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<p>They may be good, but the college doesn’t seem to emphasize it as an important part of their curriculum. One reason my kid applied to (and attends) Harvey Mudd just down the road, but didn’t apply to CalTech – the students and the atmosphere struck her as too one-sided when she visited. It may be underrated by their own students because it is not a priority for them. Which is fine, I don’t have an issue with it, they are focused on being fantastic in one area.</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more, @ucbalumnus. I’m in NJ and kids in my D’s school really don’t seem to appreciate Rutgers. Meanwhile they flock to NYU with its lousy FA at full-pay, as if there are no other colleges in NYC. (One of my D’s friends was admitted to McGill. She received a scholarship and between that and her French dual citizenship, her COA would have been ~$3k/year. She insisted on NYU at ~60k+/yr… and her parents eventually gave in.) It’s the only school I’ve told my kids they will never be allowed to attend, so don’t even try. ;)</p>
<p>As an example, if you go to Asia dropping the name Berkeley all of a sudden you are like a god–even if you went there for undergrad rather than grad school. Seeing as the undergrad does not compare to the grad school, it should be classified as overrated in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, for grad programs it is arguably the best or top 3 but for undergrad its just not on par. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>Wow, @sugarski! Is that for real? That’s really ridiculous. I cannot believe nobody talked some sense into that girl, as rude as this sounds. Paying a $57k premium for NYU over a world class institution like McGill… just speechless.</p>
<p>At least in my perspective, Rice & Caltech are underrated. </p>
<p>From some personal research, I’d also say UAH is underrated - despite being a minor state univeristy in Alabama they’re in the group of “very high research universities” along the likes of the big UCs and a lot of the other large research universities. Their location is in Huntsville, a big area for engineering firms, especially in the aerospace and mechanical fields. </p>
<p>A lot of LACs are underrated as well. Reed, Grinnell, Colorado College come to mind… Also, being a resident of St. Louis you’d be surprised at how underrated that Wash U is here. Everyone is applying to MIT, Ivies, etc… or they’re going to Mizzou. Maybe it’s just because its in our city, but still, WashU is great in the sciences and their medical school is one of the most active in the country.</p>
<p>I’m going to hesitate from saying any universities that are “overrated” because I don’t necessarily know too much about them to make that assumption.</p>
<p>EVERY Ivy League school is overrated when it comes to undergraduate studies. There is literally no point in going to an ivy for undergrad.</p>
<p>Cal’s undergrad is not on par with… what? Its graduate program? How do you even compare an undergrad program to a graduate program? The thing is, UCB isn’t really overrated. It remains one of the most financially accessible option for thousands of Californians (whether rich or middle class) and therefore gets tons of applications. Not everyone can afford Duke despite the financial aid. If you’re looking at Duke for $62k and Cal for <$30k, what do you pick? Sure if you are rolling around in money, it’s your wish. But for those with modest means, Cal would win.</p>
<p>@International95 Yes! It’s for real. The student is my daughter’s BFF. I had exactly the same reaction as you. But NYU (actually NYU Stern) was her dream school and they can afford it, I guess (with loans), and she talked them into it. (The fact that she’ll presumably be going into a lucrative career in finance helped her cause, too, of course.) I feel incredibly blessed because my daughter is also going to her dream school, but with FA that was generous beyond our wildest dreams. :)</p>
<p>You guys really seem to think highly of Mcgill. As a Canadian, I don’t understand why Mcgill seems to be so well known by Americans whereas U of Toronto, UBC, and to some extent Waterloo are simply forgotten and Underrated. You could argue that Mcgill is best in Canada but UBC and U of T are very close in quality. Similarly, Queens seems to be overrated by Americans. What’s your guys take on Canadian schools as I know of Americans that go Canada due to the cheaper tuition and the belief that education is still comparable to top schools in US.</p>
<p>As an international student, I would say that U of T, UBC and McGill are all amazing. Simon Fraser is really cool too!</p>
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<p>Very few Americans, even here on CC, have ever heard of Queen’s University. </p>
<p>Underrated: Washington University in St. Louis & Emory </p>
<p>Overrated: Georgetown & Berkeley </p>
<p>University of Arkansas is pretty underrated. They receive a lot of funding from Walmart (I think the headquarters is nearby) and that funding has dramatically improved the University in the last few years. A lot of people dismiss UofA because it’s in Arkansas and let’s face it, Arkansas isn’t a great state overall.</p>
<p>However, Northwest Arkansas (where UofA is located) is actually one of the fastest growing parts of the country. It’s a fun college town with real nice faculty, great facilities, and a lot of University expansion because of the donations from Walmart. It was rated by some magazine as one of the Best Colleges To Watch, not sure which though. </p>
<p>My two cents. </p>
<p>Clarification: Chicago had 20 researchers on the list.</p>
<p>Thompson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers (comparison of Ivy+ schools):</p>
<p>1). Harvard (inclusive of Broad Institute and the Harvard Smithsonian Center) - 130
2). Stanford - 56
3). Berkeley (inclusive of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab) - 43
4). MIT (inclusive of Broad Institute) - 36
5). Duke - 32
6). Princeton - 27
7). Hopkins - 26
8). Yale, Columbia, Cornell - 21
11). Chicago - 20
12). Penn, Caltech - 17
14). Brown - 5
15). Dartmouth - 3</p>
<p><a href=“http://highlycited.com/”>Highly Cited Researchers - Clarivate;
<p>@Misanthrope1 Is there way to find the top 10% of researchers? Often such data can be manipulated by changing the percentage. Just curious because the HiCi data makes colleges on the same level look pretty disparate and some research colleges look weak compared to non-research colleges.</p>
<p>^ There isn’t (to the best of my knowledge). Reuters is looking only at the most influential researchers. The crème de la crème for lack of a better phrase. </p>
<p>I live in the SF Bay Area and think Berkeley’s undergraduate program is highly overrated. It seems pretty comparable to the undergraduate experience at many big state flagships. </p>
<p>Its graduate program is fantastic, though.</p>
<p>I do think US News goes especially hard on the state schools. I never have thought that they put enough weight on faculty quality – after all, students go to school to learn, so the quality of faculty should be an extremely strong factor in any ranking; probably the most important factor.</p>
<p>The PA score comes closest to capturing the quality of faculty, IMO, in the US News formula… and that only counts for like 20-25%, which is not nearly enough.</p>
<p>Wisconsin is #22 in peer assessment. Because it is a state school, it admits some students from the state of Wisconsin who have relatively low qualifications… but those and all other admits who decide to come to UW are treated to a world-class education.</p>
<p>I think many of the state directional Us are underrated because they are too close to home. Usually there is some set of subjects in which they are highly competent. Our local school has a very good engineering program with many internship options and a really top notch music theater program.</p>
<p>How do you determine quality of faculty? To me, the most important quality involves the ability to teach, rather than things like research awards, citations, and where they got their PhDs.</p>
<p>I know some of Cal’s Nobel Prize winners are very poorly ranked by students when it comes to their teaching ability. (I’m only picking on Cal because it’s nearby, and I’m familiar with it.) It’s the same problem at many other colleges, where great researchers are terrible teachers.</p>