<p>Case Western was one of the "likely"/"safety" schools on my college list, given to me by my counselor. She highly recommended the school for me. I have never even heard of the school until she mentioned it to me. But when I visited the school, it had alot more than other schools, especially in its science departments. It has one of the best engineering programs in the nation, and has a pretty good business school. Why is the school so underrated? Just because it is located in Cleveland (which isn't actually that bad), and because it has a higher acceptance rate than universities like Wash U. doesn't make it worse. However, the tuition is a little high xD.</p>
<p>I don’t know, but I hope it stays underrated for another year so I can get in.
Supposedly they have good financial aid. Is the tuition really that much higher than similarly-ranked private schools?</p>
<p>Is Case Western underrated?</p>
<p>Engineering is its strength, and pretty much everyone would say it has a very good engineering program. Yet US News ranks its engineering program only #44 nationally, and 10th-best in the Midwest after #5 Illinois, #7 Michigan, #10 Purdue, #13 Northwestern, #13 Wisconsin, #23 Minnesota, #30 Ohio State, #39 Iowa State, and #39 WUSTL. So its signature program pretty much gets overshadowed in its home region, and to some extent even in its home state as most Ohioans can attend Ohio State more cheaply than Case Western. </p>
<p>Yet oddly, Case Western gets ranked a little higher among national universities (#37) than its ranking in its strongest program, engineering.</p>
<p>Also, far fewer Midwesterners attend private colleges and universities than in some other regions, especially the Northeast; and Northeasterners don’t generally attend Midwestern schools in large numbers, except at the very elite levels. As a result, Case Western gets relatively few applications, about 14,700 in 2012 according to its CDS, compared to 44,000 at Michigan, 31,000 at Northwestern, and 25,000 at Ohio State.</p>
<p>I guess bottom line I find it difficult to accept the premise that Case Western is underrated.</p>
<p>Haha, I also hope it stays underrated, at least until I am done applying this year. But yeah, its tuition is in the same range as similarly-ranked private schools.</p>
<p>@bclintonk, I guess I meant that Case-western should get more attention :)</p>
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<p>But why, exactly? It’s got a good engineering program, but most students in its home region can get as good or better an engineering education at their own state’s public flagship, which for most people is going to be cheaper than Case Western. So why should they bother with Case Western? </p>
<p>I should add that Case Western has a reputation for giving generous merit aid to students it really wants, so that might work for some people. On the other hand, it doesn’t come close to meeting full need for students determined to have need, so that’s going to be a huge turn-off for many people.</p>
<p>wumanizer, Case gets a fair amount of attention and is not likely to improve in this respect in the foreseeable future. A university will receive a great deal of attention either because it is academically stellar (Cal, Caltech, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale), because it is in a very desirable location (NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, DC etc…) or because it has a very rich athletic tradition (Duke and UNC basketball, Michigan and Notre Dame football etc…). Case has none of those characteristics. Academically, it is very good, but not stellar. Its location in Cleveland is not appealing. It has no athletic tradition whatsoever. It is unlikely that Case will receive more attention than it currently has. That’s not a bad thing mind you. It is still highly regarded in academic circles. But it won’t be winning popularity contests anytime soon.</p>
<p>Strength in a single academic area isn’t enough to drive up a school’s US News ranking very far, nor is relative weakness in a single area enough to drive it down very far. To the extent US News captures academic department/program strength in the Peer Assessment scores, these presumably reflect strength/weakness across all fields.</p>
<p>CWRU has an endowment of about $1.6B for ~10K students (graduate and undergrad). Compare that to some of the competition. Hopkins has $2.6B for 7K students. Rice has $4.4B for 6K students. WUSTL has $5B for 14K students. So far I haven’t even mentioned the Ivies. These schools have more money to spend on facilities, research, and financial aid. Some of the performance metrics reflect that. Compare for example the average percentage of financial need covered by these schools. For many of the higher ranked private schools, it’s 100%. For CWRU, it’s 81%. Look at average class sizes, graduation/retention rates, selectivity, and other factors that the rankings measure. CWRU seems to be ranked about where it ought to be (relative to other private national universities, anyway.)</p>
<p>I agree with Alexandre. Case is about an hour away from me and very few students from my area go or even consider going there. It is a great school but it loses a lot of top Midwestern students to bigger, less expensive but still academically great schools (Northwestern, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc) The fact is, is that the Big 10 has some amazing schools that are great deals for in state kids (excluding Northwestern being private) plus they have the big sports teams and big parties which is definitely a plus for many teenagers. Case attracts very academically oriented students who aren’t interested in the scene offered at the Big 10 schools. Additionally, agreeing with a poster above, this isn’t the Northeast. While there are many great students, many do not wish to attend an elite private school. Many kids go to state schools even if they are at the top of their class because of cost and proximity to home. Nationally, I am unsure of how Case stands but I believe it doesn’t get as much recognition because of the same reasons listed above: no good sports, Cleveland, small, not attractive campus. There’s just an appeal of Boston College, U Miami, or even Georgia Tech (all similarly ranked) that Case does not have.</p>
