UCLA vs Brandeis?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So I've been accepted to both Brandeis and UCLA, and now I'm having the hardest time trying to decide between the two.</p>

<p>The biggest issue is the cost. Both colleges total to roughly $56k a year.</p>

<p>Brandeis has given me a $12k scholarship along with $10k in work study and loans. UCLA, on the other hand, barely gave anything (only $5.5k in loans). </p>

<p>My family also bought a house recently and so, despite having just enough for the first year at UCLA, it will be a struggle to pay for the succeeding years. For Brandeis, I can further reduce my costs by living at home after the first year since I live close, but living at home will be kinda lame... </p>

<p>I've visited Brandeis and I don't feel fit there... Although the people are nice, there's a general "awkward" vibe to Brandeis. I have not visited UCLA, but I have heard many good things about it. I'm not sure if I'll be comfortable at such a big school but it certainly is attractive. I'm not a big partier nor am I devoted to athletics, but I want to go to UCLA for the opportunities. I'm likely to major in the sciences. </p>

<p>So what do you guys think? Is UCLA worth the money or should I stick with a small college like Brandeis?</p>

<p>Despite not feeling fit at Brandeis, I hate to face the fact that it probably will be the better college for me considering the size and the type of people that go there. I'm just hoping that the UCLA name is worth the money. Of course I'm fearful of the competition at UCLA, but I know I will try my best. </p>

<p>My parents know that the costs to attend UCLA are ridiculous, but they're urging me to go anyways because it's higher ranked than Brandeis. However, I think I'd feel guilty leaving them on the opposite end of the country with all my tuition costs while I'm either:
-having fun at UCLA but neglecting my studies
OR
-being miserable while stuck in the library studying because I don't fit in...</p>

2

<p>I don’t think the ranking difference between UCLA and Brandeis warrants the college difference. Since Brandeis is cheaper, and your parents don’t have the strongest finances due to recently purchasing their new home, Brandeis might not be a bad option.</p>

<p>In your situation i’d choose Brandeis. UCLA isn’t worth the mounds of debt you’d have to put yourself (and your parents) in to go to school there.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the input! I see that you’re a UCLA graduate, mind if I ask how well you’re doing in terms of employment & debt? Were you happy at UCLA or do you regret not going to a different school?</p>

4

<p>My debt isn’t very high (<10k.) Had I so chosen, I could have paid it all off already with the job I have now, but I chose to spend my money differently.</p>

<p>As far as post college employment success goes, that’ll depend on a number of things including your previous job experiences and internships.</p>

<p>My personal experience at UCLA was bittersweet. Both of my years there, I was dealing with a number of personal issues that limited my ability in being truly happy there, which I won’t get into on this forum.</p>

<p>That being said, I met remarkably brilliant and diverse people, and was among some of the world’s most learned scholars. Academically, UCLA was amazing. If I have any regrets about my time there, it’s about not utilizing that vast array of resources that UCLA provides its undergraduates.</p>

<p>I still have my gripes with the university (e.g. expensive parking passes, parking tickets, etc.) but as a whole I loved my experience there, which is why i’m still such a strong UCLA booster after I’ve graduated.</p>

5

<p>Some of your points:</p>

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</p>

<p>Did you not gain acceptance elsewhere?</p>

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</p>

<p>This definitely should rule out UCLA. There are two things I like to see for those applying to UCLA as non-residents: </p>

<p>1) The explicit ability to pay with little or no loans, and,</p>

<p>2) The expressed desire to attend college in CA.</p>

<p>I like that you probably fulfill 2), but 1) should probably eliminate you, unless you wanted to come to CA and attend community college (or in Mass) and reapply as a transfer student. The main thing if you pursued this route would be to lower your cost of attendance of four years of college. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s okay if you’re not Jewish, and I’m sure that Brandeis is trying to diversify its student body.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Okay, so maybe you are Jewish, but you don’t like the ‘awkward vibe’ even though, you’re

</p>

<p>Nah, I wouldn’t say that UCLA has more opps. If you do well at either place, you’ll have an abundance of opps.</p>

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</p>

<p>This is probably not a good idea to choose a u and not having first visited.</p>

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</p>

<p>UCLA isn’t worth the money unless $50,000+ a year is more like $500/year because your parents have such wealth that the decimal is translated over to the left a couple of places. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Either of these could happen. </p>

