Underrated Colleges

What do you guys think? But my list goes… off the top of my head…

  • Syracuse University (world-renowned communications school)
  • California State University SLO (great value school for computer science)
  • California State University Pomona (great value school for computer science as well)
  • Occidental College (great liberal arts academics)
  • University of Pittsburgh (great engineering college and lots of scholarship opportunities)
  • Virginia Tech (great value for engineering)
  • University of Washington (great for computer science and engineering)
  • Santa Clara University (good all around academia)

Please feel free to add some of your underrated schools on here and list WHY you think so…

The University of Washington MBA program is underrated as their graduates enjoy great employment opportunities. The Foster School of Business just reported the highest rate of employment within 3 months of graduation (over 99%) among all MBA programs in the US.

CS is very competitive for admission & widely regarded as among the best CS programs in the nation.

Washington has been strong across the board for years (from social work and library science, to public policy and psychology, to statistics and genetics, to journalism and international studies, and on and on):

http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60

https://cwur.org/2017/u-list.php#University%20of%20Washington

http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/03/uw-lands-at-no-9-with-45-subjects-ranked-in-the-top-10-in-center-for-world-university-rankings-inaugural-subject-list/

Here’s one that combines US News department rankings in business and engineering (undergrad), biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, economics, education, English, history, math, physics, political science, psychology, and sociology (graduate level):

https://publicuniversityhonors.com/rankings-academic-departments-private-elites-vs-publics/

Hobart and William Smith: Best small college architecture program.

What do you mean by “underrated”? UW is ranked fourth in the US among public universities in the world and 14th in the world according to the Shanghai Rankings and #10 globally according to US News and World Report:

http://www.shanghairanking.com/Academic-Ranking-of-World-Universities-2018-Press-Release.html

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings

That’s not even taking into account value for money–in my opinion there is no question that the Cal & Washington publics which are probably the most merit-based institutions in the world–are tops.

If the UW is underrated I’d suggest revising one’s approach to looking at rankings.

These (except maybe CPP and Pitt) generally are not underrated for those specific majors. Also, “great value” for some of the state universities can depend on whether you are in-state or out-of-state.

Also, the usual names are California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (or Cal Poly SLO or CPSLO), and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (or Cal Poly Pomona or CPP).

Colleges that are underrated more generally:

  • New Jersey public universities, by New Jersey residents.
  • Other northeastern state public universities, by their in-state residents.
  • Public liberal arts colleges, relative to private liberal arts colleges.

U of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) should be high on any list.

@MmeZeeZee I agree. I wouldn’t place UW as underrated because it is well known in the fields of engineering and computer science.

@ucbalumnus I put “great value” because the out-of-state tuition for those schools was significantly under the nationally average (around like $16k). Also, what’s an example of a public liberal arts college? because I thought all of them were private

@MWolf I agree. I would throw Illinois Institute of Technology on there too

http://coplac.org/members/

The most commonly mentioned ones on these forums are probably Truman State, New College of Florida, and University of Minnesota - Morris.

@ucbalumnus Ohhh. ok. What do you think are some national universities that are underrated and in what fields?
Take into account cost too…

Saint Mary’s College (IN), is a hidden gem of a LAC with many excellent majors and minors, shared history and traditions with Notre Dame, a co-exchange agreement that allows Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame students to take courses on either campus and a dual degree in engineering program in which students earn a BA or BS from Saint Mary’s in four years and a second BS in engineering from Notre Dame following a fifth year of study.

It is actually architectural studies, not an NAAB accredited BArch program. Students graduating from this program may find that some MArch programs can be completed more quickly than after an unrelated BA/BS.

https://www.hws.edu/academics/architecture/curriculum.aspx

For engineering, perhaps South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and New Mexico Institute of Mines and Technology, which get much less attention than the (more expensive) Colorado School of Mines.

But then almost any less selective school with ABET accredited engineering majors tends to be underrated for those engineering majors, since ABET accreditation sets a good floor on the quality of the engineering programs.

@justinthomas UW is also a top 10 school in public affairs, the Foster School is top 20 for business as someone else has pointed out, biostats are ranked #3 (alongside Johns Hopkins and Harvard…), top 10 nationally for environmental sciences, and more.

Perhaps you meant “less well-known”?

@MmeZeeZee Yeah I was thinking of more less well-known schools that still have great academics and teaching. But, this is still good research cuz I just learned something new about UW

VT is extremely well-known and highly regarded for its Engineering program.

I may be biased, but I’d say Pitt is usually appropriately rated.

Highly personal but many students underrate their instate flagship. Their are STEM students from Indiana who frankly aren’t impressed with Purdue, any number of students I know who think tOSU is just meh. They’ll underrate their flagship while conflating a similar school in another state.

The schools my kids went to are underrated.

I’ve worked with some people who went to Brigham Young, and they were all very smart.