Best place to go to university in USA? (Esp. California)

partygirluk · #1 04-25-2005, 04:04 PM

So I want to do postgrad in the States. Want to go to a good uni, but there are plenty of them. So, assuming I just want to go to one of the best 20 or so schools in the U.S, where is best to live?

I'm very tempted by California as AFAIK it is very multicultural, has an amazing climate, and lots of girls walking around in tank tops. It also has 4 of the top 15 schools in the U.S for Economics postgrad (Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, San Diego). I don't really know much about the advantages of San Diego v. LA v. San Fransisco v. whatever.

What are the various +s and -s of each option?

istewart · #2 04-25-2005, 04:10 PM

Despite how gay the Red Sox are I looked at a ton of schools in Boston. It looked like a great place to go to school.

NLSoldier · #3 04-25-2005, 04:17 PM

By San Diego do you mean USD or UCSD?

partygirluk · #4 04-25-2005, 04:34 PM

UCSD

NLSoldier · #5 04-25-2005, 04:39 PM

Weak sauce. You should check out USD. Amazing campus with amazingly good looking women. Pretty good school as well.

JaBlue · #6 04-25-2005, 05:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Weak sauce. You should check out USD. Amazing campus with amazingly good looking women. Pretty good school as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

don't listen to this. USD is a terrible school compared to UCSD and they're close enough by that it really doesn't matter where you go if you just wanna meet hot chicks.

thatpfunk · #7 04-25-2005, 05:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]

don't listen to this. USD is a terrible school compared to UCSD and they're close enough by that it really doesn't matter where you go if you just wanna meet hot chicks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Everyone I know that has gone to UCSD under or post grad hates the school. They like the location etc, but think the school is miserable.

JustinA may be able to give the best opinion since he goes there (undergrad though), so...

Asufiji2004 · #8 04-25-2005, 04:37 PM

no stay away

partygirluk · #9 04-25-2005, 04:40 PM

FWIW this is the ranking from www.phds.org based purely on quality of teaching

1. Massachusetts Inst of Technology
2. Princeton University
3. University of Chicago
4. Stanford University
5. Harvard University
6. University of Minnesota
7. University of California-Berkeley
8. Northwestern University
9. Yale University
10. University of Rochester
11. University of Pennsylvania
12. Univ of California-San Diego
13. California Institute Technology
14. University of Wisconsin-Madison
15. University of Michigan
16. Univ of California-Los Angeles
17. Columbia University
18. Brown University
19. Cornell University
20. Duke University

sfer · #10 04-25-2005, 05:03 PM

For every big-time research university in the US, there is a big difference between graduate and undergraduate education. As an undergrad at Berkeley, you will not be sitting in lectures with Nobel Laureates. This is not to say that undergrad profs there aren't good at what they do, but don't put too much credence into rankings like this.