<p>That would depend on what basis you are rating these colleges for. And things can change fast.</p>
<p>1- Stanford / UC Berkeley / Caltech
2- UCLA / Harvey Mudd / Pomona
3- Claremont McKenna / UCSD / USC</p>
<p>someone doesnt understand the concept of top 5</p>
<p>Lol! 
Top 3/Top 9?</p>
<p>There is no top 5 
You can call them top 3.
Those schools are almost in the same level. In average.</p>
<p>According to some student reviews</p>
<p>the top research universities are:</p>
<p>A+ Stanford/Cal Tech
A- Cal/USC
B+ UCLA/UCSD</p>
<p>the top liberal arts are:</p>
<p>A CMC/Harvey Mudd/Pomona
A- Scripps
B+ Oxy/Pitzer</p>
<p>1) Stanford
2) Caltech / Berkerly
3) UCLA
4) Harvey Mudd
5) UCSD
6) USC
7) Pomona College</p>
<p>I’m sure someone has already done this but I couldn’t resist (way to lazy to go backwards and look for this kind of post…)</p>
<ol>
<li>Coastline College</li>
<li>Santiago Canyone College</li>
<li>Irvine Valley College</li>
<li>Orange Coast College</li>
<li>UCLA (University California Left on Avery - Saddleback College)</li>
</ol>
<p>UCLA is the best, UCLA is my school.</p>
<p>1) Caltech
2) Caltech
3) Stanford
4) UC Berkeley
5) UCLA</p>
<p>Yes Caltech deserves first and second. I would give it all 5 but I wanted to place UCLA somewhere up there too.</p>
<p>caltech, pomona, stanford, mudd, cmk</p>
<p>Based on prestige and popularity in SoCal:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Caltech/USC</li>
<li>??? UCSD?</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, this is based just on popularity and prestige and only in the SoCal region. Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>10 characters</p>
<ol>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>CAL TECH</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>USC</li>
</ol>