Cutthroat, laidback school list

drax12
Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:34:31 +0000

The juxtaposition of your last two paragraphs is seriously bipolar.

One moment, you’re defending UCLA, at another you’re denigrating the U. One moment up, the next in despair. Maybe you have multiple personalities, one, the pro-UCLA sentiment, the other taken over by bayboi. Your inconsistency of statements is absolutely mind boggling. You ought to have it checked out.

Regarding your next-to-last post:



Let me explain.

The schools that are most stressful, such as CMU, JHU, and Berkeley have many top notch programs that are disproportionately revered relative to their other programs. Berkeley is especially notable in this regard for its engineering, business, and chemistry programs. Students who choose universities based on their prominence in individual subject rankings are more confident in their academic goals. These students will tend to be more competitive and cutthroat. You will even observe this phenomenon in lesser universities such as UCSD or GeorgiaTech.



Somewhat innocuous, I don’t agree, but I wouldn’t consider it worth commentary, other than to say that private schools generally aren’t into the business of flunking/weeding out students.



In contrast, we have universities such as UCLA which do not strongly excel in any particular area. Students who pick universities such as these do not do so based on individual subject interest. Sometimes, these students did not research subject strength because they don’t know what they want to do. Other times, these students are less interested in studying their subject of interest than in nonacademic aspects such as social life.



I’m sure that bothers you about UCLA, is that students choose the University for things ancillary to and including scholastics. With you, being a college student s/b about having one’s nose in a book at all waking hours. Yeah, you’re fun to be around.



The Berkeley-UCLA relation is particularly interesting. Berkeley, as the “flagship” UC is not really influenced by the UCLA demographic but UCLA (the frequent loser in cross-admit battles) is strongly affected by Berkeley’s. Because the schools both cater to roughly the same “stat” demographic, these cross-admit battles are rather frequent and leave a dent in UCLA.



You’re wrong. Cal will win the cross admit battle at some schools in some years, UCLA at some schools in some years. Both make a significant dent in each others’ yield rates. PVPHS tends to send more students to Cal; PVHS more to UCLA. UCLA tends to win the Catholic/parochial schools’ battle, though that is not definite either. Cal’s yield is a tad higher than UCLA’s, so Cal does win the cross-admit battle a bit more of the time.

Here’s a hs in SD, beachy…

With those who chose UCLA, with other acceptances following the first, which is the school of choice (Rank, UW GPA, SATs, Subject, College Acceptances):

2 4.87 730 750 700 2180 EB720,UH720 UCLA, UCSD, UC Berkeley

15 4.62 700 760 660 2120 LR740 UCLA, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley, USC

17 4.61 720 770 790 2280 MB800,SP770 UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, UCSB

19 4.57 630 770 660 2060 FR800,UH750,MB720 UCLA, UC Berkeley, Notre Dame, Washington University

22 4.54 UH660,CH550 UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, UCSB

24 4.50 640 670 640 1950 FR800,UH700 UCLA, UC Davis, UCSB

35 4.42 UH610,EB600,LT570 UCLA, Santa Clara University, UCSB, Occidental College

39 4.36 700 680 670 2050 MB650,UH610 UCLA, Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis, USC

107 3.93 580 650 670 1900 LR480,UH450 UCLA, UC Davis, UCSB, LMU

113 3.89 660 530 590 1780 UH630,LR610,SP440 UCLA, NYU, UCSB, Fordham University

114 3.89 MB730 UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UC Davis

140 3.73 680 670 590 1940 UH680,EB660,CH560 UCLA, Redlands, USD, University of Rochester

Here’s Cal’s matriculants:

20 4.54 800 770 770 2340 MB800,UH770 UC Berkeley, Cornell University, University of San Diego

8 4.69 700 760 800 2260 PH800,CH730,UH710 UC Berkeley, Cornell University, UCLA, UCSD

7 4.70 770 760 720 2250 CL780,CH760,UH730 UC Berkeley, Cornell University, Northwestern, UCLA

29 4.43 690 690 790 2170 MB770,UH700 UC Berkeley, Brandeis Uni., UCLA, Boston University



Because Berkeley has all these extremely appealing specialty programs, there is a strong attraction of motivated, competitive students in its direction. Furthermore, the fact that Berkeley is stronger than UCLA in practically every academic area creates an even stronger enthusiasm drain from UCLA.



Anyone who chooses Cal over UCLA because of the ranking of department without any other considerations is not very bright. If someone says to him or herself: “Self… I want to go to one of the two universities, and want to study history with thoughts of going law school. Uhhh, Cal has a higher ranked history dept, I’m choosing Cal.”

Anyone who chooses a university because of “higher” ranking department in a field he or she has no intentions of being employed is beyond stupid, and thank goodness this isn’t the basis of most students’ thoughts.



The end result is that UCLA is left with a bunch of disoriented, albeit still somewhat high academically performing students. The primary reasons students choose to go to UCLA are because 1) it’s near home, 2) students want to be social, or 3) students are alienated by the Berkeley’s cutthroat students (especially if they’re interested in the engineering, business, or chemistry programs).



How are UCLA”s “disoriented”? UCLA produces more attys, just as many MD’s as Cal. If you’re talking about keeping one’s options open, that’s another. It’s not about disorientation, it’s about finding one’s future field of employment. Students like these exist at both schools.



In conclusion, UCLA is so laidback because Berkeley is so cutthroat.



Even UCB disagrees. He said there’s a perception of Cal being the bogeyman, wrt cutthroat-edness, but (inferred) that UCLA is just as much so, especially being on the quarter system.

<a href=“As%20for%20USC%20being%20more%20cutthroat%20than%20UCLA,%20I%20was%20influenced%20by%20the%20same%20reason%20and%20Tufts%20and%20its%20rising%20place%20as%20an%20academic%20superpower.%20Me%20and%20my%20peers%20have%20actually%20always%20considered%20USC%20the%20more%20serious%20school%20between%20the%20two%20but%20it%20just%20so%20happened%20stats/figures%20did%20not%20show%20it%20till%20recently.%20USC%20=%20med%20program,%20USC%20=%20business.%20-.-”>quote




You can’t be serious!!! A school that is private, needs tuition, is impossible to flunk out of, where students don’t pick up a book for weeks into the term? I don’t think there’s a Trojan around that would claim USC is more cutthroat.

This shows your absolute ignorance. You speak as though you know much, but you really know so little. Go out and experience live outside of your room. Get out and experience some life instead of reading about things in a book.