<p>UCLA’s undergraduates are 33.9% Asian, according to its fall 2011 common data set. USC’s undergraduates are 22.6% Asian for fall 2011, according to its web site.</p>
<p>UCLA has a higher percentage of Latino undergraduates (16.8% versus 13.9%) but a lower percentage of white undergraduates (31.6% versus 40.9%) and black undergraduates (3.3% versus 4.6%).</p>
<p>I appreciate your passion for your new college, lexapro, but your (18-year old) opinion is just that. And yes, your opinion is just as welcome as any others. But it ain’t “fact”. </p>
<p>While UCLA has historically been considered the much better college, you need to recognize that all of the current trends favor 'SC. And most of those trends revolve around money, which enable private schools to buy top stat students with merit money, to buy top flight professors, to provide that faculty with top labs and research opportunities, and to offer a more intimate undergraduate experience. Whether you agree or not, USC is an up-and-comer. </p>
<p>Just look at the decisions by the UC Regents over the past 5 years. It is clear that they do not care much about Cal and UCLA. They have one primary focus, which is apparent when you critically review their policies and pronouncements. At best, the big two can only hold their (precarious) rankings.</p>
<p>USC has a reputation of emphasizing test scores, while UC schools are said to favor high school grades over test scores.</p>
<p>There was a thread listing students (not by name) and their college acceptances, rejections, and matriculations at a southern California high school that sends a lot of students to colleges. UCLA and USC were both very popular schools, but it appeared that there were a lot of “accepted USC, rejected UCLA” students, but very few or no “accepted UCLA, rejected USC” students.</p>
<p>^^In the aggregate, UCLA has a bunch of “smarter” kids, at least based on the top quartile of test scores (since UCLA is so large). Where the UCs fall behind the competition, however, is in the bottom quartile (and perhaps in juco transfers).</p>
<p>Regardless, almost no one out there would associate UCLA with technology/Silicon Valley. While UCLA may still be more prestigious than USC, I think you overestimate its prestige (e.g. “at least as prestigious as Dartmouth”).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter, other than some meaningless bragging rights in this rivalry. If you work in, say, finance, engineering, or real estate, it doesn’t matter what some physics/microbiololgy researchers think of your school. The only arena where the small diffrences may matter is recruiting from investment banks, hedge funds, private equity, or top management consulting firms and in aggregate, they account for tiny fraction of the total workforce. In those areas, I don’t think UCLA is more targeted.</p>
<p>I think you overestimate Dartmouth’s prestige. But that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>As far as your sillicon valley comment goes, it seems like google is pretty intent on setting up shop near LA (Venice beach/Santa Monica area.) I wouldn’t doubt that many other companies will probably do the same. Sure, Norcal has Stanford and Berkeley; but Socal has Caltech, UCLA, and USC. And i wouldn’t doubt that these universities would get way better CS departments if we got something like a silicon socal.</p>
<p>Interesting that you noted the Los Angeles Google Office. That office is primarily there for sales and advertising in the media market, which 'SC has a much more significant hand in. Additionally, the google building was designed by USC professor Frank Gehry. Heard of him?</p>
<p>Furthermore, USC’s financial position has allowed it to beef up it’s faculty including 2 additional Nobel winners (3 total currently ALIVE and staffed). That is one more than UCLA’s 2. </p>
<p>Let’s face it. Money talks and USC has plenty of it.</p>
<p>^^Well, Dartmouth is a target for top IB and MC firms while UCLA is not. In that circle, Dartmouth is more prestigious and this difference matters a lot for those that want to get into those firms. It’s just a lot harder for UCLA students to get into those places, if not completely shut out. Of course, most people are in other fields where small difference in prestige doesn’t matter much. Even if what you said is right - that UCLA has more prestige in academia, it doesn’t seem to me Dartmouth grads are at a disadvantage when it comes to things like law or medical school placement (in fact, data seem to suggest the opposite though they are not control for the caliber of students). Like I said, it’s just pointless to brag about things that don’t matter.</p>
