dear Amused:</p>
<p>I'm surprised that you would interpret my suggestion that PENN is overrated a result of the fact that it is a member of the impenetrable elite! Not at all! I had one S at Harvard and one S at PENN school of engineering. His experience at PENN though he enjoyed the social part left me baffled as to why it would be considered such a fine institution. His professors spoke broken English and while may be reknowned in their field, had such heavy accents he couldn't make heads or tales of what they were saying! And this was a kid with an 800 in math on the SAT's. In addition, if he wanted an easy "A" all he had to do was take a few classes at Wharton. He experienced a sense of snobbishness and elitism from the Wharton kids..and the program as a whole. They had their own parties and even sponsored their own Family Weekend activities..not to mention their own and separate graduation exercises. He wa closed out of many classes he wanted to take at the University as a whole and many of his professors were not available to him after class hours. The advising system was very poor and there was not much help offered if you ran into snags in your program. When I think of the amount of money we spent to send him there! There was not much offered in counselling or related other supportive assistance offered to a kid who came from a small suburban school district high school. I was not impressed. VERY VERY bureaucratic! They even changed Engineering Dept. heads midstream. Harvard was a joy! My S was interested in computer graphics and even took graduate level classes there..never a problem. When he failed a math class in his fresh year, an advisor would seek him out weekly to counsel him lest he become disenchanted with himself and the school. He graduated in four years in the second tier of students..learning Japanese, reading, writing, speaking and understanding the complex language as a minor subject to computer science. Harvard was everything it was claimed to be...a supportive, enriched, and truly academic experience. He still lives near Cambridge and works in Cambridge to this day six years later! And Carnegie Mellon? My D has study groups assisting her in her nemesis CALCULUS and just received her first real grade....a 98 in her last major test. This was a child who did not perform well on the AP CALC test and dreaded taking the course at CMU. Physics has been presented in a meaningful and understandable way with lots of teacher/staff support. All the teachers at Mellon College of Science know your child by their first name! I was impressed. You are paying for that level of individual attention and is well worth every penny spent. They WANT to see your child succeed...it is the VIBE you get when you first visit and sit in on classes. They don't tell you like they did at MIT's orientation..."Look around you. Every third seat with be empty at the end of the first year here...the work is so rigorous..and not every one will make the grade!" Who needs that at an orientation???? My take is if the kids are smart enough to get in there, you'd better offer enough support that they can be successful there and not burden the kids with unnecessary angst and bureaucratic red-tape. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>It's simple: any school can be an "over-rated" school if people apply and decide to attend without really digging down to find out more about it than the ratings.</p>
<p>And, any school can be an "under-rated" school if you turn your nose up at it simply because of it's ratings (i.e., "I will only look at schools in the top 20!").</p>
<p>Finally, as this discussion shows, the old saw "one man's treasure is another's trash" holds true: an over-rated school in one person's eyes may be a treasure to someone else.</p>