<p>UCLA surroundings are more pleasurable to the eye, but I think USC surroundings are safe enough although may not enjoy strolling through neighborhood. Son likes the 55%/45% female-male ratio @ UCLA.</p>
<p>UCLA CompSci selectivity "feels" stronger, many students choose UCLA instead of Berkeley. I believe they said all accepted incoming freshmen have 4.0 UW GPAs.</p>
<p>USC Game Design is tops, and if my sons had his mind 100% committed to Game Design, USC would be hands down the choice. But he said he is interested in game design, but is reluctant to say 100%. UCLA is clearly weaker in Game Design.</p>
<p>USC seemed a little over the top on the school spirit. They referred to UCLA an inordinate amount of times. When in UCLA, I only heard one comment about USC.</p>
<p>I think it will come down to how committed my son is to game design vs computer science in general. He needs to sleep on it and let the "high" from our recent visit to UCLA die down. Every time we visit a campus, we feel he should attend there. These campus visit guys are professionals, and we are amateurs.</p>
<p>He needs to go into a meditation to decide how committed he is to game design. And once he decides that, I think his decision will be clear. </p>
<p>(If you don’t subscribe US NEWS COMPASS, You may only can look at the result up to rank 10, but not rank 11-16)</p>
<p>US NEWS Computer Science rank 11-16 are as below,
11. Princeton University ( National Universities Rank# 1)
12. Purdue University—West Lafayette ( National Universities Rank#68)
13. University of Washington ( National Universities Rank #52)
14. University of Wisconsin—Madison ( National Universities Rank #41)
15. Virginia Tech ( National Universities Rank #69)
16. University of California—San Diego ( National Universities Rank #39)
16. University of Southern California (National Universities Rank#23, same as UCLA)</p>
<p>4 . University of California—Berkeley ( National Universities Rank #20)</p>
<p>If what UCLA said all accepted CS freshman are with GPA 4.0 UW is true, UCLA is more difficult to be accepted this year compared to USC. I don’t know what is the 2018 CS class size in UCLA. If it is smaller than USC, that maybe the reason…My personal opinion.</p>
<p>@gwoodad : I am aware of the usnews ranking. But visiting and talking to the professors, and looking at other random rankings, UCLA certainly seems more competitive to get in, and more desirable. Same seems true when my sons talks to his friends about who got into UCSD/UCLA/USC from his high school, and UCLA was the most difficult one to get in. UCLA CompSci class size is somewhere between 110 and 140. UCLA all engineering is 600 spots, USC is 400. So I would assume it distributes similarly. when UCLA has 50% more spots than USC.</p>
<p>We do look at the rankings, only as a starting point.</p>
<p>We chose USC over UCLA/UCB for EE/CS. (UCB too close to home/didn’t like campus so that was eliminated quickly and not based on academics - obviously they are top notch there for EECS.) Mine is freshman in CS now (have two there). And we bought UCLA t-shirts (since recycled) last year sure he was attending so I get the “visit high.” Both are great schools, one public, one private, for us, there are big differences in that, not so much on the statistics you are quoting - didn’t evaluate based on someone else’s GPA, any student getting into these schools for engineering is gonna be bright. (But he did decline other schools because he didn’t think the “genius factor” at a school was strong enough, so I get it.) We think the connections at USC have a lot of weight, UCLA seems not so personal in that regard. They have fairs of course, but I don’t know that many UCLA grads going out of their way to help another UCLA grad, just my opinion. We also experienced the opposite on the boasting, we had a great guide at UCLA but got annoyed at all the digs toward USC - seems a bit insecure where USC mentioned it once - guess it depends on who you get! Both schools have great spirit - pretty even there, I would take that out of equation, those type of “null factors” I call them, just confuse you. Two great choices, it is hard to push that button and tell either one you are not attending, but gotta go on where student wants to be. One should feel better to him than the other. Good luck!</p>
<p>General rule of thumb, privates tend to have stronger alumni network than publics. Should future job placement potentials factor into the consideration, if game design is not end goal? </p>
<p>Any thoughts why ULCA undergrad will not feature in USNews undergrad computer raking? Its ranks in grade school quite high for computer science (above USC and UCSD). Also in grad school raking UCLA is not listed from Computer engineering, only CS. Is is that UCLA does not have computer engineering? And USnews “Computer” ranking in only for Computer engineering programs, not computer science. But then CMU at #2 for that? And Caltech included in undergread for CE, but not grad? Seems like USnews uses some criteria I can not comprehend.</p>
<p>At USC your son can explore game design and programming classes as electives or possibly a minor. I don’t know if UCLA provides that opportunity. If not, UCLA locks him into reg CS whereas at least at USC his options are a little more open.</p>
<p>That’s crap. Berkeley has a much higher enrollment yield rate than UCLA. And, this is even truer for courses in engineering, physical sciences and computer science. </p>
<p>I did not say that UCLA feels stronger than Berkeley. I said that UCLA feels stronger than USC because many students did indeed choose UCLA over Berkeley. I agree that most that did make such a choice was probably due to non-strength of curriculum reasons, such as weather/lifestyle/neighborhood. But at least it many did make such a choice, despite Berkeley being considered stronger academically.</p>
<p>I’ve told this story before, but I enjoy blathering on about my kids, so…</p>
<p>When my daughter was deciding where she would attend, she announced around the 20th of April that she had decided to attend Berkeley. She spent a week and a half telling people that she would attend Berkeley. It came to April 30th, and I said that she needed to go online and submit her SIR - I didn’t want her to wait until May 1st in case there was a power outage or computer freeze-up. At 11pm she went to the computer with my credit card and typed away at the keyboard. She suddenly stood up and headed for the front door, shouting over shoulder as she ran out into the night, “I’m going to USC!” </p>
<p>A total (and wonderful) surprise! She powered around the block in the middle of the night for about a half-hour - I think it was to shake off the awful stress of the application season - the waiting, worrying, wondering followed by the awful choice of having to let go of all those schools she loved and pick only one.</p>
<p>I enjoy the USC board more than the UCLA board, basically there is more activity and information.</p>
<p>But right now I think there is 2:1 chance that he will go to UCLA.</p>
<p>UCLA wins in most aspects : Ranking, Price, Neighborhood, Diversity, male-female ratio,
USC still has the strength of Game Design Program, and the fact that it is private with everything that comes with that (professor attention, class size, faculty ratio, alumni)</p>
<p>But if he “gets religion” on game design, then it will be USC. He is off to St Louis for the World Robotics Championship this week. So he should decide when he gets back a couple days before the deadline.</p>
<p>My discussions with the FA office, left me a little weary that FA in USC is very fluid, and I am not so sure that they agreed with me, as they thought that if they did not agree, that my son would not accept. So I have a little discomfort that the decision was subjective, and that it could change next year, once he don’t have the choice anymore.</p>
where USC mentioned it once - guess it depends on who you get! Both schools have great spirit - pretty even there, I would take that out of equation, those type of “null factors” I call them, just confuse you. Two great choices, it is hard to push that button and tell either one you are not attending, but gotta go on where student wants to be. One should feel better to him than the other. Good luck!</p>