<p>PackMom…your description of the situation with public universities in NC is correct. Unfortunately, many top students who are interested in the majors at NC State that are not offered by Chapel Hill such as engineering stay away from State because of the lack of prestige/recognition nationally. Furthermore, since most of the top students are at UNC, a top student who goes to NC State then faces considerably less competition even in a major such as engineering because students do take classes outside of engineering as well. The students at NC State also have to defend their school against people who think they went to State because they could not get accepted to UNC. I wonder if the geniuses of the UNC system thought of this problem. It is unfair to top students in NC who face such a choice and perception among outsiders including employers who think NC State is just an average school. In most states, the flagship school has pretty much all majors including engineering and architecture. The state of NC is not the norm in its setup. Indiana, Oregon and Georgia are the only other states with a complementary setup. However, in the case of Georgia and Indiana, the other schools are Georgia Tech and Purdue which are very prestigious in engineering and are otherwise well tought of academically. NC State does not even carry prestige in engineering so what was the point of taking engineering away from UNC. The state of NC made a mistake in consolidation of NC State and UNC under one system because all they have done is handcuff NC State. They should have allowed what happened in Texas, Florida, and Michigan where Texas A&M, Florida State and Michigan State are comprehensive national universities that offer medicine and law. Sure, these schools still take a backseat to the flagships but they are much better off overall academically. NCSU should have been able to offer a medical school, dental school, pharmacy school and law school even if it meant allowing UNC to offer engineering and architecture. There are so many health professionals working NC who were educated out of state or out of country. Why not educate some of them at NC State. Chapel Hill and ECU are obviously not educating all of these professionals so why not educate them at NC State. Wake and Duke should not be considered because they are private schools.</p>
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<p>Huh? NC State is considered worth recruiting at by out-of-area CS and engineering recruiters.</p>
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<p>That would come as a surprise to all the high-tech industries that recruit heavily at State, including companies in the Research Triangle Park and rest of the Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill), including IBM, Cisco, EMC, and SAS, as well as Google.</p>
<p>UNC certainly has national recognition as a top public university, but NC State has top tech companies recruiting its graduates. That’s rather significant recognition as well.</p>
<p>North Carolina has a very fine state university system, which I think is strengthened by having the medical/law/dental schools and a strong liberal arts emphasis at the flagship university, and the veterinary/engineering/agriculture/design schools at the land grant university. Each school does what it does very well. Although many of the students and graduates from the two schools like to rib each other about their sports teams, there is mutual respect for the academic programs.</p>
<p>UCLA is a very special case where good arguments exist on both sides over whether it should be considered a flagship. </p>
<p>Historical
UCLA was clearly founded as an offshoot of Cal. [fails measure]</p>
<p>Morphological
A pretty historic campus that offers as much as Cal, has a higher enrollment, gets more funding, and ranks about the same in terms of undergraduate quality. Grad programs are a little behind. [passes measure]</p>
<p>Functional
The best large university in the country’s second most populous city. California is almost like several states in one, with UCLA clearly being the most influential school in the sub-state entity of SoCal. [passes measure]</p>
<p>General Perception
In California, it is definitely seen to be on par with Cal or only slightly behind. Internationally, it is behind. [borderline]</p>
<p>Overall, the best argument on either side is that California is very large and certainly has enough room for two flagships. Berkeley doesn’t steal UCLA’s thunder because the two schools are so far apart, and probably around half of admits to both schools choose UCLA. </p>
<p>Despite being a Cal alumnus, I personally would deem UCLA a flagship university.</p>
<p>Definition of flagship:</p>
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<p>UCLA fails the measure of a flagship, because by definition there can be only one - and that is Berkeley.</p>
<p>Says the UC Berkeley grad</p>
<p>UCB is almost right. Berkeley is the flagship; along with UCSF. hehe</p>
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<p>Indeed, rjk. :p</p>
<p>^^^tOSU is Ohio’s flagship, by default. hehe</p>
<p>That’s right, rjk. UCSF is the flagship medical school. You could argue Davis is the flagship veterinary school and L.A. is the flagship film school of the UC system. I could agree with that.</p>
<p>LOL 10 chara</p>
<p>I would not consider UCLA the state flagship. I thought it was pretty clear that flagship = one university and in return the honor goes to UC Berkeley. A sudden spike in applicants and funding doesn’t erase Berkeley’s dominance for over 140+ years.</p>
<p>If I read somewhere correctly, UCSD gets around the same amount of applicants (76k-2012) as Berkeley(77k-2012) and has more research funding. Most people would still put Berkeley far ahead of UCSD.</p>
