<p>I was an undergrad poli sci student (and now a grad student in politics) and I can tell you that UCSD is not the hub to study political philosophy. In fact, there is few grad students and faculty at UCSD now that engages in extensive political philosophy research. The department has become very rational choice and game theoritic centered. It is also known for its Lijphartian school of comparative politics to an extent. As for selectivity, despite your comment regarding gpa and sat being 'suspect', please note that both SATs and GPAs are high at UCSD. In fact princeton review takes UCSD's selectivity to be at 99 while UW is at 96. It receives the second highest amount of the applications in the UC system thus it is evident that not everyone applies to all the UCs. UW and UCSD are both in state schools but UCSD has many other major competitors in other UCs for California's top students while Wisconsin doesnt. UW I believe has around a 40 percent yield which is similiar to schools as diverse as Virginia Tech, North Carolina State - Raleigh to Duke. UCSD's yeild rate is similiar to Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve etc.</p>
<p>Don't you find it the least bit odd that kids with a 4.0+ gpa and 90+% in the top 10% would score essentially the same as another large group with only 55% in the top 10% and a 3.6 gpa.? If you go down the UC scale in quality the gap is even worse. Nobody put too much stock in the PR selectivity rankings as was discussed at length here recently. Hmmmmm Case--everyone's last resort good school. I am a little surprised CMU is that low too but it's an oddball school too.</p>
<p>So you have abandoned the politics debate I see. Marcuse was at UCSD but that was quiet awhile ago. Things certainly have changed then Barrons. Going to the GPA/SAT, as you just said, you cant compare across states. I dont need to quote you. Besides, most UW kids probably take ACT. The SATs are comparable for both schools. I am surprised though that UW being the flagship school and by far the best school in that state would have a such a yield. If you go by yield rate, I have to regrettably say that North Carolina State - Raleigh actually beats both UW and UCSD by having a yield close to 50%. Yield rate says nothing if you are not using it in a proper comparative context. Stanford for example has a yield rate of 54% (which is just above North Carolina State) which is great but they are upset because harvard's yield rate is 75%. Stanford ofcourse compares their yield rate relative to that of Harvard, Yale and Princeton, their main competitors., and not to UW, UCSD and North Carolina State.</p>
<p>Anyone comparing the UC system through its reported numbers to other schools must be out of their mind, the top 10% issue is very misleading as that the entire system ranks all Cali students and takes the top 12.5%. It's not a true look at the placement of kids from their HS. The GPA is the recacluated UC gpa, that is kind of irrelevent, the SAT/ACT already speak for themselves, and while it's really hard to compare the applicant pools I'd say even if UCSD's is "better" the top students will go to UCLA/UC-B and UCSD is just a safety. I don't think it's even useful to compare these schools outside of reserach because the admissions process is so different.</p>
<p>But then again College Confidential ranks universities on their admission stats and seldomly anything else.</p>
<p>I agree. Though I did choose UCSD over Cal. The debate is interesting and its keeping me entertained. I need to get the troll out of my system ya know :) It's late here in England and I gotta catch some ZZZ but maybe tomorrow Barrons? I really have nothing against UW. One of my best professors at UCSD, Pickowicz got his Phd there. Take care and until tomorrow perhaps...:)</p>
<p>UW's instate yield is around 60+%. They take 30% OOS and the yield on that is only around 25%. I'm off to Alaska for the weekend. No computers.</p>