<p>Each school is specialize at something SC and SD is Marine. R,D, and M are agriculture. UCLA is health. UCI ,R, LA are engineering. I and Cal are Business and so forth. If a certain campus is strong in something but weak at another it counterpart is Better at that certain campus weakness.</p>
<p>For example UCR and UCD > UCSD in agriculture. UCSD > UCSB in Bio</p>
<p>I totally agree with bullhockey. UCSD has a bunch of really bad names already… and I’m not saying it is a bad school, but this letter just adds more to it -.-</p>
<p>Calling Card, I was admitted into UCSD also this year, and I chose UCD over UCSD, and so did many of my classmates. I know about a good 15 other people who made the same decision as I did.</p>
<p>And, im pretty sure the staff at the other UCs have been talking with the UC system… im sure not everything is released for the public to know.</p>
<p>I also was admitted to UCSD this year and chose UCSC instead. </p>
<p>On ADMIT DAY, a day where the school should try to glorify everything about the campus, 95% of the students hired to walk around and answer questions admitted that UCSD was not their first choice and still seemed like they were ****ed off about not getting into UCLA 3 years ago. When I visited UCSC, which was just on a normal school day, every student I talked to seemed extremely grateful to be there. I guess I got a bit off topic.</p>
<p>I am saying this for my friend but I agree with Skadforlife.
A lot of my friends got accepted into UCSD but the whole 6 college system, separating the campus, turned them down for UCSB and UCI.</p>
<p>amby262roy , about the 6 college system… I was in down at UCSD in april for a tour, and it was quite funny how all the tour guides were explaining the 6 college system and claimed “it is the better system”… I thought to myself… "if its the better system then why are you the only school with such a ridiculous idea? " </p>
<p>kinda off topic but haha, it reminded me of that.</p>
<p>yup
my friends’ said that the 6 college system kinda divides the campus</p>
<p>Just to add my story…</p>
<p>I got into most of the usual suspects out of high school (mid tiers, but didn’t apply to SD because it is too close) and chose to attend UCSC because I really liked the environment. My brother went there as well and liked it a lot. </p>
<p>I am probably going to transfer because of personal reasons, but will be almost certainly be choosing UC Davis (SD is my 4th or 5th choice). </p>
<p>UCSC gets a lot of heat because students are “reefers” or whatever. I kinda agree, but that is a generalization that isn’t true among all students. I for one havn’t smoked or drinked in my life, and most of my friends at UCSC are the same way. I get annoyed by the louder people who give my school a bad name (mainly protesters). It is fair to say that my school has more of these type of people than say UCSD, but the majority of the UCSC campus is filled with smart, intellectually curious students. </p>
<p>The only school, if any, that should be on UCSD’s “bad list” is Merced. There can be an argument to close this University because it is well known to be the “didn’t get in anywhere else” university, but both UCR and UCSC have been around for more than 45 years (I don’t know the exact numbers). This proposal is insulting, not only to the students and parents of students at these schools, but also to the professors that devote their life to research and instruction at these Universities. </p>
<p>I am currently taking an UD course at UCSD, in which all but a handful of students in the class attend UCSD during the regular school year. My classmates at UCSD are no different than those at UCSC, from what I can tell. This is not meant to be a statement of fact, just an observation.</p>
<p>There are some bad qualities about the Universities mentioned in this proposal, but it is obvious that a plan to close down two major research Universities is just an attempt to create noise about salary cuts. Unfortunately, the buzz has gotten out to the general public, but I think most people think this plan belongs in the onion rather than the Union Tribune.</p>
<p>There can be an argument to close this University because it is well known to be the “didn’t get in anywhere else” university</p>
<p>You can’t really make that argument either. The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 clearly laid out that the UC system would serve the top 12.5% of high school students in California. So even these students who “didn’t get in anywhere else” are some of the brightest students among California high school graduates.</p>
<p>Furthermore, California’s population is growing rapidly. California has 37 million now and is projected to grow to 50 million in 2050. Where are you going to put in all these new students? (UC Merced is expected to enroll 25,000 in the future by the way.) The current UCs are already large and crowded. Berkeley, UCSB, and UCLA have pretty much maxed out their campus acerage and will be hard pressed to accept more students. Do you want to rewrite the Master Plan and dump these students on the Cal States, which themselves are crowded as it is?</p>
<p>The fact is, suggesting closing Merced is stupid, and again, the person making the suggestion has no qualifications to do so. It’d be the same if a bum came up to us and told us that Merced should be closed, there’s no reason to even take the suggestion seriously.</p>
