<p>do you think they’d still be as good as they are? like let’s say if some campuses like irvine or sb were never added to the uc system, would they not be as good schools as they are? if they had been added to the csu system instead or just operated by themselves, would they be much easier to get into and less highly ranked? because it seems like the prestige trickles down from ucb and such and lands on the rest of the uc’s, making all of them more prestigious in a way. i mean, alot of people who would’ve gone to ucb but not accepted may go to one of the lower, newer uc’s, but not many of those may pick a csu or a private like pepperdine/santa clara/usd as an alternative.</p>
<p>Actually, I am quite confident these schools would be more highly regarded if they were unaffiliated with UC but otherwise exactly the same. I believe they are each fantastic schools, which make fantastic research contributions. They are all strong in different areas. </p>
<p>However, rather than prestige "trickling down" from Berkeley, I think these UC's suffer because they are constantly compared.</p>
<p>ex: "Well, Irvine and Santa Barbara are good, but they aren't great because they are filled with ucb rejects."</p>
<p>snd makes a good point. No matter how good the other UCs get, they will always be overshadowed by Cal.</p>
<p>Because when they're branded with the UC name, they are part of a system and thus sort of lack individuality. So even though other uc's may be good, they're still sort of seen as a lesser version of cal, which was the original uc. now some of the uc's may be just as good as flagship schools from other states, but those other schools aren't anchored to an entire system of schools and thus are able to maintain a sense of originality, so they aren't directly compared to a "greater" school out there so they are seen as a whole different entity... right?</p>
<p>although all this shouldn't really matter, since most of the uc's are still good schools in their own right, they haven't been around as long as cal so that can be their excuse for not being as good hehee</p>