Post your own state's college reputations'

College Search & Lists
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<p>Note- These are not necessarily my views; these are the views most people I know have. </p>

<p>Duke- If you live in NC, either you or the people surrounding you probably hate Duke. Duke probably has a better reputation outside NC; in-state it’s considered somewhat elitist and overrated. Most people seem to be unable to distinguish between the quality of the academics and the basketball team.</p>

<p>UNC Chapel Hill- Without a doubt, the most popular college in NC. Most NC’ers grow up Carolina fans, and most people in the top 20% of their class end up here. It has a reputation for a mix of great academics and fun.</p>

<p>NC State- The school for engineers and agricultural/bio majors. Very large and not too attractive, but the students are bright and well-rounded. Takes a back-seat to the Duke-UNC rivalry. </p>

<p>ECU- The party school, although its med school is highly regarded.</p>

<p>UNCW- A school popular with females. It has a reputation for fun and academics (esp. marine biology, education, psychology, etc.). </p>

<p>Elon- Also popular with females. Great communications/journalism and music theater programs, but most don’t know more about it. </p>

<p>App. State- The UNC-CH safety school. Fun and laidback, but academics aren’t as strong. </p>

<p>Davidson- The overlooked gem; most North Carolinians don’t think about it. It has a reputation for being conservative and producing doctors and bankers.</p>

<p>Wake Forest- Viewed as similar to Duke except smaller and not as well known. The student body is seen as spirited and devoted to the school. </p>

<p>Western Carolina- Isolated. Party school because there’s not much else to do when you’re snowed in. </p>

<p>UNCC and UNCG- Commuter schools. Good education, music, and comp. sci programs, and they’re becoming increasingly popular.</p>

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<p>university of maryland, college park - the top public school in the state, great education and honors college, good journalism grad school, lots of school spirit, it used to be the automatic safety for smart people in md but now it’s getting harder although it still has a bit of a party school reputation.</p>

<p>towson - slightly easier to get into but also good. party school?</p>

<p>umbc - for people who dont get into umcp, want to be closer to baltimore, or dont want to run into people they knew in first grade.</p>

<p>um, eastern shore - a historically black university that is very easy to get into and close to the beach.</p>

<p>salisbury state - for white people who want to be close to the beach. big party school.</p>

<p>coppin state - also historically black, in baltimore, sketchy academics.</p>

<p>frostburg - way out in the mountains. party school. even people in md doubt its academics, but i think they have a good forest/environmental studies program.</p>

<p>mcdaniel - the place to go if you want public liberal arts. also in the mountains.</p>

<p>bowie state - more or less a community college. i believe it’s a hbcu.</p>

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<p>U of M: The only choice for the top 5-10% of Michigan students and the upper crust of those from out of state. Known to be kind of snobby and filled with cliques. Also kind of expensive for a state school. It is a great school academically and Ann Arbor is cool. Afterall, Ann Arbor gave us Segar, it cant be that bad.</p>

<p>Mich. State: Better know for its awesome basketball team and abhorrent football team than much else. A big party school, with some niches of dry campus (honors college, some frats) Not really know for academics…maybe physics and James Madison Poli Sci. It is also an enormous campus with close to 40k students and the quarter of an entire township. Kind of farmy still…it used to be Michigan Agricultural College.</p>

<p>Michigan Tech: Weird. Allegedly the home of smart kids…I think most go to U of M though. My impression is that the kids that were a little eccentric and intelligent but not top notch go here. I always kind of associate the kids that did band through all of high school and thought they were smarter than they really were go here. Also LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of snow. Most in the world. I guess like 25 feet a year. Thats just unecessary.</p>

<p>Central: Party. Not worthy of mentioning party and school in the same sentence. The main attraction for kids that couldnt get into to MSU. The level of intelligence is pretty low but people are nice. The campus is also in the ugliest part of the state.</p>

<p>Grand Valley: VERY weird. Super nerdy and surprisingly not very intelligent. Nicest people i have ever met though. Campus location is odd. Lots of girls but they are kind of ehhh. Know for education and its obscurity of all things.</p>

<p>Ferris: Engineering school dont know much else. A friend of mine got hit by a car there once (cane for 3 months).</p>

<p>Wayne: Detroit is dirty.</p>

<p>Western: I didnt know it existed until i was playing NCAA football for the Playstation.</p>

<p>Lansing CC: Respectable for a Community College. Kind of pretty for an urban campus. Still not much though.</p>

