<p>Mediterranean,
Either you heard wrong or your father is misinformed. I am a Chemical and Computer Engineer, and I've been in this business for almost thirty years. It is rather common knowledge (among corporate recruiters and 'professionals') that UT-Austin has a one of the top engineering programs...not as good as UCB but a little better than UCLA, and with the exception of BME, a little better than UCSD. The rest of the UC's are not in the same league in engineering.</p>
<p>Your friend's father was also wrong about UT-Austin not being good in medicine. Of course they are not good in medicine...there is no medical school in Austin. But if you fault UT-Austin for that, you will have to say the same thing about UCB! UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas is one of the top medical schools in the country. And everybody knows about the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Surely your friend's dad would remember Dr. Cooley and his heart transplant...back in the late 60's.</p>
<p>You did say that you are not sure about Law or business. So you will have to take my word for it. UT's McCombs School of Business is well respected; not as good as Haas, but certainly better than the rest of the UC's (note: UCLA doesn't have an undergrad business program but its grad program is excellent). UT's Law school is just a notch below UCB and on a par with UCLA... and heads and shoulders above the other UC's.</p>
<p>Well, your bold statement that "any of the UCs can beat UTA any day" is not so convincing any more, is it?</p>
<p>"...as opposed to UTA which is too large." Not sure I understand this statement. UT-Austin at 50,000 and UCLA at 39,000...both are way too large which is a common problem with large state U's.</p>
<p>"The UCs are well funded" I didn't realize that Texas has a budget crisis...I thought that was in California.</p>
<p>And you dismissed tokai's NCR ranking in favor of the opinion of a coupld "real-life business executive". Well, the NCR ranking was compiled by polling deans and department heads, so called peer assessment in the academic circle. You don't think they know enough to count?</p>
<p>to get back to the SUNY system, it has improved from the depths to which it plunged about 10 years ago, though it is by no means at the level it used to be "back in the day."</p>
<p>of course, albany is a special case. the collective blood-alcohol content of that campus is still WELL past the legal limit.</p>
<p>Average SAT total 1444
Average SAT Math: 720
Average SAT Verbal: 724
Middle 50% range of SAT total score: 1400... 1510</p>
<p>.01% 1 National Achievement Scolar
3% 5 National Hispanic Scolar
33% 59 National Merit Finalists
7% 12 National Merit Semi-Finalist
33% 59 National Merit Commended</p>
<p>Class Rank</p>
<p>18% 32 Valedictorian(ranked #1)
40% 59 Ranked (#1 - #5)
86% top 5%
98% top 10%</p>
<p>Just check the webside, they have graduate profiles too.</p>
<p>UT is a good school. So are the UC's. But remember University of Vermont in this discussion, it's not to be forgotten. Great programs and job placements.</p>
<p>GoBlue81,
It's fine if you disagree with my dad, but the problem is that he's an executive at one of the major corporations in Silicon Valley. He and many executives, at least in Silicon Valley, don't really respect UTA...but that may be partially because most engineers in Silicon Valley are either Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT grads. Probably in other parts of the country UTA is respected; but I'm speaking in terms of Silicon Valley - the most competitive area for engineers and new technologies.</p>
<p>I wonder how the president of the 51st university feels? I wonder if there is a discernable difference between the opportunities offered to the top students at any of these schools.</p>
<p>If any of the UC's wanted to pump up their program all they would have to do is to offer an executive package to top students, providing them with perks like better dorm spaces, amenities and at least one small class from the start of freshman year. this would make them more competitive with some of the privates.</p>
<p>Let me clarify, I may have been too harsh in my first post, but my point is that UTA isn't that great for engineering. Barrons, so maybe UTA gets lot of companies to recruit...that doesn't mean that UTA engineers are competitive enough for Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley nowadays only looks at experienced candidates or graduates of MIT, Caltech, IIT, Stanford, or Berkeley. If you don't won't to face the real world and just rely on a magazine's rankings, I'm sorry - but get used to the real world.</p>
<p>I've been in the real world way longer than you. I know Msoft hires many from Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, etc. The former CEO and current COB of Cisco was a UW grad.</p>
<p>Mediterranean,
Now I see your problem. You generalized silicon valley to the entire engineering field. First of all, there are many engineering disciplines, computer/IT is just part of one of the disciplines. For example, petroleum and manufacturing industries are probably the largest employers for engineers, much larger than IT.</p>
