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UCSD is ahead as a result of literally all their finances going to their academia while having none for intercollegiate sports. In addition, they won a grant from the state of California to pursue research in the biology sector (I believe, or some type of research) which UCLA did not win any; therefore, they are slowly gaining prestige.
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<p>I agree with you. The UC's are hated by private schools because they are breaking the rules for how "public schools are supposed to stay in their place."</p>
<p>The funny thing is that the UC's did pretty well, and they did it by sticking to the hard core of education, which is research. All the money in the world can't make you do good research, its the UC philosophy and ability to pursue progressive and jaw dropping research that is breaking all the rules. </p>
<p>However, in other countries like the UK, Japan, Korea, public schools are actually considered to be inherently superior to private schools. However, even though UCSD is a great up and coming school with a science department at equal prestige with Cornell, you must suspect that the second UCSD makes its rise, US News will do its best to change the rules again. </p>
<p>Screw politics. Its a silly battle that will spell the end of US educational hegemony. Stick to real research and real science and progress.</p>
<p>TheCity: um..i think you are misinterpreting my post. I never stated that they apply grad school rankings into their methodology but rather they are basing the strength of the school's undergrad program by that of their graduate program.</p>
<p>Why would you trust the United Kingdom to rank the UNITED STATES' own educational institutions. I'm sure the majority of the UK has never even step foot on US soil let alone been in one of the colleges. </p>
<p>Newspapers around the United States don't go around rating European Universities. Why? Because they realize it's useless. If you don't trust the US News which is at least based in the United States, then why would you trust someone that lives across the ocean several thousand miles away.</p>
<p>because they're not ranking campus life, how good the professors are at teaching, or how personalized the classrooms are. they're ranking academic prestige, for the last time(i've explained this a lot already). the scientific and academic community extends across the world, and we all benefit from discoveries in science and insights in journals, which all comes from the professors and graduate students. the rankings are merely for the international academic community for ACADEMIA.</p>
<p>first, you need to check-in with some irony. Next, You need to get a grip on what cc's "college search and selection" is all about--it's about searching out and selecting colleges undergrad students can potentially attend. </p>
<p>There is, I believe, another forum on cc for the type of grad school minutiae that you and westslidee seem keen on that might deal with whose grad school publishes the most research-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin-blah, blah, blah, etc. etc.. </p>
<p>ACE SAYS:
"the scientific and academic community extends across the world, and we all benefit from discoveries in science and insights in journals, which all comes from the professors and graduate students."</p>
<p>people are comparing these rankings to usnews. i'm just clearing things up: that the london times isn't ranking colleges for undergraduates(as usnews does)</p>
<p>You cannot rank schools based on overall graduate schools. When one goes to graduate school they don't even go for a specific 'major' (english, philosophy, economics, etc.). They go for a specific topic within a specific major. So if someone was going to graduate studies for 17th Century British Literature, why would they care about the nano-technology in the mechanical engineering department? They wouldn't.</p>
<p>For most major research universities, the sum of the school is the sum of the individual departments with some allowance for the "halo" effect. While one can argue the efficacy of undergrad education in a highly ranked graduate department, it should be acceptable to say that that department has a highly qualified faculty and probably has good facilities.</p>
<p>This ranks the overall university, including undergrad. And it also includes statistics for faculty/student ratio which applies to all levels of education for a university, etc...</p>
<p>Undergraduate majors play a huge factor in job search, as well as graduate school applications. Try asking a Yale engineering undergrad (LOL!) how his job search in Silicon Valley is going compared to a UCLA engineering undergrad. And by the way, this ranking also ranks world universities. A lot of international universities are catching up fast to the US in research and prestige, I just didn't want to post the international rankings because it was too depressing.</p>
<p>Berkeley being ranked #2 is a load of bull. Even if they were ranking on the basis of graduate school strength, Berkeley would be more like #6 or #7. But taking undergraduate education into account, Berkeley is more like #20-25. </p>
<p>You cannot rank schools based on overall graduate schools. When one goes to graduate school they don't even go for a specific 'major' (english, philosophy, economics, etc.). They go for a specific topic within a specific major. So if someone was going to graduate studies for 17th Century British Literature, why would they care about the nano-technology in the mechanical engineering department? They wouldn't.</p>
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<p>There's a great deal of truth to this. Across-the-board strength at a university can be a plus for those interested in flexible grad programs (especially law school, which generally lets students cross-register in other undergrad or grad courses) or in interdisciplinary study. But most grad students (rightly) give that issue 10% weight and 90% weight goes to the strength of the individual grad program they're applying to.</p>
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Whatever West Sidee, 90% of Yale engineers aren't going to go into engineering, they will be managing them. That's the Ivy difference.
