<p>Puleeeze - Give me a break. Your stereotypes were and are ridiculous and insulting. For the record, my family had the money, I partied hearty in Westwood, and ended up in the family business for a while before <em>maturing</em>. I guess I wasn't a typical UCLA student either, huh? As a statistician, I'll bypass the anecdotes and wait for the old and new data (which won't be found on this thread).</p>
<p>lovetocamp: Thanks! While we used to have some tension on a certain Saturday each November, we've moved on to jointly supporting our S's alma mater, Michigan. Another rematch set for the Rose Bowl where H and S will have a great time no matter the result.</p>
<p>Maize&Blue - Grin. Not sure how far back you read this thread. My sister graduated from USC, and her husband graduated from Michigan. They both live in Hawaii. His game room is decorated to the max in Michigan colors, with hats, pennants, etc. My sister's study is a collection of USC fanfare, and Disney fanfare. Needless to say, they will be watching the Rose Bowl in separate rooms this year, as they are both passionate fans, but deeply in love. </p>
<p>(Don't you love the bitterness of USC detracters? I couldn't imagine living so many years, after college graduation, and still feeling such disdain for a rivarly school. I don't understand the "why" as to why they hang on so long, and so deeply to their hatred of USC. If they 'truly' felt that they and their school was just so much better, wouldn't they simply read the USC theads and chuckle? Instead, they post lies ("15 or more blondes"), and they post with such anger (as if USC had personally hurt them or offended them). How does that saying go 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'?</p>
<p>Your way of thinking won't get you far in your life. I can picture you will still be jealous and bitter many years later. You mentioned facts. How many fact have you showed us? You are a typical loud mouth, who has the potential to become next TheDaD. TheDaD was imagining how rich people socialize, and you did the same on how rich students slack off.</p>
<p>BTW UCLA is not the flag ship univesity in California. CAL is. You ask any academic and they will tell you UCLA is also good, but Berkeley is the great public university. Somewhere I read the average family income of UCLA students is higher than USC's, whereas UCLA has more bell grants. Doesn't that mean UCLA has more rich students than USC? Someone asked in this thread about the lacking of middle income family in USC's student body. It should be more the problem for UCLA. At USC, about 15~20% are on scholarship, then 60~70% are having financial aids.</p>
<p>Camp, since you mentioned, I came to think about it and found USC may indeed hurt some people from UCLA. I definitely believe most of UCLA grads are confident about themselves and secure about their careers, but you can not deny a lot of them also get really annoyed by USC.</p>
<p>The general question should be why some Californians hate USC?
1. California's excellent public education system makes private schools very difficult to flourish, especially for a large school like USC. To survive, USC may've used some unpopular schemes (I don't know, just speculating) which rub people off.
2. USC's old reputation. I have no way to know if it's true or not. I can see it changed, but some outsiders may be mis-informed more than others.
3. Fear. I can see people from UCLA fearing the nightmare of being caught from behind.
4. Some USC grads are too confident, too proud of themselves to be borderline cocky. I can see the current students are confident too. Somebody said USC students are good-looking. I agree, but I think it has a lot to do with the confidence they demonstrate.
5. Jealousy. There has to be a little. When you see a low scoring kid from your school is doing better than you, how do you feel? Even though the credentials of USC freshmen are becoming better each every year, some one still needs time to realize that.
6. USC has some bagages. I can tell part of alumni body is conservative, and the rah-rah football pregame stuff is not to my taste either. I don't mind, but I can see some progressive minds can not stand those. Football is a game of wisdom and strength. It's part of American culture, but somewhat I feel it's a little bit anti-intellectual which is why CAL struggles in their program. I am not saying USC football is particularly anti-intellectual than UCLA's, but since it's so successful, it becomes an easy target. Or maybe all these are just my speculation, those USC haters just try to find anything to attack us:)</p>
<p>The whole point of my posts were to foster debate about USC and its rivalry with UCLA. It's important to display a subjective but commonly displayed perspective on USC. I know there are hundreds (thousands?) of interested parents and students who read these threads, and this gives them more information about the school and what many people think. </p>
<p>As for my personal opinion, they're both fine schools. A student who does well at UCLA will do well at USC and vice versa. For parents, your child needs to be okay in big dangerous LA, huge university setting, big sports teams, and strong will/independence. The whole rivalry is wasteful and ridicolous.</p>
<p>USC isn't really academic lite anymore either. It's solid and comparable to any other good university.</p>
<p><a href="Don't%20you%20love%20the%20bitterness%20of%20USC%20detracters?%20I%20couldn't%20imagine%20living%20so%20many%20years,%20after%20college%20graduation,%20and%20still%20feeling%20such%20disdain%20for%20a%20rivarly%20school.%20I%20don't%20understand%20the" title="why" as to why they hang on so long, and so deeply to their hatred of USC. If they 'truly' felt that they and their school was just so much better, wouldn't they simply read the USC theads and chuckle? Instead, they post lies ("15 or more blondes">quote</a>, and they post with such anger (as if USC had personally hurt them or offended them). How does that saying go 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'?
