<p>@collegealum314, The idea is to compare the top 75% of MIT to top 25% of UCB. (not the bottom 25% as you mentioned)</p>
<p>@"UMTYMP student". </p>
<p>Yes, you are 100% correct . For this purpose, 25 percentile (R+W+M) is usually lower than 25 percentile SAT score (vice versa at 75%) (I didn’t mention it because not that many understand it). Also as you know CDS doesn’t have total SAT 25 percentile. </p>
<p>Yes, I was wrong to say MIT has 800. I think it is more like 1000~1100. (Don’t know why I remembered it as 800 but that is not the point). </p>
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<li>The point is, by number (not percentage) UCB has more high caliber students when compared to MIT as measured by SAT yardstick. (1000 vs less than 750) </li>
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<p>and majority of these high caliber students students go into UCB’s College of Engineering which has about 850 students. As you know, UCB doesn’t need to balance the student mix at each college level. </p>
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<li>So, if you compare the caliber of the students in UCB’s COE to MIT (which is primarily technology) UCB COE is similar to MIT, if not better. So, when you say "these hardly seem “statistically similar”, it is very misleading at the best. (Actually I’ll not be surprised if UCB COE is packed with more high caliber students than MIT but I don’t have detailed statistics to support it).</li>
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<p>Note: OPs question was about chemical engineering. </p>
<p>Yes but your argument that there are more students at Berkeley with SAT score >x than at MIT critically relies on this or some unspecified mapping of SAT section scores into composite scores. It strikes me as reasonably plausible that MIT’s 25th percentile of composite SAT scores is higher than Berkeley’s 75th percentile although there is a lack of actual data on this. Do you think that Caltech is a bad school because >250 students have good SAT scores simply by virtue of it being a small school? Why is the raw number of students with a given SAT score a good metric when (1) the percentage of such students is almost certainly more relevant and (2) it seems very likely that conditional on a given SAT score students at more selective universities will tend to be better.</p>
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<p>Citation?</p>
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<p>I’ve already outlined some reasons why I think reasoning is suspect at best but I think the revealed preference enrollment data is even more conclusive. Almost no one admitted to one of HYPSM goes to Berkeley so for Berkeley’s CoE to have better students would require an extremely large number of the best students to be shut out at the top schools. I hardly think admissions officers at top schools are infallible but this would require implausible levels of staggering incompetence among admissions officers at HYPSM.</p>
<p>Lastly, I’ve already mentioned this many times but I think general strength of the student body is more important that the strength of students in a major at the undergraduate level.</p>
I have no problem believing that engineering students have higher math SAT scores, but they usually don’t have higher verbal or writing scores. And I think their math/verbal scores tend to be more lopsided at state schools. USMTYP is correct that you can’t add up the 25% of the subscores to get the 25% of the composite.</p>
<p>For the same Vandy entering class in engineering, the combined CR + M was 1470 at the 25th percentile, and 1600 at the 75th percentile. So at the 75th percentile, the engineers beat the rest of the students on both CR and M. Since the overall numbers also include the engineers, the overall numbers are greater than the scores of the non-engineers – thus, the actual “superiority” of the engineers is greater than it appears from these numbers. </p>
<p>At a chat at the Vandy Engineering Open House several weeks, a faculty member commented that this year’s (2014) entering engineering class had higher CR than M scores.</p>
<p>UCLA</p>
<p>Average SAT CR for admitted students in 2013 was 666. </p>
<p>However, the SAT scores of the entering freshman don’t reflect on the rigor of the program, which was the original question. Average SATs just tell you about where students start, not where they finish. Nor do the preferences of the students reflect on rigor, as most students seek prestige and shy away from rigor. </p>
<p>Readers truly interested in the content of the actual majors should look at the vast amount of information about that online – video lectures, syllabi, required courses, elective courses available, etc. – for both schools.</p>
<p>PiperXP, why do you use SAT data when comparing the intellectual ability of the students between Cal and MIT when Cal doesn’t put as much emphasis on SAT on admissions as much as MIT does? Cal doesn’t even superscore SATs and MIT does. Cal rejects plenty of applicants with excellent SAT scores. </p>
<p>I’m almost annoyed why you still can’t get it. tsk tsk…</p>
<p>The word, “weak” in itself is a negative word already. It’s oftentimes insulting rather than complementary. Then you add “much” to exacerbate the insults. It’s like someone tells you fat and ugly. WAIT. It’s like someone telling you this: Piper, you are extremely fat and very ugly! </p>
<p>Now, if you’re not offended by that you must be a robot. </p>
<p>(2) It’d be great if you backed any of your assertions. We’re talking about SATs among other ways to compare students because you haven’t offered anything.</p>
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<p>By most measurements, I am fat! By enough measurements, I’m pretty enough to have a boyfriend of three years and many good friends, so I can’t scare them off too badly Your responses on this thread make me think your opinions are not worth respecting. So, no, I’m not offended.</p>
<p>I’d say I’m not a robot, but I’m not sure if you’d believe me!</p>
<p>This is just ridiculous. Clearly the rigor of a program is not solely determined by SAT scores but I think there is a strong correlation between the strength of students at a school and the rigor of a curriculum. SAT scores are also a crude but still very meaningful proxy for the strength of students. Imagine we designed some measurement of the rigor of various colleges and regressed it against the college’s average SAT scores. Does anyone think we would not find the coefficient on the average SAT scores to be large and positive?</p>
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<p>This is not a bad idea particularly for MIT where there is a lot of information on OCW and publicly available Stellar sites but it’s also very hard for most high school students who lack the expertise to determine what is truly difficult and advanced. Is someone currently taking Calc BC really able to differentiate between a relatively difficult and relatively easy functional analysis class for example?</p>
<p>That being said from talking with one of my good friends at UC Berkeley I think the undergrad math classes there tend to be less advanced than the corresponding ones at MIT.</p>
<p>It looks the citation (Hout report) format has changed (now based on ‘Read Score’ ?), so not able to find the SAT score anymore. Assuming the scores are cited are correct (no reason to doubt it ) CAL COE against 2009 MIT scores (<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research) are as follows: </p>
<p>25% MIT 650 660 720 2030
CAL 620 630 710 1960</p>
<p>75% MIT 760 760 800 2320
CAL 740 730 780 2250</p>
<p>Both at 25% and 75% CAL scores are less than MIT by 70 points.
