<p>“Why are Pomona, Mudd and CMC irrelevant?”</p>
<p>He appears to be sticking to the university category.</p>
<p>^Suin, perhaps so. </p>
<p>Inasmuch as the focus of most posters here is undergraduate education, that is an odd bifurcation of the colleges/universities universe… and if one were forced to choose between the top Private Nat’l Unis in CA and the top LACs in CA for strictly undergraduate education, the LAC would have as strong an argument to win that vote as would the Nat’l Uni. I cushion that statement by pointing out that the undergraduate experience at Caltech is more like the undergraduate experience at Harvey Mudd than it is like that at Stanford … in that functional sense, Caltech should be thought of as an LAC-equivalent.</p>
<p>With that allowance, if a tippy top student undergraduate applicant were forced to eliminate one of these two groupings from his/her application list, which would they eliminate?</p>
<p>Group A: Private “LACs”
Caltech
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Claremont McKenna</p>
<p>Group B: Private “National Universities”
Stanford
USC
Pepperdine
U of San Diego -or- Santa Clara U -or- Loyola Marymount U -or U of the Pacific</p>
<p>or if we simply remove Caltech because it belongs in LAC as much as it does Nat’l Uni,</p>
<p>Group A:
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Claremont McKenna</p>
<p>Group B:
Stanford
USC
Pepperdine</p>
<p>
Although their focus might well be both, the focus on this thread is purely universities.</p>
<p>top 10 best PRIVATE universities in CALIFORNIA</p>
<p>In other words, no Claremonts. No UCs. No CSUs. I can’t decide if people either didn’t bother to read the original post or simply ignored it.</p>
<p>Of the US News categories, only two pertain to universities - national universities and regional universities. The top 10 from those lists are as follows:</p>
<p>1) California Institute of Technology
2) Chapman University
3) Loyola Marymount University
4) Mills College
5) Pepperdine University
6) Santa Clara University
7) Stanford University
8) University of Redlands
9) University of San Diego
10) University of Southern California</p>
<p>… citing SAT scores wrt UCLA, Cal, USC…</p>
<p>The main difference in scores between Cal’s and UCLA"s is UCLA admits more from LA County than Cal does and vice-versa wrt NorCal schools, specifically Bay Area schools, even more specifically, San Mateo and Santa Clara high schools. </p>
<p>And it should be obvious that there are a lot more underperforming schools in the LA area than there are in the Bay.</p>
<p>I would like to see UCLA admit a lesser amount of LA area students, particularly the really underperforming ones and replace them with students from Gunn, Palo Alto… But UCLA is big on hitting its diversity index, as is Cal, but the latter lesser so.</p>
<p>Both universities as part of the UC, dont admit largely, primarily to the SAT. The primary factor in admittance to both is how a student takes the resources at his/her high school and uses them to the best of his/her education, and since grades and class rank are more long-term accomplishments, the University tends to discount the importance of scores. In fact, of all the major schools in the country that would consider eliminating the SAT entirely, the UC is probably at the top of actually implementing this change. </p>
<p>USC sacrifices class standing and gpa for high scores -> USC fishes for scores.</p>
<p>Youll see it in the level of competition between the three schools: Those whove gotten in primarily on economic status are pushed to compete at the same level as those who were top-ranked in their classes both grade and score-wise -> UCLA and Cal, and generally all UC >>> USC in prestigious professional grad appointments, Med, Law, Bus.</p>
<p>BayBoi10, </p>
<p>Berkeley, USC and UMich did not release average SATs data, only the 25th % 75th percentiles. So, I don’t think your average SATs for USC was correct. Furthermore, there is a difference in SAT scores for admits and enrolled students. The one you reported for USC was for the admit data, granted your formula in calculating the average SATs is correct. The Berkeley data, on the other hand, was for enrolled students. So, here’s the more accurate data for Berkeley vis-a-vis USC.</p>
<p>Reading:<br>
Berkeley - 620-740
USC - 620-720</p>
<p>Math:<br>
Berkeley - 650-770
USC - 650-750</p>
<p>Writing:<br>
Berkeley - 640-750
USC - 640-740</p>
<p>Composite SAT scores 25th % 75th percentiles
Berkeley – 1910-2260
USC – 1910-2210</p>
<p>I agree with warblersrule86. This post is about the top 10 best private universities in California. There are many fine universities and colleges in California. Students and Parents come to this site to look for options to help them narrow down their selections. This is why there are companies such as the US News, the Princeton Review, and the PARADE Magazine that are reliable sources to help rank the schools. Each student is different. Some people like big campuses in big cities and some don’t. Some people like warm weather and some don’t. Some of us may want to be an artist and some of us may want to be a scientist. The way to learn from others is to keep an open mind.</p>
