I was recently at a dinner where a UCLA professor bashed USC students. It just came off as desperate. The USC professor who was there kept his lips politely sealed. I think UCLA is feeling the heat.
Honestly I think UCLA is overrated. My Daughter went to Cal Poly SLO, and her best friend to UCLA. Hearing them talk about their experiences was an eye opener. SLO had more smaller classes, more personal interaction with faculty, more hands on learning experiences and a more tight knight community - like USC. USC has the added benefit of vast resources for things like undergraduate research and educational programs outside the classroom, to name a few. Coupled with USC’s weaving community service programs into the learning environment, its hard to beat the overall experience you get at USC.
Someone mentioned UCLA ranked higher in the “objective” Times Higher Education ranking, which is not only heavily weighted towards a subjective reputation survey, but is primarily focused on research output. Other rankings that are more focused on student experiences and outcome - WSJ/Times version has USC 17/UCLA 28; Niche Rankings: USC 19, UCLA 36; College Factual: USC 33/ UCLA 44 - clearly have USC ahead of UCLA. So rankings, like statistics, can be manipulated to prove anything.
I’m sure UCLA is a fine public school, but the experience you get there just doesn’t seem to compare to the more intimate attention you get at a private school like USC - and surprisingly like Cal Poly (which IMO is one of the best educational experiences you can get in all of the public California universities).
+1 on Cal Poly SLO. I took the Engineering school tour with my daughter earlier this year and was blown away by their “learn by doing” approach.
I just want to add one more thought
The old stereotype of USC as an inferior school for rich kids that couldn’t get into UCLA is a myth. One only has to look at a little history to understand myth vs reality when it comes to USC’s reputation.
USC was founded as a university to educate professionals Los Angeles needed when it was just a small frontier town. Los Angeles needed doctors, lawyers, business people, architects, dentists and USC was THE university that provided the leaders and professionals it needed. USC maintained this focus on educating professionals for Los Angeles, and Southern California into the late 60’s when it made a decision to become a nationally recognized research university.
The 70’s and part of the 80’s represented a time of major transition for USC. Raising money to build out its campus and attract nationally recognized faculty to transition from a very good, regional university focused on training professionals to a more traditionally academic focused research university. The students going to USC at this time were primarily focused on getting professional jobs.
This focus on jobs vs “scholarly pursuits” was a major factor in other local schools deriding them as inferior academically (yet the acceptance rate at UCLA in 1980 was 75.4% while USC’s was 69%). Further, there is no proof to back up the assertion that USC students were primarily from rich families, and yet USC was given the label “University of Spoiled Children”.
From the early 90’s on, USC made a concerted effort to integrate its very strong professional programs with a more academically focused and stronger college to provide a unique blend of professional education with scholarly pursuits. Raising billions of dollars along the way helped continue its attracting top faculty, and students. Today, USC’s acceptance rate is 16%.
If you look at history, USC was never a bad college or a weak college, it was just focused on a different mission. Now, it would be very hard to argue that USC doesn’t meet the criteria for a top notch, nationally recognized research university.
My son chose USC over UCLA in 2014, and does not regret it.
SC is a great school and I’d personally rank it above all the UCs. I don’t have a kid going there either. My S goes to a different private U and that’s where I notice the difference, having gone to two CA public unis myself. Private Us are better with resources, class availability and size and alumni network/support. My youngest kid is going to college soon and with great grades hopefully he’ll find a good fit with a private school in CA. They are actually more affordable than the public universities in a lot of cases.
From this new article…
http://news.usc.edu/128521/usc-ranks-no-15-nationally-in-journaltimes-higher-education-survey/
“USC ranks No. 15 nationally in the second annual Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education survey of more than 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities released this week. Among all California institutions — public and private — only USC, Caltech and Stanford University ranked within the top 20. Of 150 universities surveyed in the western U.S., USC ranks No. 3.”
This correlates exactly with how all of my east coast peers see things.
FWIW: Was very skeptical of SC (Viterbi) when my kid said it was their first choice, but have been extremely pleasantly surprised since. Have nothing recent to compare it to, but my kid has more options, opportunity and support than they know what to do with (and way more than I had in my “higher ranked” east coast school 35 years ago.) They are academically challenged and have found a very supportive, fun (non-greek) social crew that perfectly fit my kid’s lifestyle, goals and interests. Very surprised, in a good way.
BTW, irrespective of rankings, this is one of the things that really attracted my kid to USC/Viterbi. And it’s only getting better. She loves that Viterbi has as many women students as it does. Makes the experience much more interesting and fun for her, she thinks.
https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2017/09/women-welcome-here/
@stardustmom I ultimately wound up at USC, but when I went to orientation at UCLA, one of the speakers kept touting the fact that UCLA has its own police department. It came off to me like the speaker was trying to say that you’re pretty much toast on USC’s campus if you want a quick response from police. It did seem a little desperate to attack the safety of USC. That being said, I wouldn’t mind attending grad school at UCLA. I just didn’t like what I saw when I was going to do my undergrad there.
