<p>Why are UCs looked up with reverence while most students are indifferent to Cal States? Excuse my curiosity but why UCLA? Why not Cal State LA?</p>
<p>Well, that particular example isn’t the best choice (UCLA gets more applications than any other undergraduate program in the nation, and CS LA isn’t at the top of the CSUs), but in a given program the UC you might be able to get into might not be as good in your program as a specific CSU that specializes in it. Living in LA, I’d go to a cc then transfer to a UC before I went to Cal State LA, but they may be good in some specific program I’m just not familiar with. And some CSUs are beautiful and DO have residential programs as much as a UC, for example Chico and Cal Poly etc. </p>
<p>I’ve heard it said that the biggest problem the CSUs have is how very excellent the UCs are, they are just way in the shadow although several are better than the flagships of other states.</p>
<p>So would you say UCs offer a better education? I am not too concerned with residential life, just HIGHLY motivated peers and haha I gave that example because I got accepted into UCLA and CSULA, but people tell me to chose UCLA because of its prestige but I really do not get it.</p>
<p>Your peers are going to be much more highly motivated at UCLA than they will be at CSULA. While not all the UCs unequivocally provide better education than the ‘cal states’, UCLA will provide you with more motivated peers and more distinguished faculty than CSULA. </p>
<p>My only concern with UCLA is that I do not have a full ride, do you if there is such thing as a full paid scholarship?</p>
<p>If you have a full-paid scholarship, you’ll normally have a full ride. Just see how much money the scholarship provides and whether it also covers room & board, which it doesn’t always do. How much money did you get from both schools - and are you in-state or OOS?</p>
<p>I don’t think there is a full paid scholarship that includes board entirely, but it is a premier education at UCLA. Did you not apply to any other UCs or CSUs?</p>
<p>Allow me to give an example of where I think choosing a CSU might be better.</p>
<p>Say, a first generation student gained acceptances to UCLA and CSULA. Let’s say this student was admitted to UCLA by holistics and potential and hardship, more so than by pure stats. Further, he/she gained admittance to CSULA"s Bus Admin program, but at UCLA in sociology (it’d probably be more as undeclared in the social sciences). </p>
<p>This student could very well have a hard time of making grades at UCLA, though he or she could start out low, but gain confidence later on and end up at graduation with a fairly decent gpa, say, 3.1-3.2. At CSU, where things would be less stressful, he/she could adapt fairly quickly and also have a professional degree upon graduation and should be able to maintain higher grades.</p>
<p>The problem is UC’s tend to try to appease everyone all of the state’s constituents, and admit those who should probably choose a CSU and gain some professional training, instead of attending a school like UCLA that is more pre-professional and grad-school oriented. There should be some that are admitted based on potential, but this has to be measured against the high sunk cost of dropouts, which admissions based on potential would increase. </p>
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<p>It is pretty hard to get into UCLA without some high level stats in the application.</p>
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<p>UCLA students are not dropping out at particularly high rates. Graduation rates (which are mostly associated with admissions selectivity):</p>
<p>4 year: 71%
12 quarter: 81%
5 year: 89%
6 year: 91%</p>
<p>Back to the original question, the answer is that universities are often looked up or down at based on their admissions selectivity, and UCLA is much more selective in admissions than CSULA. Whether such selectivity-based prestige is the appropriate way for a given student to choose a university is another matter entirely.</p>
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<p>What is particularly unappealing about CSULA? It is not even the least selective CSU.</p>
<p>I have the same concern as ucbalumnus, what do people find unappealing about CSUs, in general?</p>
<p>@collegevetting Which CSU campuses are the best, is there an official website ranking?</p>
<p>Highly rated CSU’s are Cal Poly SLO and San Diego State. </p>
<p><a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-west/top-public”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-west/top-public</a> - weird, San Diego State isn’t listed (but they should be). </p>
<p>You can arrive at an answer to the question yourself. Visit UCLA and attend 2-3 classes. Best is if these classes are in your likely major. No shortcuts – attend each of the classes from beginning to end. Do the same at CSU Los Angles (or some other CSU). Pay close attention to the students – their level of engagement. Pay attention to the lecturer – the level of his presentation. Pay attention to the student assignment for the next class. If after doing this you conclude that the CSU is as good as the UC then pick the CSU. It’s cheaper and acceptance is not as difficult as the UC.</p>
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<p>Let me label some terms and define some abbreviations in my arguments below. I will refer to stats-based students as SBS’s (or SBS for the singular), who are admitted to UCLA with strong stats, and I will refer to those with lower stats and admitted based on potential as holistically based students, or HBS’s (not to confuse this with Stanford or Harvard Bus Schools, 
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<p>Undoubtedly, UCLA, particularly Campbell Hall and its associated APP program (the building on campus, not the prep school), is doing a better job of keeping HBS’s at the U and helping them progress towards their degrees. </p>
<p>The problem, however, as I see is twofold in question form and their subsequent answers: one, are these HBS’s, given opportunities at a wide-array of possibilities of majors; two, what are their gpas upon graduation from UCLA?</p>
<p>Most of the students who are admitted to UCLA have impeccable grades. The mean uwgpa of all students admitted to UCLA was 3.84 in 2013 (A-G, 10-11 grades), and HBS’s admitted typically have 3.7’s or above, even if their weighted gpas won’t be as high because of their underperforming high school won’t have the AP’s to ascend them, though community college courses are becoming a viable option for high schools that lack AP’s (and might help cc’s retool in poorer communities). These AP’s and their college-credit tests – and therefore high-school wgpas – typically determine what u-credits SBS’s obtain, and help them to enter the UC’s at a higher grade level than those who don’t have them … HBS’s. </p>
