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OK USC is overrated. I would definitely rate it under SD.
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<p>Curious how you came to this conclusion? </p>
<p>-USC is a good deal more difficult to get into than UCSD (I haven't heard of anyone getting accepted by USC but not UCSD, but I've heard of plenty of people rejected by USC that got into UCSD.) USC has an acceptance rate of ~25%while UCSD is ~40%.</p>
<p>-USC has an middle 50% SAT score way higher (1260-1440 for USC vs. 1130-1360 for UCSD) Yes, I know UC's only take the highest score from one sitting, but that still cannot come close to closing the gap.</p>
<p>You can make a case that UCSD's faculty is better and UCSD is certainly more prestigious for the sciences, but there is no friggin way UCSD as a whole has a higher student quality than USC.</p>
<p>well, I wouldn't put USC under UCSD because they gave me a half-tuition scholarship and UCSD gave me s**t. In my mind, USC is still better than UCSD.</p>
<p>The point of my post was to put UCLA above all other colleges, USC included!
:eek:</p>
<p>I don't know enough about either school to say anything specific, so I don't even necessarily mean this in direct relation to these two schools, but as a general point: admission standards alone are absolutely NO indicator that one school is better than another. Some schools have a "hard to get in, easy to stay" mentality, which tends to result in an...interesting atmosphere. Others have an "easy in, hard to stay" philosophy.</p>
<p>ALSO:</p>
<p>This topic would be <em>MUCH</em> more beneficial to the original poster if s/he indicated (A) Area of interest, b/c if you get a humanities degree from CalTech, people won't care that much, and similarly, if you get a degree in a renowned program at a mediocre school, it will be well-looked upon...and (B) Whether you mean to be asking about prestige within the general population or within academia, because if you mean the former, then you can unquestionably put UCD or UCI above any private school in the state, barring Stanford and USC, but this does not necessarily correspond to quality of the school or name-value within specific circles (i.e. employers, grad schools).</p>
<p>Two crucial distinctions without which any rankings are useless.</p>
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admission standards alone are absolutely NO indicator that one school is better than another.
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<p>I understand what you were trying to get at, but admissions standards most certainly ARE an indicator of the prestigiousness of a school. No one cares if Boston U. has more rigourous classes than Stanford, employers will still look more favorably upon the Stanford degree. (Just using those two schools as illustrative examples only) From an employers perspective, schools effectively filter students based on their academic talent (which later translates to employment potential)</p>
<p>I understand that admission standards have no bearing on education quality, but I think the OP was referring to prestigiousness. Admissions standards have a much greater effect on prestigiousness than education quality.</p>
<p>Dola, I got into USC and UCSD too. But I never really gave a crap to USC. In the end, I had to choose between Rice and UCSD and stuck with UCSD.</p>
<p>B) "Admissions standards have a much greater effect on prestigiousness than education quality" -- Not sure if you mean to say that admissions standards have a greater effect on prestigiousness than education quality does or that admission standards have a greater effect on prestigiousness than they do on education quality. I assume the first based on the preceeding sentence, but either way, I agree. However, you're example assumes that one views employment potential as the ultimate indication of a school's quality. A lot of people DO care if Boston U. has more rigorous classes than Stanford, and that would probably be the Boston U. students as well as anyone who's interested more in academic experience than in prestige (and this claim would be more effective if we didn't all know than Stanford has plenty of rigor).</p>
<p>I <em>entirely</em> agree with you that admission standards and employability play roles in the quality of a school. Significant roles, especially the former. Obviously that's the case and I'd be kind of lame to argue otherwise. All I meant to claim was that neither one of these on its own (and for that matter, NOTHING on its own) is a fair indication of which school is "better" (and to blur everything even more, an indication of what DOES make a school "better" than another should vary person to person).</p>
<p>Case in point:</p>
<p>I have a BRILLIANT friend who's at a tiny religious school with a 99% rate of acceptance, indicating a philosophy that everyone who wants to should be given a chance to attend. However, the school--and especially her program--is quite rigorous, and has a considerably low retention rate due to the fact. She's struggling more than I am, despite the fact that my admission standards were much higher. So who's getting the <em>better</em> education (beats me)? Is it fair to automatically say that a school with comparable admission standards to hers is better, given the "easy in, hard to stay" philosophy of her college? No. It might be true, but there's more to look at.</p>
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Dola, I got into USC and UCSD too. But I never really gave a crap to USC. In the end, I had to choose between Rice and UCSD and stuck with UCSD.