<p>Jackson CC: Jackson is dirty. Dont know about the college though.</p>

<p>Alma: Old (1960s furniture) and artsy. Liberal arts. Also in the ugliest part of the state.</p>

<p>Baker: LoL, A money grab. Aimed at community college drop outs or career crisis adults. Respectable degree but not respectable grad rate. Very much frowned on.</p>

<p>Kudos for most complete post? Anyone? :)</p>

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<p>good post, yes:)</p>

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<p>Ah, Louisiana.</p>

<p>Louisiana State University—the one we love to hate. There is a LOT of LSU spirit in the state. This is a party, party school. Good-looking girls if you’re into the thick blonde hair, southern drawl thing. Great deal because if you meet certain requirements in Louisiana, you can go to LSU for almost free. We have a program called TOPS, the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students. For example, if you get a 32 on the ACT, have a certain GPA and fulfill a certain curriculum in high school, you’ll get somewhere near full tuition, room and board, and a stipend to attend a Louisiana public university. So lots of students take TOPS to LSU.</p>

<p>Northwestern State University—hick town, but Nachitoches is touristy and it’s pretty to a certain degree. Dorms are awful, I’ve stayed there too many times. Prety campus, lots of rolling hills and trees. OK school.</p>

<p>McNeese State University–Who wants to live in Lake Charles? This is an OK school with good professors. Rather on the small side.</p>

<p>University of Louisiana at Monroe–Monroe is very industrial (as industrial as Louisiana gets). ULM has the state’s only pharmacy program. Terrible dorms, terrible student life, terrible classes.</p>

<p>University of Louisiana at Lafayette–Party school. Lafayette is, in my opinion, the most fun town in Louisiana. There’s lots of restaurants, lots of things to do, you get that whole Cajun atmopshere that you don’t get up north, the whole le bon temps roulez thing (I know I spelled that incorrectly). Let the good times roll!</p>

<p>I am not a native. I’m from Arkansas and have lived in the Bayou State for 10 years. But I’m really a European who was mixed up at birth. Or a classy Texan/Westerner. I don’t know yet.</p>

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<p>LOL. hybrid:)</p>

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<p>Wait, i thought Louisiana was under water or soemthing…</p>

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<p>^Tard.</p>

<p>I’m already getting stuff from Tulane’s propaganda mill, and they’re in New Orleans.</p>

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<p>firewalker, seems you’ve already got it covered. just a few add-ons from my pov:</p>

<p>radford–this is where people who need to go to college but didn’t do much in high school go. it’s not bad if you enjoy drugs.</p>

<p>va tech–good school, but so overhyped that it puts me off. great specialties (engineering, architecture, dairy, lol…). pretty hard to get into.</p>

<p>uva–tough admissions, really good school. lots of history–jefferson and all that. everyone loves it unless they’re a va tech person. (tech and uva=mortal enemies.)</p>

<p>william and mary–woohoo! the nerd school, serious about studying. but major history and way cool–my first-choice va school.</p>

<p>uva–nothing to add, except that it’s big on sciences. not the safest place either. (downtown richmond, duh.)</p>

<p>jmu–just an all-around decent place, definitely a more girly kind of school.</p>

<p>longwood–education, kind of a safety for many people.</p>

<p>virginia state u–don’t know much, except it’s kind of like radford.</p>

<p>i know there are some more–just can’t think of them at the moment. so yeah, virginia has a few outstanding universitities but a few duds. i guess it’s a pretty good mix.</p>

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<p>no one did ct yet? ok well ill see what i can do</p>

<p>Yale-~-~ probably most of the CC community has or wants to apply here. It’s pretty prestigious and all but it’s basically in the middle of the New Haven slums, so don’t venture too far out the electrified barbed wire fence!</p>

<p>UCONN-~-~ WooHOO lets go Huskies! 2006 NCAA champs yeaaah. ok enough of that. It’s a great party and academic school for people in ct and seems to get more selective each year. It’s also in the middle of nowhere. So if you like other buildings and towns an civilization in general this probably isn’t the place for you. It has a good agriculture(theres cows on campus!)/med program. </p>

<p>CCSU-~-~ If you can’t get into Uconn then go here, it’s actually a very good school. I think they even got into the sweet 16 one year. </p>

<p>University of Hartford- It used to be pretty good but has gone a little downhill as of late. Don’t go to Hartford! you may not come back… just kidding. Anyway if your paying your way through college it has some good programs.</p>