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</p>
<p>True. It's one thing to talk trash about the other school in good fun (it is a big rivalry, after all) like having facebook groups named "UCLA SUCKS AT EVERYTHING" (I'm sure similar groups exist about USC) but it does get a bit excessive sometimes when some people get so bitter and hateful.</p>
<p>I mean, lots of people (me included) that go to USC or UCLA grew up in or near LA and are bound to know dozens of people who go to the "other school". I know plenty of students there (including a distant relative of mine) and looking beyond all my joking, in all seriousness I would say that UCLA is a great school and they're getting a great education there (as I would hope people would towards 'SC)</p>
<p>In fairness, remember that the title of this thread is "Current <em>OPINIONS</em> of USC." Not reality of USC. Not current USC as compared to past USC. Just opinions, which we all know can be misguided. Facts can be more or less judged between viewbooks and visits, and nobody who comes on here with a deep-seated hatred (OR love) of a school is going to have his/her mind changed by yet another oft-posted anecdote or set of statistics. While it's good to do some explaining, setting on track, and cautioning, the fact is that USC--regardless of how great it is or isn't, what resources it has or lacks, and what the Trojan Family will or won't do for graduates--<em>IS</em> a school that tends to garner some extreme reactions (both for better and for worse). This thread only further supports that fact, and at this point, the content is doing nothing new either to run USC/UCLA/anyone-else into the ground OR to boost them up.</p>
<p>I was just waiting for this thread to turn a little bitter, because for whatever reason, this particular topic usually does (and you can use that fact to support whatever viewpoint you will).</p>
<p>My S's opinion is that USC is a great University filled with lots of opportunities in an exciting city. We are from NY and have never visited CA. He likes larger schools because they offer more choices in classes, activities and people. </p>
<p>He likes that USC offers merit aid which is especially important to people who can afford their own state school but not private school. His grades and scores are very high and he is a serious student but that doesn't stop him from loving to watch and follow big time sports.</p>
<p>He's not a partier or fraternity type but he believes that the school is big enough for people to find their own niche.</p>
<p>My S applied to the Marshall Business school and believes that they offer a strong and unique program.</p>
<p>out of all of the 24 schools i was prepared to apply to this year, i am probably the saddest about giving up USC. my school sends an insane number of students to USC each year, and i have only heard wonderful feedback about the school. i've visited numerous amounts of times (my dad went to grad school there/for events i was invited to) and fell in love with the school. i strongly disagree with anyone who says there is not a lot of diversity on the campus (of all kinds) and that the students there do not study hard. USC is a wonderful school with wonderful academics and an amazing social life. imo, it provides the perfect well-rounded college experience. if i were not lucky enough to get into my ed school, USC would have definitely been one of my second choices.</p>
<p>Congrats on UPenn; I'm sure you'll do very well there. USC is a great place for many students, but of course it isn't the be all & end all for everyone.</p>
<p>USC is an excellent school that's only improving. That's pretty much hard to argue. However, I have a few caveats (aren't there always?)-- USC has yet to establish the vast majority of its PhD programs as heavyweights. This makes it hard for people to get into that "famous" lab or get a letter from that really highly regarded professor.</p>
<p>Now this is changing. But we all know that change in academia is like change in the government. It happens so slowly that it's almost imperceptible. Old perceptions die very hard, and USC has to work doubly hard to show the academic community that its research programs are on par with other top schools.</p>
<p>Does this matter? Maybe not. If USC can prove that it's offering an undergraduate education on par with other more LACish universities like Brown and Dartmouth, it will matter considerably less. But I think that at the moment USC is at a weird point in its history, where it hasn't yet developed the strong graduate departments that it wants as a research university (which it claims to be), but it offers an excellent undergraduate experience despite that.</p>
<p>In the end, however, I think it's a fantastic school that only needs time to shrug off the silly old stereotypes.</p>
<p>
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USC has yet to establish the vast majority of its PhD programs as heavyweights. This makes it hard for people to get into that "famous" lab or get a letter from that really highly regarded professor.
