Our annual semiscientific guide to the worst colleges in America

It's not accurate to say that Hampshire students design the curriculum. We got to pick our own courses to design a *major*, sure, but you get to do that at plenty of colleges these days. Hampshire students do sometimes get to teach courses over January intersession, but the college oversees these and they do not carry the credit of a semester course.

Like a handful of the folks who have commented on this article over at MetaFilter, I also went to Hampshire, and of course I think this article is full of hyperbole. While Hampshire doesn't have the name recognition which gets Harvard students into jobs they don't deserve straight out of undergrad, there are fields where people respect Hampshire's perspective on learning (film, social sciences, education, and believe it or not, science). And I'm proof that a Hampshire degree isn't necessarily a disadvantage -- I'm a doctoral student at Columbia now. If I remember correctly, the statistic on grad school admissions when I graduated was that 90% of Hampshire grads who applied to grad school got into their first choice school.

Yes, Hampshire is way too friggin expensive (though last I checked some 70% of students received some kind of financial aid, so the only saps paying full tuition are the same silver-spoon babies who'd be paying full tuition at any school), and yes, it has its faults (that yurt in the picture... don't get me started), but I never would have learned to be such a self-starter and so unafraid of managing large projects if Hampshire hadn't given me the chance to learn what life was like without tying my success to grades and classes, and if I hadn't had to do a thesis to graduate.

Go ahead and mock Hampshire -- we really didn't need superficial Radar-reading hipsters applying, anyway.

And by the way, "On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored" is the title of a book on psychoanalysis by Adam Phillips -- don't blame Hampshire for that one.

If this kind of lazy hack humor and regurgitation of superficial stereotypes strikes you as brilliant writing; if you think the absence of letter and number grades obviously equates with laziness and low standards; if you think a student-centered curriculum allow you to be lazy rather than requiring you to be MORE motivated than checking off a series of requirements to complete a major -- then I second the above request that you please stay far away from Hampshire. You don't deserve it.

Bridgeport U continues to suck. Oddly, UB was a decent school for years. In fact, before the third strike by the faculty, at which time the Moon organization bought the school and hired scabs, who the following year were fired, it was said that the school had a much faculty than it deserved. Now, it has exactly what it deserves.

You've obviously never visited Drexel University before writing this and just stole your list from old Princeton Reviews.

That smoke stack is an old incinerator in Philadelphia, and is not on or near Drexel's campus (your photo is a bridge over a road into Center City Philadelphia).

It's a really nice looking campus, with hundreds of trees and grassy areas, and blends right in with ivy league University of Pennsylvania whose campus butts up against it.

Drexel should be suing you for writing these lies without any research of your own.

This article is a regurgitation of Princeton Reviews and a few bitter students. True, Drexel has more than its fair share, but that's because a lot of the student population are students who grew up in privileged upper-middle class families and come to Philadelphia and are exposed to the other side of life and discover there is crime and yes acting oblivious to your surroundings can get you mugged. And on the other side, you have people who didn't grow up with much, who have now come to terms with the fact that college is not just a free ride to being rich and yes, you do really have to still work hard to get what you want in life even with a college degree. This is where you meet the bitter, and disenfranchised members of the Drexel Community.

With regard to the statistics, since Drexel has a mandatory Cooperative education program, a majority of students take 5 years to graduate as they go to school off and on combined with 3 - 6 month internships. Therefore, the 17% completing college in 4 years is not a data point that you can analyze without evaluating 5 year graduation rate as well/in place of 4 year rate.

Also, a significant amount of time has passed since a lot of the commentary was made that the author for Radar used, Drexel has invested several Million dollars in updating classrooms, new buildings and renovating common spaces on the campus. And, the average entering class GPA was a 3.5 in 2008. So, with 13,000 students and a 3.5 average GPA, that tells me that this a school that is on the rise.