<p>Go to Brandeis, or look at UMass or wherever, and if you still have a tug towards UCLA, readdress this a couple years down the road as a transfer student. If you think you might try to pursue this angle, try to save a lot of money in your first two years of college.</p>

6

<p>Comparing UCLA to Brandeis is really apples to oranges and you need to visit each of them. Both are great schools so you’ll need to judge for yourself which school is the right fit for you. In my opinion, when it comes to the undergraduate educational experience, there really is no comparison between Brandeis and UCLA. At Brandeis, you will have dramatically smaller class sizes and classes taught by professors, not TAs. </p>

<p>UCLA is a very large, urban state school–around 40,000. In contrast, suburban Brandeis, a private school of 5000 students, combines a nurturing, small liberal arts college and world-class research university-with the smallest undergraduate student body (about 800 in a class) of any top tier national research university. And that small student body is matched with high-powered professors who actually teach in small classes. As you can imagine, the research opportunities are tremendous. And placement rates into graduate schools are excellent. Plus it’s located very close to Boston, which is the world’s best college town. </p>

<p>For undergraduate students, Brandeis is truly amazing. Its intellectual environment is comparable in many ways to its University Athletic Association sister school, U Chicago (perhaps no coincidence that the President of U Chicago is a Brandeis alum). Yet its students are down-to-earth, friendly and non-competitive with one another. </p>

<p>Despite its small size and relative youth, Brandeis’ alumni are very distinguished–to name just a few: Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Rod Mackinnon, Fields Medal winning physicist Edward Witten (often called “Einstein’s successor”), 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman of the NY Times, The Earth is Flat etc; Mitch Albom of Tuesday’s with Morrie (about his Brandeis professor), the Creators/Producers of Friends; actress Debra Messing; Robert FX Sillerman (billionaire businessman–currently owner of American Idol and Graceland), Christy Hefner, former CEO of Playboy) and Jeff Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. Also, if you’re into social justice or theater/music/art, it’s a very exciting place to be.</p>

<p>The school is very diverse undergraduate and graduate, with a strong international flavor (in fact the majority of its International Business School is international students). With respect to the issue for some of the school’s Jewish population, you should understand that less than 50% of its undergraduate student body is Jewish and the overall figure including grad students is about 40%. Brandeis is a non-sectarian school that embraces students from all types of backgrounds based on merit (in the same spirit as many other great non-sectarian American schools founded by Christian religious groups (e.g. Harvard and Princeton). Unlike these others, however, Brandeis never has had a religious affiliation, although it is funded significantly by the Jewish community. </p>

<p>Of course, if you’re interested in big-time athletics and partying, then UCLA should be your choice. But if your focus is academics, class size, quality of teaching, then Brandeis is the clear choice in my opinion.</p>

<p>I am an admittedly biased Brandeis alum. So forgive my enthusiasm for Brandeis. Good luck with your decision!</p>

7

<p>Thank you all for the thoughtful input!</p>

<p>I had a whole thing typed but accidentally closed the tab…So to keep this short</p>

<p>@Beyphy, were you paying in state tutition? Also, did you ever feel smothered by the size of the student body at UCLA? I know they say it’s harder to “shine” at a bigger school, but did you feel that it was nearly impossible to take leadership or climb the academic ladder?</p>

<p>@Drax12, yes I did get accepted to other schools but I have narrowed it down to UCLA and Brandeis. I am not Jewish, but what I meant by “I don’t feel fit” is that I wouldn’t be friends with the types of people that go there. I know this sounds shallow, but what I mean is that they’re not like the friends I have now. Don’t mind this though because I’m just being naive. </p>

<p>I really do regret not visiting UCLA, and I think my indecision now is due to the fact that I don’t know what it’s really like at UCLA. So despite everything that @B77 has said about Brandeis, I’m still feeling a tug towards UCLA.</p>

<p>@B77, thank you for your thoughtful input on Brandeis! I think I saw this post on another forum too regarding Brandeis vs another college haha. I really do like how Brandeis values the nurturing aspect of college, but like I said earlier, I’m willing to risk it because I don’t know if it’ll be better or worse at UCLA.</p>

<p>My parents have also raised me to believe that anything higher in rank is the better option (typical of Asian parents). So as of now, I’m feeling pure indecision because UCLA is still possible, despite the costs. My parents have enough in savings to pay for the full $56k for the first year at UCLA. However, for the years after that, I don’t think my parents will have enough in savings. </p>

