<p>What are easterner's perception of colleges on the West Coast such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Stanford? Do they have the same perception as most westerner's? Are these schools as famous over there as they are over here?</p>
<p>Interesting question. I’m not from the east coast but this can be interesting!</p>
<p>Eastern perspective from where I live: </p>
<p>UCLA: average state school
Cal: pretty good state school
Stanford: west coast Harvard
USC: U of Spoiled Children
Pomona: huh?
Cal tech: huh?
Harvey Mudd: huh?</p>
<p>I guess we don’t count as east coast, but in Puerto Rico, the biggest influence is the East Coast along with Florida. However, people here love California, though they never go into detail about why. California has a rep for being “chill and cool”. New York has the rep of being the best city in the world and the east coast has a rep for being extremely business oriented and with great money-making opportunities. That being said, most people here don’t know a lot of universities from California, outside of Stanford, UCLA and Cal. The most well known universities here are Harvard and MIT. Those are seen as being the two best universities by far. People here also have great respect and idolize the Ivy League, even though the only member most could mention correctly would be Harvard (no, MIT is not an Ivy). Stanford is extremely well respected two however. Funny thing is, I had NEVER heard about Cal Tech until I started the college search process, while I repeatedly heard MIT when growing up.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that Cal Tech is “huh?”, I think it is well known everywhere. I also think Cal has a better reputation nationwide than “pretty good state school”, I think it is known a “top state school”. The rest seem on target to me, although Mudd seems to be gaining in reputation as national rankings of students earnings gain more attention and they keep topping the lists.</p>
<p>For the top schools I don’t think it’s that different. Stanford and Berkeley are hugely impressive, UCLA and USC are somewhat respected but struggle with the perception of being schools for shallow beautiful people. The Claremont colleges are just like east coast LACs: most people have never heard of them, but the people who have heard of them are impressed. Although fewer people have heard of them out here.</p>
<p>Also Berkeley may have a slightly better rep out here because we’re not hearing horror stories about waiting lists and overcrowding all the time.</p>
<p>And of course we call it Berkeley, not Cal. Like unlettered barbarians I guess.</p>
<p>So those top schools, I don’t think the perception is that different.
The main difference in perception is the other UCs and the CSUs. I just have no context whatsoever to rank or understand these schools. It’s a whole world that I’m not privy to, and I think most east coasters don’t understand it either.</p>
<p>Oh, and Cal Tech. My dad is an engineer, so I’ve heard about Cal Tech and know that it’s respected. But I was shocked to find out literally last month that it was a private institution. Had been sure it was public.</p>
<p>Those, I think, are the main differences.</p>
<p>People here think Cal Tech is on the same level as a school like Virginia Tech. People here think UVA and UMD > Cal, UCLA. Also, any other UC/CSU would be equated with community college.</p>
<p>I know about them, but I can’t help what my peers think.</p>
<p>It’s not really relevant that teens in VA and MD think UMD and UVA are higher ranked than they are. Teens in MS think Ole Miss is equal to Princeton and one of my cousins in North Carolina once asked me if Harvard was as good as NC State.</p>
<p>UCB has a good rep out here, although some people think it is still full of pot-smoking anti war protesters.</p>
<p>The west? What’s that? 
(coming from the perspective of a Texan who moved to Maine)</p>
<p>One time, I asked a young engineer the farthest west he had traveled, and he said, in all seriousness, “Washington, D.C.”</p>
<p>Someone in my AP Chem class thought WUSTL was a state school in Washington…he knew it was a good pre-med school though.</p>
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<p>Was this cousin a prospective engineering major?</p>
<p>Actually, it was Agricultural Business Management - so I guess he did have a point.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my dad (a professor at UT-Austin) once said, “Why is the runner from your town going to a little school like Dartmouth?” :)</p>
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Among the people who “should” know Cal Tech, it’s extremely well regarded. However among non STEM people who don’t watch TBBT, it’s largely unknown even within LA. The 2010 salutatorian of my high school matriculated there and even today, many people still assume she either goes to Cal Poly Pomona or a school on par with ITT Tech. My former bosses, both of whom earned their phDs from Cal Tech also get similar sentiments when they travel outside of their academic/ engineering circles. </p>
<p>Remember even though CalTech is an outstanding institution, there are fewer than 900 undergrads who attend the (somewhat closed off) school. That’s smaller than most high schools in the area.</p>
<p>Also remember how little the average American knows about key political and economic issues. Little wonder that few know about the relative merits of schools which have only indirect effects on the local economy and where no one they knew matriculated.</p>
<p>No successful D1 sports = unknown outside of the region</p>
<p>Threads for UCLA in particular:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-los-angeles/1332817-ucla-recognition-east-coast.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-los-angeles/1332817-ucla-recognition-east-coast.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1332813-ucla-recognition-perception-east-coast.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1332813-ucla-recognition-perception-east-coast.html</a></p>
<p>Stanford’s certainly well respected, and I imagine Berkeley is as well.</p>
<p>Lived all my life in northeast, except when I went to school out west. All the schools that have been named are known to and respected by middle- to upper-middle class northeastern parents who have been planning their children’s colleges since middle school. More importantly, directors of graduate programs and northeast personnel recruiters are well aware of the value of these graduates. The internet has changed immeasurably not only college admissions but post-college careers. But this is not to say that parents, recruiters, and guidance counselors outside the northeast or west coast–or in schools in poor communities–have high-speed access or know how to use it, as I was recently reminded on another thread.</p>
<p>I came from a family of nerds on the rest coast so I was brought up to think CalTech was the hardest college to get admitted. I never met anyone my age who went to CalTech. UCLA was a very well respected university as was Stanford. Berkeley is seen as the highest ranked university - it is the top ranked school for my and my siblings’ grad school fields.</p>
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<p>I was born and raised in MA but have lived on the Left Coast for past 35 years. Here’s my ranking of the UC’s, a viewpoint which might not be shared by all:</p>
<p>Tier 1: Cal (Berkeley) / UCLA
Tier 2: UC San Diego / UC Davis / UC Santa Barbara
Tier 3: UC Irvine / UC Riverside
Tier 4: UC Santa Cruz / UC Merced</p>
<p>I won’t bother to rank the CSU’s, except to say that Cal Poly SLO is probably considered the best of them, followed by San Diego State. After that, it’s a mish-mosh.</p>
<p>To give you some idea of how hard it is to get into a UC, I looked at the published list of acceptances for my DD’s high school class of '13 (she’s class of '14). Her school is an average suburban school with a total student pop of @1200. Of @300 students in the class of '13, I’m sure that a good portion of the upper 25-30% applied to at least one UC. There were 5 acceptances to Cal, 6 to UCLA, 12 to UC San Diego, 15 to UCSB, and 18 to UC Davis. I didn’t pay attention to the others because my daughter has no interest in them. Because most students apply to several UC’s, most of those numbers overlap, in other words, the 6 who were accepted to UCLA included the 5 who were accepted at Cal, and the 12 accepted by UCSD for the most part includes the 5 accepted to Cal and the 6 to UCLA.</p>
<p>In other words, to get into what I have ranked as a Tier 1 or Tier 2 UC, a student had to be in the top 5% or so of his or her class. To get into Cal or UCLA, you had to be among the top 10 students in the class. (My DD is currently ranked #3, so she has a chance, though the UC’s are not her first choice.) Students who were admitted to Cal or UCLA were also accepted to schools like Stanford, UChicago, Georgetown, etc. No Ivies for DD’s school last year, but there’s usually one or two every other year or so.</p>