UCLA vs UCSD vs ASU Barrett. Please help me choose!

College Search & Selection
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@Anxiouscollegestuden , congrats, those are all great schools. Allow me to weigh in to confuse you even more.

We live in SoCal so we are in state. Daughter applied to these three schools, rejected at UCLA, accepted at UCSD, UCSB, and Cal Poly SLO. Chose to go to ASU Barrett on a full tuition ride, but that was not the deciding factor. She has loved her first year.

My own preference would be UCLA first, ASU Barrett second, and UCSD third.

UCLA is too good of a school to pass up for an in state cost. Yes, you have some drawbacks, academics are intense, traffic sucks (but where are you going on campus?), etc. But it is widely known as one of the best 3 public universities in the country.

UCSD turned me off right away. Socially, it looked really dead (UC Socially Dead), it seemed very STEM-focused, and as someone else said, it is not on the beach itself like UCSB, but on the cliffs and can take a while to get down there. The school is separated from La Jolla and UTC, although the San Diego trolley has a nearby stop now I believe.

ASU and Tempe have a ton to do, Barrett has a really good reputation (it is in EVERY ranking of top honors colleges), my daughter gets first pick of all her classes, the dorms are nice (she gets a pool in hers next year!), the food is really good, socially it’s great, but it is not the party school it once was, and she is surrounded by a lot of high achieving students like her. Barrett has a ton of National Merit Finalists and National Hispanic Recognition Program finalists–all really bright students. The professors come from top universities, are well published and regarded, and the school caters to students. You get the best of a small LAC in a large university. If diversity is important, there has to be a large Asian population there. (I noticed this on my visit, although not as noticeable as UCLA or UCSD). Neither UCLA or UCSD have both the small and large aspect. Grad schools respect the school too. I checked with my own grad school’s admissions as I had some doubt. Check out publicuniversityhonors dot com or this article: https://blog.prepscholar.com/best-honors-colleges-programs-ranking

One issue that the UCs have is impacted (capped space) majors and classes, especially UCLA for psychology; I dont believe it is impacted at UCSD. That can turn a 4 year experience into a 5 year experience. ASU and especially Barrett does not have this issue. https://stack.dailybruin.com/2019/05/21/change-major/#:~:text=Roughly%2030%25%20of%20UCLA%20students,political%20science%20and%20psychology%20students.

If you are paying through loans, the $10K difference per year is worth it for UCLA. For me, I wouldn’t pay the $40K extra to go to UCSD over Barrett. Save your money for grad school, unless UCLA lets you in off the WL.

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Capacity limitations do not generally cause students in the major to need extra quarters or semester to graduate, since the intention is to regulate the number of students in the major so that there is enough space for them in the classes. However, this results in some frosh/soph students not being able to get into their first choice major and having to choose a different one.

Note that some majors at ASU have admissions requirements higher than general admission to the school (presumably due to capacity limitations), although psychology is not one of them.

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@Anxiouscollegestuden Barrett Honors students all have to write an honors thesis with a faculty advisor. So that could give you a leg up on research if you’re planning to go to grad school. Something to think about.

RE: whether the academics are challenging enough, you have the honors seminars and I assume the upper level courses will be quite rigorous. With all the new subjective admissions policies at the UC’s, I am not sure what their freshmen makeup will look like anyway.

I went to ASU for undergrad back in the dinosaur era and it prepared me well for grad school at a different uni. Oh yeah,it was a party school back then too. Some things never change!

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@ucbalumnus , I stand corrected. But why do I hear many UC students say it can be difficult to get through in 4 years?

As for the higher requirements in certain departments at ASU, I would bet the OP would have little issue with these if they were admitted into Barrett and given a scholarship.

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Probably a small number of students who complain loudly. It also seems to be a meme repeated on these forums by posters other than UC students.

Undergraduate graduation rates | University of California shows graduation rates.

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Thank you so much for your input and it’s incredibly helpful to hear some personal experience. This both gave me some clarity and also confused me more like you said. :joy:

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That is a good point regarding research. Thanks for the input!

