<p>There is absolutely nothing to do in Merced except drink. While Riverside isn't a nice city at all, the immediate area around the campus is pretty cool and if you have a car, there are many options for fun.</p>
<p>I'd choose Merced over Riverside. According to the statistics above, they're pretty much similar (stats-wise) other than the fact that Riverside has more students. I guess it might be kinda boring at Merced with nothing to do over the weekends etc. but who knows, it might help some of us to save some $$ haha.</p>
<p>UC Riverside is on par with UC Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and Irvine...the only difference is location. UCR is an established research university with amazing resources--which is certainly not true with UC Merced. If you have any interest in doing any sort of undergraduate research, go with UCR--especially for something like engineering. Also, UCR is not in the "middle of nowhere" as someone suggested, it is in suburban southern california. The city itself has over a quarter of a million people. Yeah, that's pretty rural. It is close to the desert and Joshua Tree national park, but most people consider that a plus. It's also only an hour from LA.</p>
<p>While UC Riverside may not be berkeley, it still better than 90% of the universities in the country. Don't be fooled by statistics. All UC's attract top-notch faculty and Riverside is no exception. I just had a conversation with a number of faculty members (I'm a graduate student) where we talked about Harvard recruiting a faculty member from UC Riverside.</p>
<p>Seriously...the amount of hearsay and rumors that get spread on this website is astonishing.</p>
<p>My opinion, as someone who teaches undergraduates at UCR and knows the facilities (I went to Cornell as an undergrad, the facilities are comparable) is to go to UCR over Merced, unless the area itself is a deal breaker. As a university, Riverside is light years ahead of UC Merced.</p>
<p>Cheers,
CornellGrad</p>
<p>True, it's ahead, but how will Merced grow to UCR status without people stimulating it to do so? UCR was in Merced's position fifty or so years ago, you know.</p>
<p>For those interested, take a stroll over to UCR's website and take a look at the number of new faculty they are hiring, their previous positions, notable accomplishments and their prior university positions. Most will be suprised</p>
<p>UCR faces the burden of having what many consider an undesirable location. That however, does not mean that the facilities and/or academics are subpar.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you like hiking and skiing and rock climbing
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In reference to this past statement by ricegirl? about Merced, have you ever been to UCR or the surrounding area. 30 minutes to Mountain High. Box springs 2 minutes away for hiking.</p>
<p>Corbett, I think you've got old information or something.... Official numbers from the UC system.
<a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucm.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucm.html</a>
CUgrad, I doubt UCR is on par with UCSB, and UCI (UCSB has 6 nobel laureates and Irvine has 2). UCSC maybe, but not the rest. Faculty seems on-par with Merced too.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.engr.ucr.edu/people/faculty.shtml#cse%5B/url%5D">http://www.engr.ucr.edu/people/faculty.shtml#cse</a>
<a href="http://www.ucmerced.edu/faculty/facultylist.asp#eng%5B/url%5D">http://www.ucmerced.edu/faculty/facultylist.asp#eng</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
Corbett, I think you've got old information or something.... Official numbers from the UC system.
