Academic Rigor at MIT vs. UC Berkeley

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>^ I think MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, Cornell, Michigan, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, CMU, Georgia Tech, Rice, UT-Austin, Rose-Hulman, Olin College, UPenn, Columbia, Duke, UIUC, to name some, have great engineering departments with very talented students. The officials and professors at those schools regard each other very highly. Let’s just leave it that way. Generalizing people would bring no good. This irrational sense of self-worth embraced by MIT people is ridiculous and contemptible. </p>

<p>The truth is, nothing is certain, nothing is permanent when you talk about intelligence. Intelligence is broad with several disciplines encompassing its context. The good thing is, Intelligence can be developed. Some people mature early in life. Some do so at a much later age. People who perform less academically now (due to lack of information feed, access or resources) may outperform you ten or so years later when they’re given the chance, access, right materials and in a suitable condition.<br>
If Einstein, for example, were to apply to MIT in his time, he most likely would not have gotten in. He doesn’t have the grades to crack MIT’s steeled gates. He probably would not have gotten into Berkeley either (Berkeley COE admitted 9% of last year’s applicants). He was lackluster in his early years. He went to Aargau Cantonal School in Aarau, Switzerland, because he was denied admissions to Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich. There are a lot of people who, like Einstein, excelled in their later age. There are a lot of Berkeley COE peeps who succeeded now despite having been denied admissions to MIT when they applied. Consequently, there are many MIT peeps who failed in life. </p>

<p>It also has been established that human intelligence has limits. I don’t exactly know what the average intelligence of Berkeley COE peeps is, but I would venture that it is quite high given the high level of difficulty to get into Berkeley COE (which has an admit rate of 9% this year). In other words, if the highest human intelligence, for instance, was recorded at 150 (again, this is just for the sake of having to analyze faster), Berkeley COE peeps would have around 130, and MIT peeps would have higher, maybe 140 or even a little more higher. When I questioned PiperXP’s arrogant rebuttal, I was actually trying to say that MIT peeps could not have an IQ of over 150, because if that were so, then MIT peeps would have been all gods, which obviously is not the case. Yes, obviously, they are a bunch of really smart people. But it is also obvious that they are not gods. For any bunch of smart peeps to say that they have a significantly higher intelligence than Berkeley COE peeps must be gods. On that premise, MIT peeps aren’t that significantly more intelligent then. </p>

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<p>And, by the way, the intelligence I was referring to in the context above refers to the ff:

  1. logic
  2. abstract thought
  3. understanding
  4. learning
  5. memory
  6. problem solving</p>

<p>It is in these areas where MIT students have the advantage. There’s no studies that, in these areas, MIT students/graduates are significantly superior to Berkeley COE students/graduates. If there is, I haven’t seen one.</p>

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<p>MIT…UCB…Harvard…Stanford, who cares I just wanna live rich and die rich. :stuck_out_tongue: </p>

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<p>

The point you are missing here, I think deliberately, is that nobody in this thread is talking about him/herself. Absolutely no one is saying that he or she is better than all, or most, or any Berkeley students – just that MIT students, on average, are stronger.</p>

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<p>I think you miss the point here, Molly. UMTYMP student and Piper would not be going on and on about being superior after being told that it was offensive unless they felt quite strongly about it personally. I agree with GrudeMonk, above; it is embarrassing.</p>

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<p>@geomom - I think it’s silly to not respond to someone’s counterclaim merely because they say they find the original claim offensive. This thread has nothing to do with my own intelligence, just the average intelligence of MIT students vs. Berkeley students.</p>

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<p>Come on, PiperXP, let’s not kid ourselves. You’re very part of what we’ve talked about on here, and you know that fully well. You represented MIT, that’s why you’ve fought “tooth and nail” to MIT’s claim of superiority. MIT’s honor, if it would succeed, would also be yours. You’re one of the major components of the general subject that we’ve discussed. You comprise MIT community, the group you argued to be much superior to Berkeley COE community. </p>

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<p>@RML - You misread. I’m saying that I am not comparing my intelligence to the UCB student body as a whole. I am comparing the MIT student body to the UCB student body as a whole.</p>

<p>Chatting on CC doesn’t really qualify as fighting tooth-and-nail to me. </p>

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<p>^ But you’re at MIT – you’re part of that school now. You’re one of those that comprised the group that we’ve tried to pit it against Cal’s COE’s. You’re involved here, no matter what. You’re one of the subset of the subject. If we take you out of the group, then we’re self-selecting. You can say you’re not thinking about yourself whenever you try to compare MIT community to others’. That’s easy to say. But that doesn’t matter in this case.</p>

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<p>@RML - You cannot randomly take one person in a group and act as though they are representative of that group as a whole. That’s just bad statistics. </p>

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<p>MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Caltech, Duke, Penn, Columbia, and Northwestern engineers all, on average, have stronger academic credentials than Berkeley engineers based on average SAT scores.</p>

<p>Do you disagree RML?</p>

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<p>Hmmm, you think it is “silly” to drop an unwinnable argument when it is clear that you are offending others. And indeed, I think the casual reader would find your tone in this thread off-putting, as well as the general p***ing match over who has the highest SAT scores. </p>

<p>Smart is as smart does, and MIT students are not representing themselves well in this thread. </p>

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<p>Define “unwinnable”? I think RML never really had a leg to stand on, and I’m just rolling with the trolling. </p>

<p>But yes, I’ll stand by the idea that offending people, in itself, is not reason to change your actions.</p>

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<p>

I, for one, think that they are representing themselves very well. They are using data as their argument not emotions. I am very impressed that they are calm and rational in the face of personal attacks. I am not sure I would handle myself that gracefully.</p>

