<p>I'm not tryiing to be a dick here, but how overblown is the UCLA name? </p>
<p>Everytime I meet someone new and they find out I go to UCLA, it's like some fawning party over me... "Oh congrats, that's so great", "OMG UCLA!", "Wow, great job! You are really going somewhere". </p>
<p>For example, we are on vacation and randomly met some people that live 10 minutes away from us. Our mom's started talking since both have 2 kids in middle school and talking about kids = talking about school. It comes out I go to UCLA and this other lady just goes goo-goo-ga-ga over it. I mean, CHRIST! It's only ****ing UCLA. Personally, I find absolutely nothing special about UCLA. I mean, it's a good school and am glad to be going here, but it's not like some-end all be all. I felt the same way when graduating high school. Everyone's all "Congrats" and "Way to go" and I wanted to reply, "for what"? It's graduating high school. I went to the same place for 9 months/year for 4 years, sat there, put stuff in one ear, regurgitated it on paper every few weeks, then forgot it. </p>
<p>Sorry for the rant, but let's be real... is the UCLA name overblown or is it just the fact that the general public has set social norms at such a low, attainable level that being halfway successful in anything is worthy of praise?</p>
<p>IMO, it is overblown, especially among Asian-American immigrant parents. Honestly, a lot of these immigrants (my parents included) believe UCLA to be among the best schools in the world. A lot of them haven’t even heard of Berkeley or the other UCs before. They’ve heard Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and UCLA, and therefore tend to lump UCLA in the same category as the Ivies.</p>
<p>I’m not saying UCLA isn’t a great school, and if you do get in, you should be proud. But there are obviously better schools than UCLA.</p>
<p>UCLA is a terrific school. I love it. I wouldn’t have wanted to go to any other school.</p>
<p>That being said, it is not the most prestigious or best “academic” school in the country. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech deserves the jaw drops. UCLA? Nah. It’s more of a, “That’s pretty good, pretty darn good =)”</p>
<p>Furthermore, if you are from So Cal, UCLA is basically like Harvard. If you go anywhere else in the country, nobody gives a crap. Especially the East Coast. UCLA? That’s a basketball school right?</p>
<p>Oh and not to mention how many “I think UCLA is a jock school” responses I’ve heard from non-Californians. Seriously? I suppose having the most NCAA championships must mean that we have 25,000 jocks on campus. Nice.</p>
<p>UCLA has a big name value. I’ve met people who upon telling them that i go to UCLA they’re retardedly impressed with me. Even today, my friend asked his sister if i could stay over at his house since he was leaving and i’d be there all alone. His sister said ‘which friend?’ and he was like ‘the one that goes to UCLA’ and she was like ‘oh that’s fine then’ i should note that she barely knows me, and the main reason she was probably cool with it is that i go to UCLA. (as did her husband)</p>
<p>UCLA is a great school, but so are many of the other schools in the top 30 (i’m saying this to include the other top schools not in the top 25 like NYU UNC-CH, and Michigan.) Their faculty isn’t better than ours, only maybe some of their resources are (but tbh, i’ve had little if any trouble getting resources at UCLA)</p>
<p>that’s just what happens when you go to an ‘elite university’ (classified by USNWR as within the top 25) UCLA is a really good school, i often find myself undervaluating it. RRMC is the best hospital in the west coast, and UCLA is top 5 in health sciences. (look back at the article where they’re helping that person with a spinal injury walk!)</p>
<p>the UCLA name may be overblown, but that doesn’t mean that you should underblow it as well. It really is an amazing university.</p>
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<p>the comments like these that i generally read are usually inconsistent and vary from person to person. UCLA is very highly regarded as much more than just a “jock school” (at least among academics) as far as regular people go, who cares? the average person probably hasn’t heard of dartmouth, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good school.</p>
<p>“If you go anywhere else in the country, nobody gives a crap. Especially the East Coast. UCLA? That’s a basketball school right”</p>