<a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucm.html%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5DBetter">http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucm.html
[/quote]
Better</a> check again. The page you referenced shows the official UC numbers for applications (7,996) and admits (6,197) to UC Merced for Fall 2006. But applications and admits are not the same as enrollment. In fact, the vast majority of the people who were admitted to UC Merced chose to attend other schools instead. So the actual UC Merced enrollment numbers were much, much lower than the admit numbers.</p>
<p>The official UC Merced enrollment numbers for Fall 2005 are shown at the same website, but on a different</a> page. Here they are:</p>
<p>Total Enrollment 878
Undergraduate Enrollment 841
Graduate Enrollment 37 </p>
<p>The numbers have grown since then, because an additional class was admitted in Fall 2006. The numbers I cited, from collegeboard.com, are more up to date.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the UC website notes that "Personal attention is the reason most often cited by students when asked why prospective freshmen and transfer students should choose UC Merced."</p>
<p>This official press</a> release indicates that UC Merced gained 550 students in Fall 2006. This raised the total enrollment to about 1,300 for the 2006-2007 academic year, which was the second year of operation.</p>
<p>It's likely that UCM will gain a similar number of students in Fall 2007. This should push total enrollment into the 1,800 - 2,000 range for the 2007-2008 academic year. They could reach 2,500 for 2008-2009, after four classes have been admitted. But even then, UCM would still be comparable in size to many liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>sophmore year: 1ST SEMESTER SECOND
bio A A
eng honors B B
geo honors B C+
pe A B
world history honors B A
spanish I B B
GPA 3.83 W 3.67 W</p>
<p>JUNIOR YEAR
1ST SEM 2ND SEM (CURRENT/GOING TO BE)
ANAT/PHYS A A
ALG II C+ C+
AP US A B+
SPAN II A A
ENG HONORS B B
CHEM B A
GPA- 3.67 W 3.67 W</p>
<p>EXTRA CURR:
ABOUT 700 HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE 05-MAY 07
PRESIDENT OF INTERACT CLUB 06-07 AND NEXT YEAR
TREASURER OF BEST BUDDIES CLUB 06-07 AND NEXT YEAR
HONOR ROLL......
NATIONAL HONOR ROLL
1ST GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENT
LOW INCOME FAMILY</p>
<p>sat i- 1700-1800 taking it on 6/2!!</p>
<p>wf909, stop posting in every topic you see, it's really annoying.</p>
<p>^LOL</p>
<p>One thing I will say about UCR: the area has problems with air pollution.</p>
<p>Lucky, </p>
<p>Nobel prizes are not an appropriate way to judge faculty quality...there simply aren't enough given out to say anything statistically significant. However, look at departmental ranks, which are based on peer assessment, scholarly production (how often professors publish) and the relative impact rating of the journals they publish in and you'll see there is absolutely no difference in the quality of faculty in general between places like Riverse, Davis, Santa Barbara and Irvine. Sure, places like UCSB have superlative departments, like physics, that have been raking in Nobel prizes of late...but in general, there is very little difference in the credentials of faculty among these schools.</p>
<p>Cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p>i concur...</p>
<p>Okay, faculty aside, I'd say UCD, UCSB, and UCI would all look better on an application than UCR.</p>
<p>New situation, say I don't care about the "education" I get there. What would look better on a job application 5-10 years from now, UCR or UCM?</p>
<p>
[quote]
UC Riverside is on par with UC Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and Irvine...the only difference is location.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>uh huh... and you can say UC Riverside is on par with Berkeley or UCLA and that the only difference is location.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Call me a prestige whore but for me, any schools outside the top 100-120 list of USNWR ranking aren't worth attending. Sure there are around 4000 college/universities in the nation, but 1200 of them are community colleges, and many many many are private christian colleges (not against those are anything, but they are quite different than the "regular" universities you have in mind) that most people won't even consider applying unless you are from some uber conservative religious family that put faith and salvation above education. If you exclude all those, there are around 1500 schools left in the country.</p>
<p>And out of those 1500 or so "worthy" colleges, vast majority of them are CINOs (college in name only) where you can get in with SAT aroud 1000 (with the old SAT) and GPA below 3.0. As a matter of fact, many of them don't even require SATs to enter. If you take away all those colleges, there are less than 500-600 universities that are "Truly worthy" of getting a degree from.</p>
<p>Now UCR is well within top 100 (we are not taking LACs into the account) so I should say it's top 20% of the school, which I should say impressive but honestly, anyone who worked decently hard and managed to get a gpa above 3.5W and SAT above the average, you shouldn't have any problem getting into the top 100 schools. If you consider that into the factor, then UCR isn't really that much of an accomplishment for a decently motivated student.</p>
<p>
[quote]
New situation, say I don't care about the "education" I get there. What would look better on a job application 5-10 years from now, UCR or UCM?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UCR obviously. It's more well-known and there are way way way more UCR alumni than that of UCM's.</p>
<p>faculty = on par with all the other uc's</p>
<p>UCR is more established and well known, but you never know how UCM will end up to be.. It might even be more well known in ten twenty years, or it might not. it's kind of a risk for UCM i guess.</p>