<p>Not really sure why such threads alwas have to evolve into UCSD-bashing threads. The 6-college system is mirrored after the multi-college systems of England’s Cambridge and Oxford Universities, both of which have over 30 colleges. Both of these are considered as the finest universities in the world (often ranked top 1 and 2). So clearly, UCSD is NOT the only one with such a “ridiculous idea.” It’s merely a different system. If you like it, then you like it. If you dont, that’s your taste. But it’s not any more or less effective than the other systems. There’s no need to call it crazy.</p>
<p>@the real topic at hand, I agree that the solution is NOT to close UC Merced (and definitely not the other two). That would be counterproductive and a complete waste of all the money and resources invested in it in the last couple of decades. However, the redirection of such money/resources may be necessary. In better economic times, it would be a worthy goal to improve Merced and try to make it popular and raise its rankings and reputation. Unfortunately, as it is, such a goal must be postponed. Spending large amounts of money to expand Merced, ie. adding business and medical schools does NOT really help the UC budget crisis. Enrollment is highly unlikely to rise just because Merced gained a few new majors, from 17 to say, 30. If you were offered admission to say, UCR, UCSC, and UCM, would you choose UCM just because it now has a brand new business school (and UCR has had a well-established one for ages)? Nope. Therefore, such expansions should really wait. They do little good, and only cost the UCs more money than they can afford. Should all the other campuses deteriorate to improve its youngest sibling? Take one for the team, Merced. At least, for now, until we survive the budget crisis.</p>
<p>rc251 - You took a one liner out of my 7 paragraphs. Obviously, my overall point was that none of the UCs should be closed and the idea of it is just ridiculous. I only made my point because I think the opening of Merced suddenly shifts UCR and for some reason UCSC closer to the bottom in rankings. UCSC requires significantly better stats than UCR, and both require significantly better stats than Merced. The fact that UCR and UCSC were even put in this proposal is shameful. None of the UCs should be shut down, including Merced, but if there was a school that UCSD wanted to point out and take a stab at, they should have left UCSC and UCR alone.</p>
<p>Mercurial - Redirection of funds can be good if say, for example, we put a hold on UCM’s expansion plans to help keep lecturers at the other UC campuses. However, we can’t and shouldn’t take funds that would otherwise go to sustaining adequate facilities at the lower UC campuses (whom do not have as much private grants/research funding/alumnus donations) to give to the upper UC campuses who have a lot more of these donations and grants. BTW, UCM is now part of the UC system, so how we handle this school reflects on the UC system as whole. If we make UCM take the biggest budget cuts when it is trying to put itself on the map, ultimately it makes the UC system look bad.</p>
<p>Cali Trumpet, sorry if my post sounded aggressive. By “you”, i was really referring to the general idea of Merced being closed, and my last paragraph was addressed to the professor at UCSD.</p>
<p>I think Merced’s slow staggered enrollment isn’t going to affect the other UCs all that much. The other UCs have exploded with extremely competitive admissions recently, and while Merced might slow the competitiveness of some schools, it definitely won’t reverse it.</p>
<p>Cali Trumpet, </p>
<p>If you say none of UCs should be closed, then why even entertain the idea of closing UCM? Just stick to your point. And one point only, please. </p>
<p>BTW, UCM doesn’t drag down UCSC or UCR, I don’t know where you get that idea/feeling from. If anything, it helps them move out of bottom.</p>
<p>just out of curiosity
isn’t UCR and UCSC in the top 100 in the rankings ?
and if the above ranking statement is true doesn’t that make the 2 universities which UCSD profs want to close down higher ranked than a lot of flagship universities of other states like Oregon or Oklahoma ?</p>
<p>UCRUCR- </p>
<p>I made two comments:
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with bringing an extra point into my argument that no matter what the circumstance, it was foolish for them to discuss two UCs that are ranked in the top 100 national (top 50 public) universities. You don’t have to agree, it is a forum afterall.</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with rankings. It has to do with the UC system itself and its own financing. UCSC and UCR will NOT close down. Where would that many students go? It would be too much. Our UCSD chancellor is just a drama queen. No closing down will happen. If anything happens, it would just show up in future admission rates and expenses.</p>
<p>Cali Trumpet, </p>
<p>UCSD didn’t publish that letter. It was somehow leaked to the public because it’s a letter to the UC president.</p>
<p>UCRUCR- really? If that is true, thats pretty sad. How does something like this get leaked.</p>
<p>Just a note, it wasn’t written by the chancellor but by a sociology professor. It appears it was first published on this blog on June 15th:</p>
<p>[Chris’s</a> Blog Archives: UC San Diego Faculty Statement on Budget Crisis](<a href=“http://toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-15-2009-dear-i-write-on-behalf-of.html]Chris’s”>Chris's Blog Archives: UC San Diego Faculty Statement on Budget Crisis)</p>
<p>And then later sent to the Merced newspaper in July. That blog above seems to have a lot of internal emails from the UC system. Probably someone (maybe even a professor) who is getting these emails and then leaking them for public dissemination.</p>
<p>I say we close down Harvard once and for all.</p>