<p>I think its unfair of the OP to say that many of those Liberal Arts schools are overrated. Most are small without a wide reputation with the general public. That doesn’t mean they’re not worthy of the rank USNWR gave them. I would bet the OP knows very little about many of the schools on the long list of Liberal Arts schools which he or she labels as ‘over rated.’</p>
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<p>Absolute bull. In that case, UConn and NYU >>>>>> Caltech, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, and Rice, cause I didn’t know what they were until I came to CC. Just because you had no clue doesn’t mean it’s not good.</p>
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<p>underranked =/= underrated
PA scores measure prestige of universities. WUSTL’s PA is comparatively low to many other institutions, which means it’s not getting the recognition when everything else seems to indicate that it is better than people think it is. Therefore, it is underrated by many people, including you.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t even go to WUSTL.</p>
<p>OP is quite familiar with all the schools mentioned in the post, having personally visited all of them relatively recently. And in their cases, size doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Ultimately in all of this, the “best” college is the one that is best for the particular student. There is no even playing field in any of this on which to base colleges and universities accurately, but USNWR does try to find the common thread in all of them on which to base their conclusions. A problem remains that in generalizing the criteria for such rankings, USNWR relies on a “subjective” peer assessment for 25% of the “value” of each evaluation. It should be an objective decision based on nonprejudicial merit, not invested interest in one’s personal institution. All of this is of course, IMHO.</p>
<p>You visited all 28 of those schools recently? That must have been a long trip.</p>
<p>“Ultimately in all of this, the “best” college is the one that is best for the particular student. There is no even playing field in any of this on which to base colleges and universities accurately, but USNWR does try to find the common thread in all of them on which to base their conclusions. A problem remains that in generalizing the criteria for such rankings, USNWR relies on a “subjective” peer assessment for 25% of the “value” of each evaluation. It should be an objective decision based on nonprejudicial merit, not invested interest in one’s personal institution. All of this is of course, IMHO.”</p>
<p>This completely undermines your original post of rating schools you know.</p>
<p>I think the next underrated/overrated thread in this forum will make 1,000,000!
Congrats on being 999,999.</p>
<p>Overrated: Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Washington U and USC </p>
<p>Underrated: Stanford, Berkeley, JHU, Michigan and UCLA</p>
<p>Overrated: Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Washington U and USC </p>
<p>Underrated: Stanford, Berkeley, JHU, Michigan and UCLA</p>
<p>Overrated: Harvard, UPenn, UCLA, JHU, USC.</p>
<p>Underrated: Chicago, WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Overrated - nonWharton Penn, Duke, WashU, Emory
Underrated - Darmouth, Cornell</p>
<p>over</p>
<p>California, Virginia, Notre Dame, Michigan, USC, North Carolina</p>
<p>under</p>
<p>Brown, Georgetown, Rice, Tufts, William & Mary</p>
<p>scrivener: I never said Wake Forest does not deserve to be in the Top 30. As a Northerner who has never heard of the place, I was just curious as to why it is so highly ranked.</p>
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Looking over the USNWR methodology would answer that question. As you might have guessed, your recognition of universities is not a criterion. </p>
<p>[How</a> We Calculate the College Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html?PageNr=2]How”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html?PageNr=2)</p>
<p>I don’t understand anyone who has stated that Stanford is underrated because of East Coast bias. Living on the east coast, I can honestly say that Stanford is VERY highly regarded. If I were tell some random person in my town that I got into both Stanford and Dartmouth, they would be much more impressed with Stanford. Interchange Dartmouth with any other school not including than HYP and MIT, and I’d get the same result.</p>
<p>I agree, Stanford is probably tied with Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley for name recognition and prestige.</p>
<p>Suin in post 24 – actually it doesn’t undermine the original post since the conclusions in it did not include a biased 25% PA. And yes, I have visited all 28 of those schools within the past three years. I still maintain that the prestige of a college or university is determined not by USNWR, but by the success of its graduates in their fields of endeavor. It proves that for that particular graduate, he/she went to the “best” school for his/her needs.</p>
<p>Wake Forest is a 4500 student school in a small city in the south. It used to be even smaller and thus has only 50k living alumni. It concentrates on undergrad moreso than research. That is why it might not be as widely known up north. The reason it is highly ranked is because it is a great college.</p>
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<p>Epic lulz.</p>
<p>wake forest is a good school but top 30? eh idk</p>
<p>A survey of ~2,000 academics think Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and MIT should be #1. Yale #5.</p>
<p>Add me to that survey and you’ll have a dissent.</p>