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No, I likely wont be having a car for carb first couple years likely.

I never realized that Uc GRAD school also followed instate out of state. That is a very valid point. I was hoping to get into UCB/ UCLA or the Ivies for grad and if it is UCs, the instate tuition would be advantageous

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If I go to ASU, I intend to stay in the honors program but I’ve had lot of academic seniors drop out for my reason. In the event i do, is the teagult programm at ASU worth it over UCSD? Do you have any insights on that?

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An open question to anyone here who has been so kind to offer their inputs so far…I’m also interested in creative writing/ english and I MAY double major with it with psych
Is the english / cw programme better at ASU or UCSD? I am also leaning towards business so hows the programmes at both the schools like?

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@Anxiouscollegestuden Have you looked at the department websites for the programs you’re interested in to see what their faculty are doing and what kind of courses they offer? Are they highlighting any undergrads and their work? Do they have some newsletters posted that gives you some insight? You are choosing between two universities - so at this point that’s where you should be drilling down for details if you aren’t already doing so.

Both ASU and UCSD are big research universities (R1). As such, they have their pick of who to hire in their departments. With a glut of PhD’s in Psych and English, the humanities programs at R1’s are usually very strong.

The Business schools may have their own admissions policies. So you need to know whether you can transfer in from another major. Look at their website for the needed info.

You seem to be concerned that ASU is somewhat beneath you, and if you don’t stay in the honors program, you’re going to end up being unchallenged. While ASU is not as selective as UCSD, keep in mind a lot of students wash out after their first year or so. That’s their model. Always has been. Even without an honors track, a double major will keep you plenty challenged.

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Yes I did, but not super in depth since I’m not entirely sure I want to double major / switch majors. None of the majors I’m interested in are super hard to transfer into but have prerequisites, which I’ll be able handle I believe for both schools. As for rankings and such, half the sites I look up seemed to be outdated or blocked beyond the top 10 rankings

I wouldnt necessarily say beneath me…just that I’m not sure I would feel encouraged enough with the regular psych program without honors or double major. High school in India for me felt very underwhelming ( like I have been getting 100/100 for every exam by barely studying ) and I’m afraid that the environment wouldn’t be rigorous or competitive enough which I really value.

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Asu Barrett has its own little campus, its own (gourmet) cafeteria. The Honors courses are intellectually challenging and interactive. After sophomore year, Barrett helps mostly with support for research, presenting at conferences, winning fellowships. Students are in their majors and Barrett students can even take graduate level classes; party-prone students have all dropped out by that point and you won’t lack for challenges at that level. Not sure why you’d drop Barrett but if you do it when you’re a rising junior you’ll still be taking advanced classes for majors.

UCSD isn’t that pretty - the pretty San Diego campus is SDSU :). It’s also not in San Diego but in La Jolla :), look it up, it makes a difference. But yes you’re near the Pacific ocean.

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@Anxiouscollegestuden , UCSD does not have an undergraduate major in business, only a minor. Rady School of Management’s MBA program is ranked #87. ASU W.P. Carey is ranked #30 for their MBA and #24 for undergraduate business. Some of their majors are Top 10-15, including Supply Chain (#3), Management and also Quantitative Analysis (#10), Marketing (#12), Accounting (#13), and Int’l Business (#18). ASU is routinely ranked #1 for innovation by US News. https://news.asu.edu/20200913-asu-news-asus-undergraduate-business-program-rises-us-news-and-world-report-rankings

To me, UCSD is a STEM-focused school, and ASU is a business-focused school, that also has good engineering and liberal arts programs. Barrett’s Human Event seminar focuses on reading and writing.

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Same from my former students and my own children. It’s not on the beach. You haven’t visited the campuses, and others on this post, who are familiar and have visited, are giving you their opinions of the schools.
You’ve already formulated a narrow opinion of UCSD and ASU without considering what others here have told you who HAVE visited. Caveat emptor.
If you view the UCSD virtual tour, it lends to pictures showing and alluding to it being on the beach. It’s not. There are a few buildings, owned by the university, that are on the beach. UCSD is up on the hill, and is separated from the beach by cliffs.

