<p>lol @ Someone who says I’m bitter to ucla, why would I be bitter? Last year I was rejected from USC as a sophomore transfer, I’m not bitter against that. I could very well end up going to UCLA if my financial aid package at USC isn’t great (I think it will be though). I just like the USC atmosphere, campus, private education more. </p>
<p>I think UCLA is a great school, and all in all, I think UCLA and USC are pretty much tied. There is just a lot of people that claim UCLA is much better than USC and thats just not true. I also believe UCLA is the better school for the Op. </p>
<p>and TAP is once again ALMOST a guarantee. Didn’t they post Tap statistics and it was like >70% acceptance rate? Most community colleges also boast 90% + acceptance rates with TAP. </p>
<p>I also guess that the forums aren’t a right place to look at SAT stats since the average student here is “stronger”. </p>
<p>I’d also agree what UCLA is easily more applied to, but USC is also an incredibly popular choice for applying. They got 35,000 applications this year according to my packet. And I don’t think that USC is only sports based or sports known, maybe on the other side of the country in which UCLA and USC are about equally recognized anyways. I don’t know, I was accepted to CAL/UCLA/USC and with the exception of my family out of country being amazed that I got into CAL (CAL has crazy international recogniztion), most of my friends were more wowed by me getting into USC. That also might be cause last year when I applied I was super enthused to go (still am, just didn’t mention as much this year), or the fact that every single one of my friends that applied to UCLA got in and we already have a bunch that go there so I guess maybe USC is more unique.</p>
<p>Like I said, doesn’t hollistics mean “how rounded a student is”, I don’t think it means just being underrepresented or poor. I’d imagine a hollistic process is one that searches for people with fantastic life experiences or grand passion and extracurriculars.</p>
<p>35000 is not even close to the 81000 applications UCLA received. Obviously you’re going to know fewer people that got admitted to USC. That does not make it unique in any way.</p>
<p>Also, who are these sources you keep referring to from the east coast that claim UCLA and USC are equal? Obviously not true, when one is private and the other public.</p>
<p>from reading on this forum would probably be my source. Seems like a lot of people on the east coast has said they regard the two as the same. </p>
<p>And yes 82k is much more than 35k, but 35k is still A LOT. Hell USC has one of the most amounts of posting in their specific forum that almost any other university on CC.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the whole thread, but am responding to a claim that US News is the only reliable college ranking.</p>
<p>This is simply untrue. Most people in the academic world would laugh at the US News rankings because they’re only about undergraduate education. Schools like UCLA and UC Berkeley are ranked very high in all of the international rankings because they are two of the best research universities in the world. You might counter that we should only be discussing about undergrad strength. However, we are all transferring as upperclassman and going to be working in research or at least upper division/graduate level courses in our majors. Hence, it is much better to be at major research university where you will have access to great research opportunities and resources. Also, being at such a university makes it a lot easier to get into a good graduate program. These benefits of being at a research greatly outweigh the benefits of smaller or private schools, such as lower class sizes, nicer dorms, more personal counselors etc. I think these things are really overvalued, and if they have any tangible benefit at all, it would be for freshman who need more guidance in the transition to college/adult life. Not transfer students who are already 20 or 21 years old and generally know what they want to do in life.</p>
<p>US news shows graduate school rankings as well. And though it may be flawed it is the closest to truth. The rankings of the universities seem fairly close, whether a difference of a few numbers actually exists or not, to me it makes sense. The top ivs and the top privates are in the top 20, etc. When I see other rankins and find cal states above stanford in general fields, and othe rrandom state universities above yale/princeton that is ■■■■■■■■. UCLA is a big research school true, but it doesn’t compare to HYPSM. Berkeley on the other hand is a FANTASTIC graduate school, honestly I think CAL is top 5 overall for graduate schools and its international recognition tops most of the IVS.</p>
<p>I just wanted to get something straight, nabilesmail…</p>
<p>You stated that there were a handful of students from your high school who were accepted to UCLA, but that only one each from your class had acceptances to USC and Cal.</p>
<p>You stated that everyone at your hs who was accepted to UCLA had SAT’s of ~ 1700 including the valedictorian who matriculated at USC instead. One of the accepted students to UCLA chose Cal. So this possibly makes three or so who enrolled at UCLA.</p>
<p>Later you mentioned that your parents were out of the country: I"m guessing that you’re a foreign student who finished high school in CA. </p>
<p>Don’t tell us where you went to hs, but since the high school is not really high performing, I think your parents are from a Latin country, instead of, say, the Far East.</p>
<p>I’d say that you’re a Dream Act kid, but I don’t think USC would accept you… but maybe they would.</p>
<p>You’re from SoCal, because the burden to accept lower scoring students is more on UCLA than Cal, within the UCs. Cal would take the burden for NorCal schools, but there are less of these underperforming hss in the Bay Area, so overall UCLA has a larger burden.</p>
<p>So is this close or not all the prior paragraphs, except for the one just before? Make whatever corrections are needed, but don’t divulge anything other than some of these generalities. </p>
<p>my name is nabilesmail and you think im latin >_<
I never mentioned my parents were out of country. I was born here and my parents migrated here before I was born. I was already accepted to USC and my hs WAS underperforming. A few people got into ucla (I think 4), of those 1 got into USC and 1 got into CAL, all of them went to UCLA. (We actually had someone also get into UCHICAGO but she wasn’t at the top of our class, she was just kind of weird and why she was probably accepted there).</p>
I’m not very good at anagrams or the like.</p>