<p>But FAFSA is renewed each year right? Meaning I might get more money after the first year? </p>

<p>Maybe it’s a really stupid decision to risk all of this for UCLA, but regardless of what people tell me, whether it’s “go to UCLA”, or “go to Brandeis”, I’ll keep thinking about what I’ll miss out at one college if I go to the other. </p>

<p>Pure indecision right here…</p>

8

<p>Yes I’m instate. I only felt smothered in three of my classes that were a few hundred people per class (mandatory major classes ) other than that the classes were fine. </p>

<p>I don’t think you have enough for UCLA. There are scholarships available like from the Lincy (Sp?) foundation and scholarships for continuing students, but the hard truth is you’ll be taking a big and largely irrational risk by going to UCLA.</p>

<p>If you’re dead set on coming here, you could always take classes in a community college to save money on tuition. At the end of the day, your degree still says UCLA on it. </p>

<p>Good luck enough your decision.</p>

9

<p>B77, I like your post#6, but I take a bit of issue with the following paragraphs:</p>

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</p>

<p>You then insert Paragraph 5, which tells us of Brandeis’ diversity, which I can understand. And I certainly never meant to state that this great U is only for Jewish students.</p>

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</p>

<p>The almost juxtaposition of #4 and #6, seems to me a not so subtle swipe at UCLA’s academics. We don’t all know that UCLA has produced ~ 6 Nobelists, among which is one of my favorite persons, Dr. Ralph Bunche, an African-American gentleman, who was born into abject poverty, but later rose to heights in the UN to help Egypt and Israel mediate their differences, the latter as a fledgling new nation. </p>

<p>Another great African-American graduate was Jackie Robinson, whose first season as a baseball player is detailed in the current movie, 42. Rachel Robinson, whom Jackie met at UCLA, chairs one of the great educational foundations in the nation, which has helped numerous underprivileged kids gain a college education and which bears Mr. Robinson’s name. </p>

<p>UCLA is also a great STEM U, but often gets the short end of the stick in comparison between Cal and UCSD, even though UCLA is top-10 in baccalaureates who gain their PHD’s in these fields. The U is a beast of a preprofessional U with numerous grads who go on to become attys, MD’s, and MBA’s, and the U has produced numerous billionaires itself.</p>

<p>I know you probably didn’t mean to intimate that UCLA has a lack of scholastic reputation with such a possible juxtaposition, but I did want to clear the air … that UCLA is indeed a very academically oriented U in the same class as Brandeis. Undoubtedly, its sports teams do tend to take away from its academic luster at times as seeming in your thread, but it certainly isn’t just a ‘jock school’ at all.</p>

<p>With this said, I hope Oagasian chooses Brandeis because I don’t think there is a u in the country that for which one should enter into $100,000’s of debt.</p>

10

<p>My original post was posted before my dad understood the details of the cost to go to UCLA. So just yesterday, my dad actually meticulously calculated the costs for 4 years at UCLA and told me that it’s manageable. Best part is that my dad said that everything can be paid off by the 5th year, which means no debt! So, UCLA is now a viable option again. Of course Brandeis is more manageable, but I can definitely afford both.</p>

<p>@Beyphy, with what I said above, I guess I’m 90% sure I’m going to UCLA. Do you think this is still an irrational decision?</p>

<p>@Drax12, do you know which school has the better academics, or would you say they’re both on par with each other?</p>

<p>In addition to my update, I just want to add that I know it may seem selfish of me to let my parents pay off all my college expenses, but my parents weren’t happy with my decision on Brandeis. Plus, my dad actually came to me to talk this time (all the other times I’d go to him) about my decision when I thought I had settled on Brandeis. </p>

<p>I guess you can say I’m spoiled…but I’m the only child anyways… haha</p>

<p>Despite all the nice things I have heard about Brandeis (and B77’s post), I just couldn’t warm up to it when I thought I was really going to Brandeis. I wasn’t happy, so, UCLA here I come!</p>

11

<p>Brandeis</p>

<p>(10 char)</p>

12

<p>With your updated information, UCLA sounds manageable. Just make sure you and your family aren’t relying on getting instate residency since it’ll basically be impossible for you guys to get it. Also might not hurt to talk to a UCLA financial aid representative with your family.</p>