What, no mention of the morasses of dogmaticism and fanaticism that are Bob Jones University and Pensacola Christian College? At the latter, members of the opposite gender looking each other in the eyes is banned; they call it "making eye babies". They each make BYU look tame by comparison.

"I got my masters at Ole Miss." -- old SNL joke ...

As someone with affection, and history, with both Hampshire and Bennington, I heartily disagree with your views on these colleges.

College can be somewhere that one gets fed enormous amounts of information, angst over grades, and make sure the RIGHT names and ec's are attached to one's name, OR
it can be a place where one learns HOW to learn, becomes engaged with the material, and gets real world experience.

Hampshire and Bennington are the latter.

Your assertion that not having grades makes them easier shows real ignorance. An evaluation is much more specific and comprehensive than a mere letter. This is one of the reasons that these schools have such good statistics regarding graduate school.

If you were in graduate admissions would you rather see:

A
A
B

or:

Excellent writer & thinker
articulate and thorough
good student, but somewhat disorganized

of which potential student would you feel you had a clearer picture?

It is publications such as yours that claim that these schools are good places for slackers that are, in part, responsible for the high attrition rates. No slacker will make it through either of these schools and that gets figured out pretty quickly. In fact, just the opposite is true, and a very high level of independence is required.

You really need to do your research about the schools you write about. You make yourself look stupid, and lose credibility, publishing so much inaccurate information.

Wow, you guys are getting very skilled at trolling in the full-length article format. Keep up the good work!

My newspaper editorial staff once won an award for a piece about how the Playboy college rankings are more accurate than the U.S. News & World Report listings because of their respective methodologies.

Oh, and I love you, Radar.

I also disagree the Drexel portion of this article. The school has been working diligently to improve the landscaping around the campus and I would not consider any of the building dilapidated (old yes, terrible conditions, no).

Crap, clicked "Submit" before I was done. Either way, long rant short, Drexel is an urban campus and comes with the problems inherent in bring located in the 5th largest city in the US. You don't move to Philadelphia to be surrounded by grass.

Drexel is a good school and getting better, so if you are going to criticize Drexel for something, lets try the tuition price and Taki's salary instead of the campus for a change.

holy shit, people do not understand satire. maybe this doctor student at columbia should take more english lit courses.

All right, Sebastian J, perhaps it's ill-advised, but I'll bite. Please explain what this is a satire of, and what joke you think we're missing. And don't worry, I'm a "doctor student" in literature, so you can be as technical in your analysis as you like.

ok...university of washington is the most intolerant because of rebels flags at football games?? that boggles my mind. first off, do some damn research. there were black people in the confederate army, and just because you have a rebel flag at a football game does not mean youre racist. half of that damn school is of the asian persuasion and i think if they were the intolerant people you think they are, that school would be nothing but white people, sporting 3 teeth and a barrel on suspenders. so suck it. you know nothing about intolerance. what about the school that had nooses hanging from trees? theyre more tolerant how????

Radar says that it only includes so-called accredited brick and motar schools. The ones that are technical and advertise on public transportation are excluded. Well there are many so-called traditional colleges that advertise their academics on public transportation. There are also a number of so-called technical colleges that are fully accredited and even program accredited.

All that time and money spent at Hampshire and Bennington and this is the best you can do? You so-called "Excellent writers and thinkers" with "real world experience" allowed yourself to be baited...excuse me, "engaged" in this discussion defending your alma mater, or is that too pedestrian a term? I hope you realize that you've played right into the hands of this magazine and support their assertion that indeed you are the pretentious monkey-f*cks they claim you are. I'd give your defense of your school in F, but I guess you'll want something more comprehensive...How about, Good Students, but somewhat disappointing and exceedingly sensitive. If you'll excuse me, I've got some trees to cut down, and barbecue to get back to.

