<p>As much as I should be doing other things, procrastination is a beautiful thing. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/</a></p>
<p>Rational enough? </p>
<p>I feel a 'fight on' coming...</p>
<p>"As much as I should be doing other things, procrastination is a beautiful thing."</p>
<p>Here, here!</p>
<p>lol, those rankings are all so flawed, washington monthly takes into account how many people enroll in the armed services..</p>
<p>These threads are old and tired but what else would we have to argue about? "These rankings are biased...the numbers don't lie...etc." I'm from the east coast and UCLA is well respected as an academic institution (and basketball) while USC is mostly known for football. I didn't know how good USC was academically until I came to L.A. That was my experience but someone else may think differently. Who cares anyway? It's all subjective and you can get a "good" or a "bad" education at any university in the world.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and DRab, i've seen you post before. you seem to have some vendetta against USC. i can admit Berkeley is a world-class, world-renowned school with top notch programs. i can say the same of UCLA, and a plethora of other schools. in fact, i always find it hard to really hold anything significant against a school (except maybe Bob Jones, but that's just outright fun ). but really, what rational reasons do you have to hold USC in such low regard? i know it's not quite a humble school, nor one of underdogs, but come on...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wait, what? I have no vendetta, and I don't hold USC in low regard. I just think it's a bit much when you try to make a good, well rounded school with some top notch programs out to rival one of the very best schools out there. There's a gap in quality in cc vision, and even somewhat in reality as well. Certainly both are at least good schools. USC seems to be rising, and has started to focus on spending its money on academics since the late 90s. Stanford has done this since the 50s and has much larger donors, better students, and a significantly better reputation. This is not to say that USC is bad in any way, it just means USC does not rival Stanford, academically speaking.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As much as I should be doing other things, procrastination is a beautiful thing.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/</a></p>
<p>Rational enough?
[/quote]
more than proving that publication rankings, where schools tend to have inertia from many previous years anyways, put UCLA higher than USC, i think you proved more that you have nothing better to do with your time than attempt deface a well respected school (hey...you said it yourself). if anything, i can sense that you have some sort of vendetta against USC. it's not just that i don't want my school to be belittled, but more that i don't want somebody to consider one school more over another because of a person's personal feelings toward it. i GO to USC, and at least i can admit that for many programs UCLA is a better school.</p>
<p>by the way, you included a ranking that's 11 years old, and in addition to the ranking inertia i mentioned (i.e. a #30 school won't just go to #2 in even a decades time) the subjectivity involved makes any differences almost negligible in the end result--that is, can you prove a USC graduate is more or less educated than a UCLA graduate, and that that graduate will make significantly more money than the other? i'd love to see you prove that. even if somehow you could find stats to "prove" that and USC came out on top, i'd be hard pressed to believe it.</p>
<p>beginning the "proof" with the washington monthly rankings is laughable. can't you see the president at duke inviting the prez at south carolina state university (?) to discover how to crack into the top ten of washington monthly elites?</p>
<p>i have no connections to either institution other than an academic pedigree that spans two major academic units. a decade ago only the trojan film program was world class whereas most of bruin land was. programs at westwood have not slipped at all, merely that those at USC have gone into warp speed. angelinos have not one but two world class universities now, perhaps even exceeding columbia-NYU and chicago-northwestern.</p>
<p>and that's not even factoring in caltech.</p>
<p>"perhaps even exceeding columbia-NYU and chicago-northwestern."</p>
<p>I highly doubt that. They're great schools, but let's not go overboard.</p>
<p>
[quote]
SAT 50th percentile:
USC: 1270-1440
UCLA: 1170-1410</p>
<p>ACT Composite 50th percentile:
USC: 28-32
UCLA: 24-30</p>
<p>% of freshman in the top 10% of their hs class:
USC: 85% (60% from public school)
UCLA: 97% (80% from public school)</p>
<p>% of applicants admitted:
USC: 27%
UCLA: 27%</p>
<p>student/faculty ratio:
USC: 10:1
UCLA: 18:1</p>
<p>USNWR ranking:
UCLA: 26
USC: 27</p>
<p>you guys love to come here and bash USC and say UCLA is better... these statistics, indisputable, if they point to anything, would say just the opposite.</p>