<p>I’ve actually found it to be the opposite. From my experience, it seems that in California, people realize that UCLA is a good school, but they don’t over-hype it. They aren’t completely blown away when you say you go to UCLA (just because they know a lot of people that go there, or they know better about how good it really is). But out-of-state, it seems like people over-hype UCLA and think really amazing things about it (since they’ve heard of UCLA but don’t know many people that go there or about how it isn’t a Top 10 school). Its kinda hard to explain</p>
<p>I’d take any Ivy or top LAC over UCLA to be honest (except Cornell which is ironically the only Ivy I got into…). The bottomline is that UCLA is a public school and right now, a public education isn’t worth s*** in comparison to a private education. The professors who used to make this university worthy of its name are starting to move to privates where they receive more deserving salaries, and we are left with whatever can be salvaged… I quite frankly hate my situation but you have to keep a positive attitude or else you’ll really screw up your life. Enjoy the UCLA name while it lasts, because in a few years from now, this school is going completely down the drain (along with the economy in this country). Enjoy these next few years (and transfer in 2… LOL jk)</p>
<p>Do you even know what you’re talking about? You don’t even go to UCLA yet. Quit talking.</p>
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<li><p>For a public school, a UCLA education is of a pretty good value. And it isn’t that much worse than a private school.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, the school’s ranking is dropping a little, but in no way does that mean that the school’s name is going down the drain. It’s just struggling a little with budgeting. It will last another few years at most. UCLA will still have a reputation as a prestigous school.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’re gonna keep complaining about UCLA (especially BEFORE YOU EVEN GET THERE), do us all a favor and leave. Its ridiculous. There are almost 50,000 people that got rejected from this school, and they would all love to have your spot. No one wants your negativity there.</p></li>
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<p>This thread is ■■■■■■■■. You’re whining because people are impressed by UCLA? Or is it that you’re hoping we’ll tell you “no UCLA really is worth being amazed at!”</p>
<p>Or was this just a thread to brag about the fact that people are impressed by you?</p>
<p>But yeah, I think that anyone that’s all that impressed by any school name is being a little silly. Getting good grades and scores in high school isn’t very impressive. I’d be much more impressed by real world accomplishments than where someone went to school.</p>
<p>agreed with the above people ^ who commented on how you’re criticizing UCLA’s name. Just go with it, it’s better for ppl to be amazed at your accomplishment of getting in than nothing at all. I know a LOT of people that wish they got in. UCLA is the dream school for thousands of people.</p>
<p>UCLA of course isn’t as prestigious as the Ivies, but it’s definitely a dam great school and it’s in the top 25 in the nation. Have some pride and don’t ■■■■■.</p>
<p>overachiever92, if you really hate UCLA that much why are you even here? You got into Cornell, so why aren’t you long gone from westwood? If it’s the money you can’t afford to pay then why don’t you get your ass to a community college and transfer to somewhere private like USC after 2 years and get your bachelors from there? 2 years at USC is around the same, probably just a tad more expensive, than 4 years at UCLA with no financial aid. Plus, you’d probably have a higher GPA that way. UCLA sucks and it’s only going to get worse from here on so why don’t you consider going to somewhere like USC for 2 years? After all, the way you talk that’s obviously better than a 4 year UCLA experience right? </p>
<p>You’re not supposed to be miserable at a school you haven’t even started yet and most importantly, no one here (people that actually like UCLA) needs someone like you bringing our school’s image down so why don’t you do everyone (including yourself) a favor and explore other options?</p>
<p>UCLA is overblown just like it may seem these days that a college education is overblown. It’s only considered “overblown” because there are many students at UCLA, and each one reflects the UCLA name to those that know them, just like everyone these days is going off to college, and everyone knows a college student. Going off to college is no longer impressive.
