I find this interesting, because a solid ranking and/or recognizable brand name would be what leads to “overrated” in my mind. The Ivy League and its academic counterparts (Stanford, MIT, et al) are all excellent schools. But, so are those next tier schools. Will a degree from Emory, William & Mary, Georgia Tech provide similar opportunities? What about UCSB, Tulane, Florida, Alabama, Texas? In other words, are those Top 10 schools really providing a Top 10 education or are they relying on prestige? I would think they would have the most to lose. Brown and Cornell are tied at #14, yet both still enjoy being members of the exclusive Ivy League and garner more “prestige” than Rice and Vanderbilt (also tied at #14).
IMO any college that doesn’t have at least a B grade on this list is in danger of a downward slide unless they make some changes. Good financial stewardship is important on so many levels.
Unless I’m blind, I don’t see any of the UCs listed
and the wheel spins round and round…chicken or egg?
The only thing that ever really matters is that each individual student gets the most out of their efforts. Defining “most” is the topic of most of this website.
Getting into a pressure filled elite school and committing suicide is generally accepted to be a bad outcome. Assuming that it was the pressure that created these sad events, that child would have been better in a less competitive, more supportive, different environment. That said, kids who thrive in pressurized situations, who yearn for recognition, and who need the sense of superiority you get when you are part of a class that dismissed 95% of your “peers”, the brand recognition is sacred. Parents are the ones who push for brand over fit, delivered to their children in direct and indirect commentary from the time they’re very small until the deposit check is mailed to the school they’ll attend.
Degrees provide different opportunities in different locations. A Tulane degree in Pittsburgh isn’t the same as a Tulane degree in Louisiana. UT Austin is a good state school nationally, but it is revered in the state of Texas. Take your Bowdoin degree to Austin and see how many doors it opens.
The only people who can honestly determine overrated are the ones who “acquired” a degree with certain expectations which ultimately were not met. Everyone is individual, which is why this is so damn hard.
Per the methodology: “Only private not for profit colleges with at least 500 students were examined”
Funding for public colleges makes their finances a different ball of wax from privates.
Eyevee- I know you were only being illustrative, but you do realize that kids commit suicide at non elite schools, in the military, in community colleges, or just working after HS?
I find the “pressure filled equals suicide” trope very misleading and potentially dangerous. Kids 18-25 are at a high risk for a wide range of psychiatric disorders (some of which manifest themselves early on, some of which appear during these years).
I know parents who have kids who are just not ready to leave home (history of depression which is not quite in the “well managed” phase) who insist that it will be find because “it’s not like he’s going to MIT”. Or parents with kids with anorexia (who are essentially killing themselves) who claim “the college is so supportive she’ll be fine”.
Kids kill themselves all over the place, folks.
Most employers hire locally and regionally, so there has been an explosion of growth with in regional state universities. People are finding that they can find good jobs without going to “prestigious” colleges. In fact, regional schools are the colleges that are doing the most innovation. UTSA, for instance, has doubled in size in the last 12 years. Partially because they virtually pioneered cybersecurity as a degree program. Once implemented, graduating students had a 100% job placement, and that job placement continues to this day.
I always think that Reed College is an interesting case, in terms of “rated.” I recall it being highly ranked back when I was applying to schools in the early 90s, so I was surprised, now that I’m tuned back into college admissions for my kids, that they’re now ranked down in the 80s, well below their prior level. After researching this, I’ve now learned that they bowed out of the USNWR game many years ago and their lower ranking is based on estimated stats. I’d like if the USNWR would list schools in tiers only. That would give parents and students some context for a school’s student body, grad rates, and other parameters while avoiding the silly obsession with the particular numbers and small movements up or down, not to mention disincentivizing the gaming of the system that we see evidence of.
As for schools that are “past their prime” or on their way down, that’s an interesting question. Funding shortfalls linked to economic trends would always be a concern at any public school, but that’s not unrecoverable. I’d say it might be easier to identify particular departments within universities that are overrated during a particular period, where the faculty are famous within their fields but are no longer that productive or setting the agenda within their research communities. The Stanford psychology department in the 90s would be an example – famous faculty, less productive cohort in that era. A powerhouse like Stanford can recover from an aging faculty cohort pretty easily, but it does take time.
There are a lot of Catholic schools around the nation that have fallen upon hard times and are considering consolidation or are even closing, so that’s a subset of schools that may be past its prime or that may need to reinvent itself to attract a more diverse, more secular student body and to rely less on ordained clergy to serve as faculty. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/05/16/catholic-identity-hurting-enrollment-catholic-colleges
@SDCounty3Mom
My S chatted with Reed’s regional AO at our local college fair a few months ago. The AO must have done something right because after the chat, Reed piqued his interests tremendously and he is seriously researching about the school. “Not playing the rankings game”, “inclusive”, “maverick” are pretty attractive descriptions to his young mind. I bet the student-body Reed draws must be quiet distinct from those who choose UChicago or Swarthmore.
One school in Michigan that seems to be consistently growing and improving is Grand Valley State University. Grand Rapids is a good location and has grown to about 20,000 students. GVSU seems to attract students of more conservative /religious parents who are don’t like the party reputation of Central Michigan U and Western Michigan U, see Michigan State U and U of Michigan as liberal, intimidating, and elitist. Many of these parents also prefer to keep their kids close to home. The feedback I have gotten is that the academics are decent and the students like it, and it is relatively inexpensive.
The school is over 80% white, and the gender breakdowns by majors tend to be more traditional. There are a lot more women on campus because men are more likely to join the military or learn a skilled trade after high school. More popular majors are education, psychology, and pre-med (for the best students.)
