Davidabb84

I lol'd. I know someone at Plattsburgh, does that have the same reputation?

The reaction my friend got when she confirmed at Fordham.

fantasiekey

I guess I'll add some more stereotypes about Pennsylvania:
Public:
Penn State: Huge school, into sports and partying, but also well-regarded academically.
Pitt: Kind of like Penn State, but without the football and less partying.
Temple: Frankly, a lot of people are afraid of this place. Supposedly in a bad neighborhood.
Bloomsburg/Westchester etc: If you didn't make all A's and didn't take honors classes, you go to one of these places.
Luzerne Community College: No one really wants to go here (may have something to do with the Luzerne judge scandal and the fact that it's community college)
Private:
UPenn: Smart kids go here, usually one kid goes a year. Sometimes confused with Penn state. Has the "ivy" stigma attached (if not confused with Penn State).
CMU: Highly regarded in comp sci, tech, and musical theater. Also for smart kids.
Lehigh: For engineers, usually. Most people see it as a really good school, unless they're the type who really like the whole "ivy" and elite thing.
Lafayette: Enemy of Lehigh. Equally good academic-wise, but not as focused on engineering.
Drexel: The hands on place; pretty good for engineering too. Lots of people get in but don't go because of the city.
Bucknell/Haverford: Well respected schools, but not too elite.
St. Joe's/La Salle: Private religious schools that have high schools to match.

^General views/stereotypes from a middle class public high school in PA. May or may not be actually true.

steelergolf11

Adding to Pennsylvania:

CCAC is where everybody jokes about getting rejected from if they get in trouble or something.
Penn State and Pitt are pretty average, but still respected. Still seems like a ton of people go to them so nothing special.
UPenn - A lot of people actually think this is Penn State, even within Pennsylvania. Not many people realize there is an Ivy League school in their own state.
CMU - a place for nerds and engineers. No one knows that it has a lot of other good schools too.

Gille94

As a downstate Illinois resident, I have to say all Illinois colleges and universities seem overpriced for instate students. Yes they all offer good educations. A college is what you make of it. Most people will downgrade a school on location, especially if they are not from downstate. That being said, I will admit we are looking at out of state schools. In state, and only one at that, for backup. We live close the the UICU and I wouldn't even think of going there. My daughter has not desire to go there and its cost is too high for what you get. Otherwise, any of them would do but the cost is the same as many out of state schools.

Willd1

I'll take SOUTH CAROLINA.
Anderson: Very Religious, good for teaching?
Bob Jones: Kind of crappy
Coastal: Specializes in landscaping and STD's
The Citadel: Military Academy,
Clemson: Extremely overpriced, mediocre academics, specialized in engineering and agriculture
College of Charleston: Mediocre academics, beautiful and in Charleston
Erskine: Religious, surprisingly decent academics
Furman: clearly the best school in South Carolina, small liberal arts college, second-tier liberal arts college
USC: crappy dorms, crappy campus, crappy city. Just sort of dumped on Columbia.
Winthrop: good for teaching
Wofford: good I guess

Davidabb84

Oh, my. I looked it up and I see what you mean. The campus could probably benefit from tearing apart some of those streets, although since it's right in the middle of the city that would probably really screw up traffic patterns.

The best campus set-ups, I think, are ones that limit entrances by road and only have roadways where it's most essential. This reduces traffic, noise, and pollution, encourages walking and outdoor activity in general, and creates more green space. Looking at it, USC has none of these features. They just sort of plopped it down on top of the rest of the city's grid system.

I had no idea that the 'other' Carolina was that urban.

oceanicole

Rhode Island!!!

URI (UR High) - over half your high school class will go here. copious marijuana and partying, but mostly down the line. really hilly but nice campus. close to the beach! apparently they have (relatively) good marine biology, pharmacy, and engineering programs.

RIC - fallback if you wanna stay at an in-state public but near Providence instead of rural/suburban Kingston. I've heard a lot about their teaching program.

Brown - smart, liberal, Ivy, enough said. Easily best school in the state.

PC - religious, small, gorgeous athletic facilities. Decent reputation, more respected than URI/RIC.

Bryant - mostly known for business, also good at field hockey.

Salve Regina - rich, preppy white kids mostly from Rhode Island. Cliquish and exclusive. Newport's wonderful, though!

CCRI - Formerly known as Rhode Island Junior College, or RIJC (read: reject)

Naval War College - don't hear too much about it but I guess it's good.

Johnson & Wales - cooking! When all else fails go to Johnson and Wales.

