are people happy at berkeley?

<p>@swharborfan: when did you graduate from CAL? there has been a lot of grade inflation over the years, and i’m guessing a 3.97 then means a LOT more than a 3.97 now.</p>

<p>That’s too extraordinary. I’m barely ducking a 3.5. lol. (Hell I think I may have even dipped under that …haven’t checked gpa in a while) Nevertheless, I think the gap between Stanford and Cal has been widened. Inspiring though. heh I wish I were as smart…academically competent. :&lt;/p>

<p>

</p>

<p>My guess, however, would be that when it comes to applying to graduate school, rather than say medical school, where the focus is mainly potential as a researcher, one would not necessarily get huge plus point from the A’s one makes at Cal vs. there. In many fields, such as engineering, it’s supposed to be very hard to do so well there, and also, the distinctions in harshness of grading probably would play neither a hugely negative nor positive role, as a good student generally will have good results (not necessarily close to perfect) from either school, and ultimately things like letters of recommendation, which can be achieved at either school, are will become most influential.</p>

<p>Also, it’s not necessarily clear whether the payback of surviving Berkeley’s harsh grading for something like MCB is good for a large number of people – ultimately, I think that at a certain point, numbers being low just hurts. For those with the highest results from both schools, SW’s words probably hold plenty of truth.</p>

<p><<<@swharborfan: when did you graduate from CAL? there has been a lot of grade inflation over the years, and i’m guessing a 3.97 then means a LOT more than a 3.97 now.>>></p>

<p>Graduated in 1985, majored in Physics (harsh curves) and World Lit (harsh and subjective grading), and I know, from personal knowledge and exposure, that both majors continue to be difficult ones in which to get As.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m glad that SWHarborfan seems to have enjoyed such a positive premed experience at Berkeley. Alas, the empirical data suggests that many other Cal premeds do not.</p>

<p>For example, the overall premed admit rates indicate that Cal premeds do not significantly outperform premeds nationwide. Of the Cal 2008 seniors who applied to med-school, only 53% were admitted somewhere, which indicates that 47% were rejected by every single med-school they applied to.. Contrast that with the overall nationwide admit rate of 46%. </p>

<p>{Also note, if anything, the figures are likely to be biased upwards in Cal’s favor (and hence the true delta between the Cal and nationwide admit rates is likely smaller) as the Cal figures only measure graduating seniors and does not include alumni from years ago who then applied to med school, but the nationwide figures do include such alumni. Alumni tend to suffer from lower-than-average admit rates for many of them had been previously rejected in previous years and are applying again, where they are probably going to be rejected again. If they qualifications were strong, they probably would have been admitted the first time.}</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, granted, some of those Cal premeds probably had not performed well and hence unsurprisingly encountered difficulty in the admissions process. So let’s examine only those 2008 seniors who had performed well, which I take to mean those earning GPA’s over 3.6 and MCAT scores over 30. Of even this select group, only 43/59 or 72% were admitted somewhere, or in other words, 28% were not admitted. Even within the most select group of those earning GPA’s above 3.9 and MCAT scores over 35, still only 86% were admitted, and hence 14% were not. I welcome you to look at the data for other years, and for ‘one-year-out’ alumni and you will notice the same pattern. </p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2008seniors.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2008seniors.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

</p>

<p>An interesting contention. According to the data, from the years 2002-2008, an average of less than 2 Cal premeds were admitted to Hopkins each year, and only 3 actually matriculated within that 7 year time span.</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm#johns[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm#johns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, to be fair, some of the data may be missing, for it includes only those premeds who released their AMCAS data back to Berkeley. Hence, feel free to scale up the figures appropriately. Nevertheless, it’s hard to support the contention that an ‘overwhelming’ number of Cal undergrads are at Hopkins nowadays. Naturally, I can’t speak for what was happening in the 1980’s.</p>

<p>I don’t think Berkeley is the right place to be premed. I would rather go to a private liberal arts institution where I can get the most amount of attention and actually have the school working for me. Although Berkeley has a reputation, it doesn’t carry as far as most people think. A UC Berkeley student who ends up with a 3.2 probably would have gotten a 3.8 with excellent recommendations at a private university. There’s probably more pre-meds coming out of Berkeley each year than the amounts of available spots in top medical schools. Same goes for graduate school. I know people who got into Berkeley for undergrad but decided to go to a less competitive school because they wanted to end up going to Berkeley for a graduate degree. They didn’t think they could’ve gotten into Berkeley’s graduate school had they chosen Berkeley for undergrad. To me it seems pretty reasonable… I was just too impatient and wanted to take that risk. I probably won’t get into grad school at Berkeley now. Luckily I’m not premed. It seemed like one out of every four kids I met this semester was pre-med. tsk tsk tsk.</p>

