<p>Hahaha No problem, I thought it was a very interesting list too. Also, USC is way below, even under UCSB and UCD. USC sits at 112, and UCSD at 76. :)</p>
<p>Personal preference: I’d put UCLA above Berkeley. What are we supposed to be ranking on? My list would go:
- Stanford
- UCLA
- Berkeley
- Cal Tech</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about Pomona to rank it. Of course, my ranking has nothing to do with acceptance rates and all that. Just a personal ranking.</p>
<p>I do not back it up? i just used ur own proof to prove that ucla had better law, business, and medicial schools (which almost everyone will agree are the most important schools)</p>
<p>^ I think a personal ranking should be the way to go. so everyone doesn’t get their panties up in a bunch, it’s all just opinion.</p>
<p>Top 5 are certainly Berkeley, Stanford, CalTech, UCLA/USC (as far as big schools go anyway).</p>
<p>Sorry, USC is a great school but you can’t rank it higher than UCLA.</p>
<p>I think some people’s list are based off of how hard it is to get in to a school. I dont think just because a school is really hard to get into that it makes it one of the best. Cause in those terms Scripps is then the “best” school in the world for half the worlds population!
People should be comparing undergrad with undergrads and grad school with grad schools. </p>
<p>Oh yeah what exactly is a LAC anyway?</p>
<p>LAC = Liberal Arts College.</p>
<p>Stanford
CalTech
Berkeley
UCLA
USC</p>
<p>To take a step out of the flock why don’t we just rank on our personal experiences with students, graduates, or professors that attended the schools. Or perhaps our impressions after a personal visit, dealing with administration, or in a more specialized construct like what we consider to be the most exciting degrees or more innovative curriculum. Reciting and arguing about ranking lists seems monotonous. Thank you to all of those who chose not to recite ranking bibles. </p>
<p>Top Fine Art Schools/Programs in Ca (based on my experiences with faculty, student art shows, ect.) </p>
<ol>
<li>Art Center College of Design</li>
<li>California College of the Arts</li>
<li>UCSD (ICAM - need not say more!) </li>
<li>UCLA/UC Davis (Tie but the DMA and Art History Depts at UCLA are a step above)
This may change after Davis implements their new gallery space that is planned</li>
<li>UCSB College of Creative Studies</li>
<li>OTIS</li>
<li>UCI/UCSC (Irvine is more rigid - love the risks students at UCSC take with performance and installation up there) </li>
<li>USC (I do meet people who completely blow my mind in their MFA program from time to time) </li>
<li>CSULB (Painting and Drawing program is exceptional when considering student output)</li>
<li>SJSU (Good overall but quite strong in digital art and industrial design)</li>
<li>UC Riverside</li>
<li>Humboldt (The fiber/textile and glass work regularly put out by students is really exciting to see)</li>
<li>SDSU/Chico/Berkeley (Tie)</li>
<li>Cal State LA</li>
<li>Sonoma State/CSUN (Tied)</li>
</ol>
<p>Of Note:</p>
<p>What is it about Mills College that people seem to be on a completely separate plane with the creative process. I will randomly pick up literary magazines or wander into little independent photo exhibits and 9/10 if the student came from Mills I am repeatedly blown away. I would say there is something quite special going on there just from the output into the world from students. Well done Mills College! </p>
<p>Hope this opens things up & looking-forward to reading your rankings!</p>
<p>^ Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the world’s first rankings where UCBerkeley is mentioned as an equal to Chico and SDSU, as well as ranked beneath Humboldt and UCR.</p>
<p>Spend some time in the Art department and it becomes quite clear, really. Perhaps CAL might be sacred to you but it certainly does not make a huge contribution to the world of studio artists (who MAJORED in “Art Practice”) in my opinion. Film Studies and CNMAT would be another story.</p>
<p>Vintij, amidst your arrogant rant you completely left out the Claremont Colleges, they have a competitive reputation to the likes of Ivy Leagues and are at least #3-4 I’m sorry but you earn no points for your answer and we are all dumber for listening to your response.</p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious where the good stuff’s at
- UCSC (the capital)
- Humboldt State (that is right holmes)
- San Jose State
- CSU Chico
- UCR</p>
<p>The Claremont colleges are very good schools but all the schools combined only enroll about 5000 undergrad students, and most degrees conferred are undergrad. I agree with an earlier post that said you need to compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges. The Claremont colleges with their 1000 student undergrad populations, and limited grad schools cannot be compared to universities that serve 30000 plus students, have large grad, medical, and law schools.</p>
<p>What about Caltech? They have less than 500 undergrad students…?</p>
<p>I completely understand where y’all are coming from but I think a more important factor than number of students and whether a school has a law/med program is how adept an undergraduate program is at getting their students to the most prestigious graduate programs in the country (feeder stats) as opposed to just having one on site and quantity of students, which are both pretty meaningless statistics. </p>
<p>Based on that statistic, along with GPA, SAT and post-bachelor success, which are the 4-5 factors that Forbes, Washington Monthly and US News and World Report use, the top schools in California for 2009-2010 are:</p>
<ol>
<li>CalTech </li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li><p>UCLA</p></li>
<li><p>USC</p></li>
<li><p>Harvey Mudd</p></li>
<li><p>UCSD</p></li>
<li><p>Pomona</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Then it kind of drops off after there.</p>
<p>But that’s just based off those statistics. If you want to go into economics or business, go to USC or CSUN. If you want to go into the fine visual arts go to UCSD or UCLA. If you want to specialize in politics, philosophy or be in a think tank go to Claremont McKenna, Stanford or Berkeley. If you’re a physics or engineering person it’s Cal Poly SLO or CalTech. Religious Studies? Loyola, Pepperdine or UCLA. </p>
<p>Moral of the story is that ubiquitous stats can only say so much about a school. Because even if Claremont McKenna is overall a better, more prestigious school than UCSD or Cal it’s because of how effective it is in what it specializes in. Same goes for CalTech. </p>
<p>So find out what you want to do and that should guide your decisions better :)</p>
<p>The title of the post was “what are the top schools in California?”. The Claremont colleges do not serve enough students to make a real impact. Imagine if Berkeley had 5000 students and no grad schools but a huge endowment. What type of education would it provide its small undergrad class? I bet it would be better than the Claremont colleges. They are great schools but they dont have as big an impact as the bigger schools do. Serve more students and then you can talk about how badass you are.</p>
<p>
There is such a ranking, but it looks quite different from yours.</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
</ol>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>The PhD list also looks different.</p>
<ol>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
</ol>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/60980-phd-production-total.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/60980-phd-production-total.html</a></p>