<p>Im a transfer student myself and I do have to agree that there are plenty of dumb transfer students compare to freshman students… It is pretty easy to get into UCLA/Cal as a transfer student. In the end, no body cares what school you went to for BA or BS… it’s all about graduate school. (Doctoral) So no body cares if you went to Cal or Cornell or UCLA. The end.</p>
<p>yeah if Cal had more stringent academic standards for transfers, it would be a much more reputable undergraduate education.</p>
<p>What really ****es me off is that transfers can easily pull a 4.00 at a Community College and get into Haas, whereas freshman/sophomore undergrads are put through the competitive meat grinder courses that immensely water down their gpa, putting them at a disadvantage to get into Haas.</p>
<p>I am fairly certain that those who can get into Berkeley as freshmen can easily pull a 3.7+ at a CC, but have to work their a** off for a 3.3 as freshmen and sophomores</p>
<p>Torrancecali, 25.9% of Americans over 25 have Bachelor’s degrees. Roughly .6% of Americans have PhD’s, so where you did graduate study would not be a good basis for comparison. Secondly, in graduate school, people don’t think of you as a grad student from such-and-such university, but as so-and-so’s grad student.</p>
<p>@ib612-Jee-crawling-hova, can’t this forum go one week without qqing about transfer students?</p>
<p>Aside from budget constraints, I don’t see why anyone should turn down an Ivy for Berkeley. When you’re at Berkeley, then you buy into the hogwash that “We’re often tiered with the Ivies!” However, when you’re not at the school, you should be realistic and see that classes over there are overcrowded, the student population isn’t great, and rank 21 on USNWR is rank 21 for a reason. </p>
<p>Berkeley graduate school is world renowned (and would be worth picking over an Ivy) but most Berkeley undergraduates would never make it in there and I actually think that going to the school would hurt the goal of making it back into Berkeley more than help. The rift between Berkeley Grad and Undergrad is indescribably large.</p>
<p>I’m reading over this thread and LazyKid’s points are all very valid.</p>
<p>Aside from the ones he made, I’d like to add that international rankings such as THES largely revolve around graduate study and the prominence of the faculty. That’s where foreigners hear most of their news about American schools. They concentrate on questions such as, “how often were professors from this university published in Science or Nature?” Berkeley is a great research institution and there is no denying that. It just doesn’t justify grouping it with the Ivies when we’re looking at Undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Also, I’d like to add that a lot of international perception is often uneducated at best. In Asia, where some posters have boasted, the same people who have never heard of Dartmouth or Brown often mistaken UCLA as a better university than Berkeley. How and why? Because UCLA somehow manages to sell hoodies with the UCLA logo everywhere. I don’t even know why anyone would bother wearing those shoddy hoodies…</p>
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<p>Realistically, the caliber of Berkeley grad school is academically among the most elite of all, and it’s no cakewalk to make it there from an Ivy either. I would laugh at comparing the average Ivy population with the Berkeley grad population for one thing – some of these folks were top students from Ivies or similar schools whom I know personally.</p>
<p>sentiment, you don’t seem to be interested in mindless argument; I suggest you realize that those of us who know what we’re talking about don’t group Berkeley with the Ivies. Rather, we make a huge distinction between them, saying their strengths are both considerable and in some cases just very different.</p>
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<p>Quite untrue for the very elite departments here, where undergrads come specifically for the caliber. My engineering acquaintances didn’t even consider Ivies, and indeed one unabashedly turned down Columbia for here, and is an extremely good engineer. </p>
<p>Berkeley is in no way an Ivy – one would be foolish to attend just for the prestige; it’s a place where if you have real goals and know the department(s) you’re interested in are strong, you can truly do anything within the confines of your abilities. And yes, there are things here simply not found in the Ivies. Just that most don’t choose to make use of them, but more power to the few who do. </p>
<p>I don’t suggest you argue any points I make here, because really unlike the flamers I know what I’m talking about, and also am not interested in anything but properly representing the correct information. All the points made on this thread which you refer to were not valid. For instance, the one earlier which claimed that graduate strength does not relate to undergraduate educational strength. </p>
<p>I am aware of the overcrowding and all that, and count it as a huge negative for those who experience it. I never did, and neither did many of my acquaintances. It depends on your major and what you do specifically. So while I’m not disputing this obvious point, to sweepingly claim all of a certain set of claims was valid when there were notoriously absurd ones is to lack subtlety, i.e. major failure, so don’t do it.</p>
<p>For engineering, cs, and basic science like math, chem, or physics, it’s perfectly justifiable to pick Berkeley over Ivies other than HYP.
For everything else, unless finance is an issue, you’ll likely have an easier time career wise going to an Ivy.</p>