And glad UGA is trying to make amends for, and now honoring the memory of the many slaves whose remains were unearthed and relocated for the construction of Baldwin Hall. https://www.ajc.com/news/state–regional/after-missteps-and-criticism-uga-honor-memory-slaves-campus/dja1Kp61WyTrzzr7BNsRkI/
It is a pretty building. Saw it last spring.
@Nomorelurker - Small oversight- your comments I responded to last spring were about Terry’s MBA Program AND UGA’s law school, both of which are grad level programs and not relevant to this discussion. My point to you is that the biggest rise in UGA’s academics and desirability came with the initiation of the Hope and subsequently the ZM scholarships. The school HAD to improve BOTH the financial desirability and academic resources to attract the state’s best and brightest, many of whom, until then, were leaving the state for their undergraduate education.
@jym626, I don’t disagree that it’s nice to honor schools making many strides in many areas, but the topic was about underrated schools on the way up. I stand by my original posts that UGA was somewhat underrated in the last five years, especially when it was ranked in the sixties just three years ago.
When you look at some of the UC schools such as UC Davis or UC Santa Barbara, which no doubt have some strong departments, I don’t see a huge difference between them and UGA in terms of the education a student can get at these schools, yet they have been historically ranked much higher. UCSB, by the way, has a reputation as a huge party school.
Also, Florida seems to get a lot of attention, with over 35,000 undergrad students. I am sure each school has some very strong departments, and I agree that Hope and ZM made a huge impact on UGA to be sure, but there have been significant changes in the last few years that have also made for a resurgence and another “rise” (IMO).
What I have been trying to explain to you @Nomorelurker is that the rate of improvement for UGA has actually flattened in the past few years compared to the rise it showed in the previous decade(s). I guess I have a longer history and experience following Georgia, so perhaps you are just looking at the past few years. Back in the day when I was in graduate school in a competing institution, UGA’s undergrad was sad. I am looking at the school from a longer lens than you are, and am glad to see the strides it’s made over those years.
@jym626, I have been following UGA for about 20 years. Again, I agree that the big move came after the Hope Scholarship was implemented. I don’t disagree that that was the catalyst. However, I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the strides made in the last 3 to 4 years, which is supported by the move in USNWR (whether it’s a valid metric is up to the consumer), from #61 three years ago to last year #54 to today’s ranking of #46. Also, UGA moved to #13 Best Nationally Ranked Public University from #16 last year.
UC Riverside has the nations largest gain (up 39 spots) on 2019 US News & world report rankings!
UC Riverside graduates more low-income (Pell Grant) students (at a 73% rate…24% higher than the national average) than any University in the United States!
Go Highlanders!!
Good link about it here…https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/55173
@Nomorelurker - yes we shall agree to disagree. My familiarity with UGA is twice as long as yours. The many varied rankings are there to sell magazines, really wish people would not get so glued to those things, (and yes the consumer should be more educated as to the many ratings and their limited utility). Regardless, while the school as I said had to do something to try to keep GA’s best and brightest in state, and it has done a good job of improving in many areas as it was sadly lacking, if one graphed the changes/improvement, they’d likely be asymptotic 15 years ago and flatten out moreso now. And fwiw - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/your-annual-reminder-to-ignore-the-em-us-news-world-report-em-college-rankings/279103/ That said, this thread isn’t about rankings. There are many others for that.
I think the UGA discussion deserves its own thread.
It’s time to move on from the UGA discussion.
Yay. A once interesting thread evolving into another rankings thread.
Exactly, @pishicaca. This isn’t , and shouldn’t be another rankings thread.
As an aside, a school that made major strides and became “hot” was Ga Tech, once it joined the Commmon App in 2013 (and apologies for the digression- don’t slam me please, but UGA wisely then enhanced/added engineering majors and pursued ABET certification to attract the students that no longer could count on admission to GT). Ok- moving on. 
What other schools rose once they joined the Common app? Anyone know of others?
Pitt just joined the Common App this year, so it will be interesting to see where it lands next year. I think it was already an underrated, particularly the Engineering college.