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</p>
<p>Both USC and UCLA are members of the Association of American Universities. </p>
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The Association of American Universities is an association of universities distinguished by the breadth and quality of their programs of research and graduate education. Membership in the association is by invitation.
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<p>
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AAU was founded in 1900 by a group of fourteen Ph.D.-granting universities in the U.S. [which included UCB] to strengthen and standardize U.S. doctoral programs. Today, the primary purpose of the AAU is to provide a forum for the development and implementation of institutional and national policies promoting strong programs in academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education.
<p>I'm not sure what your post is suggesting. I never said that USC's research programs are bad per se, but very few are top 15, and even fewer are top 10. This gives UCLA a fair advantage in that.</p>
<p>But like I said, this is fairly meaningless in many cases. Brown and Dartmouth arguably have superior undergrad programs to both UCLA and USC, and neither one is particularly competitive in most PhD areas.</p>
<p>I am a bit uncomfortable with the fact that someone who (1) graduated from one of USC's primary rivalries, and who (2) holds a moderate level of power, makes the unfortunate and (imho) unethical decision to publicly criticize USC. Hopefully, that is cryptic enough yet direct enough to alert others to the hypocrisy of what is going on.</p>
<p>If you read what I've said, I'm not really "criticizing" USC's program. I'm saying that the undergrad is excellent but *may<a href="and%20I%20even%20suggested%20it's%20unlikely">/i</a> suffer due to the fact that most of the graduate programs aren't quite at the same level.</p>
<p>This seems to be no more critical than saying that Brown excels at undergrad education, where it's relatively weaker at graduate education for research degrees.</p>
<p>Try to look past what you see as my biases. USC does not have many top ranked PhD programs. Like I sad though, I don't even think it matters. It's an excellent program.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm really critical. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>And how is this "hypocritical?" I'm freakin' lauding the place, and you're looking to say I'm a hypocrite.</p>
<p>I think you have to be careful saying USC doesn't have top-ranked PhD programs. Some of the graduate professional schools have always been a powerhouse at USC, even when the undergrads weren't so hot.</p>
<p>Two major components contributing to a quality PhD program, the two F's - Faculty, and Funding.</p>
<p>According to "the center" at UF, USC ranks 15th nationally in NSF research funding. If medical research funds are taken out, since we're talking PhD programs, USC ranks 22nd (for perspective, UCLA ranks 23rd w/o medical) Additionally, they rank USC in the top 25 of american research universities on 7 of 9 different measurements (comparison: UCLA and Yale are 7/9 as well, Berkeley and Harvard are 8/9, and MIT and Stanford are 9/9)</p>
<p>As for faculty, USC has 26 national academy of engineering members (UCLA has 17), a Nobel Prize winner, and a Turing Award winner (often regarded as the "nobel prize" of computer science). It's tough to argue that there aren't any top faculty.</p>
<p>So I think it's tough to argue unless there's a good definition of "top-ranked" - but if UCLA is "top-ranked" then USC isn't too far behind.</p>
<p>
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lovetocamp writes: I am a bit uncomfortable with the fact that someone who (1) graduated from one of USC's primary rivalries, and who (2) holds a moderate level of power, makes the unfortunate and (imho) unethical decision to publicly criticize USC.
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I don't agree with lovetocamp's characterization, but I must reluctantly agree with the thrust of the post. A moderator, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion of acting from personal motives in their professional capacity. I know in contemporary politics and life this is a standard rarely met; perhaps all thru history it is rarely met. As they say, "no man is hero to his butler".</p>
<p>Nonetheless I think the board works better when people are given no cause to suspect (whether rightly or wrongly) that those running the forum are biased and imposing their views on others. Is this an infringement on a moderator's "right" to express any and all of their opinions freely? Yes it is. And yet I think the forum would be a better place for it.</p>