What schools do you consider as "Western Ivies"

Applying to College
41

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It doesn't matter to what degree of separation in quality a tier represents, it's simply that by placing a college in Tier 2 and placing another in Tier 3, you are essentially saying that the former college is better than the latter. Ignoring that 'better' is always subjective, and that there is no way to measure quality definitively, I'd say many of the colleges which you rank in different tiers are very much peers (as in, equals). Different in flavor or style? Perhaps, but definitely one is not superior to another (as in the case of, say, USC and UCLA).</p>

<p>
[quote]
This ain't no US News.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure does seem like it. If we treat all the colleges in one of your tiers as being "tied," then your tiers work very much like the US News ranking (but of course lacking in statistical backup).</p>

42

<p>The true western Ivies are Stanford and Caltech. The other schools mentioned in this thread are great, but are not considered "Western Ivies".</p>

43

<p>^^ What about the "public Ivies"? Those public Ivies in the West qualify for "Western Ivies," no?</p>

<p>And what makes Stanford and Caltech the "true" western Ivies?</p>

44

<p>Prestige & US News ranking.</p>

45

<p>Actually, when asking people what the most "prestigious" west-coast schools are, the top two that almost always immediately come out are Stanford and Berkeley. CalTech is an awesome institution for sure, but it only focuses on one aspect of an education-science. Berkeley and Stanford encompass the sciences, math, English, Social Sciences, etc., and all at a very high level. So, IMO, that's why Stanford and Berkeley should be up there the highest. They teach the most "stuff" at the highest level. Basically, they are much more well-rounded. Besides, MIT isn't an IL school, so if you are comparing CalTech with MIT, you aren't really comparing it with the Ivy League.</p>

46

<p>There is no such thing as western Ivies. The Ivy League is a football conference located in the NE.</p>

47

<p>"The Ivy League is a football conference located in the NE."</p>

<p>Well then, isn't is obvious. The western Ivies are the Pac 10.</p>

<p>Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Stanford, USC, Cal, and UCLA.</p>

48

<p>kyle,</p>

<p>You mentioned "heavily tiered", so I replied with a view to quantify how "tiered" I meant to be.</p>

<p>I said this ain't US News coz US News tiers connote vast differences in quality between schools. You know, the tier 1, tier 3 schools? Like Georgetown vs George Mason. I understand that my ranking is similar in the shared rankings factor.</p>

<p>As for my implied opinion that ranking the schools in tiers connote which is better - firstly I said this is my own opinion, i.e. HO, i.e. humble opinion. I'm not apologizing for that - it's in my own eyes, it's definitely flawed as a glancing, skimming, shallow opinion piece, but that's what I "consider", which is what the OP asked in the first place.</p>

49

<p>Stanford, Pomona, CalTech</p>

50

<p>Stanford and Pomona, if you believe WSJ.</p>

<p>From the April 2, 2004 WSJ high school ranking <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/SB108085665347972031.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/SB108085665347972031.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
In setting up this study, Weekend Journal picked as our 10 colleges a group that included but wasn't limited to the Ivy League. Based on recommendations from admissions experts and guidance counselors, plus lists of SAT scores and acceptance rates, we narrowed our choices to seven Ivies -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Brown -- supplemented by three of the most exclusive colleges in the West, Midwest and South. These were Pomona, the University of Chicago, and Duke. (We were unable to get data from an eighth Ivy, Columbia University, or from one of the most exclusive colleges on the West Coast, Stanford University. However, Pomona also has impressive selectivity rates and SAT scores.)

