I hear a lot of people talk about how their university is underrated and it does well under the radar. On the other hand, what schools are overrated as shit whether it's the academic programs, lifestyle, or career options? And why?
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Notre Dame, UChicago
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You won't find a higher concentration of self-righteous nerds who constantly feel the need to compare their school to the Ivy League and never miss an opportunity to grandstand their intelligence than at UChicago.But Notre Dame people are pretty chill tho
Why?
If anything both schools are underrated, especially Notre Dame on this website
To my last breath I will fight that Notre Dame is not overrated. If you have a legitimate argument against them I’m all ears.
Why is everyone MSing me? Guess everyone goes here/knows people that go there
Probably because those schools aren't overrated. They're either aptly-rated or even underrated.
Because its not accurate
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IU Kelley
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NYU, USC, SMU, Vandy, most NESCAC schools
USC's overrated for finance, not for lifestyle though lol
south carolina?
NYU is not overrated.
Norte Dame, JHU (outside Bio / Medical), Rice if you plan to move to north east, Notre Dame, Emory - never met someone interesting from here
Couldn't agree more about JHU
As a Hopkins student, I feel the need to elaborate on my school. If we are talking about finance, then I don't think it is overrated or underrated -- it is not rated at all because very few people wanted to do finance until very recently. Most students are going into research, med school, international relations, and tech. It seems to me that both the school and wealthy alums in business don't want to spend resources to finance recruiting. Michael Bloomberg made his first fortune on Wall Street and then by selling data to Wall Street, but his billions of donation all went to things like public health, med school, financial aid, nothing to the business school which is shit or the career center which is terrible, and I think that's great. With that said, there has been a growing finance population at the school with some very dedicated, helpful alums at top firms (especially GS and MS, but only a few at EBs). Of course, there is no way it can compare the likes of HYPS and Wharton and is trailing behind Columbia/UChicago/Duke/Dartmouth, but I think it is really an upcoming school in this sector. A lot of people at Hopkins who ended up in finance didn't think about working in finance at the beginning, but they are all very smart, and most people I know who became interested landed superb internships and FT jobs. If you have other offers and know you want to do finance, other schools may be the way to go, but if you go to Hopkins, there is nothing preventing you from getting your interviews. Cheers
I was one of those jhu ppl that never thought about finance in school. Went into jhu undergrad BME/premed, ended up going biotech startup then into hf.
My finance experience only really started at the biotech and the whole valuation, stock market, investing came very naturally when working on business development deals.
Great BME program though. Coming out of it I then did realize we were doing master level bio and engineering in our junior and senior years at undergrad along with research for some of the most published and cited professors in their respective fields.
Berkeley, UCLA, Emory, IU, and USC from what I've heard of
This is ridiculous - Berkeley is literally a top target for any and all finance / tech recruiting in the West Coast. If anything it is underrated compared to schools like Duke, Cornell, Georgetown, etc. because of its size and position as a huge public school.
whatever answer here that has the most MS
Agree with the list above : NYU, USC mainly overrated for their costs - at least NYU is next door in NYC. UCB/UCLA for how big they are & no guarantee into Haas/no Biz school at LA. Vandy I think is underrated since it's pretty small and (maybe) not many kids want to do IB out of there but cant say personally.
NYU generally yes is overrated, but Stern is not over or under. The undergrad program started getting meshed with the grad program a couple years ago so now you have profs who are teaching at schools like Booth MBA and at Stern undergrad. It’s a unique culture and experience since the merger of sorts.
NYU Tisch is legit. NYU overall is not overrated.
UVA
100%. Same with Michigan and UT Austin.
all 3 of those send a solid amount of kids to IB , how/why are they over-rated? Pretty normal rating in the semi-target range
University of Minnesota Carlson. University of Minnesota students will know what I mean.
Never heard of it.
All the kids I met from Carlson were wannabe BB or bust hardos
Think the ones I know ended up at Big Four or some other advisory
Pretty much. Kids with connections place well (PWP, Evercore, etc), a couple to piper and Bmo if you have good grades, otherwise it’s random boutiques like triple tree, Craig hallum, lake street, and Hennepin partners. Need connections to get these as well. Otherwise it’s big four or uhg or a random Fortune 500.
Northwestern, Duke, Berkeley, Washington St. Louis, Vandy.