<p>Case aspires to be a “national” university, but it’s really more of a regional school. The odd thing, though, is that the region it draws from is more the Northeast (if you add Ohio onto the Northeast for this purpose only) than the Midwest (i.e., all Midwestern states except Ohio).</p>
<p>Here are the states that sent the most freshmen to Case in 2010:</p>
<p>Ohio 384 (40.4% of entering class)
Pennsylvania 103
New York 64
Illinois 60
California 32
Maryland 31
Texas 29
Michigan 29
New Jersey 26
Massachusetts 23
Florida 17
Virginia 15
Connecticut 12
Indiana 10
Colorado 10
Minnesota 10
Wisconsin 9
North Carolina 9
Washington State 9</p>
<p>What’s striking about these figures is that nearly 60% of Case’s freshman class came from just 3 states, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. It also draws moderately well from Illinois, probably the Chicago area, but apart from that it draws very weakly from the Midwest, e.g., only 10 freshmen from neighboring Indiana and 29 from neighboring Michigan (compared to 103 from its immediate neighbor to the East, Pennsylvania). </p>
<p>And no wonder. Both Indiana and Michigan have public universities (Purdue and the University of Michigan) with top 10 engineering programs. Why pay more money to go out of state for a less highly regarded program? And the same could be said for other Midwestern states; Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa also have public universities with engineering programs more highly ranked than Case. </p>
<p>Similarly with business: Case prides itself on its business school (ranked #31 nationally for undergrad business by US News, a very good showing), but it can’t hold a candle to Michigan’s Ross (#3 per US News) or Indiana’s Kelley (#11 per US News). In fact, there are 9 undergrad business programs in the Midwest ranked ahead of Case, 8 of them public (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue, and Michigan State; the only private in this category is Notre Dame).</p>
<p>Case has the misfortune to be located in a region (the Midwest) where public universities are exceptionally strong, especially in areas that Case regards as its own signature strengths like engineering and business.</p>
<p>I’ve honestly thought CWRU was overrated! Why spend high end private school type of $ for nothing more than a solid state school education? In-state tuition all the way.</p>
<p>Case appears to have an exceptionally well-thought-out academic program - 4 years of required writing-based seminars, with “portfolio” review of progress by several professors, for example - also offers an unusual menu of structured, institutionalized learning support (study mentors, classroom assistants, “personal” librarian, etc.) and is said to have superior academic advising. These kinds of things may be hard to come by at big public universities where a lot of smart students get lost. At the same time, many small private colleges don’t offer the breadth (engineering, business, music via CCM), depth (research), diversity, or urban environment of CWRU.</p>
<p>Case also has the perk of many cultural institutions on University Circle - Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Symphony, The Cleveleland Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, where students can cross-register, the Natural History Museum…also numerous research, intern, and volunteer opportunities at the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, also located in University Circle.</p>
<p>Why would you want to go to Cleveland? Even LeBron left Cleveland.</p>
<p>Jokes aside, I don’t find it underrated. I think USNews rates it way too high. I’d rank it around schools like American and Syracuse.</p>
<p>lisztserve, if 18-23 year old adults get lost on a college campus, even large public universities, then they honestly do not belong in college. The material students should learn at university is far, far, far more complex than finding one’s way around campus.</p>
<p>Location location location. Also hardly underrated as it is.</p>
<p>It’s rated where it is because of the admissions statistics. </p>
<p>It’s admissions statistics are less selective than they probably should be because of Cleveland. They have to fill their classes. </p>
<p>Despite the fact that I’m not crazy about their approach to the humanities (check out SAGES), it is a fine rigorous engineering school and is generous with merit aid because they effectively have to lower the list price in order to induce people to attend. </p>
<p>I had a colleague in grad school at MIT from there and he was super brilliant and is a engineering professor now. </p>
<p>I think it’s a great safety given that it has EA. From our Naviance, they accept all reasonably qualified students, though some get deferred EA but later admitted RD.</p>
<p>All that aside, wumanizer, if the school resonated with you, that matters much more than whether it is over- or under-rated. </p>
<p>PS It was all I could do to restrain myself from a snarky reply to a username like yours from, of all things, a college-bound teenager.</p>
<p>haha thanks for the replies</p>
<p>Of the ranked midwestern engineering schools Case is the highest ranked school that is a priviate university with the exception of Northwestern. If you want to attend a private university with far fewer students than any of the state flagships then you may want to consider Case. It reminds me a lot of Carnegie Mellon. Both were established by combining a school of technology with a liberal arts college and are about the same size. They admit similar students, however, Case is known for generous merit scholarships and CMU is not. I’ll give CMU the nod for location, but Case has a beautiful campus. Good luck.</p>
<p>Alexandre, getting back to you - I disagree. People learn and thrive in different kinds of environments. Finding one’s way around campus, managing coursework, and getting the degree are basic, but not all to aspire to in an undergraduate education! I put a high premium on small classes, demanding writing requirements, great teachers (as opposed to “experts in the field”, “big names”, or prolific publishers), a culture of mentoring, excellent academic/career advice, and so on. The standard rankings don’t take account of such criteria.</p>