<p>What are your thoughts and opinions over UCSD's accelerating progress as a university? UCSD is rising in ranks which each passing year, which is a remarkable accomplishment, especially when considering it's relative youth as a campus. </p>
<p>Here is the article that sparked my interest in the question: </p>
<p>I would appreciate any discussion here on the topic. It's important that current and incoming UCSD students understand their importance in shaping UCSD's caliber as an educational institution.</p>
<p>Certainly it’s reputation isn’t dwindling, and with the new leadership of Chancellor Khosla, UCSD is heading toward a great start. Read the article! : )</p>
<p>As a reminder, UCSD accepted its first freshman class in 1964. UCSD is relatively new, and yet it has accomplished much during its existence.</p>
<p>UCSD has made tremendous strides since its founding and it is probably considered the 3rd best UC.</p>
<p>However, one disadvantage that UCSD has is name recognition. Berkeley and UCLA are both in a high profile sports conference which makes it more recognizable on the East Coast. Also, having a sports team like football or basketball would probably help foster more school spirit/alumni donations.</p>
<p>I agree.
One problem UCSD faces at the moment is alumni donations. A cause of this can be attributed to the campus being relatively new. UCSD alumni are just barely beginning to reach their prime years when they are capable of donating to their alma mater.
This is a problem that the new chancellor is trying to alleviate. Current staff have called him very assertive in nature, so I’m sure he’ll make some moves that will increase funding to the school. After all, he was able to get ahold of funding for a brain mapping project with the White House Administration in a very short period of time ( less time that normally ever takes for public universities).</p>
<p>As more and more alumni are churned out from UCSD, name recognition might also increase ( albeit slowly) if UCSD continues to attract qualified students. From the looks of it, I feel like UCSD is on the path of achieving this.</p>
<p>In order for people to donate to their school, they need to feel a connection to it. Liberal art colleges usually have high alumni giving rates because they have such a tightly knit community. However, large schools have to work harder to create a sense of community. If someone attends NYU, it is unlikely most students will donate because it is large, lacks D-1 sports, and lacks a cohesive campus feel. However, large school that embrace sports like University of Michigan have everyone wearing their hoodies around campus and saying “Go Blue”. Not only that but you pick up fans just from the general population by being on TV.</p>
<p>UCSD needs a good sports team, and to do that, the school will need to offer incentives to high achieving Football athletes to come to our school. :/</p>
<p>Almost all public universities score low on alumni giving. It’s a ridiculous metric to include in a college ranking because it has nothing to do with educational quality, nor, I suspect, does it have much to do with how alumni feel about their alma mater. I think the alumni giving rate is mostly indicative of how persistent and effective the development office is in soliciting small donations (which may be a money-losing strategy, by the way, but some schools pump large amounts of money and effort into direct mail and phone canvassing campaigns that may produce little net revenue after expenses, but jack up the rate at which alumni make small donations). And for public universities, alumni giving rates may also reflect political attitudes. In some states most alums think it’s the state’s job to fund the public universities, and they’re not going to step in and take over if the state shirks its responsibility. (That seems to be the case in California as alumni giving rates are low for all UC campuses). In other state, alums have come to expect less of their state legislatures and may be more likely to contribute. </p>
<p>Here are the alumni giving rates for all public universities in US News’ top 75 national universities. You tell me if there’s any rhyme or reason to it.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech 29%
Clemson 27%
Texas A&M 23%
UNC 22%
UVA 22%
Purdue 21%
UConn 18%
Michigan 17%
Penn State 16%
Florida 15%
Ohio State 15%
UCSB 15%
U Washington 15%
Georgia 14%
Texas 14%
Illinois 13%
Michigan State 13%
UCLA 13%
UC Berkeley 12%
Minnesota 12%
Pitt 12%
Iowa 11%
Maryland 10%
Wisconsin 10%
U Delaware 10%
Rutgers 9%
UC Davis 8%
UC Irvine 7%
UCSD 6%</p>
<p>Big-name sports schools appear at the top, bottom, and in the middle of this list, as do schools not particularly known for their sports prowess. Rutgers is one of the nation’s oldest universities, but its alumni giving rate is very low, similar to that of the relatively new UCSD. There’s no particular correlation with size, or with US News ranking. The one pattern I would discern is that alumni giving appears to be higher in the South than in the Northeast, Midwest, or West, perhaps because Southerners expect less of their state legislatures. </p>
<p>Bottom line, I think this is just a really dumb metric that serves mainly to give private schools a few bonus points in the US News ranking for being private, at the expense of most public universities.</p>
<p>As a recent UCSD grad, I didn’t want to have a football team. They had motions to start a football team, but they always got voted down by the students. There’s more to a school than their football team.</p>
<p>Would having a football team improve the school? I have no idea, but I liked it just fine there without one.</p>
<p>Before it can attract high achieving football players UCSD will first need to actually have a football team. Only three of the 10 UCs, Berkeley, Davis, and UCLA, have a football team.</p>
<p>Wonderful college for academic and research pursuits. However, the social life (and college system and LaJolla – no college town there) is such that I discouraged both my kids from attending, even when offered some some $.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d choose Davis over SD nearly every time. (SD would win out for BME.)</p>
<p>It’s funny, because I had the exact opposite experience. Davis always felt completely dead to me every time I visited there, which is why I didn’t apply, but I had a great time in San Diego. You can definitely have tons of fun whenever you like, but can easily get away from it when you need to buckle down and get to work. Maybe it was just the weather that won me over though =D</p>
<p>That’s actually not as impressive as it sounds. UC Berkeley gets the sixth-lowest number of applicants among all of the UCs from California residents. In terms of applicants for California residents, UCSD passed UCB as early as 2010. You can see that here:</p>
<p>However, UCLA (37.1%) and Berkeley’s (38.8%) yield is significantly higher than UCSD’s (18.1%.) In fact, UCSD has the lowest yield of all the undergraduate UCs excluding Merced:</p>
<p>To get big-time donators, they have to want to be affiliated with the university. David Geffen donated 300m to UCLA in total, which is more than any other person has donated to any UC school. And he is not an alumnus, nor has he ever attended. But he wants to be affiliated with the university, which is why he donated.</p>
<p>What I will say about UCSD is that they’ve been able to get some very prestigious faculty in their short amount of time. They have quite a few Nobel prize faculty, and have been associated with two fields medals winners (both before UCLA.) Still, it’s not on the best financial footing, and that will certainly affect its ability to attract, and retain, top faculty, which will be needed to make is a prestigious university.</p>