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<p>Generally, students would pick UCSD over USC for a few reasons
1) Financial Aid - USC is ~45k while UCSD is ~20k.
2) Majoring in Science
3) UCSD is simply a better fit</p>
<p>Each of those reasons is perfectly valid, but I don't know of anyone choosing UCSD over USC based on overall prestige.</p>
<p>Student615, we're totally on the same page and I completely agree. I think it was more an communication mixup than anything.</p>
<p>Ok, the entire idea of overall prestige is complete crap. Everyone looks at the prestige of the program you were in. Given a choice, any employer will pick a UCLA English major over an MIT english major. But sfgiants, you do bring up a valid point, I picked UCSD over USC, even Rice, because I am a bioengineer and UCSD has the no.2 bioE program in the nation.</p>
<p>Squarehead -- Wholeheartedly agreed, but only applicable for people who <em>know</em> the quality of the program (beyond the obvious specialty schools...Juilliard, MIT, what have you), or who are looking at particularly renowned programs (especially in cases where the quality/prestige of the program differs vastly from that of the institution).</p>
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Ok, the entire idea of overall prestige is complete crap. Everyone looks at the prestige of the program you were in. Given a choice, any employer will pick a UCLA English major over an MIT english major.
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<p>Not necessarily true. You can take the worst program at Harvard and that will garner more eyebrow raising than almost all specialty majors at less prestigious schools. Of course there are exceptions, such as the ones Student615 mentioned such as Julliard or USC's CNTV.</p>
<p>Many employers are not as knowledgeable as you may think, and many of them are not aware of how strong individual programs are at schools. They just know the overall name of the school. </p>
<p>Furthermore, what if your interests shift? It is best to have a school that is strong across the spectrum rather than only good in one thing. Overall prestige is a very real thing, and much of the overall prestige is based on prestige for specific majors/programs.</p>
<p>"I have applied to BU as an incoming freshman (haven't heard back yet), but I heard rumors about this, so I googled "boston university grade inflation" and found a lot of information that worried me...."</p>
<p>Why would you be posting about you're vast knowledge of what an employer wants?? when you're still in HIGH SCHOOL?! Did you google the knowledge of employers?</p>
<p>i got into ucsd, ucla and usc and usc was never even a consideration. academically i felt it was not even in the same league. remember usc's sat scores are computed with the best sitting method, while uc's dont, allowing for significant inflation for usc's sat numbers. all of the good students who didnt get into ucsd, ucla and uc berkeley at my high school attended usc. if i hadnt gotten into sd or la, however, i would have chosen usc over mid tier uc's like irvine, santa barbara and davis.</p>
<p>Most peoples best sitting score and best combined score is very similar because usually the second time (or third time -CC'ers could be four+ lol) you have improved on BOTH areas so the total and combined is better. My combined sitting and single sitting were only a 10 point difference and that's the average difference in score. That's why its ok for colleges to report either one to US NEWS. Many of my friends had no difference because their best combined WAS their best single sitting. Keep in mind, many people on the west coast only take the SAT once too.</p>
<p>weird everyone i knew who computed their best sitting score for sc had their sat scores significantly higher than their uc sat's. of course, if the test was taken only once their would be no difference, but for competitive colleges like ucsd and usc, i imagine many of the applicants have taken their sat's numerous times, and i imagine the average computational difference would be significantly more than 10 points on average between best sitting score and best combined score. likely a much much bigger difference.</p>
<p>remember usc and ucsd both have their very different strengths. ucsd has econ, engineering, bio, poly sci, medical school, theatre dance, ect. usc has business, law school, film,journalism, ect. these schools are very very different but their overall us news ranking is very similar, almost identical (#30 and #32).</p>