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is UCLA not a good school or what?! help me here!

B

BlazingSaddles

Senior member
My dad is convinced that UCLA is not a good school. He says it doesn't have a GREAT name recognition/reputation. Help me prove him wrong!!!

Also, which school would you choose between U of michigan and UCLA? I'm majoring in engineering.
 
I've heard that people from the East Coast think of Berkeley as the only "respectable" California public school, and this reinforces the point.

UCLA has actually gained a lot of prestige in recent years, to the point where it's pretty much on par with Berkeley today (at least this is the consensus among most Californians.)

It's a good school, but if you're from New Hampshire, I'd give Michigan some consideration as well. My college choice came down to attending a California school with cheap tuition, but cost doesn't make a difference in your case. BTW, UCLA has great engineering programs. (I'm a student there.)
 
go to usnews and world report they have a college ranking on their site, where they rank colleges n just about every category
 
actually i'm from New Jersey lol. East coast none the less. my bad for putting that in my profile.

Anyway, I pretty much have to convince my dad its a GREAT school.... and to the best of my knowledge it is. Yea, US nwes has it the same as Michigan, but somehow my dad believes Michigan has more name recognition by far than UCLA.

Thanks for the responses so far.
 
if you look at the overall school, then they're about the same on US News & World Report. but if you look at their engineering programs, UMichigan is ranked above UCLA in both undergraduate programs and graduate programs.
 
your dad just wants you to be closer to home. ucla is better than michigan. i was in the same position. my final choices were ucla, usc, berkeley, michigan and illinois at champaign(?).

i chose ucla. great weather, one of the nicest areas, it's a self-contained village, and there's a LOT of stuff to do around here.
 
you need to get out or something kai, there is so much to do in los angeles...of course i know alot of first and second years are limited by not having cars but there are alotta of great places to eat, hangout, shop 🙂
 
I'd have a hard time classifying either the University of Michigan or UCLA as "GREAT" engineering school. There are much better schools closer to you than either of these; MIT and RPI (my alma mater) to name just two.

That said, I do believe the location of the school you choose is important because the vast majority of companies that recruit graduates come from the state/region where the college is. Plus most of the friends you make during college will get jobs in the same area with you. (And you're likely to find yourself interviewing with people who graduated from these same local colleges and will assure you they're just as good as the big-name colleges in their eyes.)

If you see yourself happily living in the Midwest, then maybe U of M is for you. On the other hand, ULCA might be better if you want to move to the other coast. Either way you're unlikely to end up back in New Jersey (which seems like a plus to me 🙂 ).

Just my 2 cents.... Good Luck!
 
go get the issue of playboy with the girls of UCLA...that will change your dad's mind for sure....

it's not like you're going to play football..... geez...
 


<< Also, which school would you choose between U of michigan and UCLA? I'm majoring in engineering. >>


One of the funny things with those US News Reports rankings (kindly linked above) is that the reputation boost CollegeX gets from the ranking lags 2-3 years behind the publishing of those rankings. Who knows, in the next roundup UCLA may be higher than UofM and you'll be leaving school smelling like the proverbial rose in comparison to a UofM grad. Right now, UofM would be *my* choice if my only criterion was rep. As long as I cared to remember, UofM has always been ranked higher in undergraduate engineering than UCLA so that trend probably won't change any time soon.

But any school you go to will make some deal about that ranking, downplay why they weren't higher, emphasize what they did right, and if there's some serious school rivalries, rub it in... hard. IMHO, the rankings by-and-large are a joke. Just do well wherever you go.
 


<< My dad is convinced that UCLA is not a good school. He says it doesn't have a GREAT name recognition/reputation. Help me prove him wrong!!!

Also, which school would you choose between U of michigan and UCLA? I'm majoring in engineering. >>



CalPoly is better than both of them and it's in a nice place with small class size. They are the #1 engineering school in the country for less than 20K students,.. # 4 here
 
"At UCLA, letters of admission were sent to about 9,350 students, or 21%, of the record 43,369 who applied--a figure that again made UCLA the most popular campus not only in the UC system but nationwide, officials said." latimes article

ucla has a great reputation, as witnessed by the number of applications.

in general, i believe that usnews rankings are extremely biased. one facet that always hurts the rankings of schools in the uc system is the category of alumni giving.

in addition, ucla has a great international reputaion.

in the end, college is what you make of it. as a usc grad (time magazine's and princeton review's college of the year 2000), praising ucla is not something of which i make a habit.

in any event, there is no denying that it is a beautiful campus with world renown faculty members in nearly every field. furthermore, los angeles is certainly an exciting place to live.
 
just remember this. where as U of M is probably one of the best schools in the nation, it is cold in Michigan. And if you're a football fan, Michigan is the most popular college football team in the nation (largest stadium and sold out every game in the 90's). but I'm probably biased, I have alot of family that went to U of M and was considering it for a while as my school.
 
from usnews.com, in terms of general rankings, ucla is more selective than:

northwestern
university of chicago
johns hopkins
carnegie mellon
university of north carolina-chapel hill
university of michigan-ann arbor
rensselaer polytechnic institute

ucla is not only a good school, but a great school.

also, your father's perception of ucla's reputation is most likely geographically biased. everyone, and i mean everyone, on the west coast recognizes it as a great educational institution.
 
ucla is good. i'd say michigan is better, but thats just my opinion sitting down here in texas. ut is a pretty damn good school too. one of the top aerospace engineering schools.

<---- shoulda stuck with ASE
 
UCLA has a great engineering program. They just got an influx of money from a former Professor who made a grip of money from WorldCom, so much that they named the SEAS (school of
engineering and applied sciences) after him. I graduated from there, but not in engineering. My brother is EE there, my dad was Aerospace. He now works in recruiting for a big Defense Contractor and the UCLA students get placed all
over. The international rep is among the best.

It's a good place to go to school. Good balance of academics and sports. Currently we have a better basketball program than Mich (Mich is about to go on probabtion for illegal money to Webber and Traylor) , plus we beat them the last 2 times we played them in football, and in the tournament 3 or 4 years ago 🙂
 


<< My dad is convinced that UCLA is not a good school. He says it doesn't have a GREAT name recognition/reputation. Help me prove him wrong!!!
Also, which school would you choose between U of michigan and UCLA? I'm majoring in engineering. >>


UCLA is a great school in a great area...I don't know anything about Michigan though.

Of course, Cal still smokes the pants off of both of them 🙂

w00t! Go bears...
 
Selectivity is not always an accurate indicator of prestige, and in fact is often out of sync.

Selectivity has more to do with geographic circumstances and type of school.

Smith College, for example, has a 50% acceptance rate (or did so the last time I checked). Its reputation? A VERY good one.

northwestern
university of chicago
johns hopkins


While UCLA may be more selective, the above schools are far more prestigious.


 
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