University of California, Merced, received a Research 1 designation by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education on Thursday, Feb. 13. This distinction puts UC Merced in the top 10% of eligible universities in the nation, indicating emphasis on research doctorates and programs. UC Merced was founded in 2005 and has awarded a total of 900 doctorate degrees and spent $173 million on research.
This echoes a wider rise in national prestige for UC Merced by several metrics, including rising to #1 in social mobility in the Wall Street Journal’s America’s Best Colleges rankings. UC Merced Public Information Officer Jody Murray points out that the achievements are the result of hard work from both staff and students.
“Even having the imprint of a University of California campus, there was no guarantee that UC Merced would necessarily perform or show the metrics that are necessary to start moving up the ranks,” Murray said. “It’s not like we’re sitting back and falling into these rankings accidentally. We work hard with the folks out there doing the ranking.”
Although he takes pride in UC Merced’s recent recognition, Murray emphasizes that U.S. News doesn’t necessarily capture a holistic assessment of a school’s merits, especially in areas such as community interactions and outreach. According to Murray, UC Merced prioritizes partnerships with small farming communities in the surrounding counties in order to make higher education more accessible to socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
“One of our primary missions is to serve a large population of people who haven’t had access to this type of knowledge generator,” Murray said. “Students take advantage of our support system and have much closer relationships with their faculty, their advisers and their mentors. It helps them not get lost so they don’t become a small cog in a big machine.”
Senior Ryan Ko agrees with Murray’s sentiment that university rankings are often very subjective. Specifically, Ko says students should use other measures to determine how compatible they are with a college.
“For research, I looked at their overall rankings, but I also looked at what internship opportunities they offer and their new business program,” Ko said. “At Davis, you’re not too boxed into one corner — in the sense that you can also gain a variety of knowledge at UC Davis which allows you to communicate with other people.”
Ko’s own college search process involved a review of various schools’ pros and cons. Similar to how Ko saw UC Davis as appealing due to its well-rounded business program, counselor Clay Stiver says that many new colleges, such as UC Merced, will highlight key incentives of their college in order to differentiate themselves from competitors.
“If you’re a brand new college like UC Merced, you have to do a lot of advertising,” Stiver said. “You want to get as many applications as you can because you want to start building a new community. So they’re probably offering a lot of things — maybe it’s brand new dorms or maybe it’s new incentives when it comes to financial aid. These are all ways to get off the ground.”
Despite UC Merced’s Research 1 classification putting it within the top 10% of all eligible universities in the nation, Ko believes that high prestige may not be enough to draw certain applicants to a particular college. Even though 45.2% of the class of 2024 had a GPA between 3.75-4.0, only 31% of total students chose to go to UC’s in comparison to the 39% for out of state colleges and 11% for Community Colleges.
“Prestige in a university is not the most important thing,” Ko said. “Some colleges provide different opportunities or better education because of specific professors or proximity to certain companies. It really depends on the internship opportunities and experience you’ll get there.”
Stiver agrees with Ko’s sentiment of looking beyond prestige — he believes that overreliance on subjective rankings can prevent students from fully considering schools that might be right for them. Additionally, Stiver says MVHS students should look for qualities in a college that match their own preferences, such as geography or school population.
“The issue, especially in our school, is that so many students hear about the big-name schools and think that that’s the only option,” Stiver said. “Some of these colleges are up at the top for such arbitrary reasons. There are thousands of colleges out there, and even if it’s a school you may have never heard of, it may be a place where you can really grow and enjoy those few years.”
