<p>When I look at USC’s average SAT scores, I look at Berkeley’s graduate school rankings, faculty award statistics, peer assessment scores and realize USC and UCLA have a long way to go.</p>
<p>Dear USC mom: I was responding to the UCLA Dad. You are correct, however, that I will fight for my alma mater any day and any time. And I do have a sense of humor…:)</p>
<p>Dear ucb chem grad: I agree that your grad schools are higher ranked although the focus of the thread has been on the college…incidentally the focus has been on USC and Cal, not really UCLA…
UCLA was yesterday’s battle; Cal is next ;)</p>
<p>For Berkeley’s admission stats, I believe USNWR only counts fall freshman admissions.
[Campus</a> releases 2012-13 freshman admission data](<a href=“Berkeley News | Berkeley”>Berkeley News | Berkeley)</p>
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Daaa… da da da…da …da daaaa </p>
<p>/</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Omitted one final daa…:)</p>
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<p>It appears that you do, considering that most of the academic intellectual community considers UCLA in a higher regard than USC. And when you think about it in context, it’s pretty amusing that you take so much pride in being ranked two spots higher for a university that costs nearly three times as much in one ranking.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to bash USC. I actually really like USC. But how about we don’t delude ourselves. Everyone knows that universities, notoriously private ones, just try to game USNWR.</p>
<p>This thread has been a great read! 9/10. Would read again, chaps. Some posts here are hilariously entertaining. Keep up the great work my fellow Angelino college goers. As well as the lone NorCal grad.</p>
<p>beyphy, it’s disingenuous to suggest a USC education costs three times as much. Out-of-state tuition at UCLA is over $35,000 and in-state tuition is surging.</p>
<p>[UC</a> plan sees tuition rising up to 16% annually over four years - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/15/local/la-me-0915-uc-plan-20110915]UC”>UC plan sees tuition rising up to 16% annually over four years)</p>
<p>8-16% increases every year for four years. Possibly $22k/yr IN-STATE tuition for the 2015-16 year. Families thinking about sending their kids to UCLA need to know this.</p>
<p>It’s not unrealistic to think that as UCLA gets state funding pulled out from under it and admits more out-of-state kids while USC is increasing aid year after year, soon the average USC student will be paying less.</p>
<p>It’s not just about where the rankings are today, it’s about where they’ll be when you graduate in 4 years and when you’re getting into your career in 10 years. USC is on an amazing trajectory and UCLA just isn’t.</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread from many angles. I have no affiliation with any of these schools, but my son is considering USC. I am trying to add a little objectivity. There has been a lot of chest thumping about USNWR rankings and claims being made about undergrad admission student selectivity. I will point out that USNWR(pay version) actually has rankings on exactly that. They are UCB #15, UCLA #20, USC #25.</p>
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<p>Unless it happens, it’s just empty threats.</p>
<p>And it’s not like USC is exactly cheap for its students:</p>
<p>[USC</a> ranked 7th for debt by CNBC |Daily Trojan](<a href=“http://dailytrojan.com/2011/01/27/usc-ranked-7th-for-debt-by-cnbc/]USC”>http://dailytrojan.com/2011/01/27/usc-ranked-7th-for-debt-by-cnbc/)</p>
<p>I read that USC has the second highest student loan debt of not-for-profit institutions behind NYU. And that my friends, aint cheap.</p>
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<p>Well the thing is, that just simply isn’t true. Most of the claims that it is are purely conjectural and wholly unsubstantiated. It’s researchers are still winning plenty of awards, important faculty haven’t left, etc. In fact, i believe, we just got our first Turing award winner not too long ago with Judea Perl. And a history profsesor, T. Ruiz recently won the humanities medal. (you can google either)</p>
<p>UCLA rose into the top 10 regarding REPUTATION this year; USC, ims, still hasn’t cracked the top 50. (although it did rise from last year at 70-80 range) </p>
<p>[Top</a> Universities by Reputation 2012](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-rankings.html]Top”>World Reputation Rankings 2012 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>Again, not hating on USC. But trying to say that UCLA is degrading in academic quality simply isn’t true.</p>
<p>My D will be attending UCLA in the fall. The tuition is currently about $12.8K. The total cost with insurance, on campus housing, materials and books, in a residence hall is estimated to be about $31K. I’d guess USC costs more. USC is definitely a great institution that is improving. But there are many factors here including the fact that the UC costs will allow me to fund my D up to grad school without loans. The rankings and rates and scores are a confusing quagmire. Even USNWR has both its “best universities” and “400 Best World Universities” rankings with different criteria and different rankings for USC and UCLA. To say that UCLA is “waning” while USC is surging is a very biased and somewhat meaningless view – it’s about as accurate as saying Berkeley is only for Hippies or USC is for football lovers who don’t mind living in the 'hood.</p>
<p>Where is the best education for a kid? A small liberal arts college? Harvard? A community college? CalTech? These fine institutions give our kids fantastic opportunities. Let’s hope they are more interested in doing something constructive with the future rather than squabbling over minutia.</p>
<p>Ah yes, that highly reputable, irrefutable world ranking that puts the illustrious Swiss Federal Institute of Zurich, Delft University of Technology, Tsinghua University, and Karolinska University, to name but a few stellar institutions that all American kids know about, above inferior Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Emory, Rice, Notre Dame, etc…</p>
