Best in the State:
If you live in California, you are pretty lucky when it comes to higher education.
You get the privilege of attending many of the nation's premier public universities at in-state prices! You also can pick amongst many of the nation's best private colleges.
Public or private, truth be told, if you live in California, you're in pretty good shape.
It took me a while to decide between Stanford and UC Berkeley. I was almost positive, in a huge upset, Berkeley would beat Stanford. But several factors led me to pick Stanford as the best in the state of California.
Stanford University is U.S. News and World Report's number 4 national university. It's the dream college for parents and students alike.
Stanford's endowment is in the tens of billions of dollars, the largest of any U.S. university.
Stanford costs $35 thousand a year in tuition, plus $11 thousand for room and board. So, basically, $46 thousand dollars a year. That was one of the main things that had me leaning towards Berekely, which is only $27 thousand a year for out of state students, $8 thousand in-state.
But Stanford did something rather humanitarian. They took a large portion of their endowment and used it to cover the tuition costs of students whose families make less than $100 thousand a year. If your family makes less than $60 thousand, Stanford covers your room and board too!
98% of Stanford undergraduate students live on campus
Stanford actually has more graduate students than undergraduate students; 8 thousand to 6.5 thousand. And considering that it may be the world's largest university, with over 8 thousand contiguous acres, you will have plenty of ground to explore.
Take your date for a walk through the arboretum. Point out some exotic birds, and then say something poignantly deep about life as you amble past the Stanford Family Mausoleum. Then head to the British Bankers Club to tie one on, it's a great bar and restaurant with a lot of history. The building has been a bank, a city hall, a police station and jail, and now a saloon-style restaurant and bar.
Speaking of history, Stanford has some great history and traditions. There is the Midnight Breakfast during finals week, when the faculty serve the students. Students celebrating their birthday are typically tossed in the showers, and at Full Moon on the Quad, seniors exchange kisses with freshmen.
Another such tradition would be the annual "Big Game" against Cal. This historic rivalry gave us "The Play," best known for Joe Starkey screaming "The band is out on the field!" on KGO radio.
The Stanford Cardinal also has a great golf program, consistently one of the nation's best. Stanford has it's own beautiful golf course in Palo Alto, and the program has churned out talents like Tom Watson, Michelle Wie, and some guy named, oh, I think it was Lion Forest? He turned out to be a pretty good golfer.
Academically, Stanford is hard to beat. It has the nation's best MBA program according to U.S. News, and second best earth sciences program. The undergraduate program is indisputably one of the world's best.
That being said, Stanford is remarkably difficult to get into. Put it this way: you have a better chance of surviving a round of Russian Roulette with 5 bullets in the chamber than getting accepted into Stanford. And if you're applying for Stanford Med School, your odds of getting in are the same as surviving two rounds with five bullets.
Morbid, no? Needless to say, have a backup in mind. And given the choices you have in California, you can still have a great consolation prize.
Study in the Golden State
Public: - University of California
- Berkeley
- San Diego
- Santa Barbara
- Santa Cruz
- Davis
- Irvine
- Los Angeles
- California State University
- California Polytechnic Institute
- Long Beach
- San Diego
- Fullerton
The cream of that very fertile crop is the University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley is the nation's best public university, according to U.S. News; 21 overall.
And at a mere $8 thousand a year for instate tuition, this is probably the best value for an education in the nation, if not the world. But you will still have to pay $14 thousand a year in room and board. Mere peanuts for what you are getting in return.
Berkeley has a very prestigious collection of alumni: eight Nobel Laureates (another 61 affiliated with the University), and three Pulitzer Prize winners among many others.
Berkeley also has the nation's best stable of graduate programs; 35 of the 36 graduate programs rank in the top 10.
The student to faculty ratio is a respectable 15:1, and the average class size teeters on 30 students per class.
And the University of California, Berkeley is no slouch in the athletic department either. In sports circles Berkeley is better known as simply "Cal," or the Golden Bears. I guess they figure Berkeley sounded a little too academic. But these smarties have a very reputable sports pedigree as well.
But to be admitted into Berkeley, you probably need to have scored in the 95th percentile on the SAT and have a GPA of 4.0. Berkeley, after all, has no shortage of applicants for its scant 4.5 thousand spaces available each year.
But Berkeley's 44 thousand applicants a year are nothing compared to the University of California, Los Angeles' 55 thousand applications a year, the most for any U.S. university. UCLA admits about 12 thousand a year.
Your odds of getting here a slightly improved by the fact that UCLA has been steadily increasing its number of admissions each year. It is the nations leading spender in research among public universities, second overall after Johns Hopkins.
The schools of Law, Management, Public Affairs and Medicine all rank in the nation's top 20. UCLA also has the second best graduate school for education in the nation.
UCLA is the number 25 national university and was listed as on of Kaplan's 25 "New Ivies."
And talk about athletics, UCLA has 124 national championships. their basketball and football teams are some of the best on the collegiate level. UCLA has a legendary rivalry with cross-town rivals USC that produces some great matchups.
If you get in, be sure to check out the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden, just a mile from campus.
The University of California, San Diego is probably the most affordable of the ranked UC colleges at a mere $19 thousand dollars a year for out of state tuition.
UCSD has received recognition for its exemplary science department. Newsweek magazine rated it among its "Hottest Colleges" for science for its grants and diverse course selection.
