<p>So I had another question to ask on deciding between UCLA and other universities I've been accepted to ...</p>
<p>Alright, so I would be majoring in CS (~CE) and I have to decide between UCLA and UIUC. I know the strength of the ECE departments at both schools. My question is how big is UCLA's name - enough to make me choose it over a awesome CS school like UIUC ?</p>
<p>I feel brand value is more important, especially if you want to transition into fields such as Consulting/Banking after engineering. That said however, I feel UCLA does not have a high enough brand value to tip schools like UI or GT (another school I considered, but no more). If you were talking about Harvard/Yale/Duke/Princeton/UPenn/Cornell..then the conversation would be different.</p>
<p>So should I go for UI over UCLA? Because even though UCLA has marginally higher overall rankings, GT/UI blow them away in Engineering…(which is what matters for potential employers/masters programs/mba etc..) When brand value is negligible, the degree of difficulty in the program becomes very important…</p>
<p>Adding to that: UCLA’s not a bad place to be; it can get you anywhere you want, and there are plenty of banks and consulting firms that recruit here. I don’t know enough about UIUC to make a complete comparison, though I agree that it is a stronger engineering school, and that certainly has its benefits.</p>
<p>Which one is harder? They’re probably about the same.</p>
<p>How big is UCLA’s name? Big enough to attract the big names in technology, though name value would vary by region. It’s probably worth more in California than on the East coast.</p>
<p>Where do you plan on living and working after graduating? The school’s career resources will be strongest for those seeking to work with companies in the region your school is located in.</p>
<p>I think for internationals, brand name matters a lot more than a solid engineering school. UCLA might not be the best, but it’s still a damn good engineering school, and employers in India are much more likely to know UCLA than they are with UI (unless they go by ranking lists of course)</p>
<p>are you sure UI would be better known internationally OP?</p>
<p>I have a feeling that UCLA would have way better name recognition than the University of Illinois (internationally). From my understanding in foreign countries, an American college education is looked very highly upon…and I’m betting having UCLA/UCB would open many doors with the brand name.</p>
<p>This is the first time I’ve heard of UI and GT > UCLA. You have it completely mixed up OP. UI and GT are not prestigious at all other than regionally. Most of the world and the nation view UCLA a lot more positively. I would be cautious calling UCLA prestigious but GeorgiaTech and UIUC are definitely not prestigious. -.-</p>
<p>You could consult multitudes of rankings authorities or any “prestige” threads on this site. (GT and UIUC are usually not prestigious enough to warrant discussion in those threads, however.)</p>
<p>(While UIUC and GT are more prestigious in Engineering, I warn you now that prestige in a specific field usually doesn’t make a college perceived much more “prestigious”. </p>
<p>You should not expect any employers or grad schools to go by those departmental rankings unless they’re in the specific field. Employers are more likely to have opinions akin to the general rankings. In foreign instances, UCLA will likely still be more prestigious in the specific field of concern.)</p>
<p>ucla has much better brand for your undergraduate degree than UIUC or GA TECH. it’s not even close. </p>
<p>PhD degree is a different story. UCLA’s PhD programs in engineering are great, but UIUC and Ga TEch may be just as good as UCLA in their graduate studies.</p>
<p>From California, narrowed it down to UCLA v GaTech for AE. UCLA clearly seems to have a better overall reputation and a much better regional reputation (few from Calif know much about GT), but within the AE world, GT is clearly very highly respected and is much higher ranked (#2 vs #15). If you’re an AE, isn’t that who you want to be impressed by your degree?</p>
<p>Just to reiterate what many have already stated, UCLA carries the name gloablly that many schools do not. Additionally UCLA has almost 400,000 alumni all over the world. View it from a potential employers position, if he had 2 applicants (one from UCLA and one from UI) what name would jump off the page? Good luck and congratulations!</p>
Depends on the company when it comes to CS. I know plenty of managers in industry who love having Georgia Tech people on their teams because their program is well-known for its intense projects. Similarly, there exist very well-known companies who recruit from UIUC, but not from UCLA. Both schools are very well respected in the software industry, and they shouldn’t be discounted by any means.</p>
<p>Having said that, UCLA is an excellent choice. The program is well-suited for industry, the professors do very solid research, the campus environment is excellent, and the location is tough to beat.</p>
No, you’re probably not getting a Aerospace Engineering career with just a Bachelor’s so it is much more important to impress general employers with your undergraduate degree. Grad schools do not discriminate between the bulk of institutions.</p>
One example is NVIDIA, which visits both, but hires disproportionately more from UIUC and Georgia Tech. That’s not to say that the opposite isn’t also true. There are way more UCLA interns at Qualcomm, for instance.</p>
<p>My point was that UIUC and GT deserve more credit than pepole were giving it in this thread. None of the three schools is necessarily a bad choice for CS.</p>
Please name a company that EXCLUSIVELY recruits from UIUC and not UCLA; otherwise, you have been making a deceitful statement.</p>
<p>Realize recruiting less and not recruiting at all is a huge difference. If the company recruits less, you can still easily put your foot through the door. Also, I disagree with the implicit message from your previous statement that engineering is a field that is heavily “prestige” based, when it isn’t nearly so much. Engineering is no IB.</p>
Fine, if you’re really that obsessed with turning that (admittedly poorly phrased) statement into a gotcha, then you got me. But there’s a difference between cold calling students because they have magic words in their resume and actually visiting the campus. In case you’re wondering, that’s what Apple does. Like you said, it doesn’t matter to the elite student who can get into companies either way, but not everyone is an elite student.</p>
<p>However, if you saw my post in the Engineering thread, you would see that I posted a laundry list of companies that do recruit at UCLA (and UIUC and GT). None of my posts was intended to put down any particular school. Given that this is the third time I’ve said it in this thread, I hope that’s clear.</p>
<p>
I’ve never sent that message and if you had read my other posts, that would be quite clear. Obviously, the elite students of any university can get anywhere. So why bring up things like company recruitment and reputation? You can’t disagree that it doesn’t hurt. However, the only message I have been trying to send is that the other schools, like UCLA, provide plenty of opportunities to their students and are worth a look.</p>
<p>Will you please stop trying to bash me just because my enthusiasm for UCLA is slightly more tempered than yours is? I’ve been here almost 4 years now and I <em>like</em> it here.</p>
<p>It’s okay. I got told that my career must be a failure because I didn’t say that UCLA was the greatest ever, and had the audacity to say that Berkeley has an edge in prestige. Don’t take it too personally.</p>