<p>Founders Rock of the University of California is located on the Berkeley campus. Berkeley’s departments, faculty and students are still the finest. UCLA or any other UC campus wouldn’t exist in their current form if it wasn’t for Berkeley. For chrissakes, your fight song came from Berkeley. That classifies it as the flagship of the UC system. Berkeley = Cal = California. You still need the satellite LA moniker.</p>
<p><em>Yes, I’m still </em><em>ed about the lame game… ;)</em></p>
<p>UCB is the flagship of the UC system, even if UCLA is more highly ranked in some areas. (and UCB’s reputation world wide surpasses UCLA’s. )</p>
<p>beyphy, it’s like saying, The USA has two Capital Cities: Washington DC and New York. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?</p>
<p>UCBChemGrad gave you a definition of the word, flagship. We’re talking about “flagship university”. If you want its meaning, here’s where you can find it.</p>
<p>[Flagship</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship]Flagship”>Flagship - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>For all practical purposes, Berkeley and UCLA are both California flagships. Anything else seems like hair-splitting.</p>
<p>Those schools offer a wonderful balance, two great universities with different and complementary strengths. How could you point to one and call it a flagship? And which one?</p>
<p>^ Yeah, like how can you really point to Washington DC as the Capital city of the US when NYC is bigger, and is the center of commerce and trade in the whole USA? It makes perfect sense. lol</p>
<p>UW gives very few true merit scholarships. Though we are in-state my son will get much better merit offers from out of state publics like Pittsburgh and Minnesota. The UW is getting their funding cut every year from our cash strapped state. Very soon it will be unaffordable even for residents. My son is not even using UW as a safety.</p>
<p>That classifies it as the flagship of the UC system. Berkeley = Cal = California. You still need the satellite LA moniker.</p>
<p>True about the Berkeley = Cal = California = Flagship</p>
<p>However, I don’t think of the other UCs as satellites. In the UC system, every UC is a stand alone university issuing degrees with their own names and having its own sports teams and names. It’s not like the Penn State system where PSU-UP is like Planet Earth with a bunch of satellites circling it. </p>
<p>That said, I do agree that while Cal is the Flagship, UCLA is not to be thought of as some lesser state school. It’s not like UMich and MSU. It’s more like IU and Purdue.</p>
<p>UM and MSU or IU and Purdue are wrong examples. UM and MSU don’t belong to the same university system, as do IU and Purdue. IU is a system, like the UC is. IU comprises of:</p>
<p>Urbana-Champaign
Chicago
Springfield</p>
<p>Time will come when the State of Illinois will become like California where the population will grow to over 50M. When that time comes, the Chicago campus will be improved, and maybe will be able to compete with Urbana-Champaign. But even then, Urbana-Champaign will remain the flagship campus, because it is the oldest, original, and the model from which the university system grew.</p>
<p>*UM and MSU or IU and Purdue are wrong examples. UM and MSU don’t belong to the same university system, as do IU and Purdue. IU is a system, like the UC is. IU comprises of:</p>
<p>Urbana-Champaign
Chicago
Springfield
*</p>
<p>Ugh…IU is not in Illinois. IU is Indiana University. I think you’re thinking of UIUC. </p>
<p>And, my point wasn’t about systems…my point was about state schools within the same state. IU & Purdue are both good state schools within the same state. IU is the flagship, but that doesn’t mean Purdue is some little brother.</p>
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<p>your analogy isn’t good. the capitol of the united states has nothing to do with it being the ‘most important’ or ‘the finest’ which i consider implicit in flagship. </p>
<p>Show me any other university system that has two universities anywhere close to the level of quality that UCLA and Cal share. I certainly can’t think of any (UTexas doesn’t have this; UVa doesn’t have this; Michigan doesn’t have this; CSU doesn’t have this. UNC doesn’t have this, etc.)</p>
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<p>UCLA has basically undergone acronymy. It’s the same with other things like ATT.</p>
<p>I am not equating these two schools with UCB and UCLA, but Pennsylvania with Pitt and Penn State has two roughly equivalent public universities (This is, of course, avoiding all the folderal about how Pitt and PSU are not truly “state” schools.) While I would agree that PSU is generally considered the “flagship” school in Pennsylvania, Pitt actually has a higher endowment and is certainly more highly regarded for the health professions. In addition, several ranking systems have these two schools very closely ranked.</p>
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<p>I can think of a couple of examples where states have centered certain programs in different universities. For instance Georgia has its primary engineering program at Georgia Tech while the University of Georgia is the primary campus for most liberal arts and for ag. Most would consider UGA to be the flagship, but Georgia Tech is the higher rated university.</p>
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Equal quality possibly in undergraduate student strength. UCLA is pretty far behind Cal in other academic measures (i.e. faculty achievements, professional and graduate schools).</p>
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<p>One would sincerely hope not.</p>
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<p>that argument seems to get less and less strong each year. UCLA has more than its share of merits (i.e. pretty much fathering the internet) as well as success of alumni (e.g. Blizzard.) I still think that both schools are just good at different things and that it isn’t really fair to say that berkeley’s ‘better’ than UCLA since the things UCLA excels at berkeley doesn’t even have (e.g. film school, med school, etc.)</p>
<p>its comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>“UW gives very few true merit scholarships. Though we are in-state my son will get much better merit offers from out of state publics like Pittsburgh and Minnesota. The UW is getting their funding cut every year from our cash strapped state. Very soon it will be unaffordable even for residents. My son is not even using UW as a safety.”</p>
<p>You might look at the budget info for Pitt and UMInn. No better and neither has financial assets of UW. They are cutting somewhere to buy students. UMinn and Pitt instate tuition are FAR higher than UW’s. UW is still a bargain.</p>
<p>With the exception of a few states (California, Michigan), most state schools have horrible reputations that will open zero doors for its graduates. Can you imagine going to a wall street firm and saying you went to the University of Alabama? lol. For students in those states, obviously going to an OOS school is going to be a much wiser choice, provided they can afford it.</p>
<p>Joe Scarborough is a proud U ALabama alum. Although he went into government rather than Wall Street, I’d say he’s done okay - even having been disadvantaged enough to graduate from UA…</p>
<p>barons - Not sure why you put U Minn and U Pitt together; they seem to be examples from different ends of the spectrum. Minn is a true value, whereas Pitt is the second most expensive state school in the nation (behind Penn State). U Minn out-of-state is cheaper than Pitt in-state!</p>
<p>“With the exception of a few states (California, Michigan), most state schools have horrible reputations that will open zero doors for its graduates”</p>
<p>Beyond ridiculous statement. Once again talking in the superlative makes anyone look foolish.</p>