<p>UCLA is not a target for top IB because there’s no undergrad business school and Los Angeles is not a big banking center like NYC, SF, Chicago and Houston…imo</p>
<p>According to the (first) link you provided, the los angeles office will be used for both engineering and sales. Nothing in it about focusing specifically on sales.</p>
<p>I also agree that money does talk. But as USC can perfectly exemplify, you can’t buy prestige ;)</p>
<p>Yes. Engineering will obviously be involved, which USC still has a better program. But, as I said, Google coming to LA is for the media market. </p>
<p>Neither UCLA nor USC have much prestige in my opinion. They are both fringe top 25 schools; one is private and one is public, take your pick between the two cultures and enjoy.</p>
<p>Only like 17 universities are really recognized nationally IMHO: the 8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, University of Chicago, JHU, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Duke. Pretty much every other school has a “regional appeal” and you should choose between these schools based on personal preference and where you plan to work after college. Rice and UT Austin are highly regarded in the Southwest, Wash U and Michigan are well known in the Midwest, Berkeley and UCLA are thought of well in the West, UNC and Vanderbilt are prestigious in the South, and Boston College and Tufts are respected in the Northeast.</p>
It’s no coincidence that most of the best universities are also the richest, but it’s more complicated than that. Money will help, especially since USC is 50% larger than the next top private that even comes close in size (Columbia), but money alone won’t guarantee success.</p>
<p>For example, I don’t think anyone would dispute that Berkeley has a noticeably more distinguished faculty than, say, Emory, despite having an endowment about half the size of Emory’s. Moreover, despite fears of mass defection, that faculty has mostly stayed put. Indeed, the fears that the UC budget crunch would allow other top universities to plunder the UCs for faculty indicates how respected their faculties are. USC is still doing the plundering rather than being plundered, and that is a defining difference. </p>
<p>For another example, one can look at Rice and Brown. Rice has an endowment about 30% larger than USC’s and has 1/6 as many students. Despite this, Rice consistently fails to crack the USNWR top 15. Brown, on the other hand, has an endowment about half of Rice’s, is about 45% larger than Rice, and yet inevitably makes the top 15. Clearly other factors are at work.</p>
<p>USC has used its money pretty effectively to buy top students; it seemed like virtually every student on CC admitted to USC this year also received a Trustee scholarship. It has also used that money to buy a few flashy scholars – Nobel laureates and the like. </p>
<p>In order to truly take its prestige to the next level - to make the shift to a Johns Hopkins or Northwestern - USC has to dramatically boost its research capabilities. This will take time and effort and requires the attraction of top-notch scholars at all levels. Put more simply, USC will need to move from simply buying its Nobels to actually producing them.</p>
<p>Those were only “fears” brought on by the fear-mongers, i.e., the academic types that want/need more money. Tenure is tenure.</p>
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<p>Right, and that $ does enable 'SC (and WashU, another wannabe) to buy the best PhD talent with tenure-track positions on Day 1. Over time, some of those fresh new faculty will produce outstanding research, win MacArthur/Sloan Fellowships, etc. </p>
<p>That money also enables 'SC (and WashU) to continue to buy top undergrad students (particularly test scores), raising it’s academic ‘profile’; the bigger the endowment, the more merit money/tuition discounting 'SC can throw around. In contrast, the UCs expect top middle class students to pay full freight to support their low income colleagues.</p>
<p>Top faculty want top grad students with which to work. </p>
<p>You are of course correct, warblers, in that money is only part of the equation, and that academic prestige changes real slowly. Obviously, to move up, someone else has to move down. But there also has to be a focused plan to move up; not all colleges are as ranking-focused as is ‘SC (and WashU). Not all colleges want to play the game so ruthlessly; those colleges are easy pickins’ to be beat. ;)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for this UC fan, the trend is clear to me…</p>
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<p>Last time I checked, this thread was comparing UC-Southern Branch with USC.</p>