UCLA vs USC

<p>mnop,</p>

<p>I can assure you that it doesn’t matter which one you go to if your goal is med school. All that matters for med school is the med pre-reqs, MCAT, and your extracurriulars/volunteering. </p>

<p>To be honest, I’m not entirely convinced that Cornell would have more opportunities for the average undergrad. USC is a pretty big research university in a major city. </p>

<p>I’m not trying to put down Cornell (not at all), but I’m saying that the differences between the two, despite the rankings, would really be slim in reality.</p>

<p>^second that. </p>

<p>cornell has weiss, usc has keck. both offer great research opps and clinical opporunities. im sure both also have their fair share of community service projects as well - to be honest, me and mnop are both making judgment calls on this, but i don’t believe that anyone will be hindered by their choice between USC or cornell. its all up to how much you put into your education and how hard you look for opportunities.</p>

<p>hi guys, current USC senior here! just had to respond to a mnop444 regarding cornell vs USC</p>

<p>i actually have a few friends that turned down offers to some of the lower ivies like cornell and other really good LACs like williams for USC. it’s not as rare as you’d think it would be.</p>

<p>and UCLAri is right in saying that premed is pretty much the same anywhere you go. in fact if i could re-do it over again i’d probably go to an easier school without a brutal science curve (15% A, 25% B, 40% C, 15% D, 5% F)</p>

<p>josebiwasabi,</p>

<p>Look on the bright side: you’ll be ready for the med school curve! It only gets worse. Trust me. ;)</p>

<p>i actually know a lot of people who turn down cornell</p>

<p>cornell let in like 50 kids from my school last year.</p>

<p>why did it suddenly switch to USC vs Cornell??</p>

<p>But, UCLA > Cornell > USC</p>

<p>ib612,</p>

<p>I just put up a hypothetical in order to demonstrate how little basing your decision on numbers alone makes sense in practice. I think people should choose a school based on more than simple rankings.</p>

<p>im not really basing that on rankings, just my personal opinion…and cornell ranks higher on USNWR than UCLA, so, i’m not really basing it on numbers at all</p>

<p>but i do completely agree with you</p>

<p>I know, I’m just explaining how Cornell got into this conversation. </p>

<p>I think a lot of the people on this site who are from California and jump all over the chance to attend Cornell over a top UC really out to spend a winter in Ithaca. </p>

<p>It. Is. Not. Fun.</p>

<p>Everything USC told me about was a LIE! (sorry, here’s a super biased answer)</p>

<p>-USC told me that they offered smaller classes and is private therefore you are not a number here, that people actually get into their classes (unlike those lousy guys across town), the Trojan Family takes care of its own and the networking is great, and that “everything I need is on campus,” and lastly, USC is not suffering from tuition increases while the UC’s are. They also said USC’s class has higher SAT scores. First of all:…</p>

<p>I) Smaller classes my a**. If you’re in College of Letters and Science, your intro Chem, Calculus, History, etc. class is going to have 300+ people in it. What were they basing this on? Discussions? Seminars? Or rare classes nobody takes, such as African Dance 101? Yeah you will probably find less than 20 people in those classes. Also, even though USC is private, it’s a large school. There are 17,000 undergrads. Oh please, I’ll tell you what’s small, Stanford. less than 5,000 undergrads. Yeah that’s small. USC is not small.</p>

<p>II) People do get into their classes. What they don’t tell you is people don’t get into the classes with the PROFESSOR they want. This probably means, hey, you enrolled in Chemistry 1A. But it also means you’re taking it with Professor Child-Hater, who is most famous for his “only 5% of students get As, 10% get Bs, and everyone else gets Cs” curve.</p>

