<p>The UC’s won’t hurt for applications - they will get thousands of them; but the idea that a California resident would choose an out of state public university (e.g. Indiana) over a UC because of the current budget issues strikes me a little off - unless the student just loves Indiana…And USC, which cut its German department, is not rolling in dough right now either - nor is it a better university than UCB.
The UC’s have plenty of resources - even if a student has to shuffle a few courses, it is not going to be hard to graduate in 4 years; and even at the higher fees (tuition), it is still a terrific bargain for Californians. Berkeley and UCLA are such world-class institutions that I don’t see why they are not “worth” the out of state tuition for someone who wants to major in something that is a strength at those schools.
It is true that at least at UCB, faculty cannot take furlough days on class days; and the Cal semester is actually longer than semesters at comparable private colleges, so students will not lose class time. I hope the furloughs end soon so that faculty are fully paid; but know that almost all state workers in California are being furloughed. It seems that California taxpayers don’t want to fully fund courts, colleges, or the DMV - which I think is too bad. We’ll see what happens after Arnold is gone…could be better…or worse.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, rather than looking to improve, once the stimulus money is gone, the cuts could likely be worse. Looking ahead, over four years USC may be a safer bet and with these cutbacks the rankings of some state (and some private) schools will likely fall, so choices made on a notch or two is probably not a good idea. S2 is applying OOS to USC, UCLA, and UCB (as well as to others), but if accepted to all he will likely go with USC based on what he has heard from friends at all three schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OOS public schools worth considering in terms of academic standing all have total cost of attendance on part with that of private schools. Anyone who is competitive enough to gain admission into UCB, UCLA, U Michigan, and UVA has a wide range of great top notch private schools to choose from. We are hearing all this scary stuff: classes cut, service reduced, the risk of not being able to graduate if you change majors, or decide on majors later, all due to the inability to meet requirements for majors caused by the lack of available spots in key courses… HUGE introductory classes held in gigantic lecture halls… the list goes on. </p>
<p>We live in a state that does not have great options for amazing public schools while the overall level of the HS academic standard is one of the best among all states. A lot of top kids go out of state for college. </p>
<p>Because of the reasons stated above, we more or less wrote off OOS public schools: for the same money we can send the kids to great private schools with small classes, more attention, better services, better access to the faculty, courses/sections taught by the professors instead of 1st or 2nd year graduate students, more flexibility, etc. AND, we won’t have to worry as much what else is going to be cut due to the budget crisis at a state level. </p>
<p>Granted, private schools are not immune by any stretch of imagination, but at least we feel that we can do research on endowment, etc, and at least gauge the impact better, rather than wringing our hands not knowing which way the public sentiment and politics are going to work out at the state level. </p>
<p>Of course, all this is a moot point if the kids really strongly feel that they want to go to a particular school which happens to be OOS based on their majors, preferences, etc. We will respect their wishes as much as we can.</p>
<p>"UCB, UCLA, U Michigan, and UVA "
The students I know at these schools are still happy at these schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is all true! Cal is one of the top schools in the country. Always on the first page of the USNews. There are indeed few reasons why someone should not APPLY there. After all, it is so extremely easy to apply that thousands do! And, it is true that private are not cheaper. But, but, that does not change that a successful application leads to a question about … attending. And here there are PLENTY of reasons NOT to attend, and especially for a fully paying student. Plenty of reasons that started well before the recent cash crunch … hordes of poorly prepared graduate students teaching classes, impacted majors, huge classes, no guaranteed housing for four years, uneven quality of education between grad schools and undergraduate, focus on research versus dedication to teaching, and the list goes on. </p>
<p>In the current and close future environment , the UC remains a great choice for the many students in California who do NOT have better opportunities because of grades and finances. For OOS students who DO have choices, and especially no financial constraints, the UC --including the two flasghip schools-- are hardly worthy of a serious consideration, except for a bit of easy trophy hunting for well-qualified students. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, totally true!</p>
<p>I bet he would like it here in Santa Cruz. A true beach town with its own amusement park overlooking the ocean. Redwood forests to hike in…and that’s just on campus. A quirky, funky downtown. Lots of coffeehouses, bookstores and student hang-outs. Not a spawling city, but a college town on the beach. Only an hour and half from San Francisco and even closer to Carmel and Monterey. Mild, mediterranean climate. A great area for parents when they visit. And, UCSC definitely has a strong computer science program.</p>
<hr>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>Berkeley is a top school in computer science for graduate students. That doesn’t always translate into a good experience for undergrads.</p>
<p>I suggest looking at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis - UCSC because it’s an undergrad-focused campus with a strong computer science program, and UC Davis because the students I’ve known from Davis (in CS and other fields) were happy with their experiences</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Speaking as the parent of two private college students, I think it’s much harder to research and know the true financial state of the privates. With the privates the problems are dealt with much more behind closed doors. Maybe any given private school is better off than the UCs and maybe worse. Hard to know.</p>
<p>And speaking as a Californian, I think the UCs are among the state’s most valuable jewels. I hate seeing them used as a political football during these endless budget gaps. And even though neither of my daughters chose to attend a UC, it worries me that the furlough of professors with attendant loss of income will open the door to the faculty getting heavily raided by other colleges. And the UCs consequently sinking into the middle-of-the-pack mediocrity so common in many state college systems.</p>
<p>This is from wikipedia…</p>
<p>“26 alumni and 25 past and present full-time faculty are counted among the 65 Nobel laureates associated with the university. The Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of computer science” has been awarded to eight alumni. Undergraduate alumni have founded or co-founded such companies as Intel, LSI Logic, Apple Computer, The Gap, Berkeley Systems, Bolt, Beranek and Newman (which created a number of underlying technologies that govern the Internet), Chez Panisse, GrandCentral (known now as Google Voice), Advent Software, HTC Corporation, VIA Technologies, Marvell Technology Group, MoveOn.org, MySpace, PowerBar, Opsware, RedOctane, SanDisk, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, VMWare, and Zilog, while graduate school alumni have co-founded companies such as DHL, KeyHole Inc (known now as Google Earth), Sun Microsystems, and The Learning Company.