<p>Just saw the ranking of University by reputation, looks like this may be a graduate school ranking because University of California San Francisco doesn’t even offer any undergraduate degree programs that I am aware of…</p>
<p>^ THE focuses on research, of which certain schools, like Cal, UCLA, and UCSF are huge. The reputation ranking is that particular departments in a given university have for their fields of specialty.</p>
<p>Other rankings echo my basic point though:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com]What</a> Business Leaders Say - NYTimes.com<a href=“UCLA:%2011;%20USC:%2076”>/url</a></p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities - Wikipedia”>Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities - Wikipedia]Performance</a> Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<a href=“UCLA:%205;%20USC:%20not%20ranked”>/url</a></p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#p_1_s_aRank_]America’s">http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#p_1_s_aRank_]America’s</a> Best Colleges List - Forbes<a href=“UCLA:%2055;%20USC:%20165”>/url</a></p>
<p>It should be noted though, that in almost all the rankings i’ve listed, USC has increased in its rank from the previous year. So it’s certainly improving.</p>
<p>But the vast majority of undergrads don’t do research. The global university rankings focus predominately on research, many of them have no undergraduate metric whatsoever.</p>
<p>Tsinghua University is an elite Chinese university that is almost inconceivably selective, does a lot of research, and any student who goes there as an undergrad would pick USC or UCLA instead in a minute. “Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities” isn’t a meaningless metric, but it’s meaningless to most undergrads.</p>
<p>Forbes, are you kidding me, lol, that is the least reputable ranking of all…The first year it came out, guess what school was ranked number one? You guessed it: Princeton, the alma mater of the paper’s editor, Steve Forbes!</p>
<p>^ Yeah, Forbes ranking is trash. </p>
<p>Academic prestige is derived primarily from research and the faculty. A top notch undergrad class will only carry the institution so far because frankly, smart 18 year-olds are a dime-a-dozen across elite academic institutions. USC knows this.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for USC, attracting top faculty, increasing research reputation and improving graduate schools will take a lot longer than becoming more selective for undergrads while riding a demographic wave known as Tidal Wave II.</p>
<p>Agreed…</p>
<p>BandTenHut: I think your post is a bit self defeating because if you’re arguing that “scientific papers published” is a meaningless metric for most undergrads, one could use the same logic on the only ranking that USC is rated above UCLA (USNWR). What exactly does “faculty giving/donation rate” have to do with undergrad experience? You can argue that the more money they give the more USC can reinvest in their undergrads. Then someone can argue that the more reputable UCLA’s scientific papers are the more rep they gain and the more valuable a UCLA degree. </p>
<p>My main point is, it’s kind of a tricky argument to try to say something is meaningless to undergrads if there isn’t empirical or statistical proof that it’s true - you’d just be speculating. </p>
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<p>SeattlesTW: I can’t tell if you’re a ■■■■■ or real, but you make me laugh quite hard. Are you really trying to suggest ETH Zurich being ranked higher than Brown, Dartmouth, Emory, Rice etc discredits THE Rankings? I hope that’s not what you are suggesting because then you’d really make USC students/fans look like completely uneducated football fanatics who are completely ignorant about the world around them. You do realize Zurich is where Einstein studied and taught, it is where a bulk of mankind’s physics and chemical discoveries were made, and is one of the most prestigious universities on the planet in terms of reputation? No, I guess all you know about is 'Merica’s Ivy league and small private schools and that they should be higher in ranking than anything you haven’t heard of. Thanks for keeping the stereotypical USC student characterization alive. Please keep posting so I can keep laughing. </p>
<p>Direct from ETH Zurich Wikipedia:
ETH Zurich has produced and attracted many famous scientists in its short history, including Albert Einstein. More than twenty Nobel laureates have either studied at ETH or were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work achieved at ETH. Other alumni include scientists who were distinguished with the highest honours in their respective fields, amongst them Pritzker Prize and Turing Award winners. Academic achievements aside, ETH has been Alma Mater to many Olympic Medalists and world champions.</p>
<p>Nobel Prize in Physics
1901 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (graduate)
1920 Charles-Edouard Guillaume (graduate)
1921 Albert Einstein (graduate and professor)
1943 Otto Stern (lecturer)
1945 Wolfgang Pauli (professor)
1952 Felix Bloch (graduate)
1986 Heinrich Rohrer (graduate)
1987 Georg Bednorz (graduate)
1987 Karl Alexander Müller (graduate)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1913 Alfred Werner (graduate)
1915 Richard Martin Willstätter (professor)
1918 Fritz Haber (graduate)
1936 Peter Debye (professor)
1938 Richard Kuhn (professor)
1939 Leopold Ruzicka (professor)
1953 Hermann Staudinger (lecturer)
1975 Vladimir Prelog (professor)
1991 Richard Ernst (graduate & professor)
2002 Kurt Wüthrich (professor)
Nobel Prize in Medicine
1978 Werner Arber (graduate)
1950 Tadeus Reichstein (graduate)
Other Nobel Laureates directly affiliated with the ETH include
1912 Nils Gustaf Dalen (working with Aurel Stodola)
1943 George de Hevesy
1945 Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (working with Georg Wiegner)
1954 Max Born (working with Adolf Hurwitz)
1964 Konrad E. Bloch (working with Leopold Ruzicka and Vladimir Prelog)
1968 Lars Onsager (working with Peter Debye and Erich Hückel)
1968 Har Gobind Khorana (working with Vladimir Prelog)
1969 Max Delbrück (working with Wolfgang Pauli)
1987 Jean-Marie Lehn</p>