<p>III) The Trojan Family only applies to certain majors and schools, such as the Cinema/Film, Marshall Business, and Law, Business, Policy, etc grad. schools. These fields actually NEED networking. If you are some generic Art History or Psychology (no offense to those out there) major, this Trojan Family isn’t going to be carrying you on its shoulders. Do you really believe someone will hire you simply because you went to a school? Really? Would you do that? Imagine you were hiring someone. Person A is from University of Texas while Person B is from USC. Person A has a 3.5 GPA and 5 years of work experience. Person B has a 2.3 GPA and has no work experience. Oh but he’s from USC. Let’s hire him! Fight On? Yeah right.</p>

<p>IV) “Everything I need is on campus…” You know what this means right? It means unless you have a car, you can’t go anywhere. That’s what the USC counselors and guides were trying to sell me on when I mentioned the surrounding area. USC is in a crappy, ghetto. If you want to be politically correct, it is “technically” not in South Central. It’s in South Los Angeles, which is the new name for South Central since the early 2000s. Also, why do I always see Trojans in Westwood lining up for movies or Diddy Riese? Jee, it must because USC is in a hell hole toilet area in Los Angeles.</p>

<p>V) USC students always laugh at kids in the UC system who are paying more. Yes, I believe last year’s overall cost for UCLA was ~$25,000 and it is now ~$27,000 for in state residents. Heyyyyyyyyyy, wanna know USC’s? On the Fall 2008 brochure, the COA was ~$51,000. Look what it says on the Fall 2009 one!! $53,000. Wonderful.</p>

<p>[USC</a> Financial Aid - Applying & Receiving Financial Aid - Undergraduate - Costs](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/fa/applying_receiving/undergraduates2/costs.html]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/fa/applying_receiving/undergraduates2/costs.html)</p>

<p>VI) USC and higher SAT scores. Oh, very simple to explain because USC superscores their SAT score while UCLA takes the highest in one sitting. Enough said.</p>

<p>USC lies, lies, and lies more. Did you know their football program is also about to get hammered by the NCAA for scandals involving illegal recruitment of Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo? Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Go Trogans<em>! I mean Trojans! Google “Trogans</em>” if you want to know what I’m talking about.</p>

<p>@notaznguy</p>

<p>You seem to be very bitter… I’ll try and respond to your points one by one.</p>

<p>1) Of course your intro classes are going to be large. However the average size of my upper div biology is about 35 and for east asian languages and cultures i’ve had classes as small as 7, with the average (not including those that count for GEs) class size being at around 10. </p>

<p>2) Most classes only have one professor for a given semester, although for larger courses that professor will probably teach multiple sections of that lecture, ie 10:00 and 11:00 for biochem. </p>

<p>3) What you say about the trojan family is pretty true, although I don’t really see why you would need the trojan family if you were a pysch major. it’s pretty much a given that you’ll have to go to grad school for that. and the point about getting hired through connections is that you won’t even be in the same applicant pool as the guy from UT. you can get in contact with the company directly and oftentimes can get in through the back door. if you go online through USC’s job search portal there are some listings that are specific for USC grads. that being said if you have a 2.3 gpa you won’t be hired by any big firm regardless of whatever school you came out of.</p>

<p>4) you’re somewhat correct about this. the area directly around USC leaves a lot to be desired. however if you check out USC’s master plan, they have a lot of ideas to improve the area around USC and the improvements are already underway. also USC is in a very convenient location where LA LIVE (including the staples center), koreatown, chinatown, and little tokyo are all about 2 miles away. </p>

<p>5) the difference is that over 90% of UCLA’s student body comes from california, whereas it’s only about 50% for USC. i don’t know why, but UCLA students bring up the cost issue all the time without considering the fact that USC’s student body is much more geographically diverse. not everyone has the option of paying the 27k in-state tuition. i’m one of those kids from out of state who would have to pay over 40k/year without any finaid if i attended a UC. due to my financial situation it would be impossible for me to pay for UCLA, whereas with USC, i didn’t even receive any merit scholarships and i’m paying less than 10k/year. in fact my junior year i attended school for free!</p>

