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I'm really curious about Loyola Marymount University. On many web sites, you can find a detailed summary and analysis on a school like Harvard or Yale, or even for a big school like Texas or Arizona. However, because of LMU's small size, it's very difficult to learn more about the school.

The USNews Rankings don't help because of the fact that LMU isn't a doctoral university, and therefore is not listed in the main rankings. Therefore, I was hoping that people at this message board could help me out.

I'm aware LMU isn't the top school in Los Angeles (UCLA and USC are) however, I was curious about where LMU does in fact rank? I know most people in the midwest probably have never heard about LMU, but what do people from the California or Los Angeles area think about LMU? For example, if you were to rank the school from 1-10 (1 being a community college and 10 being an ivy league school) where would LMU rank? What is LMU's academic reputation? Is it a bad school, average school, good school, great school, amazing school, and so on?

Also, what is the school's other reputation? I'm aware it probably isn't much of a party school, but what exactly is it? Like everyone knows Colorado is a party school, and everyone knows UC Irvine is not... but where does LMU rank?

Finally, if you were to compare LMU to other popular colleges in the United States, what would you compare it to? For example, you would likely compare Harvard to Yale, or UC Berkeley to UCLA, but what would you compare LMU to? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

By Spartan858585 (Spartan858585) on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 11:45 pm: Edit

49ersfan I hope this helps but I visited Loyola Marymount a couple of months ago and I came away pretty impressed. The campus is absolutely gorgeous, it may be smaller than UCLA or USC but it is much more scenic. For example it sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Can't get that much better when it comes to location and weather. If you are talking about rankings for the US News and World it is 3rd for Master's in the West. Which is really good considering it beat out a top notch school in Cal Poly. The only schools of its kind that are rated higher are Trinity and Santa Clara. And to top it all off my tour guide was a transfer from UC Berkeley. She said she transferred from Berkeley to Loyola Marymount because she didn't like the crowded classes that plague the UC system and Berkekely in particular. She also realized after growing up in Northern California that she now wanted to go to school in Southern California. So she picked Loyola Marymount because it gave a student of her caliber more attention. At Berkeley she was merely a number. If you want a perfect comparison to Loyola Marymount then compare it to Santa Clara. I believe you can do that on collegeboard.com In terms of what type of a school Loyola Marymount is, it is a more conservative school and a little preppy. A lot of rich kids attend the school. In terms of partying there are a plenty of frat parties to go to and another common option is to go party with the USC and UCLA students on their campus. Overall Loyola Marymount is great school and in my opinion is a little bit underrated.

By 49ersfan (49ersfan) on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 06:21 pm: Edit

Anyone else have any opinions?

By B18c1cx (B18c1cx) on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 08:10 pm: Edit

The school is rather easy to get into and it's reputation is pretty bad.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 09:18 pm: Edit

LMU's reputation is NOT pretty bad. (I owe one student a lengthy e-mail on it's plusses.)

As for easy to get into, it's average SAT I is 1150+, which isn't Ivy League but isn't Cal State, either.

In particular, its English, Writing, and Film departments are quite respectable.

An arguable comparison in both directions is Pepperdine; the latter's location rocks and is slightly more selective but otherwise I'd pick LMU for a number of reasons.