UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

[Artsakh]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

I think I've decided to stick to UCLA. If you don't mind me asking, how do you know that an undergraduate institution is a major factor in the admissions decision for post graduate? I mean I had heard that UCLA even likes to get people outside of their system. I don't know why or how that would be true, but its something I heard. Maybe its too get more people to be part of their schools in general.

If it weren't a factor, people wouldn't be killing themselves to get into such highly ranked schools. For law school, the undergrad institution is a major factor. For medical school, not as big of a factor.

[Sip]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

USC and UCLA are currently tied at 27th place in the US new and world report rankings. Looking back, UCLA has gone down in the rankings year after year, while the opposite is true for USC. I think USC will outrank UCLA this year; the new rankings come out in August.

The "overall" US World News ranking is fairly useless. Not too many people who are in the "biz" put too much weight on that ranking. Unfortunately that ranking has slowly become the most popular even though it is a rediculous ranking system.

But if you look at area specific rankings in US World news, it's somewhat ok. I don't think 5 up or down means much there but at least if you look at top 10 vs top 20, it does do a decent job.

I haven't seen the most recent rankings but schools seem to move up and down those ranks like crazy each year which again is somewhat strange

[karoaper]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

From what I understand and learned along the way (always in retrospect), the breakdown of factors by relevance is:

1. Which school you graduated from (and with what GPA in your major)
2. What was your standardized test score (GRE, MCATS, the engineering test score I forgot about)
3. How impressive was your own work, irrelevant of where you studied? What projects and skills do you have behind your belt? How impressive was your capstone project? Have you had any good internships?
4. Related to 1 is who wrote the letters of recommendation

Numbers 3 and 2 are your saving grace if you happen to go a low ranked school. The reason why 1 and 4 are so important on their own is because the thinking is, you have to be a hard-worker and/or smart to either survive in a tough program and/or have positive recommendations from big shots in the field.

Anyways, what do I know.

If the difference in fees is not going to hurt you too bad, I'd recommend also to stay in UCLA. Even if the class instruction levels are on par, you'll benefit from running into many more important people in your field. And if there's one thing that is crucial and probably should go on that list is that important contacts are the wild card in both education and the corporate world.

[Siggie]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

I think the university might influence the weight given to the GPA, but scores, GPA, and letters of rec are more important. It matters more what you did than where you did it. Just take advantage of all the opportunities there to distinguish yourself and you'll be fine. You need to work closely with faculty in order to get good letters. It doesn't help much when all they can say is that you got an A in their class.