<p>Coming from PA, I’m used to state-related schools (Penn State) being more renowned for partying than for academics. I don’t know too much about the University of California schools, but I’m interested in them, especially Berkeley and UCLA. How well regarded are these schools? Do they carry a good reputation academically or are they just party schools as well? Thanks!</p>
<p>You’ll find parties at any school, but a name like Berkeley or UCLA on your diploma carries with it a great reputation. From my point of view, UC Santa Barbara is more of a party school than Berkeley or UCLA.</p>
<p>All of the UC schools follow a strict and high standard of academic excellence. I’d recommend taking your prospective major and looking into those school’s departments to determine which is best for you. For instance, if you want to study English, take a look at the class offerings and professors in the English department of UCLA vs. Berkeley. Those schools have tons of competition, though, so unless you have a mind-blowingly good application/personal statement, you should definitely consider backup schools within the UC system if you want to come to California.</p>
<p>Instead of an anonymous internet board, just look at the rankings, as an example of how the world perceives the UC’s. (Hint: Cal has as many top-ranked programs as does Harvard.)</p>
<p>There isn’t necessarily a correlation between rankings and undergraduate education.</p>
<p>True. But highly ranked departments often correlate with strong undergraduate majors. Great profs attract other star profs and grad students who want to work with them and they collectively set standards of excellence.</p>
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<p>Given that there is absolutely no way to measure “undergraduate education” you have a valid point. (Harvard, arguably considered the "best college on the planet, is not known for its undergraduate education.) Moreover, “academic reputation” for Universities, it based (solely) on grad programs rankings.</p>
<p>Regardless, the OP did not ask about “undergraduate education”… :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Rankings haven’t been to college, anonymous people on message boards have been to college. It’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask. Some arbitrary rankings aren’t going to tell the OP how actual students have enjoyed (or hated) their undergraduate education. Nor will they answer whether a University is a “party school” or not.</p>
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<p>The OP’s original questions was “How good are the UC schools academically?”. Okay, so we know OP’s asking about education. Based on OP’s previous posts, we know OP is going to be an undergraduate. Therefore, I’m going to assume the OP isn’t asking how the UCs’ PhD programs stack up. I could be wrong, though.</p>
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<p>Maybe by, I don’t know, asking people who have gone to the UCs how they’ve felt about their undergraduate education?</p>
<p>And to actually answer flyrun’s questions:</p>
<p>If you’re going to be paying out-of-state tuition, I personally would recommend applying to private schools. The UCs are continuously making budget cuts, class sizes are getting larger and more impersonal while tuition increases (I don’t know if tuition is increasing for OOS students, though.) In my experience, professors either blatantly don’t care about undergraduates, or they have so many students that it doesn’t matter how much they care. Every time I go to office hours I’m fighting with other students to get my questions answered. Many private schools will offer you more financial aid and a much better undergraduate education. You could apply to USC, Occidental, the Claremont McKenna Colleges, just to name a few. Again, this is just my opinion based on my experience at one UC. Don’t get me wrong, I love my school and have no intentions of transferring, but the undergraduate education simply isn’t very good.</p>
<p>As far as being party schools, UCSB is known to be a party schools (mostly because the off campus housing is so concentrated in one area.) A lot of people party at UC Davis, but most people seem to balance it well with academics, and the partying is pretty easy to avoid if it’s not your thing. I have no idea about the other UCs, but I think the partying would be about the same as Davis, if not less.</p>
<p>Partying at UCSD is easy to avoid, because there are no frat houses. Basically, don’t go to UCSD.</p>