<p>^^^ Berkeley is still the best public university in the world, and a research powerhouse. USC isn’t a research powerhouse (other schools are better) although that’s also something they’re working on.</p>
<p>I found this to be a pretty telling metric. This is from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is the “inside baseball” journal of colleges and universities.</p>
<p>They surveyed schools and asked them to name their peers, and naturally everyone thinks that schools above them are peers and below them are not.</p>
<p>Here are the mutual selections - schools USC chose and which also chose USC:</p>
<p>Brandeis
NYU
Northwestern
Syracuse
Rochester
Vanderbilt
Wash U</p>
<p>IMHO that’s pretty telling - several Ivy equivalents and near Ivies, but still not Harvard of course.</p>
<p>The schools USC chose:</p>
<p>Brandeis
Brown
Carnegie-Mellon
Caltech
Case Western
Columbia
Cornell
Duke
Emory
Harvard
Hopkins
MIT
NYU
Northwestern
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Syracuse
Tulane
U Chicago
U Penn
U Rochester
Vanderbilt
Wash U
Yale</p>
<p>Schools that chose USC as a peer:</p>
<p>Boston College
Boston U
Brandeis
Drexel
George Washington
Harvey Mudd
NYU
Northeastern
Northwestern
Nova Southeastern
Pepperdine
Polytechnic Inst of NYU
SMU
Syracuse
U Denver
U Miami
U Michigan
U North Carolina
U Notre Dame
U Rochester
U San Francisco
U Virginia
Vanderbilt
Virginia Tech
Wash U</p>
<p>Some interesting choices, as that tells you where USC sits in the grand scheme of things. Looks like we’re top tier, but still one rung below the absolute top. Not a bad place to be, but still not where USC can be.</p>
<p>^ That’s not the most accurate way to judge USC’s standing. For example, if you look at the colleges that chose Berkeley, none of the colleges that chose Berkeley are really any better than the colleges that chose USC.</p>
<p>Also, it judges the quality of the school as a whole rather than by major. E.g. University of Illinois seems to have mid-tier peers due to its overall standing, but its engineering program is top 5 in the nation.</p>
<p>ModernMan. First of all, did you even get into UCLA? Secondly, ask ANYONE in academia, law, medicine, business which is by far a better institution and I’d bet dollars to donuts that they’ll say UCLA. That’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>@NJessex, stop trying to start some kind of flame war. You’ve been a member at CC since TODAY and have made a total of 2 posts. You have little to no credibility when you said “Marshall grad”. For all we know, you could be a Anderson grad. Get out of here and stop being so god damn insecure. UCLA and USC are both great schools!</p>
<p>I like how USC doesn’t list UCLA as a peer; the rivalry persists even among the administration it seems (UCLA didn’t pick USC as a peer either, but they didn’t pick anyone.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>UCLA’s currently ranked 14th for business; USC’s ranked 26th.</p>
<p>Although according to the recent ATL rankings, the outcome of both law schools are pretty similar, with UCLA law scoring 52 points, and USC scoring 51</p>
<p>[The</a> ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings 2013 « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law Schools, Law Suits, Judges and Courts + Career Resources](<a href=“Top Law Schools 2022 - Above the Law”>Top Law Schools 2022 - Above the Law)</p>
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<p>How about we hold back on the hyperboles. I don’t see USC passing (or ‘skyrocketing’) passed UCLA anytime in the near future. USC did manage to court a prestigious neuroimaging lab from UCLA recently (Although UCLA didn’t get the chance to make a counter offer.) This was big news.</p>
<p>Case in point: they’re both great schools, with great strengths. And for many students in the U.S. it’s a great opportunity to attend either university.</p>
<p>SAT scores are not yet available for either SC or UCLA for the class entering in August 2013. SAT scores are posted for the freshmen who ENROLLED in 2012-2013 academic year. The admit rate for that class at SC was 20%.</p>
<p>Here are the SAT Middle SAT Scores: (ENROLLED freshmen entering in August 2012)</p>
<p>USC superscores. I am sure UCLA would have been comparable if they superscored the SAT’s seeing as how the GPA for both classes are on the same level.</p>
<p>Simba,
That site is NOT the official site. Those numbers are out of date. Note the applicant number was 35,000+. Last fall SC had over 46,000 applicants. For the class that will enter this August there were over 47,000 applicants.</p>
<p>My numbers are from the official freshmen profile which is posted on the admissions forum on the USC website. The statistics are usually posted in late September.</p>
<p>@byphy when i meant business i didn’t mean ranking i meant the diversity of programs. UCLA only has Biz Econ and a minor for accounting and if you are not competitive enough you fall short into just econ. Where as USC has marshall and like 15 other emphesis biz econ real estate finance entrepreneurship etc and Leventhal school of accounting which is ranking top 5 in the nation.</p>
<p>UCLA is an amazing school many of my peers and even my best friend goes there. Both schools have their advantages and what not, even I see ucla above par from usc but not too far ahead, as usc rankings have been not steadily but rapidly rising.</p>
<p>Alot of these focus on ranking and “academic prestige.” For the basic undergraduate level, you’re by and large going to be learning the same concepts from the same textbooks as the students at cal/ucla. </p>
<p>What matters more is your ability to grasp what you’re learning and apply it in interviews/internships. Trust me when I say a degree from cal/usc/ucla are pretty much viewed the same by employers (at least in finance) at this point, and each will more than likely land you an interview at top tier firms. That being said lands you the job/internship is YOU, not the academic institution on your resume.</p>
<p>Don’t put too much stock into rankings, you’d do better to find out which firms recruit at the schools youre looking at, and make your decision based off of that.</p>
<p>That being said, it does warm my heart to see SC beating out UCLA in rankings.</p>
<p>As of 2013, i’m not sure of any ranking where USC beats UCLA. In almost every ranking UCLA has the edge, and in USNWR (which is gamed by private universities) they’re tied. But yes, USC has greatly improved within the vast 20 years or so.</p>