<p>here's a few sample rankings for cali schools:</p>
<p>UCLA is ranked 55; Santa Clara University is ranked 67; Berkeley is ranked 70; UC Davis is ranked 128; UCI is ranked 140; UCSD is ranked 161; and USC is ranked 165</p>
<p>While i don't mind seeing UCLA ranked higher than USC (or better yet Cal) How the hell does Santa Clara University rank higher than berkeley? or UCD and UCI rank higher than UCSD? or all of the above ranking higher than USC? These forbes rankings are suspect.</p>
<p>I grew up near SCU and I can tell you it’s not better than Cal, Davis or especially USC. It’s a small campus school, so maybe they were referring to that? Academically, however, it’s hardly rigorous – except for, perhaps, the law school. (Still not more than the others.)</p>
<p>These rankings are leaps and bounds better than the USNWR rankings like I posted in the UCLA version of this thread but they could have so easily made these rankings amazing yet they kept them just slightly above sub par by having some extremely flawed criterion like “rate my professor.” </p>
<p>While I do believe USC should definitely be ranked in the top 100, these rankings are still more credible than USNWR.</p>
<p>After much reflection, discussion, and evaluation of their methodology, unsurprisingly, i think that the different rankings are meant to examine different qualities:</p>
<p>USNWR views which institutions are the overall <em>best</em> in terms of reputation, academics, research, and so on. Forbes, treats undergraduate education as if it were an investment (which it essentially is) so RMP reviews are seen analogous to Yelp reviews. Interestingly enough, there was some correlation noted between the RMP figures and the universities own reviews, but it was noted that this correlation was “far from 1.”</p>
<p>the payscale figures use similar logic since, if you’re paying (investing) 200k for an education, which i think it should be noted that most of us are not, then your university should help you make much more money than you paid for your eudcation.</p>
<p>in terms of reputation, the who’s who category kind of makes sense as well since people will be associated with their alma maters, and if successful enough, will add to the prestige of a university, and possibly increase the frequency of people able to do this (since a precedent has been set.)</p>
<p>all in all, they do a pretty good job of justifying why they pick the criteria that they do for the methodology (although i still think it’s pretty flawed)</p>
<p>Forbes ranked New York, Tokyo and London as among the top 10 most beautiful cities in the world. They ranked Palo Alto as a better college sports town than Columbus or Austin.</p>
<p>How are WashU and Johns Hopkins not in the top 100 and CMU is 98? I know they aren’t Ivies, but I find it hard to believe that Hampden-Sydney College (I just picked one at random above 98) with an average SAT from 1010-1230 is better than all 3 of theses schools.</p>
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA that’s the funniest thing I have heard all week. Thanks for making my day. USN is worst of all of them because their criteria is garbage. If you want superficial that have nothing to do with education then yes USN is the best ranking there is. I do agree with you that the Forbes Rankings have huge disparities. I would even venture to say USC’s undergrad program is probably even stronger or at least on par to UCLA, the fact that you think USN is “closest to accurate” makes me sure you’re one of the insecure “USC is better than all” types. It’s just funny. </p>
<p>Sparknotes:
I agree USC undergrad > UCLA undergrad (generally speaking, not specific departments)
Forbes rankings have huge disparities
Thinking USN rankings are “closest to accurate/the best”= total moron</p>
<p>You know what’s really funny? You folks from UCLA coming to a USC message board posting anything you can scrape together in a desperate attempt to paint UCLA in a better light than USC. Who cares? If you really think UCLA is so great, just be proud you go/went there and leave it at that.</p>
<p>You know what’s really REALLY funny? I admitted and admit that USC undergrad is probably better than UCLA’s. I acknowledge that USC’s private standards surpass UCLA at this point in the state’s budget crisis. UCLA is just cheaper for me and took my ~50 units of community college credit that I took in high school when USC did not. What’s really funny is you can’t read and say I’m “scraping together a desperate attempt”…</p>
<p>If I went to UCLA, it would have been more expensive for me than USC – even though I was in state. USC gave me scholarships and aid; the UCs did not. </p>
<p>Your argument is pointless. “School A than School B because I could afford School A.”</p>
<p>By that logic, USC is totally better than Harvard. I could never afford Harvard and they give shoddy aid. I mean, come on dude. High tail it out of here, please.</p>
<p>UCLA is a good school, USC is a good school. Why can’t people accept that and move on? What I DON’T like about UCLA is all the UCLA people who feel like they need to constantly defend UCLA/insult USC to “prove” something – don’t know if they’re trying to prove themselves or others, but either way, it gives UCLA a bad name.</p>
<p>I play in a band with a UCLA grad student and another USC alum. Do you think we care about which school is better/who went where? No. That would be stupid.</p>
<p>My best friend from HS went to UCLA – do you think we fought with each other about which school was better? No. We didn’t care at all. In fact, we were happy to be in LA together.</p>
<p>People who constantly fight about why their school is better than their rival school and come around insulting alums/current students (because you HAVE done this; you use very heated language on this board) are sad, pathetic people.</p>
<p>I think we are too hard on gold3n. He/she isn’t saying UCLA is better because he/she can afford it! He/she is saying that it was the best deal for them and thus the school that was chosen. Practically speaking a lot of people end up at a certain place for these types of reasons. It just so happens that he/she ended up at USC’s biggest rival.</p>
