<p>If you were to consider UCLA as less prestigious, should I go to Cal just because it is more prestigious? Thanks :)</p>
<p>cal is more prestigious than ucla. you should not pick a school based on prestige. visit both if you can and pick the school you like more.</p>
<p>Prestige is established at the graduate level, where the Ph.D. students work with/for a Professor. The Professors at Berkeley are more acknowledged, in general, than those at UCLA – with a few departments excepted, for example, Linguistics.</p>
<p>You should ABSOLUTELY not pick Berkeley over UCLA on the grounds of prestige. If you actually have access to a prestigious professor who is willing to mentor you, that’s a separate question. To give you the context of that statement, I attended both Stanford and UCLA as an undegrad, and my wife attended both Cornell and UCLA as an undergrad. I went on to get my MBA at UCLA and my wife her Ph.D. in Psychology.</p>
<p>My DD has finished her college visits yesterday. Her primary academic interest is Biology, with secondary interests in Psychology and foreign languages. Her primary social interest is a school of medium size, with major college sports, neither conservative nor liberal, and a student/faculty ratio that allows for easy Ph.D. faculty access (as opposed to easy TA access, but difficult Professor access.) Her final rank order for the colleges to which she was accepted is:</p>
<p>Baylor
UCSB
UCLA
TCU (ultimately felt too small to her)
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>She will SIR to Baylor over the weekend.</p>
<p>Schools to which she was accepted but that did not make the final list are Miami, Tulane, Fordham, BU, UCSC, UCI, UC San Diego, University of San Diego, and Loyola of New Orleans. As they say in the wine appreciation world, a chacon son gout, which means, “everyone has their own taste” (in this case, in what they look for in a college experience).</p>
<p>in general, prestige is established over time. I don’t think there’s a coincidence between the most prestigious universities in the country being the oldest. (harvard, yale, princeton, etc.)</p>
<p>i say in general because stanford is just a little bit over 100 years old, and is extremely prestigious. Honestly, the only thing stopping UCLA and Cal from being on the same level as the ivys is their commitment to california students. If they were started privately (imagine University of Berkeley or The University of Los Angeles) i guarantee you they’d be at least top 10. But this is not the case. However, again, prestige usually accords with time and berkeley is 50 years older than UCLA. It has to do with PHD programs, but i heard that a lot of fields like chemistry and physics were pioneered at berkeley, and when berkeley was already 100+ years old, UCLA was just starting to get established as a great public university in its own right. (it’s important to note that UCLA isn’t 100 years old yet, will turn 100 in 2019) So there’s that.</p>
<p>You may have access to amazing professors who are regarded as the best in their field, but getting individualized attention with them will be extremely difficult and competitive. </p>
<p>all in all, while berkeley is more prestigious, it doesn’t make that big of a deal at the end of the day unless you plan on working outside the U.S. (berkeley dominates UCLA in terms of international prestige)</p>
<p>UCLA and Cal have its strengths in certain areas. </p>
<p>For most pure science majors like bio, physics, math, engineering,psychology as a social science, political science, majors that do well on the LSAT, business- Cal is stronger. </p>
<p>For pre-med/health, any discipline in the health sciences, psychology as a medical discipline (psychobiology), neuropsychology, theater, film, performing arts, music- UCLA is stronger</p>
<p>Our family friend told me this. In fact, he works at UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Berkeley is slightly more prestigious but you can not go wrong with these two great schools.</p>
<p>Cal is more prestigious than UCLA. If prestige is the most important thing to you, go to Cal and don’t come to UCLA.</p>
<p>depends on department.</p>
<p>And just from experience, I’d say UCLA has an advantage in math.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^^^^ true.</p>
<p>
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<p>Really now? I am a Math major and I always heard Berkeley was more famous in Math. Personally, I’d choose UCLA anyway though.</p>
<p>At the undergrad level, I think the prestige is negligible.</p>
<p>UCLA IS more prestigious in Math. Go look up Terrance Tao, and you’ll know.</p>
<p>No, it isn’t. Berkeley dominates in math. We have terrance tao, and other famous mathematicians, set theorists, etc. But berkeley has had like 10 field medal winners in its time. I have no idea if their math department is still better to this day, but prestige doesn’t accord necessarily with quality, but with perceived quality.</p>
<p>Actually, I might’ve used the term prestige wrongly. I meant that UCLA has a “better” Math dept. than Berkeley currently though Berkeley’s Math dept. might be more prestigious because of the Fields Medalists it’s had, etc.</p>
<p>
:eek:
Has she really spent a lot of time in Waco?!</p>
<p>I’ve said it before: Berkeley trumps UCLA on prestige.</p>
<p>As for whether it matters? A smidge, at the most.</p>
<p>The individual always matters more than the school name in the long-run.</p>
<p>Of course the flagship campus is more prestigious than a satellite extension campus…</p>
<p>Oh shush, you. Yes, Berkeley is so wonderful. So full of hella.</p>
<p>^ haha! I was born and raised in LA…never used or endorsed the use of hella. :)</p>
<p>That’s, like, uhh, like, so LA of you. Like.</p>
<p>^ like OMG! now you’re just reinforcing that L.A. airhead image…</p>