I'll have to say it would be nice if you actually checked your facts. It is true about the drug bust at SDSU and very sad. However of the 75 arrested, only 10 were actually college students.
And while this one incident is a bad mark on the school's reputation, I'm pretty disappointed that it is the only basis that you use to judge and name that this school has the "most degenerate student body".
A little more research into the school would have led to a more accurate description of SDSU.
Pathetic article.

The graduation rates for these so-called brick and motar schools are quite unimpressive or down right deplorable. So much for the high regard toward traditional education. Also, there are a number of accredited colleges that don't require SAT scores, especially in regard to working adult education.

Actually after reading these rather enlightening and embarrassing evaluations of so-called top tier colleges and unviersities, I am prouder than ever to be a University of Phoenix alumni. Harvard, the so-called numero uno college of the world, proved to be a joke, Cornell too.

Also after reading these rather enlightening evlautions of the true nature of so-called top tier colleges; that they indeed overrated, makes me prouder than ever to be a University of Phoenix alumni.

I graduated from Fairfield University (10 miles and an infinite culture gap away from UB), and even in 1980, we would not go near UB in groups of less than 4 or 5 - preferably with a few members of theRugby team. It's only "claim to fame" was an uncharacteristically good library and the fact that it was the only place near by where you could attend Kaplan MCAT-prep classes. Bridgeport was known then as "the armpit of New England"; a city that proves that it IS possible to have no "good parts". And if the $40K+ a year figure is correct, you would be crazy to go near the place. Let's face it - at half that price you would STILL be crazy to go there.

You want to condem Ol Miss because Dixie has been sung there? It was written by one Daniel Decatur Emmet a northern composer and devout unionist. It was first performed (blackface) as part of a minstrel show in-gasp-
New York City!

People will always ignorantly associate everything pre-1970 from the South with racism. People still think the Civil War was mainly over slavery, that the North was against slavery on moral grounds, and that the Rebel flag and "Dixie" are by definition racist. Anti-Southern sentiments and ignorances are the few prejudices that the so-called "enlightened" Americans still allow... at least in public. I wonder how many of them would visit Memphis a second time.

How can UC Berkeley not be the most intolerant College in the US. Unless you're a total left wing whack job, you won't be welcome on campus. Conservative view points are shouted down. Professors are intolerant to opposing view points. There needs to be a sign at the entrance to the campus "Socialists only, all others keep out!"

I taught at Bennington for a few years and found that at least 75% of the students there were amazingly creative and intelligent people. Sure, there were some pot-smoking trust-funders killing time, but most of the students were hard-working and eager to learn. Head into the large arts complex at three in the morning and you'll find students painting, dancing, sculpting, writing, rehearsing...

I love Radar, so I wish this article had been more than just a negative rehashing the Princeton Review's guide to colleges.

i don't like you using the acronime UB for Bridgeport......especially since you have it listed as the "WORST COLLEGE IN AMERICA" Since my husbands alma mater is the University Of New York at Buffalo and everybody who has ever gone there (I went there for two years before swtiching to a three year nursing school like a fool) knows it as UB!!! So we do not like articles about any school that use the name UB with the words worse school in the nation....please refrain from using UB in the future when you discribe the University of Bridgeport...you may have trouble from the REAL UB!!! Which is one of the BEST schools in the nation!!!

MOXKI388-
Apparently not on of the best schools in your case! Judging from your spelling: "acronime" for acronym; "discribe" for describe. I don't much care which colleges make the "best" or "worst" lists, as attending college is often a matter of what you make of it. But why do hardworking taxpayers continue to fund financial aid for people who emerge after six years of schooling without BASIC SPELLING skills?

Well, the good news is that this list will mean nothing in the next ten years. I attend UB and I'm a fantastic student. I took honors classes all throughout high school @ a great school. I could've gone to Pace University, Fordham, or Southern Connecticut, but UB offered me the most money. They are cleaning up their act and it's no longer controlled by the "Moonies". If it were yet another Roman Catholic school it wouldn't even make the list. This "new" list is outdated.

