<p>Honestly, even if UCLA drops in USNews rankings, it’s still a great school. I don’t see why you can’t have a great experience at either USC or UCLA. Although at UCLA, being a public school, it will be harder as you have to take more initiative. Besides the two being crosstown rivals, I wouldn’t really compare the experiences at USC and UCLA. </p>
<p>Bottom line: Once you’re in college USNews rankings don’t really matter as much. If you’re enjoying college and being productive, why be concerned about a change in ranking for any school? In the public eye a change of a few rankings won’t change the overall perception drastically.</p>
<p>That’s not true at all. I know someone fitting into that exact category who was admitted to Ivies this year and rejected from UCLA/Berkeley. I also know someone with a 4.0 CC GPA who was admitted to a top non-Ivy private and not top UCs. Admissions isn’t a universal thing, sorry bud</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Economy won’t affect Cal and UCLA as much at UC, because of larger enrollment of non-residents, who pay full tuition.</p></li>
<li><p>USC is 15th in % of alumni giving; UCLA is 117th. But UCLA is in top10 every year in total private donation $s. If only 14% of UCLA donate, then that actually bodes well for the future, esp because of rankings for total $.</p></li>
<li><p>Superscoring and retakes help those who graduate lower in their hs graduating classes. Wealthier students can by these two things “buy” their scores. Add: USC takes students from just about any class rank to find these scores, esp at elite preps.</p></li>
<li><p>Per above, UCLA and Cal will have 15% and 23% non-residents in 2010 frosh classes. They aren’t 90+% instaters any more.</p></li>
<li><p>UC admits mature transfers into a major; UCLA rejects many perfect or near-perfect gpas because of a missing class. USC admits students from other colleges, cc, to circumvent the reporting of frosh numbers and accepts them after one year.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These were some of the corrections to misconceptions I found.</p>
<p>Harvard, UPenn and other top schools specifically will not take community college students. Which school did your friend attend? There are Ivies and then there are Ivy-wanna-bes</p>
<p>… would accept cc transfers, but they accepted Ronald Sugar (great name, huh?) who graduated from El Camino CC, who ended up going to UCLA instead, and became head of Northrup Grumman, and who retired this past year.</p>
<p>I think elite colleges will accept some cc xfers, but as you at least intimated, not much.</p>
<p>… of those going to, say, UCLA (or Cal, UC Davis…), and then to Stanford Law or UCSF or some other prestigious or semi-prestigious grad school happens quite a lot. So, if the original intent was to at least somewhat disparage cc xfers, you’d be way off base.</p>
<p>However, there is one other point worth mentioning: the same stats put USC in third place nationally, behind only Stanford and Harvard, at $470M. </p>
<p>These financial differences don’t necessarily make USC a better school. However, they do make USC a wealthier school, and realistically, this seems like a plus in the current economic climate.</p>
Your stats are [accurate[/url</a>]. Clearly UCLA, Cal, and USC are all shifting towards higher percentages of out-of-state students. However, the point is that this shift works to the long-term advantage of USC. </p>
<p>And the 48% number at USC is for last year – it may well be higher for Fall 2010. In a few years, Californians will likely be less than 50% of USC’s entering class. There are obvious political reasons for supposing that this is unlikely to happen at UCLA or Cal.</p>
<p>Second, the shift towards non-residents tends to level the playing field in terms of tuition. For residents, the low in-state tuition has historically been an enormous plus for UC schools over USC. But now enrollments are shifting towards non-residents, who see USC as cost-competitive. That’s a big change in perspective.</p>
<p>what i don’t understand is why are the UCs (UCLA included) keep on admitting more students when the don’t have enough budget… that’s why dragging UC’s reputation down. if UC doesn’t have enough budget, then don’t admit more students.</p>
<p>Corbett, Berkeley’s target for OOS enrollment is only 30%, so the 23% enrollment statistics for Berkeley are commendable given that these OOS students are full-paying students. Given more time, the 30% target for both berkeley and LA will be achieved, maybe even sooner than expected. </p>
<p>what i love to see for both Berkeley and LA, however, is when their student population at the undergrad level is trimmed down to a substantial number. Berkeley and UCLA would be way better off having only 8k and 12k undergrad students respectively.</p>
<p>don’t think this is true. in 5 years, from '05-'10, the amount of freshman students UCLA has admitted has gone up by around 1700 students(from 11k to 13k) . However, in those same 5 years, the amount of applicants UCLA has received has increased by 15,000 (from 42k to 57k) UCLA’s overall admit rate has more or less stayed the same.</p>