I think that this school will continue to grow because many people who want to send their student to college in a place with people more like themselves. GVSU seems to have established a differentiated niche for themselves and allows conservative parents to send their kids to a college that seems more familiar, and less uncomfortable. I don’t think that the school itself is conservatively run, it is the students and families.
Not helpful to denigrate colleges (and thereby the students who go there) with the assumption that they were overrated in the first place. The market place speaks for itself. Supply and demand.
There are schools that I consider overrated – when their admissions selectivity exceeds their excellence – but I don’t see them going down. They became overrated because they are good at recruiting and/or fundraising, and I expect they will continue to excel in those areas.
Nope, not naming them publicly. 
Based on what do you judge their excellence ?
Princeton has only one direction to go on USNWR rankings.
Some posters here assume that the course and curriculum rigor, content, and depth at more selective colleges is higher than at less selective colleges, because they can assume stronger students.
If you (anyone reading, not necessarily @Hanna ) follow this belief, would you say that recent ranking climbing colleges that climbed mainly on raising admission-selectivity-based factors (test scores, admit rate, class rank) and correlates (graduation rates) may be somewhat behind in upgrading their courses and curricula for stronger students, and hence may be overrated for a while, at least until the courses and curricula “catch up”?
UCB- it costs a few million dollars over ten years to implement a merit aid program which seeks to raise median scores and grades by throwing 10K and 15K “scholarships” to high stat students who would be full pay based on need to entice them to enroll. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build a nanotechnology lab. It costs tens of millions of dollars to endow a range of academic chairs in cog sci, neuro, genetics, and chemistry to establish an interdisciplinary center for the study of brain science.
It’s not just upgrading courses and curricula (but of course that’s part of it). It’s also the infrastructure- physical (in the case of labs) and talent (in the case of professors and researchers) which distinguish “top” universities. And not just in the sciences- what university today which wants to climb in the rankings and wants to beef up its humanities offerings can open something similar to the Beineke library at Yale?
Rare books, archival materials dating back centuries, musical scores with the composers notations, art collections on a campus museum, performing arts spaces, studios, on site galleries to display both student works and rotating exhibits…
This stuff costs real money, not just the enhanced marketing budget or “enrollment management” consultants who figure out how to stretch a financial aid budget to include more high stats upper middle class kids who need small dollar awards vs. high stat poor kids who need full rides to attend.
I see the situation similar to high school classes. It doesn’t matter how in depth or rigorous a class is if the kids in the class can’t comprehend it due to lack of ability or a poor foundation making them try to do Calc without a good knowledge of Algebra (or basic math).
However, having capable kids doesn’t make a class in depth or rigorous. The same student who could get an A in a deep class can get one in a shallow class.
To work into more depth, the school needs to build its students’ ability (give that foundation - or for colleges, seek out capable students) and build the content of the major via capable professors, labs, and class depth. Having the latter without the former is pointless. Having the former without the latter gives the schools graduates, but those students could have done quite a bit more in a different situation if they had the desire. (The depth is not always necessary for “success” IRL TBH. It’s academic. Many schools can also go in more depth in later (major) classes vs freshmen classes.)
Then too, one has to look at the larger picture. Are a few students able to access deep things or the majority?
There is no single easy answer (as is common in life), but if one compares the tests or courses in Bio 101 at College A vs College B, one sometimes finds significant differences. I know my own Bio loving youngest took a cc Bio class while in high school. That professor told students his class was identical to any class they would get anywhere, top level schools included. My son then sat in on one of his brother’s Bio 101 classes when visiting him at a Top 30 school. Forever after he called his own Bio class “Bio Lite.” I asked him why. His answer? “In the cc class we talked about X and how ‘there’s an enzyme that helps produce this.’ In the more selective college class they talked about the multiple enzymes involved, by name, and exactly what they did.” The two aren’t even remotely at the same depth.
FWIW, I also took a test my college lad had returned to him in to that prof. It took him less than 30 seconds to realize his course wasn’t identical. The first comment he made was “Why are they testing that? You don’t need that until grad school!” I reminded him that my lad goes to a research U - they do significant research in undergrad, so the info could be useful.
Now he tells students in his class that his course is identical to many colleges, but not all if they go to certain schools. That I will agree with.
And comparing the few schools I’ve had opportunities to see similar comparisons with, not all top schools are the same either. Some are overrated. Like others, I don’t feel like going into names. Why? It only hurts feelings. Plus, a school can be at or near the top for one major, but not quite so in depth in another. That’s super common. Actual rankings (overall) are usually totally meaningless for a specific major.
“There are schools that I consider overrated – when their admissions selectivity exceeds their excellence – but I don’t see them going down. They became overrated because they are good at recruiting and/or fundraising, and I expect they will continue to excel in those areas.”
@Hanna - this is an excellent way of characterizing the definition, and I think naming names would probably devolve the thread but colleges that uses ED to artificially increase yield and lower admit rates would be examples, as are colleges that mail/email applicants to get more applications knowing those kids are not getting in.
This would include most top 50 colleges and some top 10 colleges.
"If you (anyone reading, not necessarily @Hanna ) follow this belief, would you say that recent ranking climbing colleges that climbed mainly on raising admission-selectivity-based factors (test scores, admit rate, class rank) and correlates (graduation rates) may be somewhat behind in upgrading their courses and curricula for stronger students, and hence may be overrated for a while, at least until the courses and curricula “catch up”
Once these schools hit their ranking goal, there’s little incentive for them to change courses, infrastructure, dorms, all they need to do (as I think Hanna suggests) is accept more applicants via ED, make test scores more important and market themselves to get more applications. Then they look more selective than they actually are, so people apply and the cycle starts again.