RISD - you must be an amazing artist!

NEtech - uhhh... you'd be better off at CCRI.

jph093

Oregon

Oregon: considered the best public school in the state. Nationally known for football team. Hippie school. Kids smoke too much weed. Those are just stereotypes but they have to come from somewhere..

Oregon State: academic peer of UofO. Maybe seen as less prestigious. Gets their ass kicked in the civil war by UofO quite often. Seen as much more of a conservative "hick" and "country" school than UofO

Southern/Western/Eastern Oregon: The lower end of the state schools. Mostly job-oriented "vocational" if you will.

Portland State: The biggest state school. Downtown Portland. Very very urban. A mixture of hipsters and 40 year old change-of-heart/mid-life-crisis type.

Reed: Probably the best school in the state. Extremely rigorous. Known to take a liking to the harder drugs. Extremely liberal and extremely hipster. They seem to like to ponder life a lot.

Lewis and Clark/ U of Portland: Both pretty similar privates in Portland area. Willamette falls in this category but it's in Salem. All are well respected small privates. Willamette has a good law program.

Linfield: I know next to nothing about it. A few kids from my school have gone there. I think it's in McMinnville?

OIT: Good for the sciences, however, located in possibly the worst city ever.

CalDud

Stanford - Amazing school
CalTech - Amazing and extremely hard school
UC Berkeley - Hard but the state flagship campus
UCLA - Hard, good spirit
UCD - Cows, aggies, good sciences
UCI - Asians everywhere
UCR - "UC Reject"
UCM - No comment
UCSC - Stoner college
UCSB - Party school
UCSD- most desirable location, good school
Cal Poly SLO - Great for engineering, best of CSU's
Cal Poly Pomona - 2nd best CSU, known for the same things as Cal Poly SLO
CSU Long Beach - Hipsters, beach lovers, people who take too many pictures and put them on FB
CSUN - Joke college. A lot of idiots go here (<900 on SAT's....what)
Fresno State - Ghetto location, good sports
Humboldt - Stoner college of the CSU
SD state - similar to UCSD but not as prestigious

SansSerif

I'll add a few notes to PA:

It's funny about Penn State. I went there in the late 70s and early 80s, and in my mind it was as steelergolf said - good school, but no big deal. But whenever people asked where I went to school and I said Penn State, they were ALWAYS impressed. Esp. since I went to the main campus for all 4 years. I know that's a bigger deal these days but it didn't used to be. But I've had a LOT of people react to Penn State to the point where I felt like saying "Umm ... I didn't say Harvard ... I said Penn State." lol

Having said that, Penn State's academic reputation has increased a lot over the last few decades. The honors college, etc. -- it's much harder to get accepted straight into the main campus.

Here are some more stereotypes I see - probably partly true, partly not:

Villanova - party school, preppy suburban kids
Swarthmore - excellent academics, intense students, a bit snobby (back when they had a football team, students got upset because they started winning too much ...) I will say that I grew up near the town of Swarthmore, and it is a snobby, elitist town (or it was when I was in high school.) Whether the college is, who knows.
West Chester - commuter school, where you go when you don't get into Penn State. That may be changing - their admission standards are getting tougher and they are definitely getting more competitive
Grove City - religious small school in western PA
St. Joe's / LaSalle - although they are Catholic, they have plenty of non-Catholic students, and have inclusive atmospheres. Not great schools, but good in certain majors.
Penn - Wharton, Wharton, Wharton. That's all you hear about. Nice campus.
Temple - respected academically, but in a really awful part of Phila. Yet I've known people to go there and like it very much. A lot of commuters, a lot of upperclassmen moving off campus into better parts of the city - which means they are scattered about -more of a city experience than a college experience
Gettysburg - seems to be getting more and more popular - well respected
Millersville - teacher's college
Carnegie Mellon - great for math and science
Pitt - another school that seems to be getting more competitive and popular

jolan560

Illinois-
UIC-School on the near south side, decent school academically. Kinda the standard state school that serves the city. Athletics are not popular. In an average community. Commuter school.(Chicag0)

Loyola-Nice school on the north shore. Private with a good FA department. Renovating the school. Little to no athletics. Average community. Commuter but less so that UIC. (Chicago)

Northwestern-Fabulous academics. Engineering is 2nd only to Illinois and Business is top class. Selective and though Big Ten sports are a bit dull though slowly getting better. In a very interesting suburb (Evanston). Mixed income also on the lakeshore. To the north are some of the nicest towns in Illinois to the south Rodgers Park and Loyola.