<p>Easter Conn- ya same as university of hartford pretty much…</p>

<p>Yeah the others are pretty boring and I don’t know anything about them.</p>

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<p>IOWA!!!</p>

<p>Iowa State: Go 'Clones! Great school for engineering, agriculture, vet medicine. Pretty good in design too. Ames is a great college town, I think there’s a good mix of party/academics for a state school.</p>

<p>University of Iowa: Great writing/humanities and stuff. No one from my school goes there, but I’m from a crappy school in SW Iowa. Generally looked upon as the better of the two state schools. BIG party school.</p>

<p>Grinnell: No one in Iowa really knows about it, but my sister goes there so she’s the first from my area. It’s a stereotypical hippie school but it has great academics and a pretty good social scene for such a small school.</p>

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<p>People have already talked about CA schools, but I’ll add to it (only doing schools I know something about):</p>

<p>Berkeley: About 15 minutes from my house (without traffic, of course no traffic in the bay area is as likely as a mild winter in Russia). A large asain population exists, as does radical student groups, but the frat scene is prominent in the social life. Has excellent engineering and math programs; I know of a guy from school a couple years ago who choose Berkeley applied math over Cal Tech and MIT. The UC most people want to go to at my school, other than LA.</p>

<p>UCLA: “University of Caucasians Lost Among Asians.” Near Westwood and Beverly Hills with Rodeo Dr. right by. Need I say more? A huge, spread out campus with an equally large student population. Many classes are graded on a curve, so I hear the premed can be extremely competitive. Not quite as prestigious academically as Cal, but still holds its own. Very popular UC.</p>

<p>Davis: Good for science, from what I hear. Despite what anyone says, the town isn’t that great.</p>

<p>UCSD: About half the people major in a natural science, the other half in poly sci (to my surprise). My sister goes here and I’ve been to visit a few times; the campus is dead at night, but the students (many of them) aren’t socially inept, you just have to go off campus to find the parties, which can be quite fun. The frats and sororities aren’t allowed to have houses because of a La Jolla law that prevents more than 8 people or so of the same sex living in the same house (left over anti-brothel law). Oh yeah, and La Jolla is very $$$ and a terrible college town, IMO.</p>

<p>UCSC: I hear it has a weird grading policy (like no letter grades, I’m not sure about this).</p>

<p>UCSB: “University of Casual Sex and Beer.” Enough said.</p>

<p>USC: “University of Spoiled Children” or “University of Second Choice.” Full of a lot of wealthy socal residents, but offers generous scholarships to smart kids. Has the best football program in the nation (Longhorns are gone on the 4th).</p>

<p>Stanford: Looks like an upscale Taco Bell to me. Palo Alto is OK, not great though. Something like 15 kids from my grade applied early because it’s close and it’s EA. Has a superb grad school and professional school.</p>

<p>Claremont McKenna: Very small, very selective LAC 45 minutes outside of LA. Known as the “conservative” college of the Claremonts with top programs in econ, gov’t, and IR. This school LOVES (no, is obsessed) with leadership.</p>

<p>Ok, that’s enough for me.</p>

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<p>NJ</p>

<p>Princeton- …</p>

<p>Rutgers- Decent school with many options, reputation gets better as you get further away from NJ, great tution and scholarship program, most NJ kids end up here whether they like it or not</p>

<p>TCNJ (the college of new jersey)- Best public college in NJ and one of the best publics in the northeast, good safety for smart kids, amazing scholarhip program (they have a grid system which factors in gpa and sat: a 1500 sat plus rank in top 5% equals full tuition plus room and board), beautiful campus</p>

<p>Stevens- very good tech school, safety if you don’t get into your precious MIT or caltech, right across the river from Manhattan (what more could you ask for)</p>

<p>Drew- good private school, filled with upper class kids, high accept rate because many kids don’t enroll once accepted</p>

<p>Stockton- Safety school for most, near Atlantic city, hot girls, nuff said</p>

<p>NJIT- pretty crappy as far as I hear, last choice for tech schools.</p>

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<p>I’ll take on the privates of Ca, since the publics are already discussed</p>

<p>Stanford:ivy leauge level school, very good for bussiness and engineering, mostly for extremley smart people, good all around.</p>

<p>Caltech: for math and engineering junkies, people who already have some experience in both, very good school for math and sciences, MIT level school.</p>