Even though I’ve often undervalued UCLA, I think the UCLA professors are the best of the best. I feel like if one were a graduate student, or if classes were a lot smaller, one would sense the true value of being taught by the best in X field. </p>
<p>Also, regardless of the image a UCLA student might portray in or outside of campus, it takes effort to get through UCLA, that or you have to be a really great BS-er, which already says something about the skill or talent level of the person vs. average joe. I think UCLA graduates don’t generally need to flaunt their intelligence just like I think some other students might need to at “better” known schools just to appear out of reach and not “average” or “accessible”.</p>
<p>To add to the above, how many people come in contact or (actually) know HYPSMC grads? They’re not as common as BIG STATE U, and when everyone knows at least or knows someone who went to BIG STATE U, the name becomes more “undervalued”(maybe because we know before hand what the BIG ST ATE U grad is like on his or her “downtime”), simply because more people have access to it.</p>
<p>Like I said I’m done talking crap about UCLA, but I still meant what I said up there. Cornell and UCLA are both relatively free for me in terms of cost, but Cornell is too isolated, and even though its education is world-class, it’s grading is horrendous. Like Northwestern and UChicago, Cornell is one of the worst places for pre-med. Why am I still going to UCLA? Because CC is not even an option for me, and Berkeley is as bad as Cornell when it comes to grading (and Berkeley will be in the same hole as UCLA in the future). UCLA has a slight advantage.</p>
<p>What kind of ******* goes into college talking about how much they hate their school and all that? overachiever92…you need to drop that attitude immediately if you want to have any kind of good experience at UCLA.</p>
<p>Well, right now you come across as whiny and unappreciative. Should we feel sorry for you for having to go to UCLA? Grow up and appreciate your opportunities. That is all.</p>
<p>it seems like UCLA is one of the highest paying universities in the world. Sure, other schools might pay more, but some people love living in the city/the faculty members so they wouldn’t want to leave anyway. The world isn’t completely driven by money.</p>
<p>UCLA’s biggest competition in terms of salary is probably Caltech, but given their ridiculously small amount of students, i doubt they go out actively and steal professors from UCLA.</p>
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<p>i’ve seen you make plenty of unsourced seemingly anecdotal comments like ‘UChicago is where dreams go to die’ and so on. The truth is if you’re meant to go to med school, you’ll get in no matter what institution you’re coming from. And there’s probably statistics on individuals from certain institutions. If the avg GPA at UCLA for pre-med students is a 3.6, whereas at UChicago it’s a 3.4, i doubt that’s something that med schools wouldn’t take into account. It would seem absurd to me that schools just look at the GPA without considering the rigor of the workload.</p>
<p>my advice is if you’re going there so negatively, you might want to apply to another university on the beginning of your sophmore year. If you end up hating UCLA, you might want to transfer out. But remember what i’ve said above, more often than not, you’ll find UCLA surprises you.</p>
<p>^ I hope you’re right. However, the problem with medical school admission is that they don’t care about rigor. As ridiculous as it sounds a 3.75 at Harvard is worse than a 3.9 at UCI in the eyes of top med schools. I have a family friend who banked off of this ridiculous process and got himself into Harvard Med with a 3.9 from UCI.</p>
<p>don’t premeds also have to take the MCAT? Did you friend get a low mcat score or a high one? if a low one, then maybe it’s more GPA. but if it’s a high one then that probably explains why he was able to get into harvard.</p>
<p>the problem with your friends situation, is it’s impossible to tell that he wouldn’t have gotten the same GPA at Berkeley than at UCI. Or even if one was able to do so (e.g. doing a semester abroad at another UC) that they would be able to attribute it to a more difficult workload (e.g. someone who does a semester at berkeley from UCI might simply miss UCI, which affects their performance, and hence do worse at berkeley even though they’re equal in difficulty)</p>
<p>my advice is just work hard, and lose your negative attitude. Going into an institution like that with such an attitude will only have an impact on your grades, and hence serve against your desire to attend med school. Just work hard, and you’ll get wherever you want :)</p>