<p>Which UC's did you apply to and what are your opinions on each of them? And what do you think about the new campus, UC merced?</p>
<p>All the UC's are good, even Riverside and Santa Cruz. Berkeley is about as good as any school in the United States. UCLA is the second best of the system and is a close substitute for schools ranked from 10-20. UCSD is the third best and is one of the most under rated schools one can think of. Davis, Irvine, and Santa Barbara are pretty close academically and are also among the best schools in the US (in the top 50). Riverside is very young but and it is improving quickly. Considering its age, it is amazing how good the school actually is. It may take 20 years before it breaks the top 50. UC Merced will probably be great as well given time. Until then, it is still likely to benefit from the UC name. An education from any UC is something to be proud of. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, one last little side note: Although the UCs are public schools, they dont get most of their funding from the state. For example, UCLA only gets 23% of it funding from California. If I am not mistaken, the UC average is something like 25% or so. So, even if Arnold Swartzeneger (spelling??) cuts UC funds by 6%, that actually only means that the UC income falls by 1.5% (.25*.06=.015 or 1.5%).</p>
<p>The UCs are the best deal in terms of quality of education, especially at UCB, UCLA and UCSD in-state... however, tuition increases, outreach cuts and enrollment restrictions will make the top UC campuses more private than public over time. I can see UCSD breaking the US News Top 25 within 20 years, but I don't think UCR/UCM can ever break the Top 50. I applied to UCB, UCLA and UCI from out of state.</p>
<p>flopsy, you may be correct about the US News rankings because they are somewhat random. However, I think it is not a stretch to say UCSD can pretty easily break the top 25 in a shorter period than 25 years. I know you said "within" so anything less is not inconsistent with your prediction. I would not be so hard on UCR though. It does have the UC name and that by itself commands respect. Pepperdine was recently in the top 50 and that school is not THAT much better than UCR. Yeah, but with US News anything is possible.</p>
<p>I always advise people to look beyond UC Berkeley and UCLA. They do have the most renown and the reputation of being the "best", but they are HUGE, and for many people the quality of life would be better somewhere smaller. At some of the other UCs, students have much less trouble getting into classes and so on, and it is possible to get some personal attention instead of being just a number. To be honest, it's hard for me to recommend UCLA and UC Berkeley at all.</p>
<p>I applied to UCSD and UC Davis. They are both good and in what I consider nice locations.</p>
<p>August, I understand your concern about the size of Berkeley and UCLA. My DD goes to Berkeley and was concerned at first with the number of students. We visited both UCLA and Berkeley, and she choose Berkeley because of the beautiful campus and smaller size. Her freshman class has about 3700 students. When they give you total student numbers, they are including students who are not currently attending classes on campus, ie: Junior Year abroad students, semester in DC or Sac. students, and there are a large number of these students. Also remember that many students take 5 years (or more) to graduate and these students are numbered into the equation. She had no problems at all getting the courses that she needed, and had alot of help from her academic advisor. My DD has had no problem getting to know her professors and has really enjoyed the academic experience at Cal, not to mention it's awesome football team and everything else that is happening on their campus. She was originally drawn to smaller schools, (Georgetown, William and Mary, Johns Hopkins, USC), but choose Cal for many reasons.</p>