<p>I think it’s pretty safe to say that UCLA is the second best UC. Sure, looking at different departments, there might be a couple places off here and there, but how do you tell the difference between 2-5 spots on a list of schools? You don’t. I used to have this feeling that UCSD was seriously going to beat UCLA in rankings and reputation in the long run (longer than schools would matter for me, like 30+ years from now), but UCSD’s existence seems to kind of be in danger due to USC stealing their top faculty such a their renown sciences chair, Dr. Kay. UCSD doesn’t have the endowment to fight big universities stealing professors out of San Diego. Department rankings are not the only factor that make a university better. Even if we exclude all the BS (sports, public image etc etc) there are many more worthy factors to consider like ability to retain faculty and % of faculty with NSA members and the like. It’s pretty apparent UCLA is the second best UC. SD is a pretty close third, but no one would really call them equals and at the rate the LA University landscape is changing (USC trying really hard to get some respect), I see UCSD losing the faculty battle with SC. I really hope that’s not the case, but it is what I think. </p>
<p>Also, SB doesn’t really compare to UCLA at all except in physics and maybe 1-2 random scattered departments I am missing:
Math: UCLA 8 UCSB 46
Physics: UCSB 10 UCLA 19</p>
<p>PS: Call me bias to UCLA, I am. But I had my pick at UCSB’s/UCSD’s (and Cal) honors programs and UCLA and the choice was very obvious.</p>
<p>rjkofnovi: Berkeley? ;)</p>