<p>

I love this. If not for offending people, we will still believe that earth is flat and sun goes around it.</p>

<p>Keep up the good work, MITians (or techies, or whatever you like to be called)</p>

<p>Here is another data point. Take it for what it is worth. From my child’s school this year, 10 kids were accepted to MIT and they are all going there. All 10 and 54 others (for a total of 64) from the school were accepted to UCB.</p>

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<p>That is quite a school you have there.</p>

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<p>@Lidhusha </p>

<p>“Both are excellent schools”. That is my whole point. BTW, You seem to be an exception in MIT :slight_smile: </p>

<p>@CollegeAlum314 </p>

<p>CAL COE has about 750 per year. That is why it is good to compare COE with MIT. It is obvious that the SAT score will get diluted when the school is large. For e.g. there is no meaning in comparing Caltech with UT Austin. If MIT has to choose 4500 students I am sure SAT score will get diluted. And that is the reason why Caltech scores are usually higher than MIT in spite of other disadvantages of being a very small school .</p>

<p>My first point was about CAL COE but the second point was about CAL as a whole. </p>

<p>@"UMTYMP student"‌ </p>

<p>I am using 2009 CDS since CAL COE data available was for 2009.
“By number (not percentage) more high caliber students are in CAL than MIT (going by SAT score)” . </p>

<p>Yes, that is based on comparing the numbers derived from percentile. This can be done using ACT comp score also with the same result. BTW, the second point holds good not just for MIT for many other smaller universities like Stanford, Harvard etc.,. </p>

<p>Here is another point of view using the number of students who scored in the range 700~800 in SAT (from CDS data). I just chose 2009 CDS for no specific reason. Harvard didn’t publish that info in 2009. </p>

<p>700~800<br>
Cal MIT Stanford<br>
…%…no… %…no…%…no.
Reading 33% 1320 57% 627 57% 912
Math 51% 2040 87% 957 67% 1072
Writing 38% 1520 57% 627 61% 976</p>

<p>If you look at %, yes MIT being a Technology school has an edge on MATH but Stanford has a slight edge on writing which is understandable. But if you look at the numbers CAL has a big advantage. </p>

<p>My point is private universities are mostly affordable for poor and rich students but there a lot of smart cost conscious middle class students who decide to go to public universities like CAL. (some get admissions to private universities and decide not to go, others are simply not ‘special’ for the private universities. </p>

<p>Note:<br>

  1. It’ll be interesting to find how many MIT, Stanford, Caltech and CAL graduates go to each other for post graduate studies.
  2. Hope prospective students don’t get wrong impression about MIT based on some of the comments here. MIT is truly special JUST like other elite universities. . Hope it will stay the same. </p>
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<p>If your point is that there exists some x such that Berkeley has more students with SAT scores > x than MIT had students that is (a) obvious and (b) proves nothing. </p>

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<p>Elite private universities have generous enough financial aid to be cheaper than Berkeley for most families. Cross admit data also show that virtually no one is turning down Stanford or MIT for Berkeley contradicting your claim unless “some” means like 5 per year.</p>

<p>There isn’t complete data on where people go to graduate school although individual schools may collect such data. For example according to MIT’s graduating senior survey which got 788 responses (84% response rate) (so adjust by accordingly) 188 graduates were staying at MIT (presumably most for fifth year masters), 29 were going to Stanford, 26 to Harvard, 19 to Berkeley and less than 6 for every other school.</p>

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<p>I think that if you are going to argue that Berkeley students are on average “much weaker” than MIT students than you should clarify what you think the world “much” means.</p>

<p>According to Webster, much means a “large in amount or extent : not little” with synonyms including monumental and substantial. I think that if we do use SAT scores as a measuring stick (despite Collegeboard’s revisions of it due to it’s poor ability to measure college readiness) I don’t think that we can say that the difference is substantial. If we compare it with the COE it is even more true. I think that it is ridiculous or even laughable for someone to think otherwise. Furthermore, preferences are also not a good measuring stick because it is in essence a popularity contest. Are some popular colleges good? Yes, and vice versa. I’m sure that if we wanted, we could come up with multiple subjective measurements of each school.</p>

<p>However, if we actually try to answer OP’s question and compare to academic rigor of both schools, you’ll find that they are virtually identical. Meaning that the difference between one or even three places when ranking several hundred schools is likely to be very small. If you look at ARWU, QS, or the Higher Times Ranking (all academic rankings) you’ll see that this is the case. Sometimes each school is ranker higher than the other in different rankings and depending on whether you are looking at it overall or by subject.</p>

<p>Case in point: OP, the academic rigor of each school is so close that you won’t find much of a difference. I don’t think it should be the deciding factor of where you (or anyone reading this) should go to school. What should be is how you like the campus, the culture, and the student’s there.</p>

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<p>These rankings are generally based on the production of the graduate schools, and Berkeley’s are comparable to MIT’s. I see this mistake conflating the graduate school with the undergraduate school throughout this thread. </p>

<p>The academic rigor at MIT is likely to be higher than Berkeley just because of the nature of MIT’s pedagogical philosophy. Caltech is the only undergrad school which may have even more than MIT. The rigor at Berkeley is probably top 5 in the country, and it’s reputation is that the classes there are harder than Stanford’s. So for some people, the rigor at MIT may be overkill. I have taken undergrad classes at other top 10 institutions (though not Berkeley); and there are noticeable differences in rigor. There are even noticeable differences in rigor between Harvard and MIT.</p>

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<p>The absolute numbers are basically meaningless because Cal is a gigantic school. If you are going to make comments on the COE at Berkeley, you should use numbers from the COE. </p>

<p>Also 700 is a pretty low bar to use as the criterion for being a “top student.” </p>