<p>HBS’s “failings” wrt the other students wrt achievement is typically in SAT scores, as many of these students don’t have the funds to produce baseline scores and improve upon them, nor do they have the funds to produce high first-time scores upon pre-test prep, so their score is typically significantly lower than those posted by SBS’s. HBS’s, because of their scores are lower, are not eligible to major in engineering, nor the sciences in general, partly due to their scores and their lack of AP credits. If the U were to place them in degrees leading to science bac degrees which does happen on occasions for HBS’s with lower scores, this generally would not have a good outcome for them maintaining viable grades nor for their eventually obtaining their degrees.</p>
<p>Consequently, a lot of HBS’s are “placed” in the social sciences, or they gravitate towards this department after switching out of a more difficult science department. Some of them, per my example, will end up with sociology degrees upon graduation (or history, or a few other ss degrees), because the social sciences is at least a backup plan for “poorer” (“worse”) students on campus.</p>
<p>Wrt the gpa question, will graduating from the U with < 3.0 be helpful towards their grad aspirations or for their obtaining employment? (A question with another one posed.) I have to question whether it would be helpful to graduate from UCLA with a 2.8 in sociology, when, per my previous example, this HBS could have attended CSU and obtained a professional degree and probably maintained a higher gpa.</p>
<p>I appreciate your listing the graduation rates of UCLA, and your post brings viable arguments towards choosing UCLA in my example. But UC/UCLA, have to think about the best interest of the students instead of thinking that they are the best option for all HBS’s, when admissions at UC/UCLA are constantly trying to push the envelope towards incrementally more HBS’s admitted every year. Especially as I said earlier, because UC/UCLA are more geared towards grad school for their undergrads, when it might be more practical to seek a professionally based CSU degree within less competition. It’s the kind of self-centered thought that needs to be adjusted by UC/UCLA; in other words, they should let CSU do their job, as they do it well: first generations, night classes for those who need to work, etc.</p>
<p>My daughter is starting sophmore year this September and is trying to figure out which ap classes to take. She is currently a straight a student with 4.0 gpa and is taking an english honors, she wants to take two ap classes and one honers for her sophmore year as she wants to get into either ucla or uci but at the same time I dont want her to burn out. Any advice on how this will effect her, or anyone have experience in this? </p>
<p>^ Sounds like a question for the parents board. I don’t know if this would be a viable standalone post on this one.</p>
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<p>Engineering majors have a higher level of admissions selectivity at UCLA, so one would expect that both stats and other holistically considered factors are stronger for engineering students than overall at UCLA.</p>
<p>In any case, not having AP credit does not disqualify one from majoring in science or engineering at UCLA; suggested course plans start in common frosh level courses without assuming AP credit. Examples:
<a href=“2013-2014 B.S. in Chemical Engineering Curriculum”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/curric-13-14/19curchem13.html</a>
<a href=“2013-2014 B.S. in Civil Engineering Curriculum”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/curric-13-14/24curcivil13.html</a>
<a href=“2013-2014 B.S. in Electrical Engineering Curriculum”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/curric-13-14/27curelec13.html</a>
<a href=“2013-2014 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Curriculum”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/curric-13-14/32curmech13.html</a></p>
<p>Also, it would not be surprising if many of the much lower stat admits to UCLA were admitted based on top end athletic ability, rather than “typical” holistic factors. The slightly lower stat admits to UCLA likely have a lot of choices among UCs, CSUs, and other schools, not just UCLA vs. CSULA. For some students, CSULA may be the preferred choice, but it is not necessarily because of the reasons that you give.</p>
<p>Sorry, the italicized sentence that you quoted was hastily written and poorly done also.</p>
<p>It should be written as:</p>
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<p>Scores are a bit more important in determining the suitability of students within science majors in college than AP credits, which is how I meant for it to be worded. I agree that the latter isn’t as important, but would still be, because it shows that a high-school student can do college-level work within the sciences, eg, by him/her doing calc in high school, and doing well in it. It’s a way of hedging the predictability of a student doing well in engineering and sciences by him/her doing college level work in high school, abutted by scores within the math portion of the SAT, or primarily led by (scores) for those who don’t have access to AP’s as the HBS’s (or switching the order for SBS’s as I intended).</p>
<p>It’s well and good to admit HBS’s for diversity within the student body, but their options are typically limited in majors, unless they study harder to overcome their poorer pre-college educations (and I’ve seen it … but it does take a special person). </p>
<p>According to the admissions decisions on the UCLA board for class of 2018, someone was supposedly accepted with a 26 ACT, who planned on majoring in the life sciences. Honestly, I don’t think this bodes well for this person. </p>
<p>I agree, though, that non-stat based admissions has an extreme importance in athlete admission especially for UCLA.</p>
<p>ScholarsInnovate: Is money an issue with UCLA?? @collegevetting asked what other choices you have beside UCLA and CSULA. I do agree CSULA is not the best example of a top CSU. Cal Poly SLO, SJSU and SDSU have highly ranked programs comparable to some of the UC’s. For CSULA, I believe Law Enforcement and Business are the more regarded programs. CSU vs. UC and why? CSU’s are focused on getting students out into the workforce after graduation vs. UC’s focus on research to prepare students for Grad school and Professional schools such as Law, Medical ,Dental etc… The top CSU’s can be just as academically competitive as some of the UC’s. If the bottom line is that you have a full ride to CSULA and financially UCLA will be a hardship, you should consider CSULA as long as they have a good program for your major.</p>