<p>Claremont colleges: for people who preety much already know what they want to do or major in. Harvy Mudd very good for engineering, Scrips (all women school), Mckenna, Pitzer (liberal arts school, not that good).</p>

<p>USC: mostly known for football, for students who are are slightly above the middle range. Good bussiness school.</p>

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<p>Nobody mentions UC Merced in these public CA universities threads. Admittedly UC Merced just opened this Fall, but it is now a part of the prestigious upper-tier “UC” system. What direction is the UCM culture headed - party school UCSB/UCSC or more hard-core UCB/UCLA direction. Was it created to be a “all-things-to-all people” type of college or does it have a special schtick? Liberal arts or pre-professional?</p>

<p>And another thing … why does every Californian poster seem obligated to mention something about the percentage of Asians on campus. Is there some sort of underlying racial tension that I’m not understanding. Especially veiled comments like “a school for students wanting to get away from Asians” - what’s up with that? (Guess this question is a whole nother thread).</p>

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<p>Is there some type of stigma at schools where caucasians arent the majority? It seems like at every school that has a prominent asian, hispanic, or black student population that’s one of the main “points” that the author brings up about the school</p>

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<p>I think asian’s are over represented at the more prestigous schools. They score higher on standardized tests statistically than any race, and they are give preference to non-minority and equally qualified white students (affirmative action in action).</p>

<p>I never really knew asians made up 27% of the national population until i visited the MIT campus. According to MIT the campus population is representative of the national population. I have never been anywhere in this nation where i felt like a minority like i did there. Of course this is not a bad thing i’m just merely stating what it was like.</p>

<p>And for the most part i dont really think there is the same amount of “racial tension” between whites and asians as there is for nearly any other race. </p>

<p>And besides these people were just giving there views of the schools i dont think it was really a race relations project or any sort of rainbow push coalitition event.</p>

<p>:) (That was happy cynicism so be chill) :)</p>

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<p>Tier One[list=0]
[<em>]UC Berkeley: a.k.a. People’s Republic of Berkeley. Primarily known for Engineering (especially EECS) and Political Science. Crazy but historic campus. Greatest armada of graduate think-tanks in the nation. ~40% Asian.
[</em>]UC Los Angeles: a.k.a. University of Caucasians Lost among Asians. Primarily known for Medicine (UCLA Medical Center) and Education, as well as NCAA athletics. Unbeatable location in Westwood, LA. ~40% Asian.
[<em>]UC San Diego: No nickname. Primarily known for Pre-Medicine and graduate-level Oceanography. Recent epidemic of Triton Eye spreading among undergraduate males. Pride in having no athletics. ~40% Asian.
[/list]
Tier Two[list=0]
[li]UC Irvine: a.k.a. University of Chinese Immigrants. Primarily known for graduate-level English and general sciences. Reputation for being a commuter school, since students go home on weekends. Artificial campus. ~50% Asian.[/li][</em>]UC Santa Barbara: a.k.a. University of Casual Sex and Beer. Primarily known for graduate-level Physics. Supposedly the best social/frat/sorority/party/surf/drink/sex/fight scene among the UCs. Gauchos are crazy. ~15% Asian.
[<em>]UC Davis: a.k.a. University of Cow Dung. Primarily known for agricultural sciences (hence “Aggies”) and Veterinary Medicine. Famous for a huge, bike-filled campus and the only “college town” in the UC system. ~40% Asian.
[/list]
Tier Three[list=0]
[li]UC Santa Cruz: a.k.a. University of California, Second Choice. The new Berkeley, i.e. hippie/weed school. Animals and trees galore. “If you’re not gay by your senior year, you won’t get a diploma.” ~20% Asian.[/li][</em>]UC Riverside: No nickname. De facto High School 2.0, with more drinking and ignorance. People brag about the Thomas Haider Biomedical program because it allows a lucky UCR pre-med to escape to UCLA. ~40% Asian.
[li]UC Merced: No nickname. First university founded in the 21st century. Student body has high ratio of first-generation college students. Campus in the middle of nowhere. No repuation yet. ~?% Asian.[/li][/list]</p>

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<p>I think this thread should be about posting what people don’t know about schools rather than what people do know. If you have more inside knowledge about a college’s reputation than the average CCer, then share it. If not, then don’t post. Stuff like “Caltech is full of science and math nerds” doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. This thread has a lot of potential.</p>

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<p>“If you’re not gay by your senior year, you won’t get a diploma.” </p>

<p>hahaha.</p>