Only met one guy from there and he is, no joke, in a psych ward now
WashU has an amazing campus though. I toured the campus - the food, dorms, classroom buildings are all really nice. That being said these nice amenities do come with a cost unfortunately
Who overrates WashU? I feel that they have some of the smartest kids (5th highest average SAT, higher than all the Ivy's) even tho no one has heard of them, they get no recruiting attention, HS students rarely put it as their #1. I think this makes it underrated no?
Sounds like it's for nerds -- super high SAT + no finance recruiting attention? Wack
Sounds like an ivy reject school
University of Miami. Private school cost with complete non-target opportunities.
you got to miami for tits and coke not top tier employment opportunities
touche
This might be the most correct answer here. However I'd be willing to bet a lot of people paying out of pocket for Miami aren't exactly concerned with recruiting or money
USC is overrated only if you pay full cost. Automatic half tuition for national merit is solid.
USC Marshall is a joke.
How so
An MBA paid me to do his homework. I made a good chunk of change and got him an A. Did I mention I only had 6 months of experience.
UMD (if ur from MD u know), BC, Georgetown, UVA, and ohio state
Absolutely agree.
I'm a BC student. Not sure why you think it's overrated, we place decently across the Street. Aside from that though our administration sucks and runs the place like a PE portco trying to take as much $ from us as possible, and the girls can be hot but also spoiled so I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to.
usc
Small liberal arts colleges besides maybe Williams
Full of ultra lib SJWs who will try to cancel you, have stupid protests, banned Greek Life, and who are a bad influence on your mental health and personality. The victimhood cult and hierarchy of oppression shit at some of the places is insane. Some have good networks but really not a good place if you want to become a banker or enjoy your time in college
Sounds like amherst haha. I agree with almost everything you said but its still a good school if you can ignore the SJW crap
I have a friend who went to Williams and he absolutely hated it.
Williams supremacy!
Would agree. Alumni community is certainly very strong for schools like Williams/Middlebury/Bowdoin but there's very little resources for banking/finance kids and very weak social scene.
For everyone saying USC, please explain.
USC is 3rd on the west coast behind Berkeley and Stanford, is a target in LA/SF banking + MBB and still sends a handful of kids to IB in NYC (two GS NYC TMT's in the past two years).
Great social life / Greek life, a great sports program, and is in LA (great weather, nightlife, restaurants etc.)
I know people who went to USC, none of them are remotely intelligent. I am not sure if two are even sentient.
USC gets its boost from its alumni network - Trojans will take care of their own. It is not a top tier school based on academics or the quality of its student body, and I am not convinced that Marshall kids are any better, at least not in the way that Sternies are worlds away from the rest of the lukewarm minds at NYU.
It is a hodgepodge of celebs’ and alumni’s smoothbrained kids and reality stars, and the only smart kids there are probably those who wanted to leave the Midwest for California, only to end up next to skid row.
My LA-adjacent prep school sends a handful of kids to USC every year, all of them full on retards. Anyone with half a brain who stayed in CA went off to Stanford, Cal Tech, some Claremont colleges, or some UCs. Concerned parents would rather hide their kids away at a boarding school to do a PG year than have their kids end up at USC lol
I am both appalled and amused whenever I see USC ranked so highly. I am most certain there’s some Aunt Becky kind of bullshit behind all of that.
As a USC student (from a public school on the east coast who is on half tuition for national merit) -- Fair, but the quality gets better every year. Greek life is actually getting worse because the average admit is getting smarter and less "greek." Still a fuck ton a retarded prep school kids tho, can't deny it. The engineering kids are genuinely super smart though.
Either you didn't get into USC or the kid who bullied you in high school went there. Either way, no one in their late 20's should care this much about a school and the kids that go there.
USC is ranked as a T20/T25 school and its recent placements into IB and MBB prove that it should be there. Would argue that the network at USC is also superior to any other school on the west coast expect for Stanford purely due to the "hodgepodge of celebs' and alumni's smoothbrained kids and reality stars," and you also forgot to add the multiple billionaire's kids.
As someone who graduated from a UC, and not UCLA, the USC kids I've met are not intelligent at all. Almost all USC kids are full of themselves to a certain extent, and they don't have good work ethics (have worked with one USC Marshall graduate).
Don't know where you got your information as you seem to go to USC but there was no diversity candidate (unless you count Asian as diversity) for GS TMT, and the second about his dad being CFO of Silver Lake is completely wrong, although not wrong about nepotism as his dad is CEO of Cushman I think.
Would agree that Viterbi is definitely harder and has smarter students on average.
To be honest most colleges are overrated in my opinion. They have just wedged them selves as a signaling device in modern society and personally think will struggle to continue to hold onto their status as we progress through the 21st century.