[/quote]
</p>

51

<p>In the educational sense, for education there are no Western Ivies. There's Stanford; that's it.</p>

<p>Berkeley, Claremont Colleges, and Cal Tech are all great but the focus is either on grads (like Berkeley) and the undergrad isn't as good, or on undergrads (Claremonts) without great graduate programs. Cal Tech is narrowly focused and doesn't have strong humanities like the Ivy League schools are reputed to have.</p>

52

<p>D.T. was correct in my intentions for the tiers. Obviously all of the schools being discussed are "first tier" by the typical standards. Tiering here is merely used to better express the differences in education quality. By tiering we can show where the gaps are larger.</p>

<p>For example, the gap between Stanford and Caltech is smaller than the gap between Caltech and Pomona. How do you know? The tiering.</p>

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I really don't understand the logic of this. Obviously a massive school of UCLA (with many grad programs) is going to be more prestigious than minuscule LACs. So what do you mean "even if we are doing rankings based on prestige"??? That is basically the only case where Berkeley and UCLA would beat out Mudd, CMC, and Pomona. You act as if ranking by prestige gives Claremont the edge when it actually gives UCB and UCLA the edge. If you look at the actual quality of undergraduate education, selectivity, and quality of the student body then it is pretty frikken clear that Mudd, CMC, and Pomona are ahead of UCLA and at least on the same level as Berkeley.</p>

53

<p>
[quote]
Obviously a massive school of UCLA (with many grad programs) is going to be more prestigious than minuscule LACs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There are many massive schools that aren't as prestigious as LACs. San Diego State, for example, has over 34,000 students, yet I would hardly say it's more prestigious than Amherst. This is a matter of perception, though.</p>

<p>
[quote]
So what do you mean "even if we are doing rankings based on prestige"??? That is basically the only case where Berkeley and UCLA would beat out Mudd, CMC, and Pomona.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You attempted to rank based on a few factors, and the ranking was rather nonsensical. I mentioned the 'prestige factor' because others seemed to be ranking based on that.</p>

<p>You said:</p>

<p>
[quote]
However, I believe the top schools in Cali for selectivity, quality of education, and academic rigor for undergrad are:

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Then you go on to put Berkeley 2 tiers below Stanford/Caltech (on level with CMC), UCLA two tiers Pomona (on level with Scripps), and Mudd below Caltech. What? I don't think anyone would agree with you that UCLA or Berkeley don't offer as high a quality of education -- I'd say it's as superb as, say, Pomona or Stanford (in fact, Berkeley's peer score is a 4.8, UCLA's a 4.2; Pomona's is a 4.2, Scripps a 3.7, and Mudd a 4.1 -- that is, if you take this score to be a measure of quality of education). I don't think anyone would agree with you, either, that UCLA or Berkeley isn't as rigorous as, say, Stanford -- they're all very rigorous. And finally, your 'selectivity' factor doesn't change much, either; according to US News, Berkeley's selectivity rank is 14, UCLA's 19.</p>

<p>All in all, I think they're all excellent schools that are on par with one another for the most part, but simply have different offerings (student bodies, environments, majors, courses, etc.).</p>

<p>For "Western Ivies," your criteria don't really distinguish the list of schools you listed. However, "Western Ivies" to me would mean private schools, generally, so that would be Stanford. Caltech, perhaps, would fit in, but there's no Ivy school that's also a tech school. On prestige, Stanford, Berkeley, and perhaps UCLA and Caltech, would fit for that "Ivy" category. It's a really arbitrary subject, though.</p>

54

<p>Utterly vacuous thread. Come on. I thought we came West to escape this, Clark.</p>

<p>What say you, Lewis?</p>

55

<p>
[quote]
What? I don't think anyone would agree with you that UCLA or Berkeley don't offer as high a quality of education -- I'd say it's as superb as, say, Pomona or Stanford

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Funny, I seem to recall Berkeley has some 1,000+ student lectures. Pomona and Mudd should start firing professors so they can catch up!</p>

56

<p>
[quote]
Funny, I seem to recall Berkeley has some 1,000+ student lectures. Pomona and Mudd should start firing professors so they can catch up!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I really doubt any go more than 1000 -- in fact, I've never seen any go as high as 1000 (though there probably are some), and I'm sure they're very few in number. On top of that, how can you judge an education by the size of a lecture? It's a lecture, not a discussion, so it's simply the professor teaching/demonstrating the material. These large lectures are always supplemented with small discussion classes, typically <30.</p>