The glider port, for the hang gliders to glide to the beach, is across the road from UCSD. Hang gliders do get stuck on the cliffs. Unfamiliar hikers do fall and get hurt or killed hiking the eroding cliffs.

[quote=“MYOS1634, post:33, topic:3522188”]
UCSD “isn’t that pretty - the pretty San Diego campus is SDSU :). It’s also not in San Diego but in La Jolla :), look it up, it makes a difference. But yes you’re near the Pacific ocean”.[/quote]
Agree, lots of fog and overcast skies in non-summer months.

Yes, there are many private labs and a few medical facilities nearby, but they are private and many don’t have relationships with the university other than the medical school.

The VA hospital is on UCSD’s campus and gives access to the Medical school. During my SDSU graduate work, UCSD gave us the courtesy to share the UC Med school library with UC med students. We saw students climb into shuttles to get to University Hospital in Hillcrest (It’s about 20 minutes to 30 minutes in good traffic down the I-5).
Shiley and Scripps Memorial are across the Freeway, but access is usually limited to the nursing school and med school programs.

Also, you seem to assume A LOT!

  • ASU is a very good, strong school and you seem to be undervaluing its strength. It has a strong social and alumni network. My daughter’s SoCal CS corporation worked frequently with ASU’s career service counselors for new hires. Comparing it to your high school in India is disparaging.

  • UCSD is on the quarter system-you have 10 weeks to prove yourself. If you double major, more that likely your classes will be held in different lecture halls across the university. Learn to skateboard or bike across campus because some lecture halls in different departments will take 20 minutes to walk across the campus. Some lectures start early.

  • If you plan to go off campus, without a car, it will be time-consuming and expensive.

  • Housing at UCSD is only guaranteed for Freshman, unless they get more buildings up. (There is constant construction going on.) You’ll have to find housing in sophomore, junior and senior years. In University City and La Jolla, it will be expensive. Assume $2K per month without utilities.

  • UCLA is a non-issue because you have NOT been admitted. Until you have been admitted, it shouldn’t even come up.

In my opinion, ASU will give you a more comprehensive US college experience. UCSD still has to work out some issues, but to some students the comprehensive experience doesn’t matter.

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Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it.

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Thank you for those rankings! When you say #1 in innovation, what does that necessarily mean in the college context?

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Thank you so much for the input, truly! Without living in the US and being able to tour and talk to students, no amount if research makes me feel like anyhting other than I’m walking into this blind.

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Hi @Anxiouscollegestuden , I would suggest watching this video, which gives you a good idea of what the school is about. There are even two people of Indian descent, one who moved from Chennai, who talk about their experiences (at 1:09 and 42:22)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW2p0ctzK9c

As far as innovation goes, the university is a leader in a lot of areas. New programs all the time. For instance, the school owns a large condominium complex where older people come to live and take classes at the nearby university as life long learners. They even have a unique program with the Mayo Clinic.

ASU’s president, Michael Crow, is probably the best university president in the country. He’s always pushing the university forward. Google “best university presidents” and he is likely in every list.

You can also check out other schools here.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=asu+campus+tour

One of the reason ASU is not highly ranked is because their admissions are not super selective, as their mission is to provide a college education to as many people in Arizona as possible. However, individual colleges have very good ratings, and as some others have said, a number of people admitted cannot keep up and drop out. But the top students are in Barrett and some of the other departments and are very bright. The school has A LOT of National Merit Finalists. Barrett is known as the best honors college in the country.

We visited 15 campuses and ASU was in our top 3 in terms of best tour, along with Northwestern and UCSB. If you want to talk further with someone, message me and I can connect you with the woman from our tour at Barrett. She was great!

I know I sound like a salesperson. For me, I went to Michigan and then Minnesota for my MBA, so they were selective schools. But I’ve been very impressed by ASU and my daughter is having a very good experience there.

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I’ll be at UCSD this fall! What university did you end up selecting?