<p>I got accepted to both UCI and Carnegie Mellon. Carnegie Mellon has more prestige, but both have similar acceptance rates and rigor of work. Is going to UCI worth it?
Pros: Close to home and CHEAPER
Con: not the same prestige</p>
<p>As far as grad schools are concerned, do the middle tier UCs have similar prestige, especially outside of California? Thanks. :)</p>
<p>I turned down Carnegie Mellon for UCI. Very, very glad I did primarily because it would have cost me a lot more money to go to CMU.</p>
<p>I would probably go to CMU over UCI for anything engineering or CS related. I would go to UCI for anything else. UCI definitely has better humanities programs anyway. What major are you considering?</p>
<p>My major is political science, and I’m considering law school.
I know prestige is a trivial factor, but it would be pointless to go to a competitive school like UCI and not get the recognition, ya know?
I’m leaning towards UCI though. I’m just wondering if grad schools in other states even recognize UCI.</p>
<p>The UC system is widely recognized as the best public university system in the country. On US News college rankings, UCI ranks 41st, ahead of such schools as Pepperdine, Boston University and Syracuse. Pretty sure grad schools will pay attention.</p>
<p>Well, this is undergraduate, which isn’t really that important. The cheaper option is better at this stage and yeah, it’s not like UCI is a bad school either. Along with the 41st in the country, it ranks about 10th or 11th among US public schools, so yeah, it’s not a bad choice. People sometimes put too much influence on their undergraduate schools, but yeah, it’s more of how well you do at that college that matters more than anything.</p>
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<p>I met a group of aerospace engrs from Texas and told them I went to UCI and they were (for whatever reason) impressed. I was surprised as I wasn’t from UCLA/Berkeley.
Their logic was that the entire UC system was ridiculously good. </p>
<p>At my high school, UC Riverside was the UC you went to when you couldn’t get into any other. But you move it to 40 some other states, and easily one of the top 3 public schools.</p>
<p>I hope this helps.</p>
<p>ALSO: If you want to do hardcore comp sci, go to Mellon.</p>
<p>If you’re in engineering/comp science then you should attend CMU. Otherwise, UCI might be more fun :]. I turned down CMU for UCLA grad school. Just too expensive!</p>
<p>The “prestige” of a school, especially the UC’s, are more so based on the student reputations rather than the school’s educational program. It just so happens that UCLA/UCB are located in and near major cities i.e San Francisco/Oakland and LA. Therefore more students apply, and the school admissions can select “better” students from the large application pool.</p>