<p>Most of my friends at Berkeley secretly hate it. UCLA > Cal for sure.</p>

<p>^ Bah! It’s definitely an acquired taste. I agree aspects of the city of Berkeley and the university do not help. </p>

<p>I’ve said on this board before that UCLA is Cal’s better looking, younger brother…much more jockish with all the glamour and gets all the hot chicks. Cal is the more distinguished, wiser, older brother. To superficial 18 year-olds, UCLA is going to look more appealing.</p>

<p>^ Yeah. You keep telling yourself that until a few years later when LA is regarded to be on par with Cal, except that its area still looks better.
And reading all of sakky’s post made me sad. lol. Hopes and dreams were just shot by a sniper rifle.</p>

<p>^ Nah, I keep wishing the City of Berkeley would get its act together and clean up the place. Berkeley has many benefits over Westwood (eg. more student oriented, pedestrian friendly, football on campus, etc.)</p>

<p>sakky can be a buzz killer.</p>

<p>what is a bruin anyway?</p>

<p>It would be nice if UCLA has its own stadium instead of renting the Rose Bowl stadium which they’ll never go to anyway.</p>

<p>To be honest, almost every post of sakky regarding Berkeley is devastating… if you know what I mean. lol</p>

<p>Now to solve that, Berkeley must limit its intake. If Berkeley would only admit the top 5,000 applicants per year, then Berkeley’s many problems will be solved gradually.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Hey, I’m just trying to provide you guys with information. That’s why I provide data whenever I can; those who disagree with my interpretation are free to examine the data for themselves and devise their own interpretation.</p>

<p>data or no data, still a buzz killer. ^presents us with all of these hard facts and no practical solutions to make our current lives better. pointing out all the little ways in which the system here is inadequate really does nothing to help improve student lives, now does it?</p>

<p>Well, first of all, I think it’s better to be well-informed rather than find out the truth the hard way. Aspiring Berkeley premeds should know beforehand just how difficult the road is, and just how many of their colleagues will fail to be admitted to med-school, and then they can make an informed decision about whether they still want to be premeds, and if they still do, then knowing what sorts of grades and MCAT scores they should be shooting for, don’t you think? That’s clearly better than finding out later. Student life will therefore be vastly improved because people will be making better choices.</p>

<p>Furthermore, not to pat myself on the back, but I’ve proposed many a potential reform for Berkeley, which any of you are free to discover by just searching through my old posts. I invite all of you to try to implement any of them, whether through ASUC or direct contacts with the administration, or other means. </p>

<p>But if you really don’t want your buzz to be killed, then I’ll proffer a simple solution: don’t read my posts. I’m not forcing anybody to read anything I write.</p>

<p>Any potential reform for the entire university really can’t fix problems all that easily, can it? It will be a gradual process… if it ever happens. I wasn’t just posting to criticize your points, I was just hoping you could provide some insight as to what current students can do at Cal-- for example, if Cal is such a horrible place to do premed, is it relatively better to pursue other things here, like law or business?</p>

<p>seriously guys, what’s up with the Berkeley hate around here? I mean UCLA has the same problem as us, probably even worse, and I barely see any bashing in their forum …</p>

<p>and the same goes for many other colleges who do far worse than Cal.</p>

<p>Is it because Berkeley is stuck in the middle of being a great school and good school? And people are trying to prove which?</p>

<p>

ROFL! Best comment yet! That’s like saying having a rare, but incurable disease and being forced to turn to prostitution to pay for college is something to be proud of, because it is a unique experience that few people can attest to. I guess while you’re at it, might as well persuade inner city kids to embrace their heritage. Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood where one never feels safe being outside.</p>

<p>Well, one thing Sakky’s posts make clear is that perhaps fewer people should be shooting to be premeds. Sometimes I’m not quite certain why people want to do it, and I don’t know whether they are sure themselves. There are plenty of other career paths, and if the posts deter some from pursuing this one, I think it’s probably a good thing, as I don’t think there’s exactly a shortage.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>If one could stretch the CC threads into a giant rug and color Sakky’s part of it red, the rug would look pretty alarming ;)</p>

<p>I wonder if the raw number of Cal grads who go on to med school is comparable to the numbers from Stanford, Harvard, etc… The percentage from Cal is lower, sure, but Cal has over 2x the undergrad population of these other schools, and it might be that med schools want to accept at most 20 students from each school.</p>