<p>Silicon valley is not the only center for the computer industry. The Boston area used to host the majority of the hardware vendors. IBM is in New York. Microsoft is in Richmond.Texas has its share with Texas Instrument, Compaq and DELL. HP is the only Fortune 100 company based in the silicon valley, and half of it is in Houston and New England.</p>
<p>"most engineers in Silicon Valley are either Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT grads." I don't necessarily agreed with this statement, but let's just concede it here for the sake of discussion. UCB, Stanford and MIT are the top 3 engineering schools and Caltech is right behind. Few will disagree with you that these four are better than UT-Austin in engineering. But that doesn't include the rest of the UC's. It also doesn't mean that other schools are not good in engineering. Btw, Exxon and Texaco will have a different pecking order when they come on campus to recruit.</p>
<p>"Silicon Valley - the most competitive area for engineers and new technologies" ... may be it is true for the IT industry (many people will dispute that) but certainly not for the other engineering fields. And with the burst of the dot com bubble, it is no longer where the hot money goes. The gold rush mentality at the silicon valley is over (as evidenced by the drop of property values). Your dad may tell you that many of the IT folks are having a hard time finding comparable jobs now.</p>
<p>For whatever it is worth, I worked for a Fortune 100 computer company for the past 15 years, and I've seen my share of silicon valley senior executives. Many of them are not engineers by training (for example, Carly is a history major at Stanford). But most of those with an engineering backgroud will look upon a UT-Austin engineering grad favorably.</p>
<p>GoBlue81, you're right in that I generalized too much; I'm sorry for my comments in that regards. I think I've been a bit too brainwashed by my parents and his fellow executives into believing Caltech, MIT, Stanford and others are the only good schools out there. I guess that stems from that the fact that all of my dad's friends are graduates of those schools and none come from UTA. But I agree that other than computer science, UTA is definitely a very good institution.</p>
<p>I'm sorry for my earlier comments, and you can disregard them, as they only pertain to computer science. After consulting my dad's doctor, he did agree that Texas does have a good medical system. So I agree with you that on engineering, UTA's a great school, but not necessarily in IT, as you pointed out yourself.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>USCD should not top Wisconsin, as it does not offer as wide a spectrum of top-ranked programs. While Wisconsin has a few programs in the top 10, and many more in the top 25, most of USCD's top programs are concerned with biological sciences and have a much more narrow scope, although those few programs are some of the best.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>I would like to point out that UCSD has a better politics department than Wisconsin and probably a stronger applicant pool and student population.</p>
<p>UCSD had 43,438 applicants for 2003-2004 while Wisconsin had 20,601 applicants. The admissions rates are respectively 40% to 65%. Only 56% of Wisconsin's incoming freshmen is from the top 10% while UCSD's incoming student has an average GPA of 3.96 and overwhelmingly top 10% of their high school class.</p>
<p>As to political science, UCSD is actually very weak in political philosophy. I dont know where you got that from. UCSD however has an excellent comparative politics department (#2) followed by strong American and IR specialties. </p>
<p>This not to disparage UW. This is just to point out that though UW is strong in many areas and is a great school, UCSD has great departments outside of its well known sciences and probably has a slightly tougher admissions process. I dont think UW is necessarily better than UCSD and vice versa. In my original post, I just wanted to point out some other points for consideration and suggest that the picture is more nuanced than the original poster suggested. As an UCSD alum, I just want to point out that UCSD offers more than just science and has a very motivated student body (partially due to the fact that the campus is very dry and since there are no parties, students resort to studying to past time ;)</p>
<p>No offense but the top 10% numbers in California are a little suspect as they reach down to people with average SAT's around 1000 or less.. It is impossible to compare that across states. The number of applicants seems pretty irrelevant as the UC's use an apply to all application option. Basically nearly everyone applies to all the UC campuses and then takes their pick of the ones they get into.
Marcuse used to teach political philosophy at UCSD and attracted some UW grads to study with him inlcuding the 60 Minutes producer who was the subject of the film "The Insider."</p>
<p>It appears that many apply to at least the four major campuses as they all have around 40,000 apps. I note that the yield rate at UCSD is only around 23% of those admitted which tells me many are going to other UC's.</p>
<p>I'm not sure, but I think it means that the education is not very personal. I guess I shouldn't post that, because I'm not sure myself if its true really,</p>