Berkeley alumni nurtured a number of key technologies associated with the personal computer and the development of the Internet.[105] Unix was created by alumnus Ken Thompson (BS 1965, MS 1966) along with colleague Dennis Ritchie. Alumni such as L. Peter Deutsch[106][107]<a href=“PhD%201973”>108</a>, Butler Lampson (PhD 1967), and Charles P. Thacker (BS 1967)[109] worked with Ken Thompson on Project Genie and then formed the ill-fated US Department of Defense-funded Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), which was scattered throughout the Berkeley campus in non-descript offices to avoid anti-war protestors.[110] After BCC failed, Deutsch, Lampson, and Thacker joined Xerox PARC, where they developed a number of pioneering computer technologies culminating in the Xerox Alto that inspired the Apple Macintosh; in particular, the Alto used a computer mouse, which had been invented by Doug Engelbart (B.Eng 1952, Ph.D. 1955). Thompson, Lampson, and Engelbart would all later receive a Turing Award. Also at Xerox PARC was Ronald V. Schmidt (BS 1966, MS 1968, PhD 1971), who became known as “the man who brought Ethernet to the masses”.[111] Another Xerox PARC researcher, Charles Simonyi (BS 1972), pioneered the first WYSIWIG word processor program and was recruited personally by Bill Gates to join the fledgling company known as Microsoft to create Microsoft Word. Simonyi later became the first repeat space tourist, blasting off on Russian Soyuz rockets to work at the International Space Station orbiting the earth.
In 1977, a graduate student in the computer science department named Bill Joy (MS 1982) assembled [112] the original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix. Joy, who went on to co-found Sun Microsystems, also developed the original version of the terminal console editor vi, while Ken Arnold (BA 1985) created Curses, a terminal control library for Unix-like systems that enables the construction of text user interface (TUI) applications. Working alongside Joy at Berkeley were undergraduates William Jolitz (BS 1997) and his future wife Lynne Jolitz (BA 1989), who together created 386BSD, which is a flavor of BSD Unix that could run on Intel CPUs and which later evolved into the Darwin operating system for the Apple Macintosh’s Mac OS X.[113] Eric Allman (BS 1977, MS 1980) created SendMail, a Unix mail transfer agent which delivers 70% of the email in the world.[114]
The XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+ (created by Peter Mattis, BS 1997), The GIMP (Spencer Kimball, BS 1996), and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm.[115] In 1992 Pei-Yuan Wei,[116] an undergraduate at the XCF, created ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. In the spirit of Open Source, he donated the code to Sun Microsystems, inspiring Java applets( Kim Polese (BS 1984) was the original product manager for Java at Sun Microsystems.) ViolaWWW also inspired researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser,[117] a pioneering web browser which became Microsoft Internet Explorer.”</p>
<p>I’m not thrilled with my daughter choosing an OOS state public school, however, after we juggled the numbers, there won’t be that big of a cost difference between IU-B and the UCs. If she were to get another smaller scholarship, it could even work out to be less. That includes traveling expenses. Plus, it has her major. None of the UCs do. I think the biggest reason she wants to try Indiana is to have a different experience. We live on the coast in an area where we don’t really have seasons (at least not like the midwest and other areas.) It’s very liberal and diverse here. That all sounds perfect, right? Well, I think she might be looking for a more “middle-of-the road” college experience. Not exactly “white bread”…but perhaps more traditional in the sense that students aren’t marching and protesting every little thing. Or the townspeople don’t have bumper stickers that say “Keep _________Weird” (talking about our city.)</p>
<p>My druthers would be Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. 2+ hours from home. Great town. Not as diverse as the UCs. Maybe even a bit more “midwest”–lots of ag stuff going on there. Real cowboys, too. 