Absolutely agree the thread is not about rankings. I posted back in May the reasons why I believe UGA is on the rise . I mentioned rankings only after another posted on #$505 asking about any guesses about USNWR 2019 release. Rankings are only one metric and there are many different ones out there. What is probably more important is the major or department quality and access the student has to research and faculty contact. By the way @jym626, following a school for 40 years vs. 20 years does not substantiate that your information or views are more or twice as correct :-). Besides, the most important ranking might be that UGA is #3 in college football! Time to move on.
Reiterating what I offered earlier, I base my “up and coming” opinions on which schools are becoming more popular with the students in my area. Does this mean the schools are getting “better”? Don’t know. But I do know they’re starting to draw a lot of attention from our area and more kids are applying to these schools today than they were 10 years ago.
Some schools that fit this description are Pitt, UGA, USC, Bama. Northeastern has made significant strides in attracting our top students. And our GC said Elon used to be an “Average student school” but now it’s a “3.6-3.7” school. More locally, Marist and Sacred Heart are two that have seen significant increases in applications.
Enough, please, @Nomorelurker. Strawman arguments are unhelpful. As mentioned above, having a longer lens on a school simply provides more data and a wider perspective. Please, don’t put words in my mouth. If you wish to get the last word in, go right ahead.
Moving on- it will be interesting to see if the coalition will contribute to schools being “on the rise”. At present, most of the coalition schools are already well known schools.
Here is a list of the new schools joining the CA this year https://www.commonapp.org/whats-appening/news/common-application-welcomes-new-members-2018-2019 It will be interesting to see if they experience a rise in applications and get on ore students radars in coming years.
@jym626, the points made were hardly “strawman” nor unhelpful, except maybe to someone who has rigidly made up their mind. Others can look at both our posts and decide for themselves, without labels. As mentioned previously, time to move on to other schools.
@eb23282, Northeastern is another one that has made great strides and I would agree it is on the rise. I am not entirely convinced about Elon, which some friends looked at last fall for their student and felt it fell short.
Trying hard to remember that UGA might be a good school. This thread has certainly made it go down in my mind - just due to all the dwelling and arguing about it. Just sayin…
Fortunately, around us, no one even considers it (making my thoughts a non-issue) since we’re in PA and it’s farther away than many want to go. 
Your points are very well taken, @Creekland.
My thoughts are that with the ridiculous cost of college these days, schools on the rise will be the ones that will provide good FA (need and/or merit), and wise students will look at a wider range of schools and at a further distance from home for this (research has shown that many students don’t travel far from home, though higher achieving students have ventured farther, according to a niche article from a few years ago). Many of the schools that have been on the rise (in terms of increased interest and affordability) or are “hidden gems” have been noted in this thread.
Many “hot” or “popular” schools are regional. Where I am, College of Charleston, Indiana, Miami of Ohio, Ohio Wesleyan, U South Carolina, George Mason, Elon etc have been schools increasingly on students’ radar. Some, but few from here go to Beloit, Knox or other schools that may be “hot” or “popular” schools elsewhere.
As for the other stuff, I confess when someone pulls up something from months ago, denies they said something they clearly did, redirects responses or puts words in others mouths, I admit I find that a tad irksome. IMO this thread is about helpful suggestions re: increased school interest, not cheerleading or rankings.
Didn’t put words in anyone’s mouth. Back on page 12, you said UGA improved 15 years ago with Hope and that there have been no significant strides in the past few years. I disagreed and provided reasons why I believed there have been significant strides and why UGA is “on the way up”. Last I checked, that is the topic of the thread, underrated colleges that are on the way up. I then posted this week (several months later) that USNWR apparently agrees with the premise when they moved their ranking from #54 last year to #46, which I would say supports the notion that the school is on the way up (ranking going down).
You seem to be stuck on the fact that in addition to stating why the Undergraduate program at UGA has made significant strides, I also added last May that the MBA program at Terry had done very well too. I don’t deny making that statement. However, the original post was mostly about the Undergrad school. Both statements can be and ARE true. What is really “irksome” is when somebody, @jym626 ,can’t just live with someone else having another opinion. It’s not cheerleading when somebody has a different view than you do!