<p>I hear some people saying berkeley students are only there because they did not get into top privates... let's see if there's some truth to that.</p>
<p>berkeley was my first choice since i first stepped onto campus my junior year in high school. I think you'll find a huge variety of answers on that question, some people like me wanted to come here for a long time, for others it wasn't their first choice. The whole,..."didn't get into top schools" is so subjective too. I think berkeley's a top school, maybe some people going to stanfurd had to go there because they couldn't get into berkeley.
you gotta do what you dig.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Have you applied to other schools aside from Berkeley? If you have, what schools are these?</p>
<p>i applied to UCLA, Claremont, Georgetown, Colorado College(more cause they recruited me for football), Occidental, and Cal</p>
<p>Um...I got into Stanford and Brown last year (I didn't apply to Berkeley), deferred admission at Brown, and now I'm applying to Berkeley as a freshman. I will most likely go there if I get in. So yes, people DO choose Berkeley over top universities. In fact, the two smartest kids in my graduating class chose Berkeley over Stanford.</p>
<p>i already got into the university of michigan and will most likely accept unless berkeley or uchicago makes me an offer i can't refuse.</p>
<p>i think some people choose berkeley over stanford because it costs less...not that i'm saying berkeley is a not a great school, because it is. i wanna go there.</p>
<p>ucsd (yay), ucla (yay), usc (yay), umich (yay), nyu (yay),
upenn (nay...waitlisted - i still dream about it)</p>
<p>hahha one of my freinds got into Harvard last year,c ouldnt pay so chose Berkeley, another got into stanford, couldnt pay chose Berkeley. if anything, for many in ca, the ucs are so appealing because its affordable and for alot o fmy peers money became an issue. Is it worth going down 80-160 k in debt+interest for udnergrad..its for u to decide</p>
<p>I only gave consideration to either Cal (my top choice), or stay near home (UCSD). That was it.</p>
<p>UCSD, UCD, USC, waitlisted at Rice</p>
<p>I think that this</a> is a better metric to measure this by.</p>
<p>In cross-admit battles, it's clear that Stanford comes out the winner, both according to this model and actual reported findings.</p>
<p>What's important isn't how many go to Berkeley after getting into Stanford. What's important is how many don't go to Berkeley after getting into Stanford. Based on this data, Berkeley has a very hard time.</p>
<p>The question was asked at the ucberkeley livejournal community:</p>
<p>As you can see (and I don't know you can -- you might have to join), many Cal students also got into top universities like Columbia, Harvard, UChicago, Stanford, WUStL, Caltech, UPenn, MIT, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, and more. =)</p>
<p>Despite what many say, Berkeley does attract many brilliant students.</p>
<p>And Berkeley actually has global acclaim/recognition which cant be said for quite a few top 20 schools.</p>
<p>Guys... think about how there might be some problems with your sample. Is it possible that there's bias?</p>
<p>In order to really see what's going on, you need to look at both those who went to Cal and those who didn't. Otherwise, the statistics are meaningless.</p>
<p>Berkeley does have global recognition, but the ugrad quality is a bit lacking from what I heard compared to similar universities. Sometimes I really do wish there were fewer students admitted, and I'm glad I'm in the IEOR program so I'm somewhat sheltered from the overwhelming and impersonal big classes.</p>
<p>Ive been accepted into Georgetown, Notre Dame, UNC-Chapel Hill, UMich, Wisc, U of Illinois...but I'm unsure where i'm going next year coz OOS Berkeley is so expensive X_X</p>
<p>Berkeley still beats UCLA 65 to 35.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What's important isn't how many go to Berkeley after getting into Stanford. What's important is how many don't go to Berkeley after getting into Stanford. Based on this data, Berkeley has a very hard time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's exactly right. Otherwise, all we're doing is sampling on the dependent variable. In other words, by asking this question on only the Berkeley section of CC, we are predominantly looking at the people who chose Berkeley over other schools (for after all, if you didn't choose Berkeley, you're probably not hanging in this part of CC). </p>
<p>To give you an analogy, if all we did is talk to survivors, we could conclude that nobody ever died in war. </p>
<p>
[quote]
hahha one of my freinds got into Harvard last year,c ouldnt pay so chose Berkeley, another got into stanford, couldnt pay chose Berkeley. if anything, for many in ca, the ucs are so appealing because its affordable and for alot o fmy peers money became an issue. Is it worth going down 80-160 k in debt+interest for udnergrad..its for u to decide
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now let me give you the counterexample. I know 2 people who were California state residents who were admitted to both Berkeley and Harvard...and found out that Harvard would actually be * cheaper * once financial aid was factored in. In a nutshell, because their families didn't make much money, Harvard was offering them full rides with no loans, whereas Berkeley wanted them to take some loans. Hence, Berkeley actually turned out to be the * expensive * choice. I will always remember one of them saying mordantly that he had always wanted to go to Berkeley, but he couldn't afford it, so now he had 'no choice' but to go to Harvard.</p>
<p>This is also true of internationals. By and large, Berkeley doesn't give financial aid to international students. But Harvard does. I know several international students who are going to Harvard for basically free, because they come from relatively poor countries, and hence qualify for full international financial aid. Hence, the choice is like those guys I mentioned above - pay to go to Berkeley, or go to Harvard for free. What would you do? </p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that, if you don't have much money, it is often times actually the top private schools that are the best financial deal, because they tend to be extremely aggressive with financial aid - often times far more so than most public schools, including Berkeley. </p>
<p>Finally, the fact is, Berkeley is, frankly, quite weak when it comes to merit aid (except for athletic scholarships). Take my brother. He could have gone to Berkeley. But he would have had to pay. Instead, Caltech offered him the President's Scholarship, which gave him a full ride + stipend. So his choice was to go to Berkeley and have to pay, or go to Caltech and * get paid *. And yes, in case you're wondering, he loves science/math and wants to be a researcher. Which school would you choose if you were him? Be honest with yourself. </p>
<p>The point is this. We can't conclude that Berkeley is always the cheaper option, even for state residents. For some people, it is. For others, it is not. It all depends on your financial aid package and whatever merit scholarships you pick up. Depending on your personal circumstances, Berkeley may actually be the * expensive * option.</p>
<p>UCLAri:</p>
<p>I believe the poster was simply asking which other universities Cal students got into. Currently, I don't think the person was trying to say that, obviously, many Cal students who got into Harvard, etc. are just as good as elite schools' students. Simply seeing where else they got in. =)</p>
<p>If you really don't find that that's plausible, consider that the entry I linked to was created by me. I'd heard quite a bit that students at Cal are not of "Harvard caliber," etc. and wanted to find out where else Cal students got into. I didn't care that those same universities pulled more students away from Cal; I wanted to know that Cal students were not simply "Stanford rejects" and whatnot.</p>
<p>And sakky, there are no variables because this isn't an experiment or survey of any sort. The OP said, "I hear some people saying berkeley students are only there because they did not get into top privates... let's see if there's some truth to that." He/she wanted to see whether there was truth to the fact that Berkeley students are [insert elite school] rejects. Whether or not those universities won the tug-of-war over students is irrelevant -- now that the OP knows that Cal students have gotten into top unis, he/she can conclude that it's untrue.</p>
<p>If you'd like to supplement that information, as a side note, with the fact that those unis tend to win the tug-of-war, go ahead. But the OP wasn't asking about that, nor is the information needed.</p>