Plus it would be the least expensive of all. </p>
<p>We have several more schools she needs to hear back from by April, so we’ll see where she ends up being accepted to and take it from there. I vote for staying in California! :)</p>
<p>P.S. My daughter didn’t choose IU because of the budget cuts. She started researching this school long before that. Again, she’s just ready for something new and the UCs just don’t impress her. And it may be because “that’s where everyone goes” from here. I honor her choice for wanting to do something different. IF we can afford it. :)</p>
<hr>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>The UC’s won’t hurt for applications - they will get thousands of them; but the idea that a California resident would choose an out of state public university (e.g. Indiana) over a UC because of the current budget issues strikes me a little off - unless the student just loves Indiana…And USC, which cut its German department, is not rolling in dough right now either - nor is it a better university than UCB.
The UC’s have plenty of resources - even if a student has to shuffle a few courses, it is not going to be hard to graduate in 4 years; and even at the higher fees (tuition), it is still a terrific bargain for Californians. Berkeley and UCLA are such world-class institutions that I don’t see why they are not “worth” the out of state tuition for someone who wants to major in something that is a strength at those schools.
It is true that at least at UCB, faculty cannot take furlough days on class days; and the Cal semester is actually longer than semesters at comparable private colleges, so students will not lose class time. I hope the furloughs end soon so that faculty are fully paid; but know that almost all state workers in California are being furloughed. It seems that California taxpayers don’t want to fully fund courts, colleges, or the DMV - which I think is too bad. We’ll see what happens after Arnold is gone…could be better…or worse.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed. These are great schools. Question is, if their COA is about the same as that of top private schools, is it still worth it for OOS when there are other schools without all the scary stuff we hear on the news constantly. My personal opinion is, NO.</p>
<p>The UC has been there for almost 150 years. It has been sailing through many ups and downs of political and economic turmoils. But it’s still there. If the UC sinks then California will sink and the US will sink. It’s simple like that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find it hard to reconcile these two observations. If the second statement is indeed true, then it appears that the quality of the grad school and faculty research is what is influencing the undergrad quality perception. S2 is applying to UCB, but would most likely attend CMC, USC, or Oxy instead. He is applying simply to have a choice, visit again, and make a final decision.</p>
<p>The IDEAL scenario for us would be a school like Stanford where we would end up only paying for housing. Free tuition for income $100,000 and under. $60,000 or less would give us a free ride. (Except for nominal student-contribution.) The Ivies have this same sort of generous no-loan program going on for the middle class. However, as we all know, a kid has to get ACCEPTED in order to take advantage of these awesome grants. There always has to be an obstacle. LOL</p>
<p>Well idad, when your son visits…he will know. Those schools are so different from each other…it should be an easy choice for your son.</p>
<p>Yeah… Stanford is nice. :)</p>
<p>
2Leashes - These are both good reasons for your D to pursue the direction she is.</p>
<p>
I don’t know how it is at UCB or in majors other than CS but virtually all of the classes my CS major kids have had at UCSD and UCLA were taught by profs - not grad students. There are grad students leading some discussion sections and some of these grad students can be frustrating when they barely speak English but the classes themselves are not taught by grad students. Again, it could be different in a different major or maybe at UCB.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Beware of misinformation on the net, especially from people who have an agenda to spread misinformation for a particular reason. USC just hired 20 new professors for the Marshall school of business so they are not hurting as the UCs.</p>
<p>[USC</a> Marshall USC Marshall Recruits 20 New Professors for 2009-2010](<a href=“http://www.marshall.usc.edu/news/all-articles/usc-marshall-recruits.htm]USC”>http://www.marshall.usc.edu/news/all-articles/usc-marshall-recruits.htm)</p>
<p>Xiggi hates Berkeley. A little too liberal for his tastes. :)</p>
<p>My niece is a comp sci major at Stanford. Large classes. Don’t know about TAs, but Stanford has them. Focus on research and business. (The firm I am involved with may be hiring Stanford comp sci professors on the side. I hope so.). Advising is questionable. But… she has had great opportunities. She is happy at Stanford.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s not easy to get into Stanford. :)</p>
<p>Oh…And Stanford’s endowment lost billions of dollars. Stanford is trying to raise money by selling part of its private equity portfolio. So it’s not just the UCs that have problems.</p>
<p>Most of the private schools have problems too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is exactly what happens in the ranking for Cal. The rankings are greatly influenced by the REPUTATION of the graduate schools.</p>
<p>Washington Monthly ranks Berkeley as the University doing the most public good.[71] The rankings were based on social mobility, research done by the University, and service.</p>
<p>That was from wikipedia.org.</p>
<p>Some people value social mobility, Xiggi. </p>
<p>Your school ranked where, 2,900? :)</p>
<p>Gotta go.</p>
<p>Stanford is on the list, but even though his numbers and profile are good, it is such a long shot that it is barely on the radar screen. Further, he wasn’t all that taken with it when he visited. Tried to interest him in midwest and east coast schools, but he would have none of it. Visited a couple of Ivy’s, disliked them. His favorite UCs in order are UCSB, UCB, UCLA, UCSD. He believes he will be successful no matter where he goes to school, so he is really concentrating on finding programs he loves, or environments he resonates with. He is full pay at any school, so that doesn’t enter into it.</p>