Who is the number one? UCLA and UC Berkeley’s claims on social media

Who is the number one?

UCLA and UC Berkeley seem to disagree. In fact, they refused to return from the top.

When U.S. News and World Report released its global rankings last month, Cal was the first public university to appear on the list, even at the sixth technical level, behind only five private campuses, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

But it's the top people The college that popped up at the University of Berkeley was enough, resulting in the avalanche of social media that owned the oldest UC campus.

UC Berkeley posted “#1 Public” on its Instagram and Tiktok accounts with photos of Oski The Bear and the hashtag “#HolyAirball,” a reference for memes that seriously underestimate someone’s talents or achievements.

UCLA began publishing its own society within a few days: “Still #1,” citing another news from public universities in the U.S. national rankings, which appeared nine months ago and made the Brown Bear the top public campus in the United States.

Fans and alumni of the two schools have been quarreling ever since.

“Wow, UCLA really takes these rankings very seriously,” wrote a user in the Berkeley Reddit community.

Berkeley fans flooded UCLA's Instagram, Oski gifs dancing bears.

“Laugh, UCLA and Berkeley both posted No. 1,” Instagram followers commented on both campus degrees.

“UCLA #1 in the national rankings, it's actually important 😇” The most respectable comment about its ranking in the Tiktok post on Berkeley.

Tiktok's comment said: “Well, UCLA is the whole day a day.

Rich Lyons, the president of UC Berkeley, even joined.

“We admire UCLA's desire to get a single ranking for its undergraduate programs and use it for everything,” Lyons, a Berkeley alumnus in 1982, told Times. “We know how challenging the sibling competition is for young siblings. Go to the bear (and the brown bear).

Mary Osako is a UCLA alumnus in 1996 and vice president of strategic communications at the school. He ranked as the top public on the U.S. News’ national rankings for many years.

“The ubiquitous brown bears love celebrating our number one ranking – we've been working on this for eight years, but who's counting?” she said. “Our romping jokes may have some (golden) feathers wrinkled. UCLA and Carl are both top public universities that are changing the world. Bruin or bear, we can all be proud of it.”

The school has long been competing for professors, students, athletes and federal grants. Add ranking to the list.

UCLA students are in front of the Bruin Bear statue.

(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

But what to give? Is there really a number 1?

The rankings of U.S. News and World Report vary in methodology and scope. The global list examines 2,250 institutions – both private and public, focusing on academic research, including citations and regional reputation. This should be an overall assessment, not based solely on graduate or undergraduate programs.

On the global list, UCLA was named the third highest public university in the country. University of Washington Seattle is the second public school.

The national public universities and universities list is attributed to undergraduate experience on 1,500 campuses, including graduation rates, first-year retention rates, student performance in low-income families, and the results of a “peer assessment” survey sent to university presidents, provost, provost and dean.

In that statistics, Berkeley is second only to UCLA. These two competitors have been Neck and Neck for several years, including the #1 tie for 2023.

Rankings are very popular – many campuses in the country covet the list and are controversial.

Over the years, several prestigious professional schools have withdrawn from providing data for the U.S. Journalism Law School Rankings. In 2022, UCLA and UC Irving (UC) Law deans said they would resist rankings because of the group's methodology, which they said was a student who refused to pursue a career in public service. That year, former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said undergraduate rankings were a “joking” because they pushed schools to compete systematically.

There is also a competitive list maker. Some of the most popular content: The Wall Street Journal’s “Best University”, Forbes’ “Top American Universities”, and International Rankings, Times Higher Education and QS “World University Rankings.”

“There are many rankings, each with a slightly different focus, and each ranking has its own source of noise,” said UC Berkeley Prime Minister Lyons. “The stronger the picture is their weighted average.”

Students walked through the Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley.

(Eric Risberg/AP)

In the business of college ranking services, they themselves are competing for popular niches, both UCS tend to be good, although Berkeley did beat Westwood.

• In the Wall Street Journal list, Berkeley ranks 8th, while UCLA is 68th. The journal strongly estimates that a school will affect the salary of graduate students.
• Forbes ranked the Bears in 5th place and the Bears in 13th place.
• The Times Higher Education ranked Berkeley in 8th, with the 10 gaps above Westwood.
• In QS count, CAL is the 17th bit, and UCLA is the 46th bit. The Times Higher Education and QS rankings with an international perspective, carefully studying academic research.

Soubhik Barari, a research methodologist at the University of Chicago NORC, studied university rankings last year and co-authored a 61-page paper that analyzed the list of major universities.

He found that none of them were perfect. Many people have changed the way they weigh different factors or observations. He said they usually don't consider uncertainty, margins or errors.

“So many people are following these college rankings,” Barari said. “It's not always clear what they are measuring. Are you measuring the best college for the average college student? Are you measuring based on other factors that think are important for higher education? Are you looking at the median college student?

Tufts undergraduate Barari, who holds a graduate degree from Harvard University, avoids one side of the UC competition.

The Bruis vs. Bears competition seems far from over, so the ranking bragging continues on social media and campus sites.

When UCLA recently posted about its No. 1 position on Tiktok, the most popular comment said: “Not 1.”

The second most comments? “I thought #1 was Berkeley.”

Another direction responded when Berkeley published a position similar to Tiktok.

“Love confidence, but not ❤️.”

“Great! What about you guys posting #2 on Instagram.

Still, the chart and stack application shows that both campuses are ideal land.

The two schools have more in common than they would.

After all, aren’t bears bears?