Intolerant? That's a no brainer. Try being anything other than a screaming, drooling venom-spitting leftist at Cal-Berkeley.

rasputin
True T make spelling and typo error's ...especially since I have eyesight trouble .....and no spellcheck does not help since you still have to be able to see correctly to chose the right option to replace your misspelled word and I find it does not even work on most of these websites....also the state did not fund MY education....I worked the whole time and took out loans and paid my own way,,,,,unlike some people,,,,
You are a real bore....
I worked 27 years as an ER nurse and am disabled now and have to deal with idiots like you on websites who think they are above the rest of us...
Instead of putting down another member why not come up with your own idea,,,the same old lines...spelling,grammar,you all sound alike....you must be so proud of yourself to be so intelligent.
By the way what University graduated your insufferable butt.

This site calls one college "Insufferable " for its strict adherance to the liberal left to a fault but then you fault a college for still singing Dixie as a racist song .....which is it?

bye the way rasputin I think you mispelled one and spelled it "on"

The assessment of Hampshire college is so funny because it is so true. I need to single out Ardo real quick: thank you good man for ripping on the easily offended half wits who have nothing better to do than troll around on an e-zine. You saved me the trouble. They wouldn't be upset if they didn't know it to be true.

Drexel's campus is horrendous. The 'rape garden' and crime portions are a bit out of date, but the campus is UGLY.

Sure, the school has been putting a bit of money into landscaping, but that doesn't help much. The school looks like a cheap corporate park. Think Dunder Mifflin World Headquarters. There are 2 or 3 beautifully designed buildings, but the rest look like harsh, Soviet era surplus design, made out of irregular buildings materials, by blind construction workers.

It's great if you like vast open spaces and concrete. Walk a couple blocks southwest to Penn's campus to see what a real university should look like.

andro- you sound a little sensitive yourself! not sure why the school pride of hampsters and bennies bothers you so much. we go to very misunderstood and oft maligned institutions and it gets really tiresome. those of us who attended, or taught there, know how many great things go on within that open structure and don't want people considering those schools to be misdirected about what the school's strengths and weaknesses might be.

I too found Ole Miss to be intolerant. I attended the University in the late 90's and earned my degree. I found my fellow students to be unthinking dimwits. I tried to get some of my fraternity brothers to engage in rousing games of D&D to no avail. I was also unsuccessful in getting anyone to take interest in my submarine designs! However, the Navy may be buying my designs. I'll get the last laugh!!!

Actually my use of the workd almuni could be correct. Being proud to be a school's alumni can be interpreted as being part of a group of people. Afterall, I don't think someone would think I would be the only male graduate of the school, but among a number of men-thus almuni.

I meant to type 'word' not workd, which was a typo not a grammatical error.

As a lifelong resident of Bridgeport, CT, that article about UB is extremely offensive. First of all, I have a lot of friends that attended UB and got a very good education. A scary place to be? Are you kidding me? And as for the comments made by darkbrian, you obviously do not know anything about the city. Because I live in a good neighborhood. Ever heard of basketball players Charles Smith and Wes Matthews who played in the NBA? Guess what. They're from Bridgeport.

No flirting allowed at BYU? Wow! I guess it's somewhat of a miracle that I met and married my wife while attending.

I have lived in Bridgeport, CT my entire life. I found your article about UB to be not only offensive but biased. You made Bridgeport out as ghetto, dangerous and dirty. While I'll admit Bridgeport has its faults and is most definitely not perfect, have you ever seen St. Mary's by The Sea in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport? Or driven through Lake Forest? Or heard that PT Barnum, the starter of the Barnum Festival ("The Greatest Show on Earth"), personally helped to develop Bridgeport and is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in the city? Or were you aware that John Mayer was born in Bridgeport and his father was the principal at Central High School? There is much more to Bridgeport then what you have written about in your article. "Simply can't imagine a more terrifying place to spend four years...." I've got news for you, I've spent much more then four years residing in Bridgeport and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

As for the comments made by darkbrian, I think you should take your nose out of the air because you attended Fairfield University. The reason there is an "infinite culture gap" between FU and UB is because of elitists like yourself who think they're above people from Bridgeport. You made it obvious when you said "if the $40k+ figure a year is correct..." that you know nothing about Bridgeport, but you felt it was your place to call it "The Armpit of New England." Maybe you should take a trip to Bridgeport, without members of the Rugby Team to "protect" you, and learn something so you can make a more educated statement next time.