It looks like even though significant portion of the CAL’s top scorers flock to COE (when compared to non COE) it was not good enough to make COE SAT scores beat MIT scores. </p>
<p>So, I still think that
UCB COE is “similar” to MIT unlike UMTYMP’s assertion (…2260 vs. 2035 (225) - "hardly seem “statistically similar”)
By number (not percentage) more high caliber students are in CAL than MIT (going by SAT score) </p>
<p>Why does it matter how MIT compares to UC Berkley? Both are excellent schools, and both will give you an excellent college education that will prepare you as best as you can be prepared for solving the many problems our generation is now facing. There’s no shortage of problems to go around. We need as many educated people as possible with as wide a variety of perspectives and talents as possible. If that means any one school loses prestige, that’s fine, so long as more people are getting educations that can help them approach their potential to do good in the world. If you are not satisfied with the academic rigor at either school (either because it is too much or because it is not enough), there are resources and opportunities to make your education your own. The important thing is that you are getting an education.</p>
<p>@moshot I think that is a reasonable argument although I’m not sure that 2009 MIT SAT scores are a better comparison than 2013 MIT SAT scores which are considerably higher (for each section the 25th/75th each increased by 30+ points other than math 75th percentile which was already 800). I don’t think there is a good reason to expect that Berkeley’s COE SAT scores increased by a similar amount over the last 4 years although there is obviously a lack of data. MIT’s 75th percentiles have also reached a point where they basically can’t get any higher so it’s not clear what similar means in this context (is 2310/2400 similar to 2380/2400 when dealing with averages?) I also question whether the SAT scores of the COE as opposed to the general college are the relevant metric when examining the selectivity/prestige of a school but others may reasonably disagree. I also think there are strong arguments based on revealed preferences that the best students are almost entirely absent from Berkeley.</p>
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<p>Can you explain how you reached this conclusion? This does not immediately follow from any data you have presented so it seems it relies on some argument that maps SAT 25th/75th percentiles into composite schools and perhaps deals with both the averages for the entire school and the COE?</p>
<p>Stepping back a little bit from the details of this discussion I think it’s important to remember that rigor is not the most important factor in choosing a college. I think MIT engineering is probably somewhat more rigorous than Berkeley engineering but I’m not sure this leads to more learning for most MIT students. I would guess that the best 20% of MIT students are significantly better than the best 20% at Berkeley and benefit from the additional rigor but it’s not at all clear that a student who would be at the 50th percentile at MIT and the 75th percentile at Berkeley benefits from the added rigor. So unless you expect to be one of the better students at MIT I don’t think the difference in rigor should be an important factor. </p>
<p>However, outside of the classroom I think MIT undergrad clearly dominates Berkeley undergrad. There are far more opportunities for MIT undergrads in terms of research and funding for all sorts of things is much easier to get at MIT than cash-strapped Berkeley. The signaling value of an MIT degree is also far greater. You can find a more extensive discussion of these issues elsewhere but I don’t think anyone really disputes this although some emphasis that Berkeley has a more diverse undergrad population in many respects.</p>
<p><a href=“1”>quote</a> I reject your assertion that MIT emphasizes SATs more than UCB, and welcome you to try to back your assertion. The fact that UCB rejects many people with good scores means nothing when MIT does the same. You can read here about MIT’s process:
<a href=“No Chance | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/no_chance</a>
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If both schools reject people with superior SAT scores, when then do you use it to gauge the students’ intellectual abilities??? It doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p><a href=“2”>quote</a> It’d be great if you backed any of your assertions. We’re talking about SATs among other ways to compare students because you haven’t offered anything.
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<p>You can actually use GPA too, among others. But wait. I am bothered by your logic.
You know that neither school put emphasis on SATs yet here you are using it to gauge students. It was your basis to degrade Cal Eng’g students even when you already knew that both schools do not emphasize it on their admissions.
This is like you comparing the candidates of Miss Universe and Miss World, and you, being a Miss Universe supporter has declared that the Miss Universe candidates are much prettier, more attractive, much hotter, sexier than those of Miss World using a criterion of having a body size of 36-24-36, knowing fully well that neither Miss Universe nor Miss World uses a body size of 36-24-36 as a criterion. Isn’t that stupid! </p>
<p>To recap:</p>
<p>There is no question that MIT students and alumni are very smart. They are. But to say they are much smarter than Berkeley eng’g students and alumni is just plain hogwash. Berkeley eng’g students/alumni are already very smart. They are some of the main proponents of the various discoveries happening on earth. There’s even an element on the periodic table named after it. For a bunch of smarts to claim that they are much smarter than those of Berkeley engineering’s must be gods. And clearly, we don’t see that amongst the average MIT students/grads. </p>
<p>In the MIT admissions’ experience, SATs aren’t much of a differentiator after people have hit 700 or so. The vast majority of MIT students are past this point. This is not true of UCB.</p>
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<p>Then go for it! Actually make an argument! I would love that!</p>
<p>Are you planning to make an actual argument for your side here, or are you just going to continue slinging mud to pass the time?</p>
Your responses on this thread make me think your opinions are not worth respecting. So, no, I’m not offended.</p>