<p>No it’s really doubtful. It’s prestige certainly comes from it’s grad programs, but it’s also historical. Cal is like 60 years older than UCLA and was already one of the most prestigious universities in the world when UCLA was barely starting to become reputable like in the 1960s.</p>
<p>If you look at current reputational rankings, it’s not even close:</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>Cal has over twice the reputational points that UCLA does (71.6 v 33.8) but what i should note is that while Cal’s reputation went down slightly, UCLA’s shot up significantly over 10 points, and up 3 rankings, from last year (someone on a different forum on CC made a point that they just reinforced new data from this year on last years data.) which i believe no other university came close to doing.</p>
<p>For some reason though, UCLA grads are hired at a much higher rate than berkeley grads worldwide (11 vs 30):</p>
<p>[Education</a> - Image - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>and honestly, the prestige berkeley caries won’t make much of a difference unless you leave the US. And berkeley isn’t more selective than UCLA is (they’re admit rates are pretty similar.)</p>
<p>So no, i doubt UCLA will achieve or surpass berkeley’s prestige. But there’s much more to a college than prestige. If there wasn’t, William Sharpe wouldn’t have transferred from Berkeley to UCLA. And Hilary Putnam wouldn’t have transferred here from Harvard either.</p>