Certainly not for in-staters or for those who won full-ride merit scholarships in some fields such as engineering. A younger relative is currently attending UCB free on one of the latter as an engineering major.
The Times World University rankings has Cal at #10, UCLA at #14 and USC at #60.
Best Global Universites per USNWR: Cal #4, UCLA #10 and USC #53.
Then there’s the amalgamation of rankings in the WaPo. Same thing.
And what population of USC’s class are Merit scholars and receive FA? I can’t believe I caught in the web of this ranking BS.
“Also many Ivy League schools didn’t have top-ranked SAT scores back in the day, and others that were considered Regional then such as Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Wash U have attracted more National and ever smarter students.”
Some schools like Wash U put a significant emphasis on test scores. Many Ivies put more weight on GPA’s, EC’s, essays and recommendations. Penn, in particular, puts more emphasis on grades vs. test scores. That is important since the evidence is gpa’s are more predictive than test scores.
One thing that really surprises me about the Ivy League is the very outsized impact they seem to have politically. In addition to all 9 members of the SCOTUS, the last 5 presidents and many of their opponents are Ivy League grads. I am not sure why their impact is as extensive as it is, for 8 small to mid-sized schools.
“So I am sticking with the smartest student populations and largest endowment per student, and the resultant resources available, as strong indicators of an elite school.”
Endowment per student gives you a reasonable list, but not so great. Grinnell, pesky Berea and Richmond all score very high – all are ahead of Penn, Duke, Chicago and Penn. One thing about EPS – no way you can game that metric.
The EPS list gets better if you overlay test scores/smart kids. But overlaying EPS with yield or YTAR seems to do a better job. It is pretty easy for schools like ND, Vandy, WashU to optimize admissions for high test scores.
Still think YTAR is the single best metric (if you want to narrow it down to one metric) I’ve seen for accuracy and game-resistance.
If you don’t want one metric, then USNWR (which overlays multiple metrics being discussed) is the most sound. Like democracy, USNWR is the worst possible system except when compared to all the others.
In discussing SCOTUS, you should distinguish undergrad from law school degrees. The world of top law schools is highly highly concentrated as compared to undergrad colleges.
For undergrad degrees, today we have 3P, 2S, 1 Cornell, 1 Columbia, 1 Holy Cross, and only 1 Harvard College undergrad degree. And the most recently departed Justices went to Georgetown, Chicago, Stanford, Denison and W&L.
Harvard College does not dominate the Supreme Court at all. Or the broader government. The over-representation really comes from Harvard Law School and reflects the fact that (surprise!!) judges and politicians tend to be lawyers. 38% of the U.S. House, 54% of the U.S. Senate and 100% of SCOTUS have law degrees fyi.
“And what population of USC’s class are Merit scholars and receive FA?”
Go back and re-read what I said. I did not say there were kids at USC who got BOTH merit and FA. You said that, which is silly. Since we all know that getting substnatial merit+ substantial FA would be quite rare.
But there are lots of kids at USC who will get one or the other. And many of those deals will be quite attractive as compared to the deal those kids would get at UCB or UCLA.
That’s how you interpreted what I said. But that’s not what I meant. I was curious how many merit scholars plus how many received FA. Separately, add them both up. Just curious.
And please don’t call what I said “silly” (meant, or otherwise). Say it to others if you want. But I’m not a big fan of people insulting ME unless it’s face-to-face. I’ll leave it there. [-X
24.4% of UCB’s students are OOS. So in-state tuition does nothing for them.
USC meets 100% of demonstrated need and their average need-based aid package is $51k per year. And 700 of 2,948 USC freshman (24%) with no financial need got non-need scholarship awards.
USC is a better financial deal than UCB for lots of kids. And for other kids UCB is a better deal. Depends on individual circumstances.
Does UCB meet full financial need for all students?
State of CA will be capping OOS in the future. It’s already been proposed.
And I have no idea where you get statistics, but if they’re anything like the rankings you posted, then they’re likely to be easily refuted or wrong.
UCB (4) and UCLA (10) are higher-ranked institutions and cost significantly less than USC (60). Period.
Anecdotally, I have relatives and friends that currently attend both institutions and to a person the USC attendees would prefer Cal over USC, if they had been accepted. My own D18 would prefer to attend Cal and UCLA over USC.
Here’s that “BCS-type” WaPo ranking:
Cal 9
UCLA 11
USC 35
I suppose if you get a free ride to a lesser institution and your basing your decision strictly on money, then USC is definitely a choice.
For transparency sake, I didn’t attend Cal, UCLA or USC. But I am a native Californian.
“Endowment per student gives you a reasonable list, but not so great. Grinnell, pesky Berea and Richmond all score very high – all are ahead of Penn, Duke, Chicago and Penn. One thing about EPS – no way you can game that metric.”
Actually, it is easy to game. Just admit fewer students!
“Does UCB meet full financial need for all students?”
It doesn’t have to, their “eliteness” means they can get people to pay full price. USC literally had to and is buying students to come there, for sure violating the first rule of eliteness (would someone pay $250K for a university). People are paying full share at USC because they couldn’t get into the top UCs. This doesn’t mean that USC is a bad school or anything, just that it’s not elite, nor is it better than UCB even if US News ranks them ahead.
