<p>I am currently a junior in high school, and I am interested in studying sciences, business/econ, or engineering. What are some good schools for someone undecided between these subjects?</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I know that Cal and UCI have majors in Business (as opposed to Economics), Engineering, and the sciences. If you include Business/Managerial Economics (in my experience at UCSB, it’s an Econ major with a few finance and accounting requirements), you could probably add UCLA, UCD, and UCSC. UCSB just replaced its Business Economics major with an Accounting major. I believe UCSD has a Managerial Science major, but I’m not really familiar with that at all. I remember reading about UCM’s Management major, but I don’t know much about that either.</p>
<p>As far as the sciences go, I’m not sure if you could really make that big of a mistake in choosing any of the UCs (that are appropriate for you, academically). I’m a Business Econ major at UCSB, so I’m probably not the best person to evaluate that.</p>
<p>With engineering disciplines, I get the impression that some schools have more comprehensive offerings than others - Cal, UCLA, UCD, and UCI stick out in my mind. All the UCs offer some engineering disciplines, but I think after those four, the number of majors available drops off a bit. (That’s based on a hunch and a quick scan of the UCs’ engineering department sites.) My feeling is that the larger UCs tend to have more engineering major options - for example, UCSD still has a good number of engineering majors. </p>
<p>As someone who goes to UCSB, if I were applying again (keeping in mind my stats and all of that) and had your priorities, I would look at maybe UCD or UCI. Cal and UCLA certainly have a lot of options in any direction, but I guess that getting in is the real challenge there.</p>
<p>UC Riverside is constantly overlooked as one of the top research universities in the nation, and in the world. The other UCs (excluding santa cruz and merced) are bigger and older, therefore more well known. However, they’ve pretty much peaked. UCR is still growing rapidly in reputation, listed by Forbes as one of the top ten up and coming schools in the country, and with a medical school coming soon, we’re just gonna keep rising in reputation even faster.</p>
<p>U.S. News & World Report (2010):
- 43th among the best national public universities
- 57th for undergraduate business programs (we also have the biggest among ALL the UCs)
- 85th for undergraduate engineering programs (Bourns College of Engineering)
- 96th and Tier 1 among best national universities, public and private</p>
<p>Academic Ranking of World Universities published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2008)
- 102nd globally
- 77th in Natural Science & Math
- 76th in Life Sciences
- 76th in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences.</p>
<p>Depending on what kind of science you’re interested in, you may be surprised to find that UCR is a better fit for you than ANY of the other UCs. Our “environmental sciences program was rated 3rd in the nation and the soil science program offered by the Department of Environmental Sciences rated 4th, according to The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (2007). It was also placed 4th in entomology and 5th in natural resources and conservation.”</p>
<p>x8equalsDtilde: The other UC’s have “peaked”? What the heck does that mean? These aren’t athletes that reach their prime and then fade out into obscurity.</p>
<p>i didn’t mean it in that sense, like athletes that are going to fade out into obscurity. i guess what i meant is that UCR is still relatively young, and we’re growing in reputation, whereas the other UC’s are older and they’ve already established a firm name for themselves, but i don’t think they’re going much further from where they are right now. What I mean is that UCR’s acceptance rate is falling more rapidly than any of the other UCs, we’re adding on a medical school (I don’t know of any other UCs currently adding on other schools), forbes listed us as one of the top ten up and coming schools in the nation, and I’m constantly learning that we’ve stolen top professors from ivy league schools.</p>
<p>i was also mainly referring to the middle tier UCs. berkeley and ucla are already among the best…so they can’t really go much higher in the rankings.</p>
<p>i think what arcade means is that the idea of “peaked” or plateaued or however u want to say it, with respect to a college campus is nonsensical. schools go up and down in ‘rankings’ all the time. to say that the so-called middle tier UC campuses have flatlined is seriously naive. as long as a campus is still standing, there’s always room for growth (or decline, for that matter).</p>
<p>and if by a “newer” campus, u mean one that has been around for 50-some odd years, then yes, UCR is “newer”. </p>
<p>there’re lots of good things about UCR (as there are with all of the UCs). the greater diversity is one thing that comes to mind, for example. so there’s really no need to diss other campuses in an attempt to lift UCR up.</p>
<p>The fact that UCR’s acceptance rates dropped more rapidly than other UC’s isn’t all that significant. They had a lot farther to drop. I’m not saying UCR’s a bad school, but suggesting that people choose it over middle UC’s because it has more “momentum” as a school or something is silly. Being established as a school is a good thing. Besides, didn’t UCR actually drop in the rankings last year while UCSB/UC Davis ranked even higher?</p>
<p>Note: I’m an ex-UCR student. I’ve got nothing against UCR, but I think the suggestion to go there because of it’s momentum is really bad. UCR is a fine place to consider along with the other UC’s. Go for a solid program and a good fit.</p>
<p>^calimami: I agree with the diversity of UCR being a positive. At UCLA, I hardly meet anyone that’s not white or asian.</p>