Overrated schools

[Anonymous]

Overrated schools for academics:

Johns Hopkins outside of Pre-med/natural sciences
Washington University outside of Pre-med/natural sciences
UVA for everything (especially on this board)
U-Chicago outside of humanities/economics
Notre Dame
Georgetown outside of international relations/government
Vanderbilt for everything

Brown, Yale are also heavily overrated in STEM discipline. Dartmouth overrated for everything other than going into investment banking.
But their prestige as Ivies can outweigh whatever academics they may be lacking.

[Anonymous]

Ah, OP needs to change the title to, “Schools that rejected both me AND my kids...”

[Anonymous]

I was more than prepared to dump on any school when there was a silly thread about "schools that everyone loves." As if.

But this one is even more pointless.

[Anonymous]

Over priced would be a huge list in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

There are many schools that may be overrated for undergraduate education. Harvard may be a good example. But most are really looking for the name on the resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pitt!

Same. We live in Pa and I know very few people who apply there. It isn’t on anyone’s radar here.

Oh please. I live in PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh and tons of kids from our high school apply there). It’s a fabulous school and everyone I know who went there or goes there loves it. My dd wanted a small school so she did not consider it. She also didn’t want to go to school with lots of kids from her hometown but otherwise it could have been a great option.

Relax this happens to every school that becomes popular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not really impressed by any SLAC/LACs. They're all good schools full of capable kids but I just laugh at the booster crazy parents trying to hype up their kid's obscure liberal arts college. Tacky striver parents who feel the need to hype a SLAC/LAC are the antithesis of the low-key families who typically choose SLAC/LACs. Confident moneyed (likely lifer private school) parents who send their kids to expensive SLAC/LACs don't have any urge to teach random people a thing or two about how amazing their kid's liberal arts college is. It provided a comfortable safe setting and a good education. That's that.

I worked at a place that had an internship programs. Writing skills were very important, so we asked applicants to submit an example of their best written work. The writing examples written by the LAC kids were significantly better on average those submitted by kids from national universities of approximately the same level.

Indeed. The education speaks for itself. So when loony parents start obsessing over rankings and this that and the other with regard to their kid's slac/lac, it just signals painfully insecure striver. Rankings and commoner status and name rec aren't why the rich and confident send their kids to slac/lac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a dumb and mean-spirited thread.

+1. Not DCUM at its absolute worst, but close.

+2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wash U St. Louis

+1. Dying city, dead center of flyover country, nobody has ever heard of it. I realize it's supposedly a research and pre-med powerhouse, or something, but who really cares?

It’s a beautiful underrated city with great historic neighborhoods and restaurants. Get out of your sh!tshack once in while and see the country you live in.

[Anonymous]

The people posting the schools here are just pissed their kids got rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah, OP needs to change the title to, “Schools that rejected both me AND my kids...”

Yeah I'm sure that's why no one has posted MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Cal Tech etc. as overrated, because they've accepted all the kids of every poster here.

Or perhaps you saw a school you are associated as correctly being called overrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah, OP needs to change the title to, “Schools that rejected both me AND my kids...”

Yeah I'm sure that's why no one has posted MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Cal Tech etc. as overrated, because they've accepted all the kids of every poster here.

Or perhaps you saw a school you are associated as correctly being called overrated.

Who thinks of Cal Tech as on par as MIT, let alone Harvard? Other than the occasional booster, people correctly rate Cal Tech and Berkeley a notch or two below the top schools. That's why those two schools are not called overrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wash U St. Louis

+1. Dying city, dead center of flyover country, nobody has ever heard of it. I realize it's supposedly a research and pre-med powerhouse, or something, but who really cares?

It’s a beautiful underrated city with great historic neighborhoods and restaurants. Get out of your sh!tshack once in while and see the country you live in.

Look, the PP's post was a bit over the top, but so is yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah, OP needs to change the title to, “Schools that rejected both me AND my kids...”

Yeah I'm sure that's why no one has posted MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Cal Tech etc. as overrated, because they've accepted all the kids of every poster here.

Or perhaps you saw a school you are associated as correctly being called overrated.

Who thinks of Cal Tech as on par as MIT, let alone Harvard? Other than the occasional booster, people correctly rate Cal Tech and Berkeley a notch or two below the top schools. That's why those two schools are not called overrated.

You couldn't have screamed "East Coaster" any louder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA. Why would anyone want to go there?

Same reasons people want to go to any state flagship.

But that assumes UVA is the state flagship

It’s called The University of Virginia for a reason...

Yeah, because a slaveholder defined things. UVA too small to be a flagship. VT, GMU, JMU, ODU and VCU are state supported schools that are larger than UVA.

Virginia Tech has more funded research.

UVA does have the highest Blood Alcohol content of any of those schools (maybe with the exception of JMU).

All kidding aside, UVA is highly ranked because they limit the size -- not for the education received. It is a fine school, but it is highly ranked because of its size: its freshman class is about 4000... there are probably nearly that many worthy kids in graduating from Fairfax County.