from my experience in recruiting, “superficial” (or prestige as i call it) is probably #1 on the ranking list</p>
<p>i dont care if schools like jhu, swarthmore, cmu (pulled these out of my ass, just using them as an example) are the top academically; they will still be trounced in recruiting by people from HYPS etc and USN rankings does a pretty good job reflecting that</p>
<p>Zelda, I think the main problem with people like you is that you assume just because I am attending UCLA all of my posts are about how UCLA is better than USC. If you actually reread my last post and this time try to ACTUALLY READ IT instead of substituting whatever you want to see it actually says something along the lines of “I admit USC undergrad is probably better than UCLA, I just went to UCLA because they took my CCC credits and it costed way less for me” not “I think UCLA is better because it costs less.” I have no idea where that idea came from nor do I have any idea why you think I was trying to say UCLA is better than USC. I don’t come to the USC boards to do that, I come here to legitimately post my opinions about the topics I am posting in just like how I do at other boards of colleges I don’t attend. However, I’ve noticed EVERY TIME that I come here even when I have admitted that USC certainly pays more attention to its undergrads thus probably has a better program than UCLA I am met with extremely insecure and immature remarks.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how “I admit USC undergrad is probably better” translated to “I am from UCLA so I think USC sucks.” It just shows insecurity when you post things like that, Zelda. I don’t know if you misread or maybe I am misreading your post (in which case inform me and I will surely apologize). </p>
<p>The only thing here that I was flaming was the US News rankings and how crappy I personally think they are. I sincerely hope I this isn’t the case but after reading your response, I feel that possibly certain USC kids are so insecure that if anyone from UCLA even remotely mentions how bad a ranking is where USC is ahead of UCLA they will lose their mind. </p>
<p>I wanted to distance myself from this train of thought and make sure I got my point across that I don’t believe USC is worse than UCLA, I just think that the US News rankings are garbage. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say, I certainly hope I am the one reading wrong here and you/certain USC kids aren’t this insecurely overly defensive about the slightest critique. Calm down because if I am reading your post right it’s you who’s giving your school a terrible name, not me. </p>
<p>kmzizzle, I agree with what you’re saying about prestige; I just believe that the US News rankings are corrupt and ridiculous. Whether they coincidentally happen to be in a “generally correct” order in your opinion doesn’t change the fact that the inside workings of the rankings are a horribly flawed system much so than any other rankings. If you’re a member here please read this article, it will help you get an idea of where I am coming from. There are numerous highly educated people writing similar articles that really show just how ludicrous and a sham US News really is.</p>
<p>i have too – although i’ll admit that some of my posts on this forum have been a little more mean-spirited than they should have been. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that just because we’re UCLA students we hate your school. Some of my comments have been on their own perhaps a bit more insulting than they should have been, but others have been put forward in the defense of the UC system (which i’ve seen people on this forum try to bring down)</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what ‘better’ means, so i’m not sure how you would even measure USC’s undergrad being better than UCLA’s; or the contrary. Their both fine institutions, i’ve said this before. My poking fun at all the forbes rankings shouldn’t be interpreted as ‘hey this is just another ranking where UCLA is better than USC is.’ (although i’ll admit that i have done that in the past.) Especially when i think my OP makes it seem apparent that that was not my intention.</p>
<p>I think unless we flatout come and say ‘UCLA rocks, USC sucks’ we should try to keep things on this forum fairly civil.</p>
<p>I’ve read some posts that’ve seemed unnecessarily hard on USC, but not one of them is on this thread. In fact, I find Gold3n and beyphy’s posts here quite sensible and respectable. Let’s not get too sensitive, eh? (:</p>
<p>I feel like college rankings are completely pointless, but lots of people pay attention to them, and college applications are so much about perception, aren’t they? And like it or not, lots of people buy the college ranking edition of USN&WR. So when USC climbs up those rankings, it gets peoples’ attention, and more people apply, and USC can afford to take even better candidates every year, causing their ranking to climb even further.</p>
<p>I personally don’t think rankings are valid at all, since every school is different, and more importantly, will provide each student with a different experience, but I won’t lie; I do state that USC is a “top-25” school, especially on the East Coast, where most people I encounter still have the “USC is nothing but a party school” mentality. Regardless of your opinion on rankings, you have to acknowledge that a lot of value is placed on them. I know of one guy who chose Harvard over Yale because the year he graduated, Harvard was ranked #2 and Yale was #3 (I guess he didn’t apply to/get into Princeton). He didn’t care which school was better for him or anything else, he chose purely based on ranking. Some people do that, it’s crazy, but it’s true. I know this is a Forbes ranking thread, but USN&WR are coming out soon, anyways. </p>
<p>And most of the UCLA posters on here seem to be more or less fine? I don’t visit it often/at all, but I’m sure there are some USC boneheads on the UCLA board.</p>