<p>^ Whose rankings are nevertheless skewed by what I would consider a ridiculous emphasis on “Top 10%” in the selectivity ranking.</p>
<p>FutureENTSurgeon: “What do u have againest” Bemidji State University, which should be in the Top 40 Regional Universities (Midwest)? BSU accounting graduates pass the CPA exam at a higher rate than the state average. This is a very very good school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would think, maybe wrongly, that USC’s rise would be pretty limited. </p>
<p>Some Reasons why:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Undergrad students of 17K. Lower enrollment doubtful… USC likes comraderie-aspect of alumni, meaning “lots.” And also, they need more alumni to try to counter UC’s ~200K enrollment and be competitive in CA. (see below)</p></li>
<li><p>Applications to USC started to rise dramatically during the tidal-wave of students. This means that once wave is over, applications there could drop precipitously, and at least some for all. Depends if USC’s gained rep > factor for diminished college-aged eligibles to keep apps strong. </p></li>
<li><p>Because of the above, how does USC keep acceptance rate low instead it raising because of < applicants? One would be to go more deeply into spring admits, and admits from community college after one year, to keep frosh low, but enrollments up, and report only fall-admitted frosh grades/scores. Publics tended to over-enroll during wave, so most will probably shrink back, including UCLA and Cal, so acceptance rate will rise seemingly less for a lot of publics.</p></li>
<li><p>USC is only about 200 acres. Stanford is, what, 2,000 acres, or so? Stanford has the land to expand with intra-campus research buildings, projects (outside of Silicon Valley). USC is extremely limited, and is already even more congested than UCLA.</p></li>
<li><p>USC’s placement into grad school is severely limited by UC. UC has ~ 200K undergrads and has numerous law and med and b-schools. I can’t see USC displacing Stanford grads, or even UCLA”s or Cal’s.</p></li>
<li><p>Similarly, employment-wise in CA, USC, is limited by UC undergrads. USC has pretty good alumni connections, not as good as USC alumni like to claim because of lot of bus grads from USC are extremely small business and certainly not nationally based. A lot of USC grads in law are boutique, and a lot of business are more “mom & pop.”</p></li>
</ul>
<p>
Absolutely nothing. I am not sure where you get the 1900+, by Davis’s own data set it has the 75th percentile as 640, 680, 650 = 1970. There is no way the average is 1900+. In fact, I am glad you had me look into it. For 2009 writing, their common data set says the writing 25-75 is 520-650. Yet they claim in that link you gave previously, their “fact” sheet, that the mean score for that year was 621. That is almost a mathematical impossibility given the number of students involved.</p>
<p>Ahhhh, I see the problem. You are citing the mean score for those admitted, while I am giving you the numbers for those that actually attend. Very very very different. I think that clears things up. You even said admitted, I missed it. But admitted has little to do with who actually attends, so I never even thought that someone would cite the admitted stats. Those are not what are used for the rankings. They might admit someone that ends up at Harvard. So what?</p>
<p>It is an easy mistake to make. Their actual mean score is going to be around 1785, the midrange of their 25-75 scores. OK, give them 1790 to be generous. Tell me where that puts them in percentile and justify that deserves a top 40 ranking. BTW Tulane, which is ranked #51, has an average SAT for attending students last year of 1960, nearly 200 points higher. Tell me how that makes sense.</p>
<p>
Bemidji State only has 89 acres. On the other hand, it has a 240-acre private forest. Does Stanford have a private forest?</p>
<p>The Online College (TOC) has no acres… but possibly unlimited cyberspace. </p>
<p>Here are some applications stats to med school in 2009 of so-called, “middle tier” to “lower” UCs:</p>
<p>UCI 324
UCD 351
UCR 142</p>
<p>Compared to USC, 224…</p>
<p>sorry, rc, I didn’t see UCSB.</p>
<p>
I whole-heartedly agree. UC Berkeley is VERY VERY good in ints graduate programs. But a strong graduate program not necessarily translates to a good undergraduate program. I can recall so many instances where my undergrad friends were outright denied research with their faculty members.
