<p>First off, I know you may say these rankings are not important and they are only subjective, they certainly are. But you have to remember that a good deal of freshman next year are going to read these and see that Irvine is now 8 spots higher than Davis. A professional source claiming this certainly does have an effect. I want my friends to come to davis over Irvine/SB/Wash/whatever else took its place. This college is simply amazing and i truly feel a lot are missing if they don’t consider it. </p>
<p>Anyways… What happened? Davis has bulid so many new facilities, transitioned to division 1, and nothing significant happened to lower the school. Heck, we even had an astronaut get press this year. Irvine has not beaten davis in years and SB has never come close. </p>
<p>Woah. I can't imagine what could have caused US News to degrade Davis by 6 spots. Davis was ahead of both Irvine and SB last year, now it's lagging pretty far behind. Ironically, this last year Davis has seen relatively significant improvements.</p>
<p>I think the rankings had to have been compiled before the astronaut thing. These rankings were probably made months ago. I have no idea how they dropped to below Irvine AND SB.</p>
<p>8 of the California UCs in the top 100, 6 in the top 50....Davis is in the top 50....don't read too much into this list although it would be nice to climb and climb Davis will. Astronauts and construction are not as heavily weighted as other things. Unfortunately your D1 sports teams will do more for your prestige, with some people, than the new Biology College which also was too late to impact any of this.</p>
<p>Go out there and out learn, out play and prove to the world how great your school is.</p>
<p>I would believe it. Davis is still a great school, but due to budget cuts and all, classes and support centers have become really crowded. I mentioned on another thread how in three years, one class jumped from 30 students to 80. One could claim that this should affect all UCs, but each UC has various sources of funding, which is why they all have different tuition. Unfortunately, I think UCD ranks relatively low on alumni giving, which doesn't indicate support for the school -- every alumnus I've ever met loves UCD -- but the times. Until relatively recently, UCD was an ag school. One would expect that UCD would be receiving endowments and such, but all the family farms around here (the people who would have gone to UCD 20-50 years ago) are failing right and left. They are being bought out by corporate farms or developers. The people who should be in a position now to donate generously or leave their estates to UCD are broke themselves. And without alumni giving to make up for the loss of state support... things are going to suffer. It doesn't help that UCD is letting students sit on each others' laps in classes while it's pouring millions into recreation centers and sports stadiums, but those things were voted on before the budget cuts. That said, it's still a good school. As a student, I may have to go to a little more work to get myself noticed from my classmates, but the quality of instruction is still excellent, and I'm sure as the financial situation improves, UCD will work its way back up.</p>
<p>The ratings tend to fluctuate a lot with mid tier UCs, next year it could jump back to the same position. Irvine went from 36 to 49 in one year a few annual rankings ago.</p>
<p>The US News places way too much weight on percentage of students admitted. I'm pretty sure the US News uses statistics a couple of years old for most criteria. UCD, being the largest UC by area and therefore most able to easily grow, agreed to accept a large increase of students to help UC deal with baby boom 2. That was accomplished by accepting a much larger number, and thus larger percentage, of new students. </p>
<p>Also, UCD has not played the same games, as several other UCs, of spending a large portion of their resources luring Nobel prize winners. The nobel laureates increase the prestige of those UCs, but do not increase the experience for the average undergrad. In most situations nobel laureates do not even teach undergrads.</p>
<p>Instead UCD chose to invest resources into building the largest, and one of the only, laboratory science buildings of any university. The SLB just opened last year - and has cutting-edge equipment that no other UC has. Also, it is one of the few universities in the world with a College of Biological Sciences. Last year, more UCD students received bachelor's degrees in the biological sciences than any other university in the world. </p>
<p>In much more important rankings, UC consistently ranks much higher.
For example, last year UCD was ranked 14th in research funding among ALL U.S. universities and 5th among UC campuses by the National Science Foundation. (4th if one ignores UCSF, which does not admit undergrads). That means that public and private granting agencies have that much regard for the research that goes on at UCD.</p>
<p>And, UCD offers more research opportunities for undergrads than any other UC.</p>
<p>Really, what would it take to seriously change the quality of education at any school. What size tornado of ignorance would have to overcome the faculty and student body to drop a school significantly. These rankings are indicators not reality. Alumni contributions should be encouraged to help improve the quality of education, not just the ranking.</p>
<p>Seriously, i am pretty shocked to see UCD go from 42 to 48. Why did we drop so much? We always stayed at the top of the mid tier UCs...but now we are at the bottom of the 3. I am dissapointed. 6 ranks we go. I don't know if we are admitting too many students or the budget cuts are just killing us. Compared to UCSB and UCI we are falling behind. Something needs to be done to restore our prestige. I hope incoming freshman won't be wavered by the rankings when they choose to come to UCD next year. </p>
<p>Rankings don't mean much but how else are we suppose to grade schools? I really think something needs to be done to stop us from slipping. Its either other schools are improving more than us or our quality of education is deteriorating. Either way, we are falling behind. </p>
<p>I am still proud to be an aggie but i just hope that we will be nationally recognized as well. I hope UCD can make improvements in the resources that we lack (alumni giving rate, class room sizes) because those are the things that the school needs to work on.</p>
<p>^^Very true. I for one know that a year ago I(my ignorant self) was looking at these rankings and Davis being ahead of the other two did make a difference. After further consideration though I would have still chosen Davis but I hope the better of the crop this year still choose Davis even after our fallen ranking. </p>
<p>I mean, we have the hands-down better well-rounded school in regards to the other two so how are we behind them? Last time I checked college, and these rankings as well, werent all about nobel laureates and alumni contributions. </p>
<p>Bah, oh well, I can only hope they go back up next year..</p>
<p>Rankings are all inherently flawed since they are all based on just a few criterions. Don't use these arbitary ratings to decide what school you're going to spend the next few years at.</p>
<p>Ouch! Cows might have smelled really bad when US News reps went to check out your campus LOL Sorry, couldn't keep it to myself heheh But yep, next year most of the students who will have to choose which mid tier campus to attend will only pick UCD if they have friends who go there...That's just reality.</p>
<p>i chose ucd cuz of location, and i could have went to any of the midtiers and also ucsd......so i think we will still be getting alot of norcal ppl just not so much socal influence anymore</p>
<p>I think wellen.. might have a point...people who have friends at Davis will know about the higher quality of life and education offered in the last college town in California. They will know about the benefits of all of our new construction, the new Biology College and of course the D1 sports teams. While more shallow people will be overwhelmed with the prize of not having to count as high to find their college ranking people who know Davis will understand it will offer them a world class education beyond the measurement of a $5.00 magazine.</p>
<p>I doubt it'll even make much of a difference. For people only applying to UCs, the "tiers" of UC schools are pretty well cemented, and I just don't think people would choose one mid-tier UC over the other simply due to the ranking. I know I never would.</p>
<p>Anyone who would pick their school based solely on rankings, especially a difference that's so small, will likely be unhappy wherever they end up.
I don't think this ranking change will have any impact, it's so small and for most people there are more important factors that influence them. Like rc251 said, people in California already have a good idea where each school stands and a little fluctuation won't make a big difference.</p>
<p>Anyone choosing a UC solely based on rank is bringing a mistake upon themselves. Especially when the mid-tier UCs are pretty much equal in quality of education. Albeit, there are certain areas that each UC is particularly strong in, while weak in others. This is what prospective students should be focusing on, and i'm sure what grad schools will be looking into on your application. I would assume rank would play a minor role, unless it's a humongous difference (ie, outside of the top 'x' schools)</p>