<p>uh i dont think northwestern is overrated..but UChicago is DEF. underrated. the fact that NU is ranked higher doesnt have anything to do with chicago being ranked lower</p>
<p>Katharos I concur.</p>
<p>hi! i really need help! i thought since you mentioned tufts you know somehting about it and could help, i accepted tufts' offer of admission, but barnard just got me off their waitlist..where should i got-- i was gonna major in International Relations and minor in Media and Communications at Tufts....help!~</p>
<p>i think boston college is kinda underrated too.</p>
<p>Northeastern is SO underrated. It's an amazing school, but its close proximity to all of those incredibly selective and prestigious Massachusetts schools belittles it.</p>
<p>Tufts is one of the top international relations schools. That's basically all I know.</p>
<p>Berkeley is very underrated, it's always being trashed on this boards...</p>
<p>But I don't think UChicago is going to switch to Common Application although
people in U of C know the acceptance rate hurts UChicago's ranking.</p>
<p>So, don't pay too much attetion to that kind of ranking. the quality of education is what really matters.</p>
<p>PS: Northwestern is not overrated. Just say UChicago should be ranked at least 5 spots higher than what it is in the USNEWS ranking right now.</p>
<p>i totally agree.</p>
<p>Undergrad experience only...</p>
<p>Overrated:
Harvard
Yale
Duke
Stanford
UCSD</p>
<p>Underrated:
Oberlin
Brandeis
Pomona
Reed
Tufts</p>
<p>Graduate school is completely different.</p>
<p>"Berkeley is very underrated, it's always being trashed on this boards"</p>
<p>I disagree.</p>
<p>It is a great school, no one is questioning that. But my belief is that the public schools are situated right where they should be in the rankings. First of all, if you consider overall college experience, one thing that will hurt Berkeley is that 93% of the students are in-state. Not much diversity there. </p>
<p>Another factor is how many undergrad students there are. At Berkeley, there are 23000 undergrad students. If you look at the top 15 schools, Cornell is probably the biggest at 13k with the rest hovering around 6k. The fact that 14/15 of the top schools have a undergrad size of around 6k is significant. Unless you believe they are just elitist, it signifies that that these top schools see value in having a smaller undergrad population, one that is a fourth of the size of Berkeley's ug-population. 6k is a class size that an administration can reasonably handle, a class size that allows students to get much smaller class sizes in upper level work, a class size that allows students to get more involved with their professors (berkeley also has 10k grad students that are fighting for each professor's time), and a class size that fosters a stronger undergraduate community.</p>
<p>Many flagship public schools face this problem.. and that is why many people continue to see value in spending more money to go to a private school if they can afford it. Some schools handle it better than others. From what I've heard, Michigan is a school that handles their large undergraduate body well.</p>
<p>No one is questioning the student body. I know that Berkeley students are top-notch and represent the top of California students. One may argue that the Berkeley student body is comparable to student bodies in Top 15, but one can't argue that it is better. Anyways, my point is that Berkeley does not facilitates their undergraduate student body as much as the other elite schools would. For example, an 87% graduation rate is significantly lower than top schools and is not something to be proud of. If you have a talented student body, shouldn't the university work harder to make sure more students graduate? Therefore, it is is not underrated, it is right where it belongs.</p>
<p>Overrated - Columbia, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, UPenn</p>
<p>Underrated - Cornell, Carleton, UChicago, Rice, UCSD, </p>
<p>UPenn - The Wharton School of Business, although an incredible institution, has to be the paragon of fiscal frivolity in the history of academia. The Wharton reps even claim that oxygen pumped into the classrooms enhances brain function. Not only is this total BS but it is a fire hazard too. I wouldnt be surprised if that building bursts into flames because of an errant cigarette of one of the many many smokers on campus. </p>
<p>Dartmouth - The academics here are great A+++. The only problem is the school does not have enough dorms to support all of its students, thus they devised the D-Plan to make sure there's enough space in the already overcrowded dormitories. I would prefer a school with guaranteed 4-year housing where you dont have to switch rooms between quarters. </p>