<p>Anyone from UCLA want to actually substantiate their claims?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If these facts are accurate, then US News has certainly committed a big mistake in ranking UCLA higher than USC.</p>
<p>^^ one of their main criteria is peer assessment, something it might take a long time for USC to catch up to UCLA in, as it's purely subjective and has alot to do with institution history</p>
<p>
[quote]
^^ one of their main criteria is peer assessment, something it might take a long time for USC to catch up to UCLA in, as it's purely subjective and has alot to do with institution history
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Subjective = illegitimate? Plenty of grad programs are ranked largely on peer assesment, and nobody complains. Now, I don't think US New's is surveying quite the right people (it needs more adcoms from the top 50 programs in majors fields such as law, med), some business people, and others, but it's a good start.</p>
<p>But again, SAT scores make any US News ranking inaccurate for a few schools such as UCLA. There's no standardization.</p>
<p>"perhaps even exceeding columbia-NYU and chicago-northwestern."</p>
<p>"I highly doubt that. They're great schools, but let's not go overboard."</p>
<p>Ditto.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If these facts are accurate, then US News has certainly committed a big mistake in ranking UCLA higher than USC.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So USC students, on average, do a little better than UCLA on SATs (keep in mind one-sitting vs. composite), UCLA students do a bit better in school, UCLA has more students, and...this somehow makes USC a much better school than UCLA? I must be missing the logical leap here.</p>
<p>Look, statistics must be looked at in context. I could create a University, have 10 of my friends apply to it, accept one friend who has a 4.0 GPA and 1600 SAT. How would my school look like compared to USC?</p>
<p>SAT 50th percentile:
USC: 1270-1440
My School: 1600-1600</p>
<p>% of freshman in the top 10% of their hs class:
USC: 85% (60% from public school)
My School: 100%</p>
<p>% of applicants admitted:
USC: 27%
My School: 10%</p>
<p>student/faculty ratio:
USC: 10:1
My School: 1:1</p>
<p>So now, obviously, my school should be ranked heads and shoulders above USC, right? Obviously not a realistic situation, but it illustrates a point: reading a few select statistics doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the debate at hand. Maybe USC's scores are higher because it accepts less students. Maybe UCLA's top 10% is higher because of its heavy reliance on GPA as a factor of admission. The reader must be able to discern whether or not these statistics really have something to do with how good the two schools are, and if so, much how they have to do with all good the schools are. For example, USC probably has a higher percentage of students who scored above 1500, but UCLA probably has a higher number of students who scored above a 1500. So which is better? Thus, when presented with such simple numbers, it is a good idea to try to understand the numbers in their contexts and think about how it really affects the quality of the school.</p>
<p>Here's an amusing statistic which has never been mentioned on College Confidential:
18% of USC's incoming Fall 2006 freshmen are legacy admits. </p>
<p>It's hard to disregard USC's reputation as spoiled and self-serving when one out of every five USC students gets in partly because of his mom and dad -- Trojan Family, indeed. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>"Subjective = illegitimate?"</p>
<p>no, i don't think that, just that UCLA's history causes USC to have an uphill battle in catching up to it in terms of how it is regarded among peer institutions</p>
<p>"UCLA students do a bit better in school"</p>
<p>that's not entirely clear considering 97% of UCLA's students come from public schools, while only 85% of USC's do, at a much higher OOS rate (and we all know how bad california high schools are, we even hear about it in the news all the way in the midwest)</p>
<p>so top 10% in a cali high school is not the same as top 10% in the private schools or OOS high schools matriculating to USC</p>
<p>"Maybe USC's scores are higher because it accepts less students."</p>
<p>you make it sound simple and irrelevant but that actually IS the mark of a better school...</p>
<p>Ugh. Just ugh.</p>
<p>The "bad" California public schools thing is so overblown. There are incredible public high schools in California. From El Camino Real to Lowell, there are many top high schools in California.</p>
<p>And many of them are top feeders in the top UCs.</p>
<p>HUGE numbers from top public schools get into the UCs. From the worst of the worst? Not that many, if any at all. Really. Even sometimes from average schools, not that many (if any at all) get into top UCs!</p>
<p>^^ that wouldn't be socioeconomically fair, as we all know better public schools = higher real estate taxes = richer areas.</p>
<p>So that is just blatantly not true.</p>
<p>elsijfdl,</p>
<p>There is a correlation, but it's not always the case.</p>