University of California- San Diego and out of state students

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
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<p>I just caught interest in University of California- San Diego. Though when looking at the stats on collegeboard.com, it became more obvious why I hear less about the university. Is it a university contributed only to in state students, and if accepted out of state your likely to have Ivy League stats? Every student at the school graduated in the top 10% of their class ( or more to round to 100%), and every students seems to have at least a 3.0+ that was accepted.
Can anyone summerize the stereotype of University of California- San Diego? Also other things you think I may be interested in knowing base off my question.</p>

<p>( How does the California university school system work, like Texas?)</p>

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<p>UCSD is a pretty decent school and relatively hard to get into, so yeah, you need a 4.0 weighted GPA and decent (1850+) SAT scores.</p>

<p>EVERY University of California campus requires students to have a 3.0+ and almost always much higher to gain admittance. I am not sure what the colleges around you expect :)</p>

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<p>Yeah the UC system is amazing. Wasn’t it ranked like #1 for a system of state schools or something? Well, I read it was very close to the top.</p>

<p>I am an out of state student and my scores were not “Ivy league” material. However, UCSD bases your admission decision off a points system and out of state students have to have more points to be admitted.</p>

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<p>^
Seems like there may not be a much school spirit, nor sport school like the Big Ten universities… From my understanding reading other post ( besides on this thread) most students personal opinion of the school is mainly students steadily focus on engineering related studies.</p>

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<p>As a start out as potentially liking UCSD, after reading a few reviews:
(students)review(.com) * Eliminate quotation marks</p>

<p>I’m almost merely afraid to attend UCSD ( base off the reading that not only is commuting high… bad for underclassmen etc…, but social life is very low, and as one rush to get out of high school… students at UCSD are rushing through college)</p>

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<p>Hey Coolbreeze:</p>

<p>Don’t know where you get your information from. Google is your friend. Dig for facts.
So, check out [UC</a> SAN DIEGO NEWS CENTER : ABOUT UC San Diego](<a href=“http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/about/]UC”>http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/about/)</p>

<p>Scroll down and read this:
"National and Global Rankings</p>

<pre><code>* U.S. News & World Report ranks UC San Diego as the 7th best public university in the nation, and 35th among the nation’s top 50 universities. Also, in its 2009 survey of graduate programs, U.S. News ranks the School of Medicine 6th among the nation’s public medical schools and the Jacobs School of Engineering 7th among the nation’s public engineering schools. U.S. News also ranks UC San Diego 14th among national universities in the category of “Up and Coming Schools.”

  • The UC San Diego Medical Center is ranked among the best in the nation in eight specialty areas (respiratory diseases; rheumatology; kidney disease; gynecology; cancer; urology; psychiatry; ear, nose and throat) in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report annual “Best Hospitals” issue.

  • Geisel Library Thomson Scientific ranks UC San Diego the 7th highest-impact research institution in the nation from 2001-2005, based on the citation impact of published research in science and the social sciences.

  • UC San Diego is ranked the 4th best university in the nation by the Washington Monthly’s 2007 College Guide, based on the positive impact the university has had on the country.

  • UC San Diego was named the “hottest” institution in the nation for students to study science by Newsweek and the 2006 Kaplan/Newsweek College Guide.
    </code></pre>

<p>Then based on what you want to study, apply the criteria that matters most to you to the set of universities you are interested.</p>

<p>Better this way than disjointed reports from individuals even from a vaunted site like CC.</p>

<pre><code>* The 2008 Academic Rankings of World Universities conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China ranks UC San Diego the 3rd best public university in the U.S.

  • The journal Foreign Policy ranked UC San Diego 9th in the nation for international relations studies and 10th for international public policy studies.

  • The Princeton Review’s annual college guide ranks UC San Diego as the 7th best value among public universities in the nation. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranks UC San Diego 10th nationally for best values in public colleges. UC San Diego graduates rank 3rd nationally in salary earnings among public universities, according to Forbes.com.
    </code></pre>

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<p>Yeah student review . com is SUCH a joke… I was worried too but I found the reviews to be entirely inaccurate.</p>

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<p>To Coolbrezze,</p>

<p>If you want what almost everyone consensus on how UCSD ranks in California only of public universities, it is always like this:</p>

<p>UC Berkeley
UC Los Angeles
UC San Diego</p>

<p>Because UCSD is still a young university, it still has a lot more time to prosper, and within its short age, it has gained world wide recognition from the medical world, engineering world, and many others. Not only that, UCSD is planning to open the FIRST ever nano department in the nation, or so I heard from UCSD seminar for Jacobs.</p>

<p>Although many people on the net says that UCSD seems “socially dead” as well as “filled with ugly girls” it is completely invalid to state that for UCSD. I guarantee almost every school in the world will have people who will say that about their own college. </p>

<p>It’s all how choices! Many of the students here at UCSD, from what I’ve seen from my countless visits to the campus, is extremely laid back and competitive. It’s not cut-throat as other universities, but enough competition to keep your motivations up and not kill yourself. Party seems to be plenty when I went there most of the time. Most consists of bonfires and partying up around the La Jolla area (which, by the way, is amazingly beautiful).</p>

