<p>I was actually rejected by some schools with higher acceptance rates than USC (and ones with lower acceptance rates). The whole college admissions process when you’re talking about these kinds of schools is such a crapshoot.</p>
<p>The Rankings DO MATTER IF your future employer or future grad school or future (fill in the blanks) thinks they are important and it has an effect on your freedom, salary, opportunity. Period. </p>
<p>If you have student loans to pay off and a future employer has a tendency of only interviewing job applicants from a certain calibur of school, then you may not even get a chance to get that interview. </p>
<p>Like it or not, people get judged by education, alma mater, income/salary, occupation, employer, net worth, residency zip code, size of home, clothes, car, social clubs etc. It is part of society. </p>
<p>It actually HELPS to come from a high ranking school if that ranking is given merit and credibility. </p>
<p>Is there a difference from 19 to 25? probably not. But it sure doesn’t hurt to be 19 and climbing versus 25 and falling. Where it will be 10 years from now is just as important as where it is now. </p>
<p>I didn’t create the system and I do not necessarily like the system, but it is here and some do give it merit and it CAN and MAY have an impact on your lives. So that is why you should care.</p>
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<p>IF you are comparing two schools like UC Merced and UCLA then I agree they will matter. However, it won’t matter much if you are comparing schools that are grouped closer together 25 vs. 30. Hell, even 10 vs. 30 depending on major. So you also have to consider the rankings based on departments too. Some schools that overall rank lower may have strong departments. For example, Berkeley ranks higher than UCSD overall, but UCSD has a much stronger bioengineering department. Employers know that.</p>
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<p>You are talking about very few employers. For example, Google was known for being very selective with hiring graduates from only certain schools i.e. Ivies, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.</p>
<p>Also, UCLA will probably never have a strong alma mater as Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. so certain jobs will just be out of reach.</p>
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<p>You make it seems like it’s a slippery slope. This whole attitude sounds like the politics I hear on the news. </p>
<p>Employers base their opinion on the quality of new graduates UCLA produces. So long as recent grads perform well in the job market and graduate schools, we will not have to worry about it too much. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I have been here for four years and I have not seen any significant changes in our electrical engineering department.</p>
<p>I really think it’s because the UC’s took so much battering this year from the whole budget fiasco but once the economy recovers a bit, UCLA will again be ranked higher than USC. No offence to Trojans, but the atmosphere at UCLA is FOR A FACT more academically challenging/rigorous than USC is…</p>
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Have you studied at both USC and UCLA to say something like this? Unless you have gone to both schools and graduated from both, there’s not much credibility in your statement.</p>
<p>Anyone who assumes that the financial situation in California will definitely be resolved is naively optimistic. Just look at the financial situation of the federal government as an example of how these problems can drag on. Either way, California is beautiful, and rich people will live there and just send their kids to private prep schools, boarding schools, and then universities in the north-east.</p>
<p>[5</a> Reasons Why Every Single College Ranking Is a Pile of Crap - The Consumerist](<a href=“http://consumerist.com/2010/08/5-reasons-why-every-single-college-ranking-ever-published-is-a-pile-of-crap.html]5”>http://consumerist.com/2010/08/5-reasons-why-every-single-college-ranking-ever-published-is-a-pile-of-crap.html)</p>