<p>Carleton - This is a fabulous school with a campus as astounding as its academics, even though its in out of the way Minnesota. The biology department at Carleton is a rising star too. </p>
<p>UChicago - If you look at the print or online news every day, chances are 2 out of 7 times a week there will be an article proclaiming yet another groundbreaking discovery by a UChicago professor or researcher. This is THE hot spot for research in the science, especially in physics and biology. The campus integrates really well into the surrounding neighborhood of Hyde Park, and getting in and out of Chicago is a breeze and u dont have to be stuck in the middle of the hustle and bustle (unlike Columbia and Penn).</p>
<p>overrated:
Penn, Duke, WUSTL</p>
<p>Underrated:
University of Chicago, Rice, UCSD</p>
<p>US News has penn and duke ahead of or tied with schools like mit and stanford. come on. furthermore, Chicago is ranked well behind WUSTL, thats a joke. while WUSTL is a very good school, Chicago is deffiantly a step above.</p>
<p>UNDERRATED:</p>
<p>Rice (great deal on tuition, excellent academics, great location)</p>
<p>Brown (best undergraduate program--open curriculum, easily accessible advisors/faculty)</p>
<p>Dartmouth (though it's location is at least in part responsible for why people dont really think that highly of it)</p>
<p>Most liberal arts colleges (excl. maybe Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore, which people know of)</p>
<p>A lot of public universities (Rutgers, College of William & Mary, GA Tech)</p>
<p>Georgetown (excellent academics & faculty, beautiful campus, and great location)</p>
<p>Some other private ones: Lehigh; BU; etc.</p>
<p>OVERRATED:</p>
<p>Harvard </p>
<p>Duke</p>
<p>WUSTL</p>
<p>UNDERRATED:</p>
<p>UChicago: (intense academics, great faculty)</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon: (good academics & faculty)</p>
<p>OVERRATED:</p>
<p>Cornell (only reason ppl even talk abt it is b/c it's an ivy)</p>
<p>connecticut college is completely underrated in the usnews ranking, at 36- its peer schools are ranked in the 20s and is so much more difficult to get into than the schools in the 30s.</p>
<p>RICE IS UNDERRATED.</p>
<p>Seriously, it's only really known in Texas unless you do college research..even if it's the best school in the South...gosh...</p>
<p>In my opinion, I think WUSTL, Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, and ND are way overrated. Honestly, WUSTL before Brown? I don't think so. I haven't heard about Vandy or ND doing anything amazing in the news to be ranked as high as they are. And Duke is a good school, but #5?</p>
<p>All of the publics are totally underrated. Not a single public school in the top twenty? No way. Berkeley, Michigan, and UVA should all be above 20.</p>
<p>Rice is also underrated, IMO it's at least as good as WUSTL.</p>
<p>huskem, are you sure Conn College is #36? I haven't looked at those rankings in a while, but thought it was more around mid 20's. </p>
<p>Maybe I just don't like private schools as much, but would think that the caliber and diversity of the student body (not to mention acceptance rate, which granted is somewhat self-selecting) of places places like Georgetown and Tufts would be better than Cal/Berkeley, UMich and UVA. I would think of this latter group as better places to go for grad school.</p>
<p>Gellino, don't confuse the quality of the student body with selectivity. The SAT ranges at UVA, Cal and Michigan are roughly the same as those at Georgetown and Tufts (when you consider the fact that state schools only report the highest SAT score in one sitting whereas private universities mix and match the highest section scores of various tests), and mean GPAs and class ranks are higher at the former than at the latter. Furthemore, Cal, UVA and Michigan have larger endowments per student than Georgetown and Tufts and their spending on their undergrads is higher. Considering the fact that UVA,Cal and Michigan are, on average, 4 times larger than Georgetown and Tufts, that a pretty amazing fact. As for diversity, I cannot see how Georgetown is more diverse. Michigan has 5,000 (including graduate students) international students from 120 countries and and an additional 15,000 US citizens from OOS. Furthermore, Tufts is very WASPish and Georgetown very white and Catholic. Cal and Michigan are very diverse in terms of ethnicity and religious affilitation.</p>
<p>Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale are the only research universities in the nation that offer better undergraduate education than Cal, Michigan and UVa. Outside of a select few on this forum, most of the highly educated world agrees with that.</p>