Click here to go to the NEW College Discussion Forum

Hey, I got into both USC and UCLA. USC has given me a half scholarship, which would make it around 24,000. They also admitted me into the Marshall School of Business. UCLA would cost me around 16,000 and I would probably be an Econ or Poli Sci major. My long term goal is a prestigious Law School. Which college would best enable me to reach my ULTIMATE goal?

By Retrospect (Retrospect) on Tuesday, April 01, 2003 - 09:24 pm: Edit

USC would probably be your best choice. I heard from my friend that the grades are somewhat inflated there, and its also easier than UCLA. The top students coming out of UCLA are I think better than the ones from USC. Therefore, its less competition and you'll probably get better grades.

By Mzinn (Mzinn) on Wednesday, April 02, 2003 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Don't grad schools know if grades are inflated at a particular university? Do they consider how competitive the universities are?

By Samia (Samia) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:10 pm: Edit

OK, so this was the exact same decision I had to make this month, and well...as of today, I'm offically a Trojan (sent in the deposit yesterday and rejected UCLA's offer today). It's very strange, considering none of you know me and if any of you did, you'd find it quite shocking that I gave up the school that I had wanted since the age of 5, the school and atmosphere that fits my personality oh so well (Westwood= high class). Anyway, here's an excerpt from my journal a few weeks ago, as I'm sure you're thinking what I was thinking. USC or UCLA? A trojan or a bruin? Ghetto or high class? Private or Public? Red and Gold or Blue and Gold? AHHH...What a hard decision. OK, well, as you can tell, I can't make a decision as to what college I should go to. Let's look at the pro's and con's of each.

USC: Private school= small classes and more opportunities, great internships which lead to contacts and future job possibilities, school encourages the mastery of multiple disciplines(you can have like five majors all at once), you're a Scholar= prestige and money, bad part of town, ranked 30th in the nation according to US News and World Report, lots of housing

UCLA: amazingly pretty campus, well known, #3 public school in the nation (#25 overall), lots of people, nice college town (westwood's hecka fun), there's ALOT on campus so you never really have to leave, really large campus...small fish in a big pond kind of feeling

In the end, it's what you feel is right. I went on a trip to LA with my friends, had an amazing time at UCLA where we stayed in the dorms and really lived the life, visited USC and was completely bored (it was a Sunday), but in the end... I've chosen USC.
Good luck w/your decision.