<p>interesting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pomona is the western harvard
[/quote]
</p>
<p>it's generally accepted that Pomona is the western Amherst .. not the western Harvard. of course, nobody ever calls Amherst "the eastern Pomona".</p>
<p>Why do they have to be "Western Ivies" and not just great schools?</p>
<p>"Stanford, Caltech, Pomona, Harvey-Mudd, McKenna</p>
<p>on a lesser note</p>
<p>Scripps, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Reed"</p>
<p>^^^Berkeley and or UCLA should take the place of CMC. CMC is a great school, but Cal and UCLA are more prestigious IMO.</p>
<p>lol, i just hear that phrase a lot. such as....</p>
<p>them: I go to University of Portland (insert other schools like Whitman or University of san diego or w/e schools)
me: oh i c. neat.
them: its basically a western ivy.
me: oh i c. (never knew a 1500 average SAT score was a western ivy)</p>
<p>I'm not going to say which schools I think are "western ivies," because that's kind of pointless. However, I believe the top schools in Cali for selectivity, quality of education, and academic rigor for undergrad are:</p>
<p>Tier 1:
Stanford, Caltech</p>
<p>Tier 2:
Pomona, Mudd</p>
<p>Tier 3:
CMC, Berkeley</p>
<p>Tier 4:
UCLA, Scripps</p>
<p>And yeah all of those people who say they go to a "Western Ivy" are full of shat if their schools' names doesn't start with Stan and end in ford.</p>
<p>Tier 1:
Stanford, Caltech</p>
<p>Tier 2:
Pomona, Berkeley, UCLA</p>
<p>Tier 3:
CMC, Mudd</p>
<p>Its kind of funny how people put Pomona and CMC on two different tiers even though they have nearly identical acceptance rates, are part of the same consortium, teach similar things, and have the same campus. You can even take classes amongst both. Only difference = exact subject matter.</p>
<p>is Texas considered part of the west? ....atleast USNEWS does...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Tier 2:
Pomona, Berkeley, UCLA</p>
<p>Tier 3:
CMC, Mudd
[/quote]
</p>
<p>omglolz... jw how is UCLA better than CMC and Mudd?????? ROTFLMAO!!!11</p>
<p>
[quote]
Its kind of funny how people put Pomona and CMC on two different tiers even though they have nearly identical acceptance rates, are part of the same consortium, teach similar things, and have the same campus. You can even take classes amongst both. Only difference = exact subject matter.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The student quality at Pomona is definitely higher than at CMC. Acceptance rates don't mean everything. Pitzer is on the same campus as Pomona and teaches some similar things and allows cross registering. Hell, Pitzer even shares all its athletic teams with Pomona! Is Pitzer also on the same level as Pomona?? By your flawed logic, it is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
National universities would probably include:</p>
<p>Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
USC</p>
<p>LACs would probably include:</p>
<p>Claremont consortium minus Pitzer (so, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Scripps)
Reed
Whitman
Colorado College
[/quote]
Why is USC on your list? The only thing it has that is on par with ivy level is the size of its school coffers.</p>
<p>yeah, i kinda wondered about that too. i know a ton of people goin to usc who wouldn't have a chance in the world of getting into even cornell.</p>
<p>You people know nothing beyond your precious US News Rankings.</p>
<p>When it comes to research and graduate work that has made Harvard and many Ivies famous, UCLA and especially UC Berkeley are far superior to any California schools sans Stanford.
And in that realm Berkeley is not too different from Stanford.</p>
<p>If you want undergraduate focus,
Stanford, Pomona, CalTech, HMC, and CMC are your best shots.</p>
<p>I fail to see how Pomona is in a different tier than CMC, which is basically the same thing. The people who make these statements can see the 7 in front of Pomona and 11 in front of CMC and somehow think that is substantial??? If you've actually visited the Claremont campuses, you could see how close they are. </p>
<p>You LITERALLY will not know which campus you are on if take a stroll down a few blocks on Columbia Street or Yale Street, until you look at a brochure or sign.</p>
<p>
[quote]
omglolz... jw how is UCLA better than CMC and Mudd?????? ROTFLMAO!!!11
[/quote]
</p>
<p>omglolz indeed -- how can you raise such an objection when you yourself stated:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Tier 1:
Stanford, Caltech</p>
<p>Tier 2:
Pomona, Mudd</p>
<p>Tier 3:
CMC, Berkeley</p>
<p>Tier 4:
UCLA, Scripps
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Mudd and Pomona ahead of Berkeley? UCLA on par with Scripps? Even if we were doing this based on prestige, Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, and UCLA would top the list. Sadly, LACs are often ignored / lesser known.</p>
<p>The tide is turning...:p</p>
<p>Anyway, since I JUST ARRIVED AT CALIFORNIA WOO HOO, I'll give this a shot, rank-wise, although this detracts from the OP's original intention.</p>
<p>Look, prestige/name recognition/teaching quality/research quality wise, when taken together...</p>
<p>Tier 1 : Stanford, Caltech</p>
<p>Tier 2: Berkeley</p>
<p>Tier 3: Pomona, CMC, Mudd, UCLA</p>
<p>Tier 4: USC, Reed, Pitzer, Scripps</p>
<p>Tier 5: Occidental, Colorado College (isn't it mid-west though hmm), Whitman</p>
<p>Tier 6: University of Oregon, Cal Poly SLO</p>
<p>I would consider Tier 1 - 3 Western ivies.</p>
<p>My HO :)</p>
<p>Go Sagehens!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Mudd and Pomona ahead of Berkeley?
[/quote]
It depends on one's goals. Regarding advanced graduate degrees, Mudd and Pomona are indeed way ahead of Berkeley in terms of preparing undergrads for grad schools (courtesy of interesteddad):</p>
<p>Percentage of PhDs per graduate</p>
<p>Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law. </p>
<p>1 35.8% California Institute of Technology<br>
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
...
15 13.8% Pomona College<br>
...
49 7.9% University of California-Berkeley</p>
<p>^ PhD production means squat when comparing technical schools to non-technical schools. Berkeley and Pomona have an abundance of people not interested in getting a PhD (read: business school, med school, law school, etc.), so even if Berkeley were better than Caltech/HMC at educating its PhD seeking students, you'd still have a higher percentage of Caltech/Mudd students getting PhDs simply because of how skewed their respective student bodies are.</p>
<p>But, it doesn't really matter, since Caltech and Mudd are decidedly better for undergraduate education than Berkeley (and Pomona has a different focus so the comparison is pointless) :), though I'll be like everyone else and provide no real evidence for my assertion!</p>
<p>^^ agreed -- you're comparing very different institutions in your statistics on PhDs.</p>
<p>And by the way, I wasn't saying that Pomona and Mudd are subpar to Berkeley. I simply found it ironic that atomicfusion found one 'ranking' to be ridiculous, and yet his own was even more ridiculous (the schools are not that heavily tiered, etc.).</p>
<p>kyle, I think our "tiers" here don't really connote large degrees of separation in quality. Tier one is just one way of saying these few schools should be ranked joint-first, and tier 2 joint second and so on.</p>
<p>This ain't no US News.</p>
<p>Comparing like with like, The Claremont Colleges would compare with the East Coast LAC's, the other institutions (Berkeley, Stanford, CalTech) with perhaps Yale, Harvard, MIT.</p>
<p>However, I don't really see them as equivalents in types of schools, merely similar in selectivity & rigor. Berkeley & Stanford have very different flavors & student bodies & even different academic programs than HYPC, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth. Some people would even see CalTech and MIT as very different from each other in style.</p>
<p>JMO</p>