13

<p>I’m going to cast a vote for plan C. Take a gap year. Now that you understand the concept of fit, find some colleges that are a fit for you and make sense financially. As a CA taxpayer I appreciate the $100K gift you and your family will make to help bolster the UC system. But from the perspective of what you get out of the deal, I don’t see it as worth it. </p>

<p>The UCLA name is not going to do anything magical for you. It isn’t as if future employers or grad schools are lining up to take UCLA grads, or that a diploma with UCLA on it is going to push you ahead of others. They don’t have special ways of teaching science courses at UCLA that make it easier to learn. As a large public the burden is going to be on you to get to know some profs if you want good recs for grad school, on you to meet with advisors if you want advice about grad school or employment after college, classes will likely be large your first 2 years (and all 4 if you pick a popular major), etc. You can read about the general academic counseling at <a href=“http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/counseling/counselors.html[/url]”>http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/counseling/counselors.html&lt;/a&gt; For what you will pay OOS you could get much more personal attention and smaller class sizes elsewhere.</p>

<p>It sounds like you may have picked the colleges you applied to without sufficient consideration of whether they are right for you, or worth their price. You can forge on ahead with the choices you have, or take a breath and redo the process.</p>

14

<p>Oagasian, I think that mikemac’s idea of a gap year is a great plan. You’d have to inform both u’s that you plan to do such, and certainly for them each to keep an open spot for you for a year later. I don’t know how open they both would be to this, but there would be other openings that would occur wrt fit at other u’s, and at worse you could reapply to both including applying to others. </p>

<p>You have to understand, too, that mikemac takes a harder-line approach in his constant downgrading of all the UC’s. I’m not sure which one he attended, but he is apparently a grad of one of them. </p>

<p>But what he says in his second paragraph applies to any u. The only reason why employers line up for Ivy League graduates is because the students from these great u’s are highly skilled in the discernible and ostensible employable metrics. These students project well by employers’ measures, along with Ivy grads having a great employment history within these firms/companies//industries. </p>

<p>UCLA students, certainly, don’t match these u’s in the same level of said metrics, but there aren’t many that do; therefore, nationally, UCLA will never have the name that the Ivies have … so if you plan to return to Mass after you graduate, you better play your cards well by doing well at UCLA. </p>

<p>If you were an Int’l student, this would be less of a problem for a recent UCLA grad returning home because UCLA’s Int’l rep exceeds its other 45 states rep. (I reduced the no. from 49, because in some of the states of the west, UCLA’s rep might come close to its CA rep.) </p>

<p>If you were to become a CA resident after graduating from UCLA because you like living here so much, then you will have the best of many worlds: a huge array of employers from engineering and bus and law and health from which to choose; great places to settle, from near the shore to in the mountains; generally an incredible climate just about year round; and all the entertainment choices you could ever desire. People wonder why UCLA students and fans don’t support its sports teams … this is easy, if they do poorly, no one will attend their games because there is so much more to do in the city and state.</p>

<p>However, with the prior paragraph in mind, there is no way to figure if you’ll even like CA. I know some people who made a relatively short trip (in relation to you) from NorCal to SoCal to attend UCLA, and they absolutely hated it because of the different mind-sets of the two regions in CA. </p>

<p>So reassess your choices, and add a gap-year as an option. If you feel rushed, then a gap year would be clearly the choice. In which case you can visit UCLA during the summer or whatever your parents’ schedule permits, and you can slow-play things instead of feeling rushed.</p>

15

<p>@Agreatperhaps, is it because of my situation or do you have another reason for why I should choose Brandeis?</p>

<p>@Beyphy, I tried talking to the financial aid representatives, but they don’t seem to help that much… I have explained the situation and all they have told me is that my family should do the parent PLUS loan for $49k, and any other loans I’ll need will have to be private loans. However, this is probably what my family will do because it’s still manageable. Don’t worry, my family isn’t relying on instate residency</p>

<p>@Mikemac and @Drax12, I’m aware that the name won’t mean anything if I don’t do well. My parents actually want to push me out there where I will have to take on the burdens you just described. I know I can handle these burdens though. I know that time won’t help me because I’ve never had a solid direction of my own in the first place, so taking a gap year is out of the question.</p>

<p>@Drax12, what would you say is the mindset of the people in LA? If I end up hating UCLA, I could always transfer… despite how much of a hassle it’ll be. </p>

<p>I know that I’m risking unhappiness by deciding on UCLA without having visited it, but since I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet for my major & etc, I’m looking forward to venturing the opportunities as well as taking my chance. I know that I’m going to have to do well though, this is for sure.</p>

