<p>why is cal consistently ranked higher? i don’t understand. is UCLA’s prestige on the rise?</p>
<p>i hear that the acceptance rate for ucla med school is like 50% and some LACs are 80%. that makes me feel like i should have gone to an LAC if i want med school so bad. are these stats true?</p>
<p>which other schools have comparable premed curriculum quality as ucla?</p>
<p>The gap between cal and ucla is narrowing for sure…</p>
<p>Oh no! Not another Cal vs. UCLA thread. 
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<p>As for “comparable pre-med curriculum” - it is so variable b/c of the nature of the departments involved and the degree to which students can get “weeded out.” Did you look at the requirements for medical school? I’ve often given you the link but I’m doubting you’ve looked at it at all…</p>
<p>What do you mean the acceptance rate is 50%. That surely is not correct. Unless you mean 50% of those that apply get into “a” medical school. That seems more likely, yet still absurd.</p>
<p>i think the OP means that 50% of students who are pre-med at UCLA get accepted to at least 1 medical school.</p>
<p>mme-lin: i’ll try to read the links now…there’s so much info there</p>
<p>Some (most) LACs and Ivies do that on purpose. If students don’t achieve certain GPAs the schools won’t LET them apply to medical school. It’s something that probably contributes to Cornell’s high suicide rate >_>;; As far as I know, UCLA doesn’t have that kind of situation going on, hence the “lower” acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Also, as to Cal’s prestige, its still an older institution, and I do remember reading how Cal has, in the past, deliberately hampered UCLA’s growth (such as not letting it award doctorates in the mid 20th century) because it feared that it would outshine it. When we had our engineering open house, there was something about how Cal wouldn’t let LA have its engineering school until it promised not to compete with Berkeley’s. Doesn’t seem like Berkeley’s had it easy keeping LA “down”.</p>
<p>^^Some good information there. Out of curiosity do you have any sources for it?</p>
<p>Its in the history section of wikipedia for UCLA XD Just found it.</p>
<p>“Also, as to Cal’s prestige, its still an older institution, and I do remember reading how Cal has, in the past, deliberately hampered UCLA’s growth (such as not letting it award doctorates in the mid 20th century) because it feared that it would outshine it. When we had our engineering open house, there was something about how Cal wouldn’t let LA have its engineering school until it promised not to compete with Berkeley’s. Doesn’t seem like Berkeley’s had it easy keeping LA “down”.”</p>
<p>^^^what the he**? UCLA is its own institution. True, they are in the same system, but UCLA makes its own decisions regarding opening new programs, etc. Any decisions made system-wide involve all the UCs, not just Cal. Cal is more prestigious because it has “stronger” professors, and a slightly stronger student body. Sort of like comparing Harvard with Columbia. Both are excellent, obviously, but I don’t see UCLA catching up any more in the near future unless Cal slows down, which is unlikely. Last year 3 Cal professors/alumni won the Nobel Prize. I don’t think that has happened recently at UCLA. Cal’s avg. SAT score is 50 points higher (though, take from that what you will, both are extremely competitive). I think UCLA will continue to increase recognition in its own right, but in the near future at least, I don’t see it overtaking Cal, who prides itself in being the most selective UC.</p>
<p>Well nothing beats the original. And UCLA used to be a branch of Cal… so…</p>
<p>dear dawritingmachine</p>
<p>go to a lac, ok? you want to be english/premed so bad, just leave. go to berkeley or whatever.</p>
<p>
It’s on the Internetz, it must be true…LOL.</p>
<p>Sounds like you’re trying to come up with a reason or excuse to go to somewhere else in order to get to med school. </p>
<p>In the end, it all depends on YOU, and how well you perform. Sure, UCLA has its easy professors, and hard professors, but that will be found anywhere. If anything, UCLA has a curriculum geared towards premeds due to its Chemistry and Math series specifically for life science majors (Chem 14/Math 3). Those classes make it a bit easier to understand the concepts and therefore get a better grade. </p>
<p>If you want med school so bad, then work for it. The undergrad pre-med curriculum will basically be the same throughout any college: life sciences, english, chemistry, etc. What differs is the support the university might have for premeds in terms of tutoring, preparation, etc. </p>
<p>FYI, don’t get caught up in the prestige game. Prestige won’t matter at all, except for slight GPA considerations (UCLA has slight grade deflation, so compared to grade-inflation Ivys, a 3.6 GPA from UCLA is worth slightly more than a 3.6 GPA from known grade-inflation schools). It all boils down to GPA, MCAT, and the amount of passion/enthusiasm you can show for medicine in your application and your interview.</p>
<p>Considering there are so many successful dentists and doctors (who I know or know of) out there who went to CSUs for undergrad, I wouldn’t worry about the gap between Cal and UCLA, or LACs for that matter</p>
<p>vc08, since when have you become an authority on the UC decision-making process? I’m just relaying information passed on from wikipedia and the engineering openhouse. Whether or not you want to contest those is entirely your business, but please don’t act as though I’m completely unaware how UC works because I dare say its about as little as you do.<br>
Nobel prize winners has little to do with the quality of education at a school. It just shows its potential in research. Given that Berkeley owns and operates several government labs and, to the best of my knowledge, UCLA doesn’t have a counterpart to Los Alamos, it’s kind of expected that it makes Nobel-warranting discoveries. Do students become as interactive in the things that make Berkeley “great”? Nobel winners don’t win the prize because they’re good at teaching, which begs the question; does Cal really churn out superior graduates to LA because of that?</p>
<p>Most of the “prestige” you see in all those reports stem from the 3rd/4th year classes (for student:teacher ratio) or from the prestige of its graduate programs/research.</p>
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<p>You need at least a 3.5 to be guaranteed a trip back to UCLA for graduate school. I don’t think 50% of applicants can attain that GPA.</p>
<p>I think the acceptance rate for UCLA Medical School is actually < 10%. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>ucla wont catch up to cal.</p>