Are there Ivy League passers at Berkeley?

[Strykur]

<p>The UCs have long had a pretty lenient transfer system, which traces back to the historical development of the Universities of California as places to complete higher education careers after junior college completion in-state. It was like this before the UCs became academic superpowers, and has not changed since.</p>

[LazyKid]

<p>

It’s the truth.
No one cares about Cornell…seriously.
rankings are always biased? USnews is always too much biased.
There were times when public schools used to be in top 10, and they changed all the next year because they put one criteria in to make private school to look better.

</p>

<p>You are trying too hard, mate. Cornell got the most applications for admission among the Ivy League this year. People do care. I went to Georgetown during Freshmen year, and students there all had tremendous amount of respect for Cornell. </p>

<p>People in the East Coast all care. Maybe not in your region. Although, the high school I went to, which is in Cali, cared a lot. Kids there were generally affluent, and they all cared about all IVYs, Duke, Stanford, Georgetown, and the like.</p>

<p>On the other hand… Berkeley…
Well, when I tell my friends here in East Coast about Berkeley, one of the kids from my fraternity told me “Why would you go there?? Isn’t that an Asian school?”
Not being a racist here. But, to be honest, most conservative, wealthy white kids would feel uncomfortable at least initially to attend a school like Berkeley, in which the majority of students are Asian. This should be a culture shock for many.</p>

<p>Regardless, in general, the East Coast people don’t associate Berkeley with elite brand. It is viewed along UCLA, USC, U Michigan, and the like. Which is still great.</p>

[Batman17]

<p>“I only smoke marijuana with white people”
-Dave Chappelle.</p>

[LazyKid]

<p>

Also @ LazyKid- The THES rankings you keep bringing up do indeed put Cornell over Berkeley, but also put Berkeley over WUSTL, Dartmouth, and Rice. You’ve already said that Dartmouth, at least, is at par with/better than Cornell. So, if, according to that ranking, Berkeley is better than Dartmouth, then you cannot legitimately use that publication as a point of argument in favor of Cornell. In fact, that just points out how worthless rankings even are.</p>

<p>Again, I have nothing against Cornell, I’m just pointing out a glaring fallacy.

</p>

<p>You actually mention a good point here. For whatever reason I don’t know, Dartmouth and Brown are tremendously underrated by some folks. Even many people in the country have never heard of Dartmouth or Brown. But, those folks tend to be those average joe’s on the street. I guess those international rankings show that Europeans don’t really know/care about Dartmouth. </p>

<p>But, what matters is that Dartmouth is arguably the best undergrad school right after HYP. Dartmouth students are almost as strong as students at Harvard or Yale. Dartmouth has like the second highest endowment per student, giving students all sorts of opportunities. Dartmouth has like 3rd best placement, per capita, for Consulting/ IB firms. </p>

<p>Some ignorant folks, when they hear UPenn, they confuse it with Penn State. But, who cares? If you are the ambitious type shooting for Ivies and hoping to break it into the elite circles, why care about these ignorant viewpoints of those laymen? </p>

<p>What matters is that Dartmouth or Brown are highly respected, or even revered, by those in the "know’ within USA.</p>

<p>

waitatshu, i only wrote stuff about Cornell because one ■■■■■■ above commented that Cornell is like a godly school. I mean, i heard the place looks nice even though it’s isolated.

</p>

<p>Wow. Chill out there, bud. I never claimed that Cornell is a godly school. I said that Cornell is a LEGIT top 15 college in US, the view consistent with the mainstream notion within USA, as evidenced by all sorts of statistics, opinions, etc. In fact, I even said that Cornell is near the bottom ivy, which is still an accomplishment in itself considering that within the IVY group, there are the best schools on the planet including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, etc.</p>

<p>It is your friend, RML, that claimed that Berkeley is the godly school. I suggest you re-read his posts. </p>

<p>

But personally, i dont see why people who go to Cornell except for that they are rejected by first choice school.