I just didn’t find the undergrad students too smart–they weren’t making best use of what they had (For example, when I shadowed, I saw a kid looking at Porn in a lecture…there were so many instances (sleeping, facebook, masturbating, etc) when students were not using the best of what they had and were being so lazy. Not impressed compares to what I’ve seen in Ivy shadowing at Brown, UPenn, and Yale, not to mention MIT and Duke).</p>
<p>
First off, I really respect you RML. I’m glad you replies calmly and I’ve very happy. I apologize for my “Berkeley is crap” shout-out. It was actually a test to see who gets super defensive as a way to rule out ■■■■■■ I wouldn’t have to waste my time with. I apologize again. But your concerns are valid and I must contend with them.</p>
<p>
<em>lifts middle finger</em></p>
<p>
Yes, I recognize it too. But people tend to correlate graduate school with undergrad very highly, at least in UC Berkeley. And I say its not (except for EECS, which I found pretty impressive. EECS even separates its applications from the rest of the pile.)</p>
<p>New assessment score seems pretty fair.</p>
<p>Academic raputation score:</p>
<p>98-100
Harvard University 98
MIT 98
Princeton 98
Stanford 98 (there seems to a discrepency in the USNWR online)
Yale 98</p>
<p>93-97
Columbia 93
UC-Berkeley 93</p>
<p>90-92
Caltech 92
Cornell 92
Johns Hopkins 92</p>
<p>Brown 91
Chicago 91
Penn 91</p>
<p>Duke 90</p>
<p>88-89
Dartmouth 89
Northwestern 89</p>
<p>Michigan 88</p>
<p>83-87
Carnegie Mellon 87
Georgetown 87</p>
<p>Virginia 86</p>
<p>UCLA 85
Vanderbilt 85</p>
<p>Georgia Tech 84
UNC 84
WUSTL 84</p>
<p>Emory 83
Notre Dame 83
Texas 83
USC 83</p>
<p>80-82
Rice 82</p>
<p>Wisconsin-Madison 81</p>
<p>
That’s because Berkeley is a special case. It is the only school that has a top faculty/academic departments in virtually all disciplines and is public. No other school can compare.</p>
<p>
EECS is not standalone in this…CoE and CoC, for example, evaluate their own admits.</p>
<p>I was also impressed with Tulane’s SAT scores. Therefore, I was more interested why Tulane’s rankings were so low at #51. After a quick and rough scan of the rankings in the #39 to #51 range, there were three categories that stood out to me.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tulane’s high school GPA is at the low end at 3.5 GPA while all of the other universities’ high school GPA were in the range of 3.5 to 4.0.</p></li>
<li><p>Tulane’s average freshman retention rate is the lowest at 88.7%. All of the other schools were at 90.0% to 93.8%.</p></li>
<li><p>The 6-year graduation rate is the lowest at 73.0%. All of the other schools were at 80.0% to 86.0%.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Were Tulane’s retention and graduation rates adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina?</p>
<p>You know, I gotta ask this. Whenever I hear about Berkeley, all I hear about are the sciences and computer engineering. OK, and Haas as well.</p>
<p>What would be a reason to go to Berkeley to go become a history major, a philosophy major, an art major, a music major, a French major? I’m more than a little tired of how proficiency in sciences is assumed to be what vaults a college above others, as it’s totally irrelevant to those who aren’t studying the sciences.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hmm. What is CoE and CoC? Sorry to be so ignorant.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So land available to expand on is important in a college ranking? Shhh, better not tell Harvard, hemmed in as it is by Cambridge.</p>
<p>^ I for one believe that a private forest is an important component of any institution.</p>
<p>
Berkeley has top academic programs in the social sciences and humanities as well. They don’t rate these disciplines for undergrad, but grad is a decent proxy for department strength:</p>
<p>From USNWR</p>
<p>Top English Programs:
- Berkeley
- Stanford
- Yale</p>
<p>Top History Programs:
- Berkeley
- Stanford
- Princeton</p>
<p>Top Poli Sci Programs:
- Harvard
- Princeton
- Stanford
- Michigan
- Yale
- Berkeley</p>
<p>Top Psychology Programs:
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Harvard
- UCLA
- Michigan
- Yale</p>
<p>Top Sociology Programs:
- Berkeley
- Wisconsin
- Princeton
- Michigan</p>
<p>Berkeley, frankly, is an academic beast. More so than just science, business and engineering - which it also excels.</p>
<p>Warblersrule has a good sense for Berkeley’s academic standing in the humanities categories.</p>
<p>
College of Engineering, College of Chemistry</p>
<p>Thanks, UCBChemEgrad.</p>
<p>^^^Michigan is pretty much up there with Berkeley too, although definitely not as high overall.</p>
<p>"I apologize for my “Berkeley is crap” shout-out. It was actually a test to see who gets super defensive as a way to rule out ■■■■■■ I wouldn’t have to waste my time with. I apologize again. But your concerns are valid and I must contend with them.</p>
<p>Yeah, sure.</p>
<p>226-acres in University Park is the home of Letters, Arts, and Sciences plus (from their website):The Health Sciences campus, northeast of downtown Los Angeles, is home to the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the School of Pharmacy, three major teaching hospitals and programs in Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, and Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy. USC also has programs and centers in Marina Del Rey, Orange County, Sacramento, Washington, D.C., Catalina Island, Alhambra and around Southern California. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, staffed by USC faculty from the Keck School of Medicine, is often referred to as USC’s third campus.</p>