Overrated/Underrated

College Search & Lists
301

<p>ieatglue, I can tell already that I am not going to like you. :)</p>

<p>I’m a Duke '09er and I resent that. lol just kidding</p>

<p>I think ppl perceive Duke to be overrated because its academics tend to be overshadowed by its rah rah athletics and party hardy student body. Ivy Leaguers tend to demote us because we have not existed for three billion years as they have, and we are already as good as them. Stanford had the same quandry, and had to prove itself in order to be considered adjacent to HYPMS.</p>

302

<p>Collegekid, I agree that placement into Law school is an indicator, but one must be careful when looking at the statistics. There are many elite universities that have average placement (as a ratio of total student body) into Law schools. Johns Hopkins, Michigan and Washington U. are three such universities. Chicago and Cornell aren’t that good at placing students into Law school either…if you look at the ratio of students who get into top school as a ratio of their total student population. This is due to several reasons, but the main one is the fact that only 10%-15% of their students apply to Law school. That’s compared to 25%-30% at schools like Duke and Harvard. Furthermore, all of the schools I mentioned above are not known for grade inflation. Graduating with a 3.8+ GPA (which is almost required to get into Harvard Law) is almost impossible from those schools. </p>

<p>I agree that Washington University is overrated according to the USNWR. A ranking of 9 or 11 is a little too high if you ask me. But law school placement alone is not a telling indicator.</p>

303

<p>Wait, Duke does actively engage in grade inflation. It might not be done as flagrantly as Harvard/Stanford, but it is there. I remember someone telling that an A is difficult to ascertain, a B is almost certain, and a C is unheard of.</p>

<p>I am not a masochistic, so Cornell probably won’t suit me. :)</p>

304

<p>DMC, I meant that Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Michigan and Wash U do not have grade inflation. Most other top universities have a degree of grade inflation.</p>

305

<p>overrated: Duke
underrated: Ohio State U</p>

306

<p>I am attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(Civil Eng.), came to it from the East Coast, a land that has not heard of this place, have also attended Parkland College, and turned down Cornell for UIUC.</p>

<p>Overrated: UIUC, especially the first years. The math department is God-awful, some of the worst teachers I have ran across in my life. The physics department is ok, especially considering that they somehow streamlined an educational process that herds a couple thousand or more students through physics courses every semester. Mechanics… uh, is it just me or should the different engineering fields have separate mechanics courses specific to their fields? CAD design… hmm, you know it’s not going to be too useful when there is one CAD course and there are aerospace majors in it. UIUC makes you wish you took more APs in high school so you won’t have to put up with its difficult and poorly taught weeder science courses.</p>

<p>UIUC has left me wanting, and wanting, and wanting more. It’s supposed to get better, and the classes smaller, but I just don’t see that happening. They do have a great gym though.</p>

<p>And all the great science labs on campus, well folks that’s for the graduate students and the professors, whose main priority is research, research, and more research at our great research university.</p>

<p>Underrated: Eastern Illinois University, Parkland College, Michigan Tech </p>

<p>Eastern has a program whereby as part of your tuition you rent books out, that alone tells me they care about the students.</p>

<p>Parkland College is probably the best money I have spent on education ever. I have learned an incredible amount, for an incredibly low amount and even got a job. The classes are minuscule compared to your average big name brand school. The average class size for me has been 8, that’s right, 8. Put UIUC to shame; and the teachers really care about their students too.</p>

<p>Michigan Tech This hidden engineering gem is where people who want to actually learn engineering, without the research school brand name, go to learn. From what I’ve heard their priority is to teach you, and the classes are small from the get go. Definitely worth checking out.</p>

307

<p>poor U of Minnesota.</p>

308

<p>Notre Dame and Duke are two of the most overrated schools in the country. If it weren’t for college football and basketball, these two schools would each be knocked down at least 5 or 10 spots. Ironically, the sports which give them name recognition also discourage top students and educators from taking them too seriously.</p>

309

<p>Overrated: Emory (honestly), Lehigh, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, And Duke
Underrated: Carnegie Mellon, Ohio state, UNC (?), Minnesota</p>

310

<p>Overrated: hmmm…not sure, maybe Northwestern?
Underrated: UChicago —>amazing econ. professor credentials (some still see Northwestern as the top IL school!!!)</p>

311

<p>overrated: Duke (though I do like the school, it is not a Top 10 school for undergrad. Top 15, yes.), Notre Dame, Dartmouth, USC, WUSTL, Brown</p>

<p>Underrated: UChicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, and boston college</p>

312

<p>overrated: all the ivies
underrated: uchicago, johns hopkins, rice, umich.</p>

313

<p>Over: Ivys
Under: UAA and NESCAC</p>

314

<p>Overrated: USC, Ivies, Stanford.
UNDERRATED: Mid-Tier UCs: UCI, UCSD, UCD, UCSB.</p>

315

<p>A few-</p>

<p>Underrated: Michigan State University
Overrated:University of Texas- Austin, Texas A&M University- College Station</p>

316

<p>uchicago is SOO underrated. </p>

<p>it’s likely considered equal to harvard, yale, and mit in academics. (i think it’s better than princeton and the rest of the ivies for sure)</p>

<p>although it’s tied with duke on the rankings, it SHOULD be higher.</p>

<p>in addition to the top notch professors, curriculum, life of the mind motto, thinking/harkness style learning…the students work SO hard. what an intense academic school. </p>

<p>overrated:
penn (not including wharton)
DUKE
Northwestern
Emory
Wash U</p>

317

<p>^ none of those schools are underrated or overrated. at all. including chicago.</p>

318

<p>I’ve never even heard of Emory… the rest deserved their “rates”</p>

319

<p>I think University of Michigan should be ranked much higher. Same for UCLA and UCB. Washu I think does not deserve its rank. Since US News and World is a for profit magazine I would guess that they paid a lot of money to get ranked higher since I know they spend lots of money of advertisement (I could be wrong though).</p>

320

<p>Frankly, I think Cornell, Chicago, duke, Penn, ND, JHU, Brown are not underrated nor overrated. They are all great schools and they are top 20 schools. Why is it so important that chicago’s ranking is a bit lower than Penn when it is still in top 10?
and about wash u, no one seems to like it but I think it is a great top 20 school (maybe not #13, but anyway - sometimes I think that wash u may be underrated in CC because of its high USNWR ranking)
But I have to agree that some of the public schools like UCB, or UMich are definitely underrated.</p>