<p>how competitive is occidental?? in terms of getting in compared to ucla...
LA has been my dream city ever since i started searching college...which makes ucla and ucs my first choice...but im starting to realize it might be pretty though to get in to those schools with my stats.....i really want to get into dental school after graduation, is science forte of occidental??</p>
<p>EDIT : and how is its prestige in ACADEMIC WORLD??</p>
<p>Occidental is a whole lot easier than UCLA to get into.</p>
<p>Yeah but it's one of those schools that only gives financial aid to the top applicants so watch that if you need aid. There are some great athletic free rides.</p>
<p>Occidental is tied with Whitman and Bard College in the USNews rankings (#36) -- in my experience, Whitman and Bard are considered very strong schools by academics, (both stronger than #36, and stronger than the general populace considers them.) I don't believe that Oxy is considered quite as 'prestigious' as either Bard or Whitman by academics; however, it doesn't lag too far behind. </p>
<p>Oxy is known as a good school -- in terms of prestige, comparable with, maybe, Sarah Lawrence. (Totally different ambiance than Sarah Lawrence... Oxy has very strict distribution requirements, if I remember correctly--and is much better in the sciences than SLC.)</p>