UCSB @ 37 above UCI, UCSD and UCDavis…
Go Gauchos!
UCSD has some serious infrastructure issues with insane class sizes and cancelled electives etc etc. To be honest I am surprised Berkeley is still ranked so high given its own documented complications
USNews ranking is based on quite a few categories. Anyone knows what categories do UCSB really win out for a small margin over UCSD/I/D? I saw http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/ for 2016 and it seems that UCSD is still the #3 after UCB/LA in UC as convention thinking would typically go. If you look at individual majors ranking UCSD is generally better than UCSB as well. Something in the make up of USNews ranking recipe must be pulling up UCSB or sinking UCSD, in recent years. But it’s not told the same from other ranking (USNews own world ranking for example) or admission stats. Puzzled.
@Just4Years I looked at some of the criteria that USNews had on their site such as graduation rate and class size. UCSB has a far better 4 year graduation rate of 70% compared to UCSD’s 58%. Also, UCSB had a greater percentage classes under 20 students and a smaller percentage of classes over 50 students. Oddly UCSD had a better 6 year graduation rate - I guess some people just don’t want to leave IV. So I think those numbers probably have caused UCSD to slip a bit - Davis also has a low graduation rate of 59% according to USNews.
I personally rank according to median SAT scores of entering freshmen, but that is just me. It indicates the selectivity of the school, not necessarily the quality of the school. UCSD selectivity is still higher than UCSB. But there are probably good factors that pushed UCSB higher in the usnews calculations.
Yeah I think you may be right that UCSD got dinged by a higher % of class size over 50 and lower 4 yr grad rate. In the other categories (such as academic reputation and faculty resources) I think SD should hold up well against SB/I/D. The lower grad rate might have something to do with a heavier STEM concentration in UCSD vs other UCs, which usually take longer to graduate. I don’t know how SB managed to get a lower % on 50 over class size than SD/I/D when its faculty student ratio is about the same as SD/D/I’s. Maybe there’re simply more classes with fewer people taking them? But who really digs that deep. Most people just take the final ranking and run with it. A few years back I think SD and SB ranking were the other way around with even more spots apart. Interesting. SB must have done something in line with USNews’ ranking methods. Good for SB I guess.
Cal Public Ranking according to entering SAT 75th percentile
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
CalPoly
UCDavis
UCI
UC Santa Cruz
UC Riverside
San Diego State
Cal Poly Pomona
CSU Long Beach
UC Merced
all other CSU’s are lower
This might be dated.
One USNews metric that UCSB scores the best among all UCs is alumni giving rate. But the 2nd best is UC Merced. That just tells you this most widely followed college ranking can be somewhat misleading. May be a good intention to include all that but it’s not always very indicative. Class size can be tricky too. UCB has a very good (low) 50+ class % but we all know it’s 1st CS class consistently logs in 1000+ ppl. That course probably counts as only one that’s above 50. What really matters is how many ppl are in the ‘popular’ classes that you and I need/want to take that are taught by ‘good’ prof. I know even in ivies many of those classes can have several hundreds ppl too, though their 50+% would say like only 12%. UC’s class size of those popular courses are for sure even larger throughout all campuses.