California State University, as good as the colleges may be can't hold a candle to the University of California. That is only because the University of California has such a multitude of good universities. This had led to the California State University system being referred to as the "Rodney Dangerfield" of gigher education.
Private:
- Stanford University
- University of Southern California
- Pepperdine University
- California Institute of Technology
- University of the Pacific
- San Diego University
- Claremont Colleges
All you really need to know that you desperately want to attend Stanford University is to catch a fleeting glance of its campus. The campus, located in Palo Alto, Ca. looks like a resort! Palm trees, cloudless skies, golf, if you weren't taking classes you would probably think you were on vacation.
And because off the small student body and large campus size, 90% of students get to live in student housing.
And speaking of beautiful campuses, check out nearby Pepperdine University some time. It's located in friggin' Malibu, on a bunch of friggin' ridges, looking out over the scenic Pacific friggin' Ocean. I mean, it looks like Machu Picchu if Machu Picchu was set by the beach. Come on, that's not even fair!
If the Princeton Review's award for "Most Beautiful Campus" wasn't enough, Pepperdine was also recognized for having "Dorms Like Palaces." If I had known there was such a category I would have researched more thoroughly. I think I was in the "Dorms Like Vomitoria" section.
But bourgeois dorm rooms aside, because of Pepperdine's Christian foundation, it is also recognized as a very conservative university.
Pepperdine is ranked 54 in national universities by U.S. News, and the law school is 59. The business school is rated in the top 25. Still, the ratings are pretty much average.
This wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for the cost. Pepperdine's tuition costs $35 thousand a year. So, basically paying as much as as a Stanford education for a school rated 50 spaces beneath it in national rankings? I can't help but thinking your money isn't going towards your education, but rather towards the resort lifestyle.
The California institute of Technology, Caltech in the parlance of our times, is one of the nation's smartest schools. It is ranked number 5 in the nation. It is also one of America;s smallest schools with only 864 undergraduates enrolled.
Caltech stresses quality education over having more students. So if you are among the lucky few to attend, you will have one of the best educations a university is capable of giving.
Most students major in science or engineering fields. So if you aren't interested in pursuing those as majors, don't waste your time with this application.
Caltech doesn't offer much in the way of athletics either, that is unless you enjoy a spirited fencing match.
But those geniuses at the institute have hatched some great traditions and pranks. The best prank has got to be the "Great Rose Bowl Hoax." Students got the fans in attendance to raise up flip cards that spelled out "CALTECH" despite the fact the game was between the Washington Huskies and the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
And if you want to talk about schools that are hard to get into, look no further than the Claremont Colleges. Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Scripps and Pitzer are the five colleges that share a campus in Claremont. All five rank in U.S. News' top 50 Liberal Arts colleges (7, 11, 15, 28, and 49 respectively).
In particular, Harvey Mudd (the science an engineering school, which has a virtually unknown rivalry with Caltech) is one of the hardest schools in the nation to be accepted into. The middle 50% of students' SAT math scores is 740-800. In actuality, all of the Claremont Colleges are remarkably difficult to get into, and all provide stellar education in a small school environment.
But if you want to go to a school with a great athletics program, check out the University of Southern California; U.S. news 27 national university.
The USC Trojans are perennially the class of the Pac-10 in football. USC fills their roster with the nations best high school athletes and regularly churns out Heisman winners and NFL stars. Plus you get a built-in rivalry with UCLA and Notre Dame. And I promise you have never heard anything like Los Angeles Memorial Stadium when the cross-town rival Bruins are visiting.
But in general, USC has arguably the best collections of collegiate teams in the nation. And I can tell you right now, attending a Division I sporting event is a very unique experience, and one that every college student should experience.
USC's law school ranks 18, the business and engineering schools rank 21, and the medical school ranks 36 in the nation.
The school is also rich with history and culture. Is houses the Warner Bros. studio archives, and 52 thousand Holocaust survivor testimonies, and has one of the largest library systems in the U.S.
At $45 a year in tuition and housing, USC can be a little pricey. But what do you expect? You will be living in downtown Los Angeles; East of Beverly Hills and just South of Hollywood. Expect to see stars, many of whom will be filming on campus. And given LA's famous nightlife, you'll probably be rubbing elbows with them in the bar.
Online:
- University of California, Irvine
- California State University, Northridge
- California Coast University
- West Coast University
- Independence University
California Coast University offers Accociate degrees in business and psychology, and Bachelor's degrees in business, management, psychology, and health care administration. Master's degrees are available in education and business.
The quarter century old Independence University deals almost exclusively with the medical field, including nursing degrees, which can be very profitable. Independence offers certificate programs, Associate, Bachelor's and Master's degrees.
West Coast University, much like Independence, offers Associate and Bachelor's degrees in health care administration and nursing. But WCU does not have the variety of courses offered an Independence, making the latter the better choice for launching a career in medicine.
UC Irvine offers a handful of certificates and individual courses. Northridge offers two masters programs.
California Universities
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Stanford University - James H. Clark Center
Stanford University - Halls of Learning
Stanford University
Pepperdine University - Library
Pepperdine University
University of Southern California - "Tommy Trojan"
University of Southern California - Bouvard Auditorium
University of Southern California - Trojans
University of California, Los Angeles - Royce Hall
University of California - Bruins
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