Unfortunately in today's blog age if you write it it must be true - which is not the case at all - first the picture presented for University of Bridgeport is taken from the other side of the harbor - no visible from UB's campus - UB fronts 2.5 miles of water view of Long Island Sound.

Second, UB is no longer controlled by Moonies - hasn't been for years.

Also, Bridgeport is much safer than other urban areas - most of the homes near the campus are well maintained and an old factory was recently converted into higher end condos.

It would be appreciated if you would cease your slanderous comments - your not well informed considering you are suppose to be putting out factual information

the best line was SDSU "magical seven years that fall between high school and your first job at the warehouse" I was rolling with laughter! That was funny!

However the article could have been a lot better. Radar magazine is a bit of a mish-mash in its focus. I thought the article was suppose to be satire and humorous, kind of a mad magazine type thing. But Harvard and Cornell as overrated just wasn't funny. And the opening line for USC's write-up sounded flattering instead of cutting: "For the affluent and genetically blessed..."

Affluent (rich), genetically blessed (smart and beautiful) sounds like the best not worst, sign me up!

If you're going to do an article titled "worst colleges" and list schools such as Harvard, USC, Dartmouth, and Harvey Mudd then it should probably clearly be humor. These schools have some of the brightest young minds in the country, worst and bright minds doesn't work. And sorry, worst and Harvard never works.

There's nothing like the over-earnestness of an undergrad. It's like the delicious blood of virgins to my cynical, black soul.

"there were black people in the confederate army" OMG BEST COMMENT EVER

Wow... if you're going to lampoon Ole Miss please, please, please lampoon us for something good. There's plenty to choose from: our accents, our horrible drinking habits or our ridiculous excuse for a football team. But please don't pretend that anything you stated in your article is even remotely relevant to our school's problems in 2008.

You forgot Tarrant County College in Texas. They manipulate grades to get rid of minority students and switched some to make their pathetic, low life, dishonorable workers feel better about their useless existence. Teachers are supposed to help the future instead of take it away and they do just that. They also suspend and hate on kids that are exceptionally intelligent. If you need proof it can be easily found but the fact is most colleges are like that. That's why we have corporations with greedy dummies ruining our society.

I think "superficial" has several valid meanings these days. If by "superficial" you mean the traditional emphasis on looks, fashion, and wealth over any kind of substance, you have made the right choice with USC.

And I say that as a die hard alumnae and former member of the Greek community.

I was a film major, and at least half of the student films made by my classmates centered around or documented the average USC sorority girl's ability to verify the authenticity of a Louis Vuitton bag from 100 yards.

That being said, I do believe that the infamous Kappa email has been blown out of proportion.

Kappa is, and has traditionally has been, one of the top two sororities at USC. This isn't based on the girls' looks. It's based on family wealth. The girls in Kappa are friendly and rich, but not cute. Hence the nickname "Kappa Kows". (I am a member of the so-called USC "fat sorority"; we average a size 2-4, Kappa is an 8-10.).

When the email mentions the "taut stomachs" of Kappas instead of DGs, I can only imagine it was sarcastic. DG's reputation is 5'5", 100 lbs, 99 iq, and nothing about Kappa's reputation or reality suggests "taut stomachs".