<p>Does it still seem irrational for me to go to UCLA?</p>

16

<p>I actually picked UCLA without having really visited it. I had probably visited Westwood twice in my entire life before i went to UCLA, and i wasn’t on campus. (That’s not as uncommon as it might seem in a big city. I can probably count the number of times i’ve been to Hollywood on both hands…)</p>

<p>The risk i was describing was mainly financial. But if you’re prepared to invest 6 figures in a UCLA education, should it be wise to invest a few hundred dollars and plan a very sudden (but important) trip to the university? You can probably book a flight for this weekend and fly back on Sunday. Might be worth considering if you’re really considering going there.</p>

17

<p>Beyphy, I have wanted to visit, but my dad refuses to let me because he thinks it’s unnecessary. His words: “You know the campus will be beautiful. It won’t matter if you visit because you’ll only see the very surface of it all” -__- I have tried to reason with him, but he doesn’t change his mind. So visiting before the May 1st deadline is not possible for me. However, my dad said that we will take some time in the summer to go visit & everything before the school year starts</p>

<p>In addition, people seem nice based on what I see from the UCLA welcome app on facebook. Nice people matters more to me than the campus/housing/food/etc. I just don’t want to be stuck in a place where everyone is cold to each other. Of course, I know there will be people like that at UCLA (there’s people like that anywhere), but at least I know there are nice people too (I mean…there’s gotta be out of the 40k people at UCLA)</p>

18

<p>@Oag I stayed at UCLA for admit weekend and I was shocked at how friendly everyone was. I asked a random girl who was sitting down where Hedrick Hall was, and instead of just giving me directions, she got up and walked me there. I had a guy I never seen before pull my heavy suitcase up three flights of stairs. It was so welcoming and I felt so at home. Everyone seems very down to earth and I did not get a “fake” vibe.</p>

19

<p>

The way I look at it, the UC schools are a sweet deal for CA residents. You get to attend the top public system in the country at a decent price. But attending a large public comes with a tradeoff of affordability against the college experience. And it would be easy to just sign up for classes, fulfill your major, and emerge 4 years later with little involvement in or guidance from the U. The burden is on the student to reach out and make things happen if they want a better experience than that, but the sizeable savings make the tradeoff worthwhile IMHO.</p>

<p>So whenever I see an OOS student asking about a UC education, I advise it isn’t worth it. For $55K/yr you can get much smaller classes, personal attention, etc. elsewhere.

Sounds like sink or swim. And you don’t have to take on those burdens, that’s the problem. Nobody is going to know or care if you don’t make appointments with advisors, get to know profs, take part in clubs related to your major or intended career, look for internships, etc. Now maybe this all self-reliance suddenly happens even though it hasn’t before and apparently you doubt it would if you took another year to pick a college that may be a better fit. </p>

<p>I wish you the best.</p>

20

<p>

</p>

<p>I don’t disagree with your point, mikemac, but it’s too simplistic. I may be wrong, but you seem to have gotten into an auto-reply mode of always recommending against UC. </p>

<p>Again, I like to see two things in those applying to UC as non-residents; let’s see if I remember my exact wording:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The explicit ability to pay with little or no loans, and</p></li>
<li><p>An expressed desire to attend U in California.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>You have to remember that there are many more non-residents (wrt UC residency) now, especially Internationals, as per Mr. Friedman’s book (Brandeis grad listed in B77’s post) about the world, which has caught the US in technology and wealth, thus flattening the world wrt opportunity, who would indeed highly desire a UCLA or Cal education. </p>

<p>These students easily meet the financial requirements of paying the > $200K/4-year cost of a UC full tuition and probably do so with no loans (and therefore make a $100K ‘gift’ to UC’s coffers, to which you alluded, although it wouldn’t be that much because the difference between cost of an instate resident and a non-resident isn’t all “profit”). And I would desire that UC would cull those who could pay, and not place those who couldn’t in a position of taking on impossible loans. This would be an admissions policy based on those who are able to pay, as bad as this sounds, but I think it would be at least partly a UC responsibility. </p>

<p>In other words, the wealthy have many more options, among which is desirability and fit, rather than the (edit: ) narrow scope to which you subscribe. If personal attention and smaller classes were the sole basis of everyone, then LAC’s would rule higher education. I don’t know of many people who really would have cared to attend a college that small.</p>