<p>Kelsey, fyi - Toni Morrison is at Princeton</p>
<p>Among the published lists I have seen here, UCLA and Cornell are underrated. Cornell has some great hidden programs, particularly the undergraduate business program hidden among the Cornell Agriculture majors. UCLA is underrated compared to Berkeley and both are underestimated compared to other schools.</p>
<p>UCSD is superior to every IVY if climate is a consideration, and is only beaten by University at Manoa, in Hawaii in that category. </p>
<p>The higher up on the list you are the more likely you are to be overrated. The lower on the list the reverse is true.</p>
<p>Half of the worlds population and three of their friends were in my first college calculus class, but I was told not to worry, the discussion group would only have 20 students and would be led by a graduate student who knew his stuff. Fortunately some of us spoke french and could translate for the graduate student TA they had hired. I ended up using a friend as a tutor and learned enough to get through the final, which was the only grade for the class. Sometimes big isn't better and sometimes a big name prof is even worse. I am told Carl Sagan looked like an ant from the back rows of the introductory astronomy class on the days that he taught. My favorite and therefore, best profs were always less known and yet revered by their students, I suspect the same might be true of schools.</p>
<p>In this forum--looking at the Cal forums in particular--it seems to me that all the LAC's are underrated; although not in the matriculating student population at large.</p>
<p>It also seems to be popular to attack the Ivies other than HYP . . . but I guess that's only natural. Maybe based on resentment or envy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In this forum--looking at the Cal forums in particular--it seems to me that all the LAC's are underrated; although not in the matriculating student population at large.</p>
<p>It also seems to be popular to attack the Ivies other than HYP . . . but I guess that's only natural. Maybe based on resentment or envy.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>...or maybe on the fact that some would be rated 10-15 spots lower if not for their membership in a football conferance...</p>
<p>Overrated HYPS
Underrated UCs all of them, CalTech, and LAC.</p>
<p>Relative to the USNEWS list:</p>
<p>Overrated: UPenn, Harvard, Dartmouth, WashU
Underrated: Caltech, Berkeley, Cornell, Chicago</p>
<p>For those of you who think Dartmouth is overrated, 2 things:</p>
<p>1) You are wrong.</p>
<p>2) What criteria are you using? I apologize for not bothering to read all 8 pages worth of posts, so maybe someone spelled this out for me already. But how can the Ivy with arguably the least name recognition to the average person be OVERRATED?</p>
<p>I would argue that the whole <em>concept</em> of an Ivy is overrated, simply because there are schools (i.e. Stanford) with just as much prestige and academic excellence. They don't need to have the title of Ivy to attract the best and the brightest from around the country. But I don't think the schools themselves are overrated.</p>
<p>question-- caltech was ranked solely#1 by USNWR in 2000. in 2005, it has drastically fallen to #8. what has caused caltech's plunge down from #1 to afterthought of HYPSM? or did HYPSM (along with duke and penn) simply overtake caltech within the past 5 years?</p>
<p>hmm, i think certain ivies would not be as prestigious if they were not associated with the ivy league. their academic quality would nonetheless still be the same, but their prestige factor would definately drop. they would become something like Washington U, a great school without automatic name prestige.</p>
<p>Cornell is definitely underrated. However, it does have the name recognition that can't really be said in relation to Penn and Dartmouth. Most people I've encountered have heard of it, while many people haven't heard of Penn(except Wharton) and especially Dartmouth. Cornell has its great undergrad business program, that has a great ranking in its first year of being ranked. Cornell has amazing facilities, especially for engineering and the sciences. If you want to go to an Ivy for science or engineering, Cornell is the best choice. The broad spectrum of courses(over 4000) is unique in the Ivy League. There are so many extracurricular activities and physical education offerings. The campus is the epitomy of a college campus, with hills, a lake, tree lined paths, beautiful buildings, etc. Cornell really is underrated in comparison to the other Ivies and top colleges. It definitely is one of the most, if not the most, rigorous ivies. It definitely isn't the "doormat Ivy", and people that consider it that don't know anything about Cornell University.</p>
<p>Overrated -Boston College, Emory, UPenn, Brown-realize BC is not in the same category of the other 3 . Underrated Notre Dame, Uchicago, Holy Cross, and Davidson.</p>
<p>"If you want to go to an Ivy for science or engineering, Cornell is the best choice." - Pennhopeful</p>
<p>Do you really think that Cornell has the best science programs among the Ivies? better than Harvard and Princeton; MIT and Stanford (Ivy Plus)?</p>
<p>And why would you want to go to an Ivy for engineering? Which of Cornell's engineering disciplines is rated in the top 5? (Agricultural is the only one I can think of).</p>
<p>Oh, you forgot to mention that Cornell has the best Hotel school in the country.</p>
<p>I think US News is overated- I really about some of their criteria</p>
<p>yes definitely choose cornell engineering over harvard and princeton engineering. but definitely not over MIT and probably not over stanford. there are few people i know who chose cornell engineering over harvard because they couldnt get into their top school (MIT).</p>
