mistax

everyone i have been talking to rank uci higher than both SB and Davis and are saying within 2-3 years will pass up san diego for number 3. Is this some kind of joke? UCI is like the last ranked mid tier uc.

hesdjjim

Oh boo hoo! The UC system overall is the top-ranked public university system in the country. Just because UCI is not ranked 3rd behind Cal and UCLA doesn't mean your goose is cooked as far as getting a job goes. Pretty much nobody cares once you get a job anyway!

Citiz3nerased

^ they're actually saying the opposite...that uci should not be that high..

But anyways, who cares if irvine is higher than SB and Davis..does it really affect you? I don't think so.

earell92

Sometimes I like to brag to my not-so-smart friends that go to UCI that I got into UCLA b/c I'm smarter than them (sarcastic tone)

randroid

The top tier and lower tier UC's are pretty much locked in their ranks (Berkeley > LA > San Diego > ??? > Santa Cruz > Riverside > Merced) but Irvine, Davis, and Santa Barbara are interchangable and I personally rank all of them tied at 4th.

Besides if it makes you feel any better, USNWR ranks Davis and Santa Barbara slightly higher than Irvine.

I go to UCI and the fact that it's ranked as the #6 UC by USNWR doesn't bother me .. lol.

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newsoul

Yeah, it's pretty definitely Berkeley > UCLA > UCSD > "the middle tier" > UCSC > UCR > UCM. I would probably rank the middle tier UCs as UCSB > UCI > UCD, but I might just be biased because I didn't get a great first impression of UCD. I would definitely say UCSB ranks a touch above UCI and UCD, though. They're all great schools, regardless. The whole UC system is great.

oceanpartier

UCI is a world class institution and has the potential for greatness IMO (top notch academics, SoCal location, a high level of safety, ect). UCI could be a next UCLA for example in the very near future. IMO, it would be perfectly rational to rank UCI as the 4th best UC school (or higher depending on where you stand)....although rankings don't mean much for these mid-tier UC's anyway.

There's definitely room for improvement though. UCI does have definite flaws but that's not the point.

Ferrari4XD

thats their opinion, you can't stop people from expressing their point of view. Last time i check, this is a free country. Btw this is my opinion, ucb, ucla, ucsd, uci, ucsb, ucd, ucr, ucsc, ucm.

wwlink

haha, as a guy that picked UCD over UCI ... ouch!

dilapidatedmind

The rankings are a fictitious construct. I would encourage everyone to make their own grading system with their own methodology and then you'll get your true rankings. When I quantified my own rankings "3rd ranked" UCSD came a whole standard deviation above "2nd ranked" UCLA and was insignificantly below top ranked Berkeley.

My rankings: 1a. Cal 1b.UCSD 3. UCLA 4. UC Davis 5. UC Irvine

Things that contributed to UCSD ranking above UCLA: quality of faculty in my major department, more research opportunities with more chances of funding, more focused major curriculum, more distinguished researchers contributing to cutting edge research, overall better student satisfaction, and a chance to receive a post-graduate degree directly after my bachelors.

Ferrari4XD

^ its weird to see ucsd over ucla, its laugh-able, but i respect your opinion.

art2CS

Like any of this matters once you enter the real world... just worry about nailing your stupid job interviews... don't stutter and try to smell nice

Shannon13

Does it really matter at this point? For certain people/employers, UCB/UCLA may look better than the others but higher GPA from UCI/whatever will still most likely win out. But UCI vs UCD, UCSB...just a silly fight. If you want to bring up certain programs, there could definitely be a legit ranking...but school overall? Just silly.

Personally, I rank UCI above UCD and UCSB because they have a wonderful program for my major that NONE of the UCs have. I even rank it higher than UCLA and UCB in that regard. In my personal rankings, I also make UCD last because Davis is (to me) a ridiculously lame town.

Prestige over the UCs should not be the most important thing to consider. Sometimes the prestige can actually be a negative thing. My major at UCB is ranked #2 or something in the nation...and as a result, all of the highly regarded professors never want to teach so 1/3 of the classes are canceled every single semester. The subdivision of my major that I'm interested in is also ranked #2 and there are rarely any upper div courses offered- ridiculous! The classes that they do teach don't really look interesting either, and class sizes can be large. Whereas at UCI, there are SO many interesting classes to choose from and they actually have a separate undergrad department for my subdivision that offers 5-6 upper divs/quarter.

But that is the difference between UCB and UCI. The difference between UCI and UCD/UCSB...is so minimal, discussing it is just silly.

dilapidatedmind

@Ferrari4XD
Actually, I think laughable would be to make one of the more important decisions in your life by blindly looking at the subjective stratifications of a website like College News or Princeton Review or Forbers, whose methodology can be flawed and is homogenized to appeal to a wide variety of people, not necessarily your own best interests. Unless your intention is to achieve a degree in every single major at an institution then the conventional rankings are largely insignificant.

My major is Molecular Biology and UCSD has one of the strongest biology departments in the country and easily the largest among the UCs. For me personally, after ranking the UCs based on the the certain aspects that I valued most for my education and future, UCSD sensibly came near the top, while UCLA, whilst it is an amazing school, didn't comprehensively meet all the expectations I had. I think as an incoming student, and just in life in general, it's important to do your own research by making your own observations and then drawing conclusions from that instead of blindly following what someone else has determined, even if that person comes from a place of authority.

If you're curious to how I came to my conclusion I went to various transfer events at UCLA and UCSD, saw all the facilities, talked to at least 10+ students at each that were studying my major, talked to their faculty, talked with multiple alumni that were biology students, sat through 10-20 courses, went over the curriculum of every single class I'd take while there, and spent hundreds of hours researching on the internet. I'm extremely confident with my decision and I knew while UCLA is widely considered the better overall institution that the best institution specifically for me was either Berkeley or UCSD. And for me, my own direct observations held a lot more weight than any dubiously constructed list online.

SMCguy

UCI, UCSB, UCD all tie for 4th in my book.