Curious, do people literally believe in ordinal rankings as indicating superiority?
@woogzmama wrote
Can’t speak for Bowdoin and Pitzer, but, this is a widely held misconception as far as Wes is concerned. From the Wesleyan admissions website:
Elite=waste of $$ in most instances.
If free its great 
@thoniusmonk said “People are paying full share at USC because they couldn’t get into the top UCs.”
That may be the case for some students but I know two (including my own kid and a friend) who turned down the top UCs (Berkeley and UCLA) for USC. If you are a National Merit Finalist – especially from out of state – it is a much better deal. And for families with incomes too high to qualify for need based aid, the merit scholarship money is significant. We spent considerable time speaking with academics in California about the pluses and minuses of Berkeley and UCLA vs. USC undergraduate and not one person recommended Berkeley - especially when it was going to cost more. And even if the costs had been the same, we were being steered away from Berkeley undergrad. One California friend who is very knowledgeable about higher education said UCLA was probably better for undergrad regardless.
I also find it odd when people argue that college with an entering class of 550 with a higher average SAT score means there are more elite students than a much larger one where the average SAT score is lower. The 75% SAT score in math for the entering class of 2020 at both Williams College and USC is 770. At Williams, that means 125 students scored 770 or above in Math; at USC that number is 750 students. It is true that there are also many more lower scoring students at USC vs. Williams but does that really take away from the fact that there are over 5 times as many supposedly “elite” students at USC? Would USC be more “elite” by cutting its size down by half and refusing to educate students some people deem inferior with lower test scores? Or would it just be more exclusive and the students more privileged and arrogant? I would make the exact same argument about the University of Michigan and Berkeley/UCLA versus many much smaller so-called “elite” private universities on the east coast and in the south. Larger universities have more elite students over all, but they also believe in educating students who are “merely” above average. So what? Many would argue that is better than having elite students in a protected environment where there are no “non-elite” (as some would call them) students to be found.
Trying to determine something that includes 25000 to 45000 students is “Elite” based on things like the Times ranking is, indeed, silly. It’s fishing for Golden Trout with dynamite.
The Times (to name just one of the many ranking services) have changed their methodology (and admittied a number of times they were not doing a good job “but this new methodology is better!”) LSE for instance went from 11 to 67 in THE one year when they changed up their criteria.
To try to argue that USC CA, for instance, is not “elite” as an undergraduate CA program is silly.
To try to argue that CAL Nuclear Engineering is not “elite” as an undergraduate Engineering program is silly.
To try to argue that Penn M&T program is not “elite” as an undergraduate engineering/business program is silly.
To try to argue that Dartmouth undergraduate (Dartmouth is ranked 82 by THE) is 50 slots less “elite” than NYU undergrad CAS (NYU is ranked 32) is silly.
These schools are too big and most rankings are too broad for the kind of analysis folks are trying to do here. Talk about specific classes, professors, acess, schoolmates, inspiration…
According to THE itself, the top 200 schools they rank are the elite. Those 200 represent 1% of all schools.
Once you get into the top 50 - 100 or so, the generalities are fairly useless.
“Like democracy, USNWR is the worst possible system except when compared to all the others.”
You’re really comparing democracy to USNWR, here’s another school, admitting publicly the gaming that most schools do:
Freeland swept into Northeastern with a brand-new mantra: recalibrate the school to climb up the ranks. “There’s no question that the system invites gaming,” Freeland tells me. “We made a systematic effort to influence [the outcome].” He directed university researchers to break the U.S. News code and replicate its formulas. He spoke about the rankings all the time—in hallways and at board meetings, illustrating his points with charts. He spent his days trying to figure out how to get the biggest bump up the charts for his buck. He worked the goal into the school’s strategic plan. “We had to get into the top 100,” Freeland says.
If it’s found after all the investigations, that the Russians gamed the 2016 elections like universities game USNWR, I’ll stand corrected.
oh, and I know I’m late to the party, but ED + relentless marketing to students who have no shot ^ yield.
and @theloniusmonk is quoting (I think) an awesome Boston Mag article on how Northeastern very consciously went from a very utilitarian (in the best sense) “Drexel-like” (my analogy) commuter-engineering co-op school to a Top 50-ish? can’t remember off hand and too lazy to google - but much-more-highly ranked and regarded school. Great read if you can find the article. Freeland basically told his engineer profs to reverse engineer the ranking metrics so they could focus on the ones that would give most band for buck, iirc.
@theloniusmonk To say USC is not elite is a big reach. Again imo it is not prestigious, it hasn’t been good enough for long enough to confer prestige. But now a days it is certainly elite by the level of student body it is able to admit.
@observer12
I agree with you assumption, but one must admit that USC are buying these students to enroll. The “prestigious” schools don’t have to, and give minimal merit aid if at all.
Can someone explain why UCLA sat scores are much lower than peers?? I’m not bashing the schools school it’s both elite and prestigious imo.