<p>There are quite a few people at Princeton engineering who picked it over MIT. It is a comparable program to Cornell but is smaller and at an arguably more undergrad friendly institution. While I can't recommend Pton engineering over Stanford's, I'd say its a good choice over Cornell.</p>
<p>the main difference between princeton and MIT engineering is the academic approach. princeton is much more theoretical, while MIT is more applied.</p>
<p>Guys. Don't you understand that these "ratings" are futile and ridiculous? I hear myself and I sound old, but it is true: each college is different, and provides different experiences for different people... THAT is truly, seriously, what is important. For a lot of these comparisons, it is like comparing apples and oranges; the colleges have different focuses, environments, etc... Sure, perhaps you can calculate the "overall" rating of a college, but that would be ridiculous, because you don't experience an institution as a "whole," rather, only certain elements/programs of it which suit YOU...</p>
<p>If there is any "ranking" which is even slightly worthwhile for an INDIVIDUAL, it is the "prestige" rating... After all, only YOU can decide what is best for YOU, but you need a rating to decide what other people perceive to be best... The prestige rating measures "which schools garner the most respect, in a general sense, from employers, graduate schools, and the American public"... this is the only thing that matters which is not within your control...</p>
<p>Here are the rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard </li>
<li>Princeton </li>
<li>Yale </li>
<li>Stanford </li>
<li>Dartmouth </li>
<li>MIT </li>
<li>Amherst </li>
<li>Williams </li>
<li>Columbia University </li>
<li>California Institute of Technology </li>
<li>Brown </li>
<li>Duke </li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania </li>
<li>University of Chicago </li>
<li>Swarthmore </li>
<li>Northwestern University </li>
<li>Cornell University </li>
<li>Johns Hopkins </li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley </li>
<li>Bowdoin </li>
<li>Georgetown </li>
</ol>
<p>Of course, even in this there are flaws, because, for example, certain programs at certain colleges listed garner much more respect from recruiters than the overall college reputation, but this is the essence of what is wrong with rankings... this ranking is the only valuable "overall" college ranking, however, because it measures what kind of weight your degree carries with the public, employers... but when you get more detailed than that, it becomes so complex, and so concerned with the collective rather than the individual, it is pointless...</p>
<p>the rankings came from <a href="http://brody.com/college/resources/college_rankings.php%5B/url%5D">http://brody.com/college/resources/college_rankings.php</a></p>
<p>~CreativeName~ Loved your post, it WAS spot-on, UNTIL you pasted a supposed "prestige rating."</p>
<p>Sure, in theory a "prestige rating" could be a useful thing. When any given college applicant is coming up with their own ranking system (the only worthwhile ranking system to have), it would be foolish not to acknowledge that the prestige component wouldn't play at least some part in an overall assessment (how much of a part, of course, will vary student to student).</p>
<p>But, the "prestige rating" which you use simply begs the question. Prestige according to who? Okay ... I've read the list ... this is an idiosyncratic, prestige rating by this Brody group. It's somebody's opinion and is predicated on somebody's assumptions about 1,000,001 largely subjective things. You could find hundreds of other "prestige ratings" from all sorts of other list makers and schools can appear all over the place in each one. Who is this Brody group? Who are the other list makers? What makes their opinions uniquely valuable? Some say that the USNWR "peer review" numbers essentially give an important "prestige rating," while others believe that asking supposedly peer institutions to review each other is worthless and fraught with compounding errors because of generalized assumptions, long-held biases, and politics. </p>
<p>I think even for a so-called "prestige rating," about the best you can do is to look at every other prestige rating you can find, assign it a certain gravity and weight based on your beliefs about it's validity, average out those weighted studies, and ... poof ... you have your own comprehensive and collective "prestige rating" derived from the "prestige ratings" of others.</p>
<p>I agree with Dude. Brody's "prestige" ranking seems very flawed and deliberately biased...unless Brody believes that there is a 42-way tie between #5 and #46!!!</p>
<p>Hokay, here's a ranked list of top colleges that's as good as any other:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li> Dartmouth</li>
<li> Amherst</li>
<li> Pomona</li>
<li> U/Virginia</li>
<li> Williams</li>
<li> Claremont McKenna</li>
<li> Smith</li>
<li> Macalester</li>
<li> Bates</li>
<li> Bowdoin</li>
<li> Washington & Lee</li>
<li> Colby</li>
<li> McGill</li>
<li> Bucknell</li>
</ol>
<p>~TheDad~</p>
<p>Excellent ranked list. ;)</p>
<p>I'm willing to accept TheDad rankings, as-is, provided the following changes are made:</p>
<ol>
<li> Add the college my Son is going to -- what is it again? oh yeah -- Wash-U</li>
<li><p>Add the college my Daughter will be going to (she's just a h.s. junior, but
wherever she winds up going, I'm sure it will be #2, if not tied for #1)</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth</p></li>
<li><p>Amherst
and the remainder of your ranked list, as-is.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Me likey.</p>