Illinois-Known for mediocre sports and its greek system. Huge school with obvious drawbacks and positives but with the rising costs lotta kids feel alienated. Lotta scandals as well and runs a substantial deficit (i believe). Lotta in -state kids. Lotta asians.

SIU-Carbonadale is where "C-average" kids go. Very lax campus good school but student is very differing on attitudes. Very affordable.

NIU-In a boring town with little athletics, fair amount of parties and shootings. Not cheap either i guess its where kids go if SIU fills up or they dont wanna go downstate.

I-State- For the kids who couldn't meet Illinois' ridiculous standards. In between in both pretige and cost and renovating the housing project like dorms.

bourne13

North Carolina:

Duke: Extremely hard to get into and extremely snobby as well. Known derisively as the State University of New Jersey at Durham because most of their students seem to come from the Northeast. Impressive if you get in, but mainly thought of as rich and preppy.
UNC Chapel Hill: The flagship of the state and a top 5 public university in the county. Everyone wants to go here, as it has great academics, sports, and social scene. Seen as smart but not arrogant, and it's in one of the best college towns around.
Wake Forest: Not really well known, but has very strong academics. Preppy and very Greek-oriented.
NC St: A great school if you want to be an engineer or a veterinarian. For anything else though, it's not that great. Probably one of the biggest and ugliest campuses in the US.
ECU: Also known as Easy U. Huge party school, a common joke is that it should be called STD U.
UNCW: Another party school, but better than ECU due to the beach and better academics.
UNCC: Pretty ghetto
Davidson: Very good private college that's nationally ranked. Great academics with a classic college town atmosphere.
Elon: Up and coming school that's getting more and more attention.
UNCG: Commuter school
UNCA: Lots of hippies and pot, also amazing music scene in Asheville.
App State: Pretty good school mostly known for its football team. Has become very popular in recent years, great if you like the outdoors.
Western Carolina: Bunch of rednecks living in the middle of nowhere.

ZebraRider

Virginia

UVA - Probably seen as the top school in this state, despite its semi-preppy and stuck-up reputation. Either way, everyone's dying to go here, especially with the amazing in-state tuition (21,000 a year).

William and Mary - Almost tied with UVA. A lot of the girls love it for the pretty campus. But it's also known for being a little more low-key/bookish/serious. Still a top choice for a lot of students though.

Washington and Lee University - Despite being one of the most prestigious schools in the state, no one really cares. 90% of my school has probably never even heard of it.

Virginia Tech - Decent school. The smart techie/engineering people go here.

George Mason University - For the average B students. It's alright. It's probably the best school in the NOVA area (The ones above are more in the rural south). They run a lot of cool events in the area, and it's right next to D.C., so it's a pretty cool environment. Usually a safety for the UVA and W&M students.

Christopher Newport University - I'm surprised this school has barely been mentioned. It's known as the very "pretty" campus, right by the beach. It's a dry campus though, so it kind of has this innocent, pleasant feel to it. A little below the others like JMU and GMU though.

Virginia Commonwealth University - People consider this one to be okay. Some smart kids actually do go here. It has a very good medical program.

James Madison University - Usually a safety like George Mason. It's alright. A lot of the average kids go here.

Radford - Party school.

PowerY

Louisiana: For most Louisiana people, every school is a good school.

Tulane - If you are a Texan, I would tell you that it is between SMU and Rice. Anyway, in this state, people think this is like Harvard. This school have a rigorous curriculum. This school is also known as a bunch of spoiled kids that their rich parents that own fancy restaurants or business in uptown New Orleans.

LSU - This is an oversized school. Even though there's a bunch of rich kids (just like Tulane), but people outside of Baton Rouge thinks this school is just like one of the other regular colleges in the state. What they don't realize is that this school is better than others. I will talk about those later.

Loyola - This is a very small, religious school in Louisiana. Right next to Tulane. They even share classes with Tulane. They have very decent academics but not very well known. As a person that raised in Louisiana, this school is better than LSU, but seems like many people in here thinks LSU is way better than Loyola.

Louisiana Tech - I believe this school is just like other schools in Louisiana, but recently find out that this school is not really one. Based on what I just know recently, this is a decent engineering school that can lead to good jobs.

All other schools (Grambling, Nicholls, University New Orleans, Southeastern...) - Most people in Louisiana think they are good schools. But they never really know that the fact nobody knows those school after they went out the border of Louisiana.

PowerY

Anyway, almost all colleges in Louisiana are considered as good colleges. No matter which one you go, you should make the same amount of money after u graduate.