Every college is overrated based on the price. Sure, some of them serve as a vehicle to get high wages if you study CS, Med, or Finance but the vast majority of college grads are broke and in crippling debt - almost like it was designed that way. You really only need to take financial accounting, corporate finance, and investment analysis. The other 37 classes are pointless. Also, you're being taught by people who couldn't actually hack it in the industry for the most part. Hence, why they're a bum professor. Also, most academic people are insane communists outside of business schools.
You can get an associates if you just want to study the basic core classes my friend
Imagine simping for a system that financially cripples young people through predatory loans. You don't land in finance jobs that people on this website want from associate degrees. Every single one of your posts on this website is unbelievably cringey. No wonder you had to purchase a prostitute from Russia to get laid.
Boston College - Rich kids who easily could’ve(should’ve) ended up at a better school if they were actually smart or resourceful
.
Ya know what, I'm a BC student and this is true. I was burned out during senior year of HS and probably smart enough to go T20 but did not and now I'm at BC. They say we're all ND or Georgetown rejects, and that's true since I was a Georgetown reject. That being said there's also the dumbass kids who got in because they're from a BC family.
NYU, UCLA, USC, and some other privates/Ivies. People that I know mainly applied because of the location or name.
NYU has the best location of any school in the US or world. I used to live in the East Village and skateboard on my longboard to the Bobst library to study for the CFA exams. I absolutely love the areas around there where you can live like the West Village, SoHo, and LES. Columbia is nice too in that it is in Manhattan, but it’s so far uptown.
Harvard College (only referring to undergrad experience)
Actually kind of agree with this.
Why? Harvard has literally the best career fairs I've ever seen.
Why?
Found the Yale kid
Actually a non-HYP ivy haha. But I'd say of those 3, of my friends there, Princeton/Yale both seem to be a lot more fun and there's more emphasis on the undergrads (sans YLS). Most of my H friends are happy to say they go to H, but the student QoL is a little lower. H has the most resources but way more mouths to feed than Y/P (HBS, HLS, and honestly just about all of their grad programs are top 3-5ish in their field). Harvard is 100% the best uni in the world but imo just probably not for undergrads -- although obviously from a solely career-driven perspective, it's as good as any other place out there
Harvard undergrad has become a joke, it's all about who has the biggest sob story now, or who has ten generations of legacy at the school
Anyone wants to comment on Duke?
Was mentioned on the first page of the thread.
UCLA is unbelievably overrated, same with USC
A nontarget who was rejected from UCLA four times and can't get any offers shitting on Harvard, UCLA, USC. Definitely no signs of personally motivated salt!
The types of students getting into both schools are nearly identical in profile... Just one group happens to have a lot more money and connections.
Keep personally attacking me, but those rejections were many, many years ago, and I've already gotten grad school offers from the first two of those schools. And I wouldn't say graduating with a math degree from UCSD is shit like you seem to be applying; I've certainly gotten better job offers from UCSD than a lot of my same-aged peers from UCLA and USC. I think Harvard is still a great school, but its undergrad program is overrated for the amount of money you have to pay - that's all. There are many, many schools that can give you a similar level of educational attainment and post-grad success as that offered by Harvard, for a cheaper price tag and less competition.
This is an opinion thread, and I gave my honest opinions. USC is a school riddled with nepotism and cheating scandals. UCLA is a school that is overhyped by its celebrity attendance. Visit the school, attend the lectures, and you'll see that the average class has 600+ students, many of which are international. It's a blood bath there, no individual attention, and not much support. A school like Berkeley is actually academically up to the standard, UCLA is not. Just because a couple celebs have attended the school, it doesn't make it good.
yeah lmao that dude is one of the biggest losers on this site. You can tell growing up he was a nerd with no friends, yet he didn't go to a great school. Seems like he got the worst of both worlds lmao
Oxbridge (or any UK school for that matter) if you're from the US. The career prospects are absolute garbage. (I got into Oxford and opted for a non-HYP T10)
To clarify you mean career prospects for US jobs right? If so, agreed.
But if agnostic to job location....I actually feel like a lot of UK schools are underrated on WSO. I went to a non-HYP Ivy but did study abroad at Oxford and I feel the students there are overall more intellectual than even HYP, the vibes/culture are awesome, and despite not as many people being gung-ho about finance (a la Wharton) the pipeline to Europe/Asia finance jobs is very strong.
That’s because Oxbridge looks for intellect/passion in a certain field. Not whatever trash our college app system does today in America. I go to a HYP btw and studied abroad at Oxbridge. Same feeling.