</p>

<p>The same could be said for any school that is non-HYP. Your point?</p>

[fortify]

<p>RML was exaggerating :)</p>

[BonjourGinny]

<p>I realize there is a giant (and rather pointless) flame war going on in this thread, but I actually have a legitimate question concerning Berkley, Ivies, and other top schools. </p>

<p>How does Berkley’s history department compare to those at Stanford, Georgetown, or the Naval Academy? Or the Russian department (obscure, I know)? I’ve read on this thread that the engineering department is pretty good, but there hasn’t been any mention of history (or Russian). </p>

<p>Georgetown and the Naval Academy are my top picks, Stanford is a hopeful dream (and an unlikely reality), and Berkley is a second tier pick. Not a fallback school, but one step down from my top picks. My family is moving to Oregon soon, so I’m taking Berkley into serious consideration since it’s a lot closer than Georgetown and USNA, and probably cheaper than Georgetown (no need to compare it to USNA price-wise, since USNA is free).</p>

[inconnu]

<p>History at Cal is pretty good from what I hear…Prominent authors with lots of referenced publications, Cal professors published a lot of what newer professors at other schools studied during their Ph.D years, etc. etc. </p>

<p>I only know three history majors, one of whom is a transfer, so take my hearsay with a grain of salt.</p>

[33hours]

<p>lol georgetown kids had high respect for cornell?</p>

<p>maybe cuz they are 2nd tire school anyway. back up school to ivy leagues…</p>

<p>Cornell shouldn’t even be part of an ivy league lol…no one really cares about them anyway.</p>

<p>Not like they even know how to party like Brown Univ</p>

[KitKatz]

<p>Our history department is ranked number one I’m taking classes from both the history department and the Slavic department so I might be able to help you there, even though I’m neither a Russian major nor a History major. </p>

<p>I love my history 162B class on European diplomacy (1914 - present day). The professor is very interesting, knowledgeable, and insightful. I gotta say that history department is pretty intense in terms of workload. There’s soooo much reading, but I’m learning a lot. The class itself (like most history classes I’ve heard about as well) is not hard, if you are willing to put in a lot of time and effort. There’s one term paper, one midterm and one final (you get midterm and final prompts before the test so you get to prepare).</p>

<p>like Inconnu said, plenty of distinguished history profs here. </p>

<p>I’m taking a literature class in the Slavic department on Dostoevsky’s novels. I’m thoroughly enjoying this class as well. It’s less intense than history, but the professor is also good as well. </p>

<p>From what I’ve seen so far, these two departments seem very good indeed :)</p>

[waitatshu]

<p>lol I want to see 33hours and Lazykid in real life, you guys are mad intense =.=</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>

@33hours

waitatshu, i only wrote stuff about Cornell because one ■■■■■■ above commented that Cornell is like a godly school. I mean, i heard the place looks nice even though it’s isolated. But personally, i dont see why people who go to Cornell except for that they are rejected by first choice school.

Berkeley’s big bragging point is its graduate rankings. It’s not in the top 5 or even 10 in terms of selectivity, endowment per students, graduate placement, class sizes, or most other metrics. </p>

<p>In other words, Berkeley brags about this:
[National</a> rankings & faculty honors - UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/about/rank.shtml]National”>http://berkeley.edu/about/rank.shtml)</p>

<p>So, clearly Berkeley likes rankings. OK. What do those rankings tell us about Cornell?</p>

<p>NRC: All Scores

1. Stanford
2. Berkeley
3. Michigan
4. Cornell</p>

<p>NRC: Non-zero Scores

1. MIT
2. Berkeley
3. Harvard
4. Princeton
5. Caltech
6. Stanford
7. Chicago
8. Yale
9. Cornell</p>

<p>NRC: Averaged

1. Berkeley
2. Stanford
3. Cornell
4. Harvard & Michigan </p>

<p>Cornell is a top 10 university by any measure and has a strong claim to top 5 status. Unless you care to cite factors in which Berkeley fares equally poorly (or worse), there’s no need to bash poor Cornell. ;)</p>

[monydad]

<p>Wow, this is what I get for searching under “cornell”. why all the hate? Bizarre.</p>

<p>In case anyone actually cares, I thought I’d address this:</p>

<p>“Name me one major from Cornell that they are known for other than hotel management.”</p>

<p>What Cornell is possibly more known for, rather than one major, is the diversity of its offerings ,the variety of the fields represented within its seven undergraduate colleges, graduate & professional schools.</p>

