Aside from UC Berkeley, where else have you been accepted?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
21

<p>kyledavid,</p>

<p>Two things lead me to believe the contrary of your post.</p>

<ol>
<li> The poster said
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</li>
</ol>

<p>In my opinion, this suggests that he's looking to show that Berkeley students are equivalent to the private students.</p>

<ol>
<li> He made this thread right after I had a debate with him about the undergrad program at Cal.</li>
</ol>

22

<p>"In my opinion, this suggests that he's looking to show that Berkeley students are equivalent to the private students."</p>

<p>Possibly. I doubt that he/she means to show that all students are, though.</p>

<p>"2. He made this thread right after I had a debate with him about the undergrad program at Cal."</p>

<p>I wasn't aware. Might the discussion have involved the fact that Cal has a somewhat 'mediocre' undergrad program in comparison to elite schools? (Impaction, student body size, financial aid, "low" SAT range, the whole deal?)</p>

23

<p>Well, I never said mediocre...I merely said that grad rankings don't translate into a good undergrad experience.</p>

<p>Long story. :p</p>

24

<p>Ah, I see. I remember having seen something of the sort in the threads (was this the one concerning Nobel Laureates?).</p>

25

<p>There have been so many. It's hard to keep track these days.</p>

26

<p>UCLAri, you're anti-state US and anti-Berkeley