<p>Hey guys, I was just wondering what is the big hype with going to UCSD over the "Mid Tier" UC's like Davis, Santa Barbara, and Irvine? I mean Davis is actually tied with San Diego and Santa Barbara is only 3 ranks away. Irvine may be 8 ranks away but still I see people stress others to attend UCSD because it is a "Top Tire" UC. Seriously, it does not seem like that big of difference. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>My mistake, UCI is only 6 rankings away… but it helps prove my point further</p>
<p>There really isn’t a big difference and the rankings are arbitrary. And to clarify I shouldn’t even be making it plural. The ranking, as in US News’ one ranking that uses their subjective and specific methodology, has had UCSD ranked above these so called “mid-tiers” in previous years so that impression still holds true for most people. It was only very recently, I think it was just this year that UCSD and UC Davis became tied. So I guess there’s just a longer standing notion that UCSD is above those other mid-tiers because that’s typically where US News has positioned them relative to them in the past. In actuality, in US News’ rankings it seems that UCSD, UC Irvine, UCSB, and UC Davis shuffle around every couple years or so. It used to be that UCSD and UC Irvine were above Davis and Santa Barbara, but I guess now Davis and UCSB moved up past Irvine by whatever significance 3-6 spots is. The older polls from just a few years ago used to include a number score on a scale of 100 to give a quantification to their methodology and I think the difference between 1 rank was about .3-.5 points or something like that. So you can imagine 6 spots is like the difference of maybe 3 points out of 100, whatever that means. So I guess UC Davis and UCSD are 3% better than UC Irvine. </p>
<p>Anyway, to answer your question the reason is because people put blind faith into the US News rankings and UCSD has traditionally been at the top of the UC’s not named Berkeley and UCLA. You seem to be one of the enlightened skeptics so good for you. :)</p>
<p>Edit:
Actually, because I was curious I searched for one of the old polls online and found one from 2010. Here were the rankings and scores from 2010 for the UC’s to give you an idea of how a spot in the rankings varies with their “score.”</p>
<h1>35 UCSD 62/100</h1>
<h1>T-42 UCSB, UC Davis 59/100</h1>
<h1>46 UC Irvine 58/100</h1>
<p>Other notables:</p>
<h1>21 Berkeley 76/100, #24 UCLA 73/100, #T-4 Cal-Tech, Stanford, MIT, UPenn 93/100, #T-1 Harvard, Princeton 100/100</h1>
<p>Whoa that actually makes a lot of sense, so pretty much the quality of education between the schools does not vary a whole lot, but from what I am getting is that its mostly just the name recognition correct? </p>
<p>Similar to why producers seem to remake movies every couple of years, name brand. x)</p>
<p>In the most superficial sense, no. The quality of education shouldn’t really be that different. It’s hard to say because quality of education is subjective, right? It’s going to mean something different to everyone. I would say as a whole the institutions aren’t that different, they’re all a part of the same aggregate and are largely modeled very similarly. I would even say that name recognition isn’t all that different either except for people that are obsessively trying to pull value out of very minute, very subjective differences in online rankings. If you leave CA, most people aren’t going to know the difference between UC Davis and UC Irvine. I’d even say most people in northern California aren’t going to know the difference between UCSD and UCI. And even if they did from when they were applying to college, remember for people that are just a few years removed from the college application process the rankings have changed since that time. </p>
<p>For the most part all of those UC’s are going to have most of the same general resources, programs, and opportunities as one another, but then again there are going to be subtle differences. There are nuances for each, which are going to distinguish them and make them better or worse for any particular individual and I don’t think that’s something that can be shown in any one ranking. Also, all of them are going to have their strengths and weaknesses academically, socially, and culturally depending on the administration, the faculty, and the student body and your own needs. So yes there are very real differences, but I highly doubt an online ranking trying to stratify whole institutions is going to be able to tell you what they are or better yet how important they should be to you. But just by trying to rank them in a very superficial sense as entire institutions there’s not a whole lot you can use to separate them. I mean just to put it into perspective, the difference between those UC’s mentioned when compared to a similarly ranked school like UW-Madison is going to be practically nonexistent, right? </p>
<p>Sorry, if that became a bit too philosophical but that’s the best I can answer that question. I was tempted to start using analogies to get my point across, but it seemed a bit risky so I didn’t lol. Hopefully what I said makes sense though.</p>