<p>6) i agree with the superscore vs not for the SAT. however with the ACT both schools only accept scores from one sitting, and guess who’s scores are higher? i’m not 100% on the figures but i think UCLA’s middle 50% is around 28-31 whereas USC’s is 30-33.</p>

<p>And lastly, regarding the athletic dept: i’m not sure what will happen either (no one does, really) but i doubt it’ll be that bad. the reggie bush case in particular makes no sense. his parents didn’t even receive money until his junior year, and they were trying to lure him AWAY from usc to leave for the pros early. why would USC want to take part in that?</p>

<p>ps: every major athletic program has their scandals. do i need to bring up the UCLA handicap parking scandal? or perhaps legendary bball coach john wooden’s shady dealings? [Everyone</a> loves a winner - College Basketball - Rivals.com](<a href=“http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-uclalegacy040206&prov=yhoo&type=lgns]Everyone”>http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-uclalegacy040206&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)</p>

<p>To the OP,</p>

<p>notaznguy is just ridiculous. My sister loves USC and has benefited from all that a private school has to offer. While, I agree with notaznguy that UCLA’s LAS program is better, but USC has better professional programs that consistently rank higher than UCLAs and, as he said, better networking opportunities. You may want to look into USC’s Policy school, I hear it’s great.</p>

<p>BayBoi10,</p>

<p>You’re referring to the undergrad professional programs, correct? Because for graduate professional, UCLA’s consistently rank higher across the board, with a few exceptions.</p>

<p>I’m not going “rah rah” for the record, just clarifying what you mean.</p>

<p>BayBoi10,</p>

<p>You’re referring to the undergrad professional programs, correct? Because for graduate professional, UCLA’s consistently rank higher across the board, with a few exceptions.</p>

<p>I’m not going “rah rah” for the record, just clarifying what you mean.</p>

<p>BayBoi10, why are you on here trashing UCLA with every opportunity you get? It seems for the past few weeks anytime I open up a thread you’re going off about how the school isn’t that great and we’re all just idiots for thinking so. Do you know you’re a ■■■■■? You state a bunch of negative opinions you posses with absolutely no evidence to back up your claims. Or you use some random articles as support for your claims. Blah. I’m seriously starting to doubt you even attend CAL, because, for one, I can’t imagine students at CAL have time to ■■■■■ UCLA boards, and for two, I can’t imagine students at CAL would WANT to ■■■■■ UCLA boards. We’re all a part of the same system… why would you… hate on us so damn much? Weird. </p>

<p>I just smell a stinker.</p>

<p>

This is wholly untrue. USC graduate programs are consistently ranked lower than UCLA. USC has a rather shaky graduate school presence. (EX. Anderson #14 vs Marshall #20, Geffen #11 vs. Keck #39)</p>

<p>I find UCLA to be one of the schools with the most consistent performance across the board. With UCLA, you know exactly what you’re getting. Most of our graduate schools are around #14.</p>

<p>UCLA isnt damn good at anything…thats why berk will always own</p>

<p>

We’re “damn” good in Dentistry, Film, and many areas of the Fine Arts. </p>

<p>It’s true Berkeley is generally better; but this thread is comparing UCLA with USC and, between the two, if UCLA isn’t “damn” good at anything, USC is preparing students to be panhandlers on the street.</p>

<p>These kinds of recent posts aren’t really helping a student to decide. It’s beginning to reach the low I’ve seen on some of the board where Duke students bask those from UN-CH and vice versa. Sheesh! My S (with 5 decisions pending) has these schools to decide from: USC. UC Berkeley (Regents), UCLA, UCSD and UCSB. This is one thread I will NOT be directing him to.</p>

<p>FindAPlace,</p>

<p>The best bet, as always, is to visit and see which school “feels” best. I’m inclined to go with Cal, though, because of the Regents. It’s hard to turn down a practically free education!</p>