<p>Just wondering, what other universities in the states are comparable to UCLA? Please don’t give me a link to some university ranking because i think they aren’t very accurate.</p>
<p>I’m from Brunei so i want to get some idea of the standard of UCLA relative to other US unis</p>
<p>What information are you looking for, if not a ranking? Many people start with the USNWR rankings as a way to begin comparing groups of schools (public research universities in the top tier, for example).</p>
<p>If you’re talking about the quality of the university, it’s comparable to the other elite publics: Berkeley, Michican, UVa, UNC, etc. In terms of privates, that’s a bit harder to sketch out. Personally i’d put it on a par with some of the lower ivies (Cornell, perhaps Penn) and other really good private schools like JHU, Georgetown, etc.</p>
<p>That, however, is in terms of quality of faculty. However, in terms of reputation, it’s a different story. UCLA’s (and perhaps’s berkeley’s) reputation has been slightly declining due to the cut in public funding. But both universities are still considered fairly elite internationally (top 10/15), and really good schools nationally. (probably in the same league as USC, Georgetown, NYU; i.e. top 25/30)</p>
<p>UCLA is generally inferior to Berkeley, and slightly inferior to UMich and UVa, for undergrad level. But it is slightly superior to UIUC, Texas-Austin, and generally superior to schools like U of Washington, Indiana, Penn State and the like. </p>
<p>The only private schools that I think are similar to UCLA are USC and NYU. But, bear in mind that in the US, private schools are different from private ones, so similarities between privates and publics are somewhat more conspicuous than between publics.</p>
<p>What majors are we talking about here? The list for engineering is different than the list for, say, political science.</p>
<p>Berkeley, USC, Michigan, UNC when looking at academics, sports, and overall brand recognition…although sometimes can stand with academic schools like Cornell, Brown, etc.</p>
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<p>UCLA and Berkeley are large, complex institutions. Whether one is “inferior” or “superior” really depends on your interests and needs. </p>
<p>University admissions (and standard-setting in general) does not work the same way in the USA as it does in Europe, China, Russia or Japan. We have no truly “national” institutions (unless you count the military service academies). Admission standards, salaries, curriculum, etc., are all set by individual schools (with some influence from the 50 states in the case of public schools). </p>
<p>We can try to rank schools according to a more or less objective, more or less relevant set of factors. However, there will always be considerable overlap in quality of departments and facilities, or qualifications of students and faculty, between schools ranked fairly far apart. For example, by some ranking standard, UCLA might be ~10 levels “lower” than another school, yet have many stronger departments, a bigger/better library or labs, or in some other way be more desirable to some students.</p>
<p>What is it about UCLA that makes it your starting point of reference?</p>
<p>You don’t want to rely upon the USNWR ranking, which at least has a methodology, but you are willing to rely on the rankings of some random people who happen to respond to a thread? How does that make sense?</p>
<p>^ Not only does it have a rather well-documented methodology, it also has been implemented for about 30 years. So we can see results over time. People are widely familiar with those results. The strengths and weaknesses have been criticized. </p>
<p>So we can see, for example, an historic drop in the rankings of several prominent public universities (like Berkeley & Michigan). We can discuss whether that reflects a flaw in the rankings or a true change in relative quality. That discussion can cite published information.</p>
<p>Here in this thread, you have beyphy telling you UCLA is comparable to Berkeley, RML telling you UCLA is generally inferior, and me telling you “it depends”. Another poster may step in and tell you your question is irrelevant, because the quality of your education will depend far more on your personal efforts than your choice of school. So which one of us are you going to believe, and why?</p>
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<p>You could choose to believe the one whose views are backed by data, or you could choose the one whose views are based on the same nonsensical, one-size-fits-all, my-school-is-better-than-your-school ranking philosophy that so dominates many of the discussions on this board - and that is reflected in USNWR’s so-called “methodology” that causes so much genuflection.</p>
<p>Your choice.</p>
<p>And until the OP answers Pizzagirl’s question, there really is no basis for a response.</p>
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<p>The original supposition and the lack of response to the above question certainly raises the “■■■■■ Alert Level”.</p>
<p>Pizza, and vinceh, the OP stated:</p>
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<p>Why would someone want to ■■■■■ with something so inoffensive a post?</p>
<p>And tk, you know that private u’s do tend to game the USN’s rankings more than public u’s don’t you? Gaming the system does tend to have its huge paybacks. The statistics USN’s reports as we discussed are easily manipulable and not uniform.</p>
<p>As far as what school is “better”, it depends a lot on what you want – major? size? cost? etc…</p>
<p>I’d say UCLA is comparable to the other “flagship” public universities.
UC Berkley
UC San Diego
UT Austin
UIUC
U Michigan - Ann Arbor
U Wisconsin - Madison
UVa
UNC - Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Cornell University
Northwestern University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Miami
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Southern California
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>Take the USNWR rankings with a grain of salt. I’ve never taken the time to figure out their methodology, but I do find it strange that UCLA is ranked 20 spots ahead of UIUC when the average ACT score at UCLA is a full point lower.</p>
<p>UCLA discounts SAT and ACT scores for economic diversity purposes. If you want to argue class rank, and gpa … game on, let’s do it.</p>
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<p>UCLA probably gets mostly SAT takers among its applicants, so the ACT scores may not be as representative. The reverse is probably true at UIUC.</p>
<p>But note that UCs emphasize test scores less than many other universities do.</p>
<p>“UCLA probably gets mostly SAT takers among its applicants, so the ACT scores may not be as representative. The reverse is probably true at UIUC.”</p>
<p>Average SAT scores - UCLA: 1902 UIUC: 1970</p>