(Disclaimer: I'm a UCLA alum.)
I would say weirdly exclusively in Southern California. I can’t think of a school with more regional status and less national status than USC. Maybe some of the bespoke NYC schools? Hell, I’ve worked with folks in Oregon and Washington who have thrown out resumes because they went to USC.
The state schools in the midwest are an example of this - say, Kansas State University. Another one: Catholic schools -- St. Louis University; huge regionally, but not nationally. I was not marinated in NY State, but my impression is that the SUNY schools have some of this too.
Really, I think there are a lot of colleges with a big regional reputation, but not so much nationally.
If you know international students, you can see the same kind of thing play out in a larger stage -- universities that are top nationally, but not so well-known outside the country. Say, Seoul National University, or Tsinghua, or ENS, or some of the IITs or IISc. And incidentally, for these excellent schools, it's not their fault that their quality is not well-known outside their host region.
19: UCLA 22: Berkeley (tie) 22: USC (tie)
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...
Also, Berkeley is about where it would be given its acceptance standards and standardized scores outside of EECS are among the lowest in the top 25. The only school where it’s actually getting easier to be accepted year after year.
But really, its pretty foolish to compare an entire school to another. A given program against another given program? Sure. There are fields that USC and UCLA each might be at the top of, and there are fields where they are going to be much worse. That's the real rub with these rankings, combining and binning aspects of schools that aren't related at all. The only thing that's worth looking at is the rigor or research output of a specific program.
This jives with engineering industries, where USC is a consistent producer of aerospace/mechanical and tech talent. USC is considered a top school in many other research fields as well.
I think it's more likely that you actually know very little about academics at these institutions.
Disclaimer: I work at UPenn (doing research!) and went to USC.
All lists are lame, do you like Niche? UCLA is 29, USC is 20. UCLA has an acceptance rate of 16%, USC 17%. USC SAT range is 1300-1500, UCLA is 1220-1450
I was responding to the poster who said the schools weren't academically comparable. they obviously are shockingly similar. Don't know or care which is "better". But only a radical partisan would argue they aren't similar.
How much due diligence do I you think I owe you in a comment on HN? If you google USC acceptance rate, the primary result is 16.6%. I was referring to Niche rankings, which says 17%. I think having a source and an accurate (albeit a couple years old) number is better than 99% of comments. So maybe you believe you are entitled to more, but if so, then maybe you should lead by example and share more data yourself instead of just sniping.
The difference between these two UCs is not as great as you might think. Neither has the elite status of ivy league schools, but most people I've run across on hiring committees viewed the two ad fairly comparable.
Note: I went to UCLA for grad school and have many family members that have gone to Cal.
What industry do you work in?
I recall being asked by a visiting partner who was considering having me work on his case where I went to undergrad. At the time, I was a senior associate, so I had a decade of schooling and experience since undergrad.
Edit: sorry that was rushed. Source of my skepticism - worked with grads from both, tech-wise CalTech is way better and therefore comp follows.