Hey, your criticism of Drexel is completely unfair and leaves out several important facts:
1) There are now lights in the rape garden.
2) If Radar bothered to perform any independent research you would have seen our women are also ugly and you should see what happens to your standards after 3 years at a school that is 3:1 male to female.
3) Drexel is also privy to all the trust-fund, entitled asshats that come with being next to University of Pennsylvania, without any of the benefits of an Ivy league degree to go with it.

I'm just gonna rehash what I posted last time. Let's get some facts straight.

I'm a University of Bridgeport alumni and I must say the article is very biased and shouldn't be used as a reliable source to rank universities. There are certain criteria that have to be taken into consideration objectively before determining which university is the "worst in America". Such factors include surveys by scholars and students, number of applicants, percent accepted, percent yield, percent of students in top tenth of high school class, retention rates, etc. The university is not "owned" by the Unification Church. They helped the university financially but they don't own it. The university is a private, non-sectarian institution and is not used for religious purposes.

Radar Online does not tolerate religion and uses socially derogatory terms openly. A term like "Moonies" (notice it sounds like "loonies") used openly is clearly a sign that you are reading a prejudiced article. Contemporary news articles would use that word the following way: "members of the Unification Church, sometimes referred to as Moonies". Any new religious movement has to start off as a small sect or cult and has to use strategic ways to gain new members. Christianity also started as a small group of Jews who were persecuted by the existing authorities. You don't have to be so anti-religious. Some people believe in that religion and they have every right to believe in it. Does it say anywhere that a person of a certain religion cannot run a university? Do UB professors teach Unificationist doctrines? No and no. The place is non-sectarian.

The tone of Radar Online's article is not only belittling but also very bullying. Of course Bridgeport is a city that needs a lot of investment and help to be able to advance, but writing such an article does not help Bridgeport at all. It certainly is an article with the intention to mock and ridicule the city of Bridgeport, the university's students, its alumni, professors, and a new religious movement. Next time please consult official sources that rank universities before making slanderous claims on which university is the worst in America.

Re: Chico State--Wiki has this to say:
Rankings

Academic

* 6th Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2008 [1]
* 4th Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2007 [2]
* 4th Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2006 [3]
* 3rd Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2005 [4]
* 3rd Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2004 [5]
* 4th Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2003 [6]
* 3rd Best Public Master's Level University in the West 2002 [7]

School statistics

From Peterson's in 2006[4]

* Enrollment: 15,025
* Average GPA (admitted students): 3.41
* Average SAT: 1238 (This represents the old SAT scoring system, new SAT statistics have not yet been published.)
* Average GRE:1210 (Old GRE scoring system)
* Average ACT: over 24
* Student to Faculty Ratio: 21:1

The school paper is #1, the athletic department is consistently among national champion winners, the campus has been voted one of the top sustainable campuses in the WORLD, one of its Professors was a Nobel Prize recipient, and the campus has been on the President's Community Service Honor Roll each year since it began participating.

All this while hoisting a few brews? Pretty good for a party school I'd say.
Maybe I should take up a career in Journalism, after all, how hard can it be? I survived Chico state, I bet I could hold my own at Radar!

The picture that was selected for this article is not even part of campus. It is a bridge that is off campus and the background is the railroad yard for 30th street station.

These are pictures of the campus

http://www.gpba-bio.com/images/bossone3.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_pyoUyD9MFvc/R0EWohXiwpI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/l-zdtKoXZHI/155+-+Schuykill+River+&+Drexel+University+Campus.jpg

And here is a picture of Sen. Christopher Dodd, Sen. Joseph Biden, John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0eBQc6z8k24or/610x.jpg

As for the 4 year graduation percentage that you list, that is not accurate. The vast majority of the students are on a 5 year coop program, 5 year BS/MS program or a 7 year Doctorate program.

Do your research first before publishing such and article.

rb posted:"then I second the above request that you please stay far away from Hampshire. You don't deserve it."

Dude, as a fellow hampster, do us all a favor and stop posting online until you can stop saying things like that. You're making us all look bad. That is all.