<p>Regarding specific programs, some particularly strong ones I think (could be wrong), are: architecture,landscape architecture, veterinary medicine, agriculture, human development, labor relations, sciences and engineering generally, various areas of the humanities, such as english, literature & languages,creative writing. And yes, hotel administration. The sciences are strong generally, some noteworthy particular sub-areas include applied & engineering physics, materials science, operations research, nanotechnology, statistics, ecology & evolutionary biology. The undergraduate business program, and masters financial engineering program, appear to be improving to the point where they may be worth mentioning as well.</p>

<p>I’m not comparing to Berkeley, which has just awesome graduate programs (and which I don’t really know about anyway), I’m just responding to the request.</p>

<p>The university is a large producer of future PhDs and future MDs.</p>

<p>"But personally, i dont see why people who go to Cornell except for that they are rejected by first choice school. "</p>

<p>Some are rejected elsewhere, for others Cornell IS their first choice school! The yield at several of the undergraduate colleges is over 50%. </p>

<p>There are many particular preference aspects that go into college selection. At the end of the day, most people prefer to stay within six hours of their home, and will prefer Cornell or Berkeley on that basis alone. For some reason, Berkeley does not get many applicants from my son’s school here in NY, U Michigan is by far the most popular and desired out-of state state school around here. I really dont know why. I’m sure most people in Cailifornia experience just the reverse, There is a pronounced regional bias to college matriculation decisions. when I lived in the midwest, most of D1’s classmates who would have applied to Cornell if they lived here applied to Northwestern, U Chicago or Wash U instead. There may also be compelling financial differences at play.</p>

<p>If, after weighing all the pros and cons of your various options, Cornell does not seem to be the best choice for you, by all means go elsewhere, what can I say.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

Wow, this is what I get for searching under “cornell”. why all the hate? Bizarre.

</p>

<p>

Unless you care to cite factors in which Berkeley fares equally poorly (or worse), there’s no need to bash poor Cornell.

</p>

<p>You two shouldn’t lose the forest behind the trees…there’s both Berkeley and Cornell hate on this thread, and I disapproved of both back when I was actually following the arguments in detail, but it’s basically not worth it because people are trying to generalize to make “overall comparisons” when the only way to really understand the general picture is to consider each of its specifics separately, and then construct your own generalization for personal use.</p>

<p>Thank you for the post on what you believe Cornell <em>is</em> known for, monydad. Rest assured most of us think hating Cornell is foolish.</p>

[BonjourGinny]

<p>Is anyone else going to answer my question(s), or do I need to go to another thread that hasn’t been run over by this flame war?</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>BonjourGinny, go talk to KitKatz and she’ll be helpful to you I’m sure. </p>

<p>I don’t know much about specifics, but Slavic is supposed to be a very strong department here. History sounds like it’s terrific from what my friend in it says. The professors in history seem very friendly too, as she seems to get to chat plenty with them. My impression is you’ll be happy. There’s of course plenty of reading and workload, but it should be interesting if you like that stuff.</p>

<p>Very frankly, when a department at Berkeley is ranked high, there should be really good stuff in it academically. What you should enquire more is to the student culture in there, number of people in the given major, program philosophy, and other things more personally relevant to you rather than strength.</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>

@BonjourGinny

Is anyone else going to answer my question(s), or do I need to go to another thread that hasn’t been run over by this flame war?

It’s usually a good idea to start one’s own thread rather than try to redirect another thread with a different topic. I suggest you do so if you want helpful responses.</p>

<p>Incidentally, be aware that your assumption that Berkeley would be cheaper than Georgetown is highly unlikely to be true.</p>

[Strykur]

<p>Uh, Georgetown Full-time annual for 2009-2010 is $38,616, for Cal it’s slightly over $10,000.</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>The OP is OOS (Oregon). The COA at both universities is roughly the same, $50-55K.</p>

<p>That’s not even factoring in Berkeley’s less-than-generous financial aid for OOS students.</p>

[firehose]

<p>Haha, Berkeley. This same question got directed toward Stanford on its forum, I scroll down to the “similar threads” and saw this one. How do you have 165 posts of this? The Stanford thread essentially consisted of “Duh” with a few anecdotes. For this question, anecdotes are sufficient. Just one answers the question. Yes, there are people who turned down the ivy league at Berkley. See, isn’t that simple?</p>

[Batman17]

<p>165 because Cornell came crusin’ for a brusin’ in dis forum. THIS IS OUR HOUSE!!! 72000 STRONG!!! RAWRRRR.
/lol.</p>