Brown
All of them
Harvard. Average GPA is way too high, extreme left-wing stupidity, and hasn't progressed it's program to match schools that have increased their ranking. The "network" is nice but not as important as it was with our grandparents.
Alabama and most of the SEC schools. The parties are cool but you can get that literally anywhere else.
The small "elite" schools like Swarthmore or Amherst. They're out of touch with the modern world.
But Harvard OCR is unmatched except for MIT Stanford Wharton
Can't believe anyone didn't say Cornell. I haven't met anyone who went there over a real Ivy and generally underwhelming.
But maybe chip on shoulder is valuable if in a hard major?
Cornell probably wasn't mentioned because it gets shit on endlessly. The school has some really good programs (e.g., engineering, pre-med, AEM, architecture, etc.) and very strong finance / tech job placement. Outside of maybe NYU or IU, I don't know if there's another school on this forum that gets trashed as much. Doesn't fare so well in USNWR (same guys who ranked Booth and Kellogg above HBS) but tends to do better in other rankings.
I'm not sure what constitutes a "real Ivy" since the Ivy League is just an athletic conference but I picked Cornell over another Ivy and know several other people who did the same (mainly Dartmouth and Brown, perhaps other "fake" Ivies but also others). I don't think anyone is going to recommend Cornell over HYP or Wharton, but if anything, I'd consider it slightly underrated.
This chain has successfully listed every college that is not an ultra target as overrated. I think most of y’all are out of touch. The good public schools will not have the same amount of recruiting as HYPSW but they still place a lot of people. Semi-targets don’t place people at every bank but they have good pipelines to a few banks. The small schools don’t place that many kids but have supportive alumni networks. Just because you haven’t met a lot of people from a certain school that gets talked about on here doesn’t mean that school is overrated.
Probably the creative (cash cow) Masters at NYU, Columbia, etc.
Ridiculous tuition fees, piss-poor job placement rates. These programs seem to be designed for wealthy kids that just want some elite school on their resume. But unfortunately regular kids get caught in the trap, and end up with law/b.school levels of debt, with the prospects of earning $15/hr working as an assistant - if they're even that lucky.
Might get MS for this but whatever:
I personally think both USC & UCLA kids are overrated. UCLA students are a tiny bit better. All USC students I've met and worked with are not in any way smart or bright.
UCLA students tend to be more hard-working. Meanwhile, I know plenty of UCLA students and I don't feel like they are smart at all. Could just be a sample size bias/ survivorship bias thing.
Liberal arts colleges. You literally spend 4 years to pay $200k all for half your classes to be something like “17th Century Critical Feminist Dance Theory”. All for an mediocre shot at a front-office role.
All of the following:
US: Penn/Wharton, NYU/Stern, maybe Columbia (so I've heard)
UK: LSE
Simple. The pre-professional environment makes you gear your entire college curriculum and experience towards getting finance/consulting jobs. Everyone gets super competitive day 1 so you fight your ass off as a freshman to ditch your interesting major to transfer into the business school and take BS classes like Management and Marketing. Worst part is realizing afterwards that your sacrifices were completely unnecessary: the Stanford History major who only found out the difference between IBD and consulting in sophomore year is sitting next to you at IBD analyst training. You mean I could've majored in something I was interested in, and had fun in college, and gotten the SAME job? God damn it.
Signed,
Peeved Wharton Kid
Based take. I chose HYPS over Wharton for this reason.
lol just take classes outside of your major that you're interested in. I go to a target school for undergrad business and half the credits I have to take literally has to be outside of business (they require it) so I've taken a bunch of film and East Asian studies classes that I was interested in.
College
Any of the big public schools that people on here hype up like UCLA, UVA, and so on. Referring to the non-business schools only though.
Sure, UCLA sends a few kids to IB every year. There’s also 40,000 kids there, many of whom are disgustingly rich. You’re chances of being one of the few “normal” kids who makes it into IB at a solid firm are pretty tough just by sheer numbers.
Compare this to an Ivy or top liberal arts school (Williams, Middlebury, so on) where there’s way less alumni on Wall Street but the pool of students is so much smaller. Think people on this site look way too much at sheer numbers when determining schools and their relative recruiting results rather than adjusting by student body size
I went there. The best annual UCLA IB event(IB workshop) that you have to attend in person in order to be considered(pre COVID) has only 85 ish people attend. They took like 20. So it’s not that bad.
We get it, you went to Middlebury
Harvard.
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