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<p>LOL!!! hahahahaha this is the most ignorant comment on this board ever.</p>
<p>Look at Silicon Valley, where the tech revolution, internet boom, NASDAQ millionaires, etc... was BORN into the world. Its run by Berkeley engineers and Stanfurd engineers. I don't think they would hire a Yale engineer over a UC Irvine engineer. For one, UC Irvine engineers are ranked higher than Yales. </p>
<p>LOL!!! Its so funny to think that a Yale engineer is good just because its YALE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. its like a guy bragging about going to a school in Boston. Huh? Which one? Boston Online City College!</p>
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Berkeley being ranked #2 is a load of bull. Even if they were ranking on the basis of graduate school strength, Berkeley would be more like #6 or #7. But taking undergraduate education into account, Berkeley is more like #20-25. </p>
<p>Same goes for UMass and UT Austin.
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<p>Actually, its the faculty at Berkeley that was ranked number one. Having good professors is the entire point of college. If your professors suck, you learn sucky things. Hope that is simple enough for you to understand. </p>
<p>Also, Berkeley's reputation internationally is very very very good. Nothing to laugh at. </p>
<p>I was puzzled at UT Austin's high ranking internationally, but from what I understand, their tech and science departments are very highly respected overseas. </p>
<p>Overall, US News has more flaws in their rankings than London Times. As you can see from the poor attitude of some on this board, defending rankings at all costs seems to be the norm. Instead, why don't we focus on excellent academics and research as the way to improve our schools? Instead of defending stagnant positions in life? If Berkeley did not do the best research in the world, I would expect for its ranking to drop.</p>
<p>^ US News does not address the following statistical flaws.</p>
<ol>
<li>Different method of counting SAT for public and private schools.</li>
<li>Faulty method of overstating endowment </li>
<li>Use of statistics that has zero correlation with student education such as "yield rate" which studies have shown can be managed. </li>
<li>Ignores vital component of Baynesian econometrics, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)</li>
</ol>
<p>No one has argued with these valid points. In fact, all bashers of London Times are in fact leading this country in the wrong direction, ignoring academic excellence, and how much the rest of the world is catching up.</p>
<p>Address these faults with US News, and then we'll talk.</p>
<p>i wonder why people agree with US News so much. maybe they're just all so used to it that it becomes the rankings bible. if we had some other rankings in place already and US News was the new ranking released, we'd be like "US News has no credibility and it sucks!!!"</p>
<p>just because a ranking came up with a different list of schools using their OWN CRITERIA doesnt mean the ranking isn't legit. it's based on something else anyway.</p>
<p>i wonder why people agree with US News so much.</p>
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<p>I think that it's just because it's so tempting -- having a definitive Bible makes the incredibly complex and baffling task of learning about and comparing colleges seem much simpler and less daunting. It's tempting to believe that USNews has done all the hard work for us and we can just rely on them. It's also tempting because most of us are easily swayed by math. Numbers have a really great reputation for being bias-free, so the mere fact that a rankings system is quantitative and has all kinds of algorithms behind it gives it an aura of science.</p>