Odd. USC has it’s own department of public safety. Officers go through the same training as LAPD. They also have a specific team of LAPD officers that are assigned to the area so they know the neighborhoods and consistently work with the USC.
There have been a couple of false “active shooter” reports on SCs campus, which have given me a good indication of USCs level of preparation. One occurred last week the day after the Vegas shooting. A professor had a breakdown claiming that four of her friends were at the concert and she was telling students to call 911 because there was a campus shooter. I only heard about this through my son who is thoughtful enough to text me that he’s fine, in case I hear something on the news. According to him, SC has been very prompt in their response to any scare, and their campus security seems well trained. In this last case, the students were sent a text alert to shelter in place, and the entire campus was searched with nothing found, except the distressed professor.
Every time I have been on SCs campus, I have seen security stationed throughout the school, which is fenced and has cameras. There is also security positioned in the surrounding neighborhood, which I have found reassuring. Both UCLA and USC have had incidents in the recent past. I can only comment on USCs security efforts, which seem strong to me. I am looking at colleges for #2 son and as I tour campuses, I consider their safety measures for small as well as large incidents. I am not sure any college is immune from potential problems these days.
U.S. News Global Rankings
UCLA #10
USC #53
Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education World Rankings
UCLA #15
USC #66
QS World Rankings
UCLA #33
USC #132
ARWU World Rankings
UCLA #12
USC #54
But hey, kids from Florida, parents of kids going to USC and O.J. all think USC is better, so it must be better!
:))
Picking a school based solely on rankings is a huge mistake, as @defensor post points out.
Depending on what rankings take into account you can pick the WSJ/Times college rank that puts USC at #15 and UCLA #25, or the WSJ/Times World ranking that puts UCLA @ #15 because they measure completely different things in a summarial form (THE World University Rankings focus on universities’ research performance, the US table measures institutions’ student engagement, student outcomes and learning environments.)
Anyone who tells you 100% the “overall” experience at USC is better than UCLA or visa-versa is lying.
Each student’s major, interest, financial situation and personality will determine which is “higher ranked” for that student. In the “real world” across most industries, employers, and post-grad institutions, there is no “real” overall difference in the two school’s rep.
Yes, @Defensor … kids from Florida or basically anywhere east of California, parents of kids going to or who went to USC, various ranking sources like US News, Niche, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, etc., everyone I know personally who went to an Ivy or to any Top-25 school (albeit none of them grew up in California) and especially anyone who favors a private university versus a public college all think that USC is better. Thankfully, we all have choices. UCLA is an excellent choice for many. 61% of those applying are from California though. Another 18% are International applicants. Only 21% are from the other 49 states. (By comparison, USC’s #s are: 44% from CA, 14% International and 42% all other states) And as for public universities, I will concede that UCLA is likely the second best public college in California and clearly among the 5 best public colleges in the U.S. So give yourself credit, California, your public universities are generally the best in the nation.
@jmek15 My aunt used to work/talk at USC orientation awhile back. She deals with ID fraud (so parents loved talking to her afterwards) 
When I told her that UCLA boasted they have their own police department, she also seemed surprised by the comment. Dunno. Maybe UCLA didn’t bother to research the security at USC. I always felt safe when I was on-campus and walking around late at night. The security even intimidated me sometimes. I swear they were following me one time too. Maybe I looked suspicious that day
I’ve always thought that people who use rankings to brag that their school is better than another do it because they lack the confidence that their school really is better. They’re going through an exercise to convince themselves that it’s true.
‘The Princeton Review’ 2017 student “Top 10 Dream Schools” - based on a survey of 8499 college applicants from all 50 states, D.C. and more than 20 countries:
UCLA came in at #5, Stanford #1, Berkeley #8. USC failed to make the list.
Three California schools in the Top 10, but no USC.
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/college-hopes-worries
Weird that @WWWard is so insistent that USC is regarded as a generally better school than UCLA on the east coast. In the late 90’s US News ranked UCLA right around where it is now (low 20s), but USC was ranked somewhere in the 60s (yes, the 60s) with an acceptance rate around 75%. At that time they really weren’t competing for the same students, and everyone knew it. The GPA and SAT scores were nowhere near the same. I even remember in the original “Barron’s Top 50 Guide to America’s Best Colleges” UCLA had its own chapter. USC was not included in the book at all. Obviously USC has sunk a LOT of money since then in raising their stats for US News, and the effort has paid off.
This year, the World Reputation Rankings (which, obviously, ranks universities based on their international reputations) placed UCLA at #13 right after Columbia, and USC somewhere in the 70s (they don’t give specific rankings beyond the top 50.) But you do you, Florida!
So that’s a study of 170 kids per state, sounds like valid real scientific data and results from that study. lol. Could it be marketing by PR which is what most of these rankings are - which marketing and PR people know… But if insecure UCLA people need to find these obscure studies to feel better, so be it.