<p>BayBoi10’s comments are not very productive. No matter how great one feels about a school, there will always be another school greater. You’ll never know. A school can be ranked high this decade and may not have been a decade ago. That is why there are some schools that are not that well known. Chapman has very high standard. I know of many students attending Chapman that were accepted to the UC’s and other fine institutions. Therefore, BayBoi10, before you judge a school, you need to do your homework.</p>
<p>Chris1024, The list you provided included junior colleges which is not part of the topic of this post. Therefore it is not productive. Thanks for trying.</p>
<p>I grew up in riverside, I’m very familiar with Chapman. It is a not even close to a respected university. Most people in LA haven’t heard of it. It’s a true regional school.</p>
<p>Of the ones I know:</p>
<p>Stanford
Caltech
Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps
Occidental
Santa Clara
Pepperdine
Chapman</p>
<p>I hope everyone is realizing that the OP’s question was posed more than 3 years ago. :)</p>
<p>^ Xiggi, yes, but the topic is not very time sensitive :)</p>
<p>RML, don’t forget to add either 20 or 25 points PER SAT SECTION to a UC test range to compensate for the SINGLE SITTING requirement at UCs. I’ve seen various ranges proposed for this normalizing to a Superscore, but 20 or 25 seems to get agreement from most people.</p>
<p>DunninLA, do you really mean to add 20 points for every section? That would balloon the composite scores of Berkeley, LA and UMich. Maybe 20 points are added to the composite score rather than to every section. But I’m not really well-versed with this. Take a look what will happen and see which one is the more acceptable scores for Berkeley when superscoring is applied. </p>
<p>1. Add 20 points for every section:</p>
<p>Reading:
Berkeley - 640-760
USC - 620-720</p>
<p>Math:
Berkeley - 670-790
USC - 650-750</p>
<p>Writing:
Berkeley - 660-770
USC - 640-740</p>
<p>Composite SAT scores 25th % 75th percentiles
Berkeley – 1970-2320
USC – 1910-2210</p>
<p>2. Add 20 points on the composite scores</p>
<p>Composite SAT scores 25th % 75th percentiles
Berkeley – 1930-2290
USC – 1910-2210</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Except for the OP. For all we know, not only did he start studying at USF, but might also have completed his transfer to another school.</p>
<p>Regardless if a university is ranked in the national category or a regional category, if the schools are ranked in the top 10 of their categories, it’s worth looking into. Many of the regional universities are very good which I found out about in the last couple of years when some of my friends and relatives told me about Chapman. I found that out to be true indeed. We were looking for a mid size school in the OC. Chapman fits all of our requirements, the perfect mid size school in the ideal location in the beautiful OC, with high academic standard and programs with world class professors. Students are able to walk a short distance to get around the campus compared to some of the national universities with large campuses where you need a car or a bike to just get around within the campus. People are looking for more than just high academic standard these days, because many schools have high standard, they’re looking for value and location as well. How well their students do after they graduate from a school is also considered? </p>
<p>BayBoi10,
Where have you been? I don’t know which part of Riverside you came from or which part of LA the people you are talking about came from, but I have friends who are living in Riverside also. They are the ones who told me about Chapman even though I’ve heard a lot of good things about Chapman from people within OC. Chapman today is different than a decade ago. Chapman also has a lot of out-of-state students now than a decade ago. Especially Chapman is now getting more well-known globally because of Chapman Singapore. Don’t forget USC is different today also compared to a decade or two ago. To make my point, is that you don’t have to be a national university to be well-known. My friend in Riverside has a relative with two kids, one graduated from Chapman and had landed a job making 100K, while the other one graduated from a well-known national university and struggling to find a job. Therefore, Chapman is more well-known than you think.</p>
<p>
Yes, 20 points per section = 40 points on the 1600 pt. scale and 60 pts. on the 2400 scale, and that is very conservative.</p>
<ol>
<li>CalTech</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>USC</li>
</ol>
<p>Ignore SAT scores. Ignore liberal arts. These are the top-3 most well-rounded private institutions in CA. It’s all about research in academia. And these are the best schools at it in all categories.</p>
<p>Stanford!!!</p>