<p>“Flagship” may mean only one in some situations, but education isn’t one of them. If so, how do you explain states like Indiana and Florida, which quite clearly have two flagships, which are equally prestigious in-state? I guess if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose one Florida flagship I’d have to say UF, but that would not be completely accurate. I could not honestly choose one Indiana flagship. It would be impossible.</p>
<p>I don’t think a flagship designation is based on something specific like age, size, funding, or selectivity. I think there is a sense in each state that the flagship(s) are in a class distinctly separate from, and above, the state’s other universities. A flagship would frequently be the first choice of top students in the state. A student would be unlikely to choose a “lesser” state university over a flagship without some compelling reason (a better scholarship offer, interest in an unusual major not offered by the flagship, a particular desire to be in a specific area). To take the Florida example, it would be very rare to hear someone say, “I got into UF and UCF, the cost would be the same, but I’m going to UCF just because,” you would be surprised or even shocked. That tells you UCF is not a flagship. If someone said the same about UF and FSU, you might disagree but the decision wouldn’t be surprising and it’s one that plenty of students make. That’s because FSU, as a flagship, generally competes on an equal footing with UF.</p>
<p>Florida is interesting though. In addition to UF and FSU, I would say that UCF and USF are sort of “semi-flagships” because their appeal does stretch beyond the Central Florida region where they’re located, at least into South Florida (USF is not really in South Florida), but they’re clearly in the regional/directional category. Another tier down are most of the rest of the state universities. Then there are the weird ones–New College (a super-tiny LAC that’s more selective, stats-wise, than the flagships); FAMU (a HBCU), and the new polytechnic college. In addition, more community colleges are becoming “state colleges” with four-year degrees.</p>
<p>I am a proud UCLA graduate and I absolutely agree we are not the flagship campus of the UC System…that is clearly Berkeley and that will never change. However, the situation is a bit nuanced in the case of the UC system. First, California is the largest state in the union with 38 million people. The state can be divided into two regions…Northern and Southern. UCLA is kind of like a flagship for SoCal. It was originally designated the Southern Branch of the University of California so there is some merit to calling it a flagship of some sorts. Second, it turns out UCLA is more comprehensive in nature in that it has medical school along with a world class medical center. Berkeley should have had a medical school but instead one was created in San Francisco and treated as a separate campus of the UC system housing various health sciences program.</p>
<p>They’re both flagships. Typically flagship only applies to one university because there tends to be one very clear best university. By very clear, I mean it’s evident by a large margin (e.g. compare Cal to UCI) That is not the case in the UC system because there are two universities which are neck and neck in quality for most purposes. Yes, Berkeley generally has the edge, but UCLA is generally barely behind it. The difference is much smaller than most other state university flagships.</p>
<p>The definite description ‘The flagship of the University of California’ fails to denote any campus because there are multiple flagships within the UC system (unless the description is being used referentially, i’d be okay with that :P)</p>
<p>^ Beyphy, UCLA wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Cal. Most of your traditions, colors, mascot, etc. are all from Cal. </p>
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Berkeley is regarded as academically distinguished via peer assessment, while UCLA is regarded as strong. Academic rankings of individual departments support this. Faculty distinction is about 3x as strong as UCLA when looking at academy membership, Nobel prizes, etc. Berkeley is “very clearly” better than UCLA.</p>
<p>^^^^I agree with UCB. If UCLA were in any other state, with the possible exception of Michigan, it would be considered its flagship. In California, Berkeley is the flagship.</p>
<p>UF is generally known as the flagship around me, but sometimes people also include FSU as a flagship as well…</p>
<p>UCLA would not be a flagship in any other state. UCLA is what it is because it is in the largest state in the union (38 million people) which can support not just one but five high quality state universities in terms of looking at the student body’s academic profile (Berkeley, UCLA, Davis, San Diego and Irvine).</p>
<p>Forget the entire state, Los Angeles is enough to make UCLA a world class university.</p>
<p>If UCLA were in another state such as Virginia, then it would not have 38 million people to draw top students from and therefore would not be the flagship of any other state. If Virginia had 38 million people, Virginia Tech would be like UCLA is in California. It is all about those large numbers which allows California to have so many strong public universities (and even private because Stanford and USC draw large numbers from the state as well.)</p>
<p>California’s large population means that it can support multiple public universities that may be considered “flagship level” in some other states (note also that each one is not as large as public universities in some other states like Texas and Arizona).</p>
<p>Some states may have flagship-for-specific-majors public universities that are not the same as the usual flagship. Purdue, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Auburn, North Carolina State, and Oregon State may be considered examples for engineering majors.</p>