57

<p>You can judge an education system by the size of its lectures. Discussion shouldn't be limited to the small classes. Teaching and discussion can be done simultaneously. Students can't ask questions in massive lectures. There is no interaction between the professors and the students at all. Students can basically just watch a video of the lecture (and I've heard many at UCLA and Berkeley do) and it's the same as being there.</p>

58

<p>Only 6 or so percent of the classes at Berkeley have over 100 people (not sure about UCLA); these classes have small discussions in which the professor teaches, but it's much more of a student-teacher interaction environment. Stanford too has large lectures (about 4% of its classes have over 100 people), and supplements them with many small discussion classes. I don't think you'd find anyone who thinks the education at Stanford is therefore inferior to that at, say, Caltech and Mudd simply because there are more large lectures, which have small discussions anyway. So no, you can't judge educational quality based on that factor. (In an extreme, though, such as an overwhelmingly high number of huge classes without small discussions, wherein there is little to no student-teacher interaction, then yes, you can judge the educational quality, which would certainly be hindered. This is not the case.)</p>

59

<p>Clark, this flatulence is .... aaaagggghhh!</p>

<p>Call out the Trunk Monkey, Lewis!</p>

60

<p>OK, let me give my shot at it. Btw, I'm ignoring LACs, so no flaming me for not including them, except Mudd, because its a pretty technically-oriented school. The reason for not including LACs is because, although some of them are simply amazing, by Western Ivy, the OP is talking about schools with prestige on the West Side. Although the people that count (for the most part at least) know about LACs, as far as the general population is concerned, you'll get a <em>huh</em> even if you say you're going to Williams, which is not the case when you say I'm going to Cornell or Dartmouth:</p>

<p>Tier 1: Stanford, CalTech, Cal
Tier 2: UCLA, HMC
------fair gap in terms of street <em>wow</em> factor------------------------------
Tier 3: USC, UCSD, University of Washington
--------------enormous gap in terms of street <em>wow</em> factor----------------
Tier 4: Other UCs (except Merced), University of Oregon or other major state schools.
--------------even bigger gap in terms of street <em>wow</em> factor--------------
Tier 5: Everyone else</p>

<p>Now let me explain, because I know for a fact that I'm going to draw flames. For the first tier, I'm pretty sure there should be no questions asked as to why they are top tier, especially Cal Tech and Stanford for obvious reasons. The second tier is composed of UCLA, because although it may be false, some perceive it to be either a step under berkeley, or the school for Cal rejects, and HMC again may be a very amazing school, but it has little street <em>wow</em> factor. Very few people instantly know how great HMC is, but there are still people on the west side that know how great it is. These tiers, btw, have a miniscule gap in terms of prestige.</p>

<p>Then after these 2, there is a fair gap in terms of the prestige factor. These schools are very reputable on the west, but have lesser reputations than those above them by a fair amount.</p>

<p>USC was the toughest one to place. It is a great school for engineering, film, and business, but lacks the overall punch of those above it, many of whom are not only better than it in those fields, but are better overall as well. UCSD is seen as the school for those who can't get into UCLA or Cal, and has little to offer besides being a pre-med factory, but is still one of the most reputable UCs. University of Washington is a really underrated school IMO. They have very good (T25-T20) in many fields, awesome medicine and computer science/CE facillities, and is more well-rounded than UCSD, and in a way USC. If you are into one of these fields, its an awesome school as a backup in case stanford, caltech, and berkeley fail (which they most likely will, no offense). It lacks, however, excluding medicine and computer-related work, big punches (T10-T5) in most fields, which is why its considered very good, but still average in a way. Its a public university on the rise, however, and definitely one to look out for.</p>

<p>For the rest of these tiers, there are subdivisons for example within the UCs in terms of prestige, but</p>

<p>a. I'm too lazy to think all of that through right now.
b. UCB, UCLA, and UCSD are by far the top UCs, and everyone else is considered meh. Whether thats right or wrong, I don't know, but thats just what people perceive it as.</p>

<p>hope that helped.</p>