<p>Hello all, I am trying to figure which school to go to for my undergraduate bachelors. I have pretty much narrowed it down to UCI or UCLA, or possibly UCSD if I have to. My question is, since I want to go to USC/Stanford for law school, would it be better to pull a higher GPA from a school like UCI or a potentially lower GPA but come out of a school like UCLA? Also, my major is political science. Does anyone know about the degree of difficulty of poli sci at UCI/UCLA? Would it really be easier to get a higher GPA at UCI?</p>
<p>Undergrad prestige has a very minimal affect on law school decisions. A 3.9 at UCI is better than a 3.7 at UCLA in the end.</p>
<p>I was in the same dilemma as you as a graduating senior in high school. Having to choose between UCLA, SD or I, I chose to attend UCI. I really had a lot of remorse at first for choosing it because it was so close to home (20 minutes away), but now I realize I love the convenience of being able to go home whenever I need to. Also at first I minded saying that I go to UCI, because it doesn't have the same affect on people as saying I am a UCLA student. Now, not so much.</p>
<p>As a current third year double major in political science and sociology at UCI, my GPA is the 3.9. I chose UCI because I realized that it would be less competitive than at UCLA, and thus easy to get a high GPA -- and indeed it is.</p>
<p>In high school I would take 4-5 AP classes a year. I came to college expecting that sort of rigor. Taking classes at community colleges during high school, I feel like UCI's rigor is only a few steps up from that.</p>
<p>I honestly must say that I do not feel that UCI curriculum has not remotely challenged me or made me grow intellectually at all, whatsoever. Sure I've a lot learned new things, but nothing to the point of changing my life perspective -- I might have been expecting too much. But then again, I am very perceptive about how to work the system -- doing the bare minimal, knowing exactly what to study, to get an A. A lot of my current peers are not as intuitive, and thus spend time stressing out about readings, completing unnecessary busy work, studying the wrong things for exams, etc.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that UCLA is that much harder anyway, my friend from high school that attends UCLA as an economics and political science major, who mind you has a higher GPA than me, also agrees that our AP classes in high school challenged us 100x more than in any classes in college, anyway. This is probably due to the fact that we are social science majors too. I always hear the natural science kids complaining about the competitiveness of the curve.</p>
<p>Since attending UCI however, I've loved my experience here. Never would I have gone back in time to change that decision -- even though I was not too thrilled in the beginning.</p>
<p>Wow thanks this helps a lot. How many classes/units did you take a quarter to keep up such a high GPA? And how many hours would you say you had to study a week to do it? I want to work/do internships to be more well rounded when I apply and I want time to do those things as well.</p>
<p>Also, can you trust ratemyprofessor.com at UCI? I heard at UCSD it was so competitive that people would write false ratemyprofessor reviews to screw other people over.</p>
<p>i'm a second year poli sci major at uci and i must say it's not hard to pull a good gpa for law school.</p>
<p>i'm aiming for somewhere around ucla law right now and though my gpa is a pretty low 3.5 (damn you film!) it's quite easy to raise it without much trouble. </p>
<p>like crimsonpham said, if you know how to and when to study, there shouldn't be anything to hold you back, least of all the political science classes.</p>
<p>as for ratemyprofessor, from my experience, it's very accurate if there are 5 or more reviews. otherwise, the sample is just too small for it to be reliable.</p>
<p>i'm a second year poli sci major at uci too! and i also want to go to ucla law school... wow... the brian, from a 3.5 gpa what do you think you'll be able to raise your gpa to? i'm in the same boat, i have a 3.6 and i need to get like straight a's for the rest of the quarters to raise it mucho. and also, what kind of gpa does ucla law look for and such?</p>
<p>the batmann, come to uci! we have great poli sci professors... and a great poli sci department! i absolutely love it... and i can't imagine being anywhere else. uci is a great school... it has all the bigness and stuff of a large university, yet you still feel like you get individualized attention... i don't know if that makes sense, lol, but i absolutely love it.</p>