I’ll expand on these a bit- both are huge world-class research institutions, with massive endowments, and Nobel Laureates on the faculties, and both have different specialties- neither is necessarily better than the other overall.
If you want to be a doctor or lawyer, UT has the better schools for that. If you want to be a petroleum engineer, or have anything to do with agriculture or life sciences, A&M is competitive with any school in the world. A&M’s vet school is one of the top ones in the nation, and probably in the world.
Both schools have highly regarded graduate business programs, and both schools have highly regarded colleges of engineering- it depends on the actual discipline as to which one is better.
It’s a hard call in Texas; neither school is obviously superior, but there are definitely differences in individual programs.
I almost went to one of the top tier UC schools here in CA back when I’d gotten out of high school; I’d been accepted and everything, but damn, the price tag was absolutely astronomical, and so I ultimately didn’t go. The sad thing is that the price has gone up since my experience took place, and I’ve no fuckin’ clue how graduating HS kids manage to do it now. Parents with deep pockets I suppose.
Let me go with the flow here and echo that college rankings are (generally) complete and utter bullshit. Seriously, they’re an American invention that has arisen out of our desire to insert capitalism and competition into every fucking facet of our lives. A big part of me wonders about how foreigners perceive our preoccupation with college prestige in this country, and whether they think its funny or sad.
I’ll give college prestige one thing, though: the halo effect. Basically, if you graduate from a top tier school then you’re probably going to have an easier time getting that great position at the law firm or production company or wherever-the-Hell you want to work. HOWEVER, go five years down the line and you’re going to be in the same position as the guy who went to Podunk Uni for a quarter of the cost; seriously, at that point, nobody cares where you went to school anymore.
As to the OP, CA has two state university systems: the University of California & California State University. In terms of the name factor, the UC is obviously more recognizable - but even then it basically just boils down to Cal - but it’s debatable as to which system will yield the best education. UC’s are research-oriented schools; CSU’s are focused on teaching.
That doesn’t help much though. Notwithstanding silenus’ comment, the University of California is more or less a single entity with ten heads (campuses), not counting the additional institutions and labs that don’t belong to a particular campus. I’m not asserting that a degree from the newest campus, Merced, will be as impressive as one from Berkeley or UCLA, but I think the quality and character of the education you can get there is probably not much different.
It’s always been my impression that the CSU system, by contrast, is a loose agglomeration of colleges and universities that are basically independent of each other. In California the “State” State University system is less highly regarded than the University of “State” system, but I don’t think that’s true of other states that use have similar separate state university systems.
Right. I went to Tulane and it was known as the Harvard of Louisiana. I am not sure what is up with the real Harvard though. I used to walk across both Harvard’s and the MIT campus every day during lunch when I worked in Cambridge (they are really close to each other). I am sure the math majors and engineering students at Harvard consider themselves to be the MIT of that specific area of Cambridge. It is so dumb. The U.S. has the gift of being absolutely flooded with great colleges and universities. Overproduction of great (and very expensive) colleges and universities is a problem most other countries would love to have.
