Transfer to UCLA or USC

b_boy
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:28:51 +0000

USC is not academically inferior to UCLA. Here’s why. I spoke to people who are alumni from the two UC flagships (Cal and UCLA). I don’t get my info from “outsiders” or hearsay. My calculus I instructor at my ccc is a UCLA alumna who attended all 4 years as an undergraduate, so her experience isn’t the same as ours, transfer students. She said that UCLA’s quality of education is overrated, because it’s an institutionalized bureaucracy. The professors are aloof, and as a UCLA student you get little to no attention. Most UCLA faculty are jaded and see their positions as boring perfunctory tasks. UCLA’s system “drops you in the water and lets you sink or swim.” Some might argue and claim that “UCLA-caliber” students wouldn’t need the extra academic attention anyways. Nope, this isn’t the case. I know some people, who I literally sat next to in classes at my ccc, who were less consistent with test scores than me, and were stumped on concepts during lecture when I wasn’t (and I was rejected from UCLA’s business econ whereas they were accepted). These people, despite them having slightly higher GPAs than mine, weren’t more intelligent than me.

Just to enlighten the ignorant ones out there, a university’s academic reputation is determined by the kind of researchers they can draw in, or “buy.” And there are more reasons as well. But what does it matter that UCLA has Nobel Prize winning researchers when #1 you’ll never take classes under them #2 you’ll never be as smart as them #3 you’ll never even cross paths with them, and so on and so forth? Terrence Tao, who is considered the best mathematician in the world currently, is at UCLA. Do UCLA students take math classes under him? Ignorant people ride the UC schools’ “academically elite” coattails way too much, and don’t even know why. This is analogous to people who brag about living in an exclusive part of town, just to see that they can only afford to live in an apartment or condo. Or the ones who brag about driving a Mercedes, just to see that they can only afford a C-class stick-shift, or “certified pre-owned.”

A lot of people also think that because USC once had the stigma of “university of spoiled children” that it’s still a school with easy admissions compared to UCLA and Cal. Well, here’s some logic. Since the 2 flagship UC schools (Cal and UCLA) each received more than 13,000+ applications from transfers for this Fall, and USC received about 8,500 in the same respect, of course admissions is “easier” at USC. Additionally, a lot of people doubt that USC is generous with financial aid, and this is why there aren’t as many applicants to this school. I guarantee that if USC had as many applicants as say UCLA, then its admission standards would be just as discriminating. There’s no reason to brag about gaining admissions to UCLA or Cal, especially as a transfer, because they’re both public schools with about 25,000 students on each campus. If you want to brag, then gain admissions to the Ivy Leagues or Stanford, because these schools have undergraduate student populations of less than 10,000; and if you look at these numbers, you can infer that their admission standards are much more stringent than Cal or UCLA’s. There is no glory in transferring to the “major leagues” from a junior college. I understand that few students had the GPA, AP classes, SAT scores, and EC’s to go to elite schools straight out of high school, but they decided to save money by attending a jr. college. Most of us don’t fall in this category. Be honest with yourself—a community college is really a second chance—to redeem yourself of your crappy high school performance. But the underlying point is: USC is not academically inferior to the UC system.