<p>Also, UCSD sports nearby beaches where scuba diving and water skiing are just a few miles out side the school.</p>

<p>About admission: Seriously? I had average scores for both SAT and subjects, and passing only 4 APs. Then again, I came from a fourth quintile school and was graduating in the top 4% of my class and qualified for ELC (eligibility in local context). for OOS, a score of 1800+ and GPAs of 4.0+ will most likely get you in along with good ECs as well as others. It’s all about racking as much points as possible. Which imo, is a bit unfair to some students who DO deserve to come here with exceptional stats but get rejected.</p>

<p>Overall, UCSD is a good public university with a good diverse student body as well as beautiful area to live around.</p>

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<p>Thanks for replies, looking for more</p>

<p>Yeah UCSD is in a great location ( San Diego, at least at the moment I really like the city… location etc…). Though negative great location, but not too great of a university when speaking of college life besides the academics. It appears you only can get admitted through a point system, and if your out of state it’s a must to have 4.0+ to get in… making the school not even applicable to be on my list.</p>

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<p>What is your intended major? UCSD should still be on your list, point system or not, I was surprised I got in, I wouldn’t give up just because of the system!</p>

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<p>Well I have intentions on majoring in science ( biology, pre-medicine etc…) though experiences with my local hospital ( partically my doctor, she have not taken the right steps) I’m sorta getting pushed away from that field.</p>

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<p>well, if you end up sticking with the sciences, ucsd’s really good for science and math fields, and even has a pretty good political science major, which is what i plan to go into. plus, the location is also great because you do have the scripps ocean institute right off of the sd campus by the beach to use as a resource as well.</p>

<p>and your concerns about college life…ultimately it’s up to you to make the right decisions that are going to allow you to have the appropriate balance that you need. you get yourself active and busy in clubs, plan outings with friends, while maintaining your grades. it’s not like you don’t have the resources (like the beach)…it’s just up to you to use them.</p>

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<p>^
Actually, I think I do have interest in political science.</p>

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<p>UCSD offers awesome polisci majors as well as bio and math. And if your a med student or related, there are literally TONS of internships around the area.</p>

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<p>^</p>

<p>Well actually I’m currently debating on whether to major in political science or a science ( biology, pre-medicine etc…). Yeah I also notice UCSD is great in political science, though I would more than likely fail the point system… concluding that I’m an out of stater, do not have a GPA above 3.8, and not many ec’s… there’s all the points I needed to be considered at that university. I did have high interest in the school.</p>

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<p>it’s obvious that you’re interested in the school regardless of your stats and ec’s. just apply and see what happens…don’t worry too much about the point system. that’s the most you can do for yourself and that is the only way you’re actually going to figure out IF you got through the point system.</p>

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<p>^</p>

<p>I guess it would be something to think over then…</p>

<p>Do you know the differences between political science and international relations? As I’ve always had interest in this field, just never knew all went under one major. Now I’m running into confusion of one wanting political science and/ or international relations, they are two different majors ( as it seem for some universities) or international relations is within political science?</p>

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<p>yeah…i wanted to go into international relations, but ucsd offers political science with a concentration in international relations. theirs is just polisci with concentrations in particular aspects, like public policy, IR, blah blah…etc. my counselor said she thought that that was actually better than just IR, which is a more specific and focused major, because you have a broader perception outside just knowing IR in that you study IR but in the broader field of polisci.</p>

<p>if that makes any sense…</p>

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<p>Political Science is composed of several smaller sub-disciplines: Political Theory (which is heavily related to Philosophy), American Politics (i.e. congress, elections, etc.), Comparative Politics (comparing politics across countries), and International Relations (how countries interact with each other). </p>

<p>Public law is often grouped with political science for undergrads and is closely related to American Politics in its methods of analysis. Public policy is a separate but closely related discipline that draws from various parts of political science as well as economics. In UCSD’s case, they put public policy in political science, but it’s very close to economics too. Thus an undergrad majoring in political science can choose any one of these concentrations to focus on and still get a good general overview of politics.</p>

<p>Some schools, and I see UCSD is one, now offer an interdisciplinary “international studies” major that is separate from other majors. These tend to be broader than just one major and are not as in-depth as a normal major usually, although I think students get a decent bit of leeway in deciding where they want to go with them. </p>

<p>To add to the confusion, some graduate schools offer a master’s degree in IR separately from the political science program (i.e. the IR/Pacific Studies school at UCSD). These IR degrees are pre-professional, essentially. They’re designed for people who want to go get a job working in IR, say with an NGO or with the Govt. This is very similar to a Master’s of Public Policy degree too, which is also usually pre-professional, but for public affairs as a whole. </p>

<p>If you want to study IR in preparation for an academic career, you enter a PhD in political science program and concentrate in IR (which is what I’ll start at UCSD next year). The political science department at UCSD is excellent, ranked in the top 10 in the nation in most sub-disciplines, and home to some of the best quantitative scholars in the country. </p>

<p>Also, as a grad student coming from 2,500+ miles away, I’m pleased to see that there might be a few other non-Californians amongst the undergrads too.</p>

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<p>UCSD is expensive for out-of-state students.</p>

<p>Don’t pay private school prices for a public school.</p>