<p>drax,
Don’t bother him with the facts. It’ll only confuse him further… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^ I’m just saying some of the reasons which drax12 provided are irrelevant. Some are just plain scapegoats to make up for his alma mate’s lost in this survey. Some may be sensible however, and I’m not denying that. The point is, UCLA did not do well in this survey. And that is that. </p>
<p>Compare UCLA and USC. Compare Dartmouth and Brown. Compare Harvard and Boston College. Etc. Etc.</p>
<p>By the way, why don’t you compare Stanford v Cal? What would happen if some Stanford alumnus came here with wanting to do similarly? </p>
<p>Some of you Cal people are unbelievable. If you want to believe that Payscale is some deeply researched scientifically sample-sized survey 100% reflective of the salaries (bonuses, etc) of each of these universities’ grads with bac degrees, then you are gullible, easily scammed, and probably extremely naive.</p>
<p>Here are the numbers of UCLA v USC and Cal for [undergrad</a> educated](<a href=“http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/demographics.aspx]undergrad”>Attorney Demographics) CA-bar certified attys, page about 1/3 down. </p>
<p>Here’s the total of CA attys divided by undergrad enrollment. I’ve included Stanford which seems to have the best %s:</p>
<p>Stanford: ~7K attys, 7K undergrad, 100%
UCLA: 19K+ attys, 26K undergrads, 76%
Cal: 17+ attys 25K undergrads, 70%
USC: 7K+ attys, 17K undergrad, 41%</p>
<p>Here’s the number of applications to med school in 2009, per [aamc</a> website](<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table2-race.htm]aamc”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table2-race.htm).</p>
<p>It shows the following applicants in 2009:</p>
<p>UCLA 737
Cal, 669
Stanford, 273
USC, 224</p>
<p>I”m sure Stanford had the best acceptance rate among the four (number of applicants obtaining at least one acceptance over total applied). But Stanford wouldn’t have nearly the best in the nation, because CA med schools as a group, including the consortium of UC m-schools are the toughest to and for which to gain admission. After that who knows? I don’t think Cal would kill UCLA with a far greater acceptance rate. Btw, only 1/4 of those who applied, were recycled applicants, so I doubt a great deal of applicants from UCLA were recycles. Some I’m sure deferred after having obtained a masters in public health or life science, and then applied. But that’s true for all universities.</p>
<p>USC should have a higher median salary for those with just baccalaureate degrees. It has more vocational majors at the undergrad level. UCLA, on the other hand, is more of a preparatory for grad school, and does far better in grad placement. But USC doesn’t have the upper hand in national firms interviewing at both universities, because they probably swing into LA area and interview at UCLA, USC, Cal Tech, and some of the Claremont Colleges.</p>
<p>Btw, UCLA just a couple years ago in this survey had a median of $101K. Since then, after WSJ came out with the survey, the median has dropped some $10K. Why is that? Whereas, Cal’s and USC’s have remained the same? Is it because Cal and USC grads would be more recession-proof? I doubt that. Could it be that there were some grads of some university that posed as UCLA grads to intentionally lower these medians? I can’t say that for sure, but Payscale should do some sort of audit to see why this was so. I doubt, though, if the website is that cognizant of large fluctuations.</p>
<p>And this idea that Cal is a university that is so much better in job placement and standards than UCLA is laughable. The SAT point differential is because UCLA has a larger burden in admitting those underperforming high schools in LA, than Cal does for the Bay Area. There are a lot more “bad” schools in LA.</p>
<p>And UCLA does better than Cal for a most professions in LA, as Cal would do likewise in the Bay Area. This is the point of my citing real-estate prices in the Bay Area. A lot of Cal grads settle in that region, including those who obtain MBAs from Haas.</p>
<p>I don’t care if no one else reads and responds to my post prior to this one, but I would appreciate your doing so.</p>
<p>Part of this is a test to see how a stat-linking person such as yourself would respond. </p>
<p>Are you going to fire off more links to me countering the things I linked?</p>
<p>Are you going to link more things showing Cal’s superiority over UCLA? This inquiring mind wants to know, lol…</p>
<p>Let me guess what approach, you’ll take:</p>
<p>“Well, I do know that Cal grads go to more prestigious grad schools: law schools, med schools, etc. Uhh, Cal owns the state of CA, owns all professions, owns all recruiters. Oh, and did you look at that Payscale site. Uhh, it’s got to be the most accurate survey ever done – highly scientific.”</p>
<p>Wrt “prestigious” grad schools:</p>
<p>UCLA and Cal are probably perpetually the top public-university feeders to HLS, flip-flopping at the top. Neither comes anywhere near the other Ivies, especially Harvard which sends a predominant number to its own l-school, but there’s a decent representation of each at HLS. Both a good deal more than the larger-enrolled UT-Austin. </p>
<p>Cal owns CA:</p>
<p>Don’t ever work in Century City, one of the hot-beds for professionals on the WestCoast. The place crawls with UCLA alumni. A lot of the OC firms do too, particularly in law.</p>
<p>I’ll check back later today, and look specifically for your response.</p>
<p>I don’t need to respond to your post. Calm down. UCLA is cool too. Dartmouth performed better than Brown on payscale. But I’m not in any way saying that - in general -Dartmouth is superior to Brown. The most logical rationalization I can get from the survey is that Dartmouth grads are more career oriented than Brown grads are. Other than that, there’s very little to squeeze from both schools so one can better assess their academic standards and strengths.</p>
<p>BTW, Isn’t UVa 2nd to Berkeley when it comes to acceptances to top law/med/business schools? I even think UMich performs better than UCLA in that regard.</p>
<p>Again, UCLA is cool. I would consider going there if I can’t get into some better schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you’d receive the idea that I am somehow agitated. I approach all my posts here with a clinical tone becuase, frankly, nothing here can really fire me up. If I post here, it’s just that the trigger mechanism to my desiring to post has been surpassed, and I post. It’s not a hair-trigger mechanism, btw, lol. I don’t know how anyone could have gone into the 1,000’s as you have done, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>No disrespect to you or anyone else here - I’m trying to state this with as much respect for you as I can show - I’m not real interested your choice of colleges (or anyone else who posts here). For one, I’m not real big on someone seeking advice on colleges on a message board. If you choose to consider the university, fine, if not that’s fine also. </p>
<p>I’ve recommended to someone to bypass an acceptance to UCLA and other UC’s and to attend a local community college because the OP had extreme financial concerns and wanted to be an MD, even though she was instate. Debt can be a real killer for someone set to enter grad school.</p>
<p>My only real interest and therefore existence on these boards is wrt UC and, yes, UCLA in particular. If I see misinformation doled out about UCLA, I’m going to correct it. My original/first post was in response to someone who gave misinformation about the number of UCLA grads applying to med school. And since then, I’ve accumulated ~ 200 posts or so. </p>
<p>One of the things that’s making its way around these boards is that UCLA and UC as a whole are going to be hard hit financially because of the lack of state money funding undergrad education. UCLA and particularly Cal, have upped their non-residents in their frosh classes, so the state financial woes that will hit UC will hit UCLA and Cal significantly less, and maybe not much if at all. </p>
<p>A lot of people like yourself on this board link and reference the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>US News’ College Rankings</li>
<li>The WSJ survey of Rankings of Universities’ Placement to Prestigious Grad Schools</li>
<li>Payscale’s Median Salaries for Grads by University</li>
</ul>
<p>All these surveys/publications have inherent flaws, deeply seated, partiuclarly, the latter two. This was my main essence in correcting the things you stated.</p>
<p>Wrt to Uva and Cal being the top public (assuming this what you meant) universities feeding students to the three professional grad schools:</p>
<p>No, UCLA is near the top as well as Michigan. UCLA might be at the top for some… As you can see, UCLA produces more attys in CA than Cal. And yes, there are de-certified attys in CA, such as those UCLA grads that have gone into film production, etc. </p>
<p>The question would be out-of-state and international attys. Even though UCLA’s undergrad students are mainly CA natives, the determining factor in a UCLA grad being, say, NY certified, would be if he or she attends an l-school in NY, say, NYU, becuase NYC firms would go heavily after NYU law grads. And UCLA places very well in oos law schools. </p>
<p>And you can see from my other link that UCLA produces a boatload of MDs, assuming a better than average acceptance rate which the school has. UVA had 380 applicants to med school in 2009 but there’s an adjsutment factor for UVA which has a smaller undergrad enrollment. </p>
<p>The variable that I can’t place would be UCLA’s placement into B-schools. But, I don’t see UCLA lacking in this placement either, just on anecdotal evidence. In fact, I would say, law school or b-school first among UCLA grads with Med school third.</p>
<p>And don’t buy into this notion that Cal is a lot more professionally oriented than UCLA. This would simply be untrue as my evidences support. </p>
<p>And don’t buy into these seven-year old surveys stating listing the top-feeders to prestigious grad schools. There’s a lot of excellent professional schools out there, and one of the reasons why UCLA wouldn’t register as highly besides have a large grad class would be becuase UCLA’s a public university and a lot of its grads think of lower cost for professional schools, the same with Cal. </p>
<p>Other than these things - don’t buy into whatever hype, best of luck to your future.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe Yale and Harvard are not in the 1st and 2nd list. I find this whole thing fake.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…but the information gathering of Payscale is without a doubt in question. Can one obtain a representative sample size of each university that mirrors its alumni with just baccalaureate degrees by Payscale’s information-gathering for each of these universities?</p>
<p>I doubt it highly. For some schools, those “high-flying” financial gurus might be more compelled to take the survey to prop its school. </p>
<p>I don’t think Harvard and Yale and Columbia grads would probably care to do so becaues they know their school is the best wirthin its consortium. </p>
<p>And the survey would be ‘fake,’ because the site doesn’t verify the data submitted or even audit it/them for large fluctuations.</p>
<p>Assuming some modicum of accuracy to the site, which is highly in doubt, we know that if the site did include those with grad degrees, then Harvard, Yale, Columbia would undoubtedly bubble to the top.</p>
<p>Thanks for the intelligent conversation - I appreciate it. And don’t worry about me, I’m stuck at work…</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from a person named [Sunfish]( <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/668493-ucla-vs-berkeley-pre-med.html?highlight=berkeley+acceptance+rate+med+school]Sunfish[/url]:”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/668493-ucla-vs-berkeley-pre-med.html?highlight=berkeley+acceptance+rate+med+school):</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The prior is probably wrong, becasuse the gpa for life-science majors at UCLA and Cal is considerably higher than at UCSB.</p>
<p>By the prior link, Cal’s hovers around the same in the mid 50%-range in acceptance. I’ll tell you why 53% is actually pretty good.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the link you provided:</p>
<p>164 students applied, 87 accepted, 77 rejected in their first attempt.</p>
<p>Per notation:</p>
<p>**** Honors students constitute 40 of the 164 UCLA first-time applicants.** </p>
<p>I’m not sure what gpa qualifies as “Honors,” but it would probably be a pretty good gpa, according the breakdown of the acceptances per gpa and MCAT.</p>
<p>According to the aamc site, there were 737 UCLA applicants. I believe there’s a match wrt years.</p>
<p>Per the same link you provided:</p>
<p>*… 2009 degree recipients who released their AMCAS information to UCLA.</p>
<p>There’s a mismatch of UCLA’s site stating taht 164 applied… versus the aamc site that said there were 737, or a difference of 573. Obviously among the 573 are those who’ve gone on for grad and post-grad degrees to become more attractive to med schools, X; let’s say a quarter of whom applied previously based on the national averages, 184; and some who didn’t release their information to UCLA, Y. </p>
<p>Subtract 184 from 573, which leaves 389 which we know nothing really about. Let’s recap:</p>
<p>164 First=time applicants from UCLA with 87 accepted, 77 rejected, who released info to the school</p>
<p>~184 second, third… time applicants</p>
<p>Other applicants: 389, Simple algebraic fromula, where X+Y = 389:</p>
<p>X, number who obtained grad and post-grad degrees, say, to become attractive to med schools.</p>
<p>Y, number who didn’t release info to UCLA.</p>
<p>Certainly the question besides how many of these apply to the variables X and Y and their acceptance rates, does one benefit from obtaining a masters of public health, life science in applying to med school? And of those who didn’t release their info to UCLA, were they more qualified than those who did, and what was their acceptance rate? Further, of the second+ applicants, did they do anything, grad, etc, to help their chances in reapplying?</p>
<p>I maintain that those who went onto grad and post-grad probably had a higher rate of acceptance. And it’d be a decent portion of all schools’ applicants. Of those who didn’t release info to UCLA, I have no idea. But if those who did release info to UCLA were looking for more counseling as to which med schools would they would qualify for with their gpas/MCATs, then I would assume the quals were higher for those who didn’t release - but we can’t say that for sure can we.</p>
<p>Let’s guesstimate:</p>
<p>Post BA degrees: 65% acceptance, and we’ll be conservative, X = 130
Recycles: 50% acceptance, of 184, lower but maybe they got advanced degrees or learned how to apply better.
Didn’t release info: 53% of 259, but I’m thinking it’s higher (if you have other thoughts, post…)</p>
<p>Let’s add them up:</p>
<p>I come up with 401 UCLA grads to med school in 2009. That’s a lot. </p>
<p>Here’s why:</p>
<p>Most UCLA, Cal, UCSD, grads desire to attend med school in CA. But the eight or nine CA med schools are the hardest for which to gain admssion to of all the state’s med schools in the nation. I mentioned this earlier, stating that UCLA, et al, wouldn’t have that high acceptance rates because of the fact in the previous sentence.</p>
<p>This is why Stanford’s acceptance rate isn’t considered really high, whatever it is, bcause a lot of Stanford grads desire CA med schools also.</p>
<p>If you go to UVA and you desire med school, and I"m sure UVA’s acceptance rate is > 53%, then you wouldn’t have the same quality of m-schools from which to choose as the eight or so in CA. Neither would they be as hard for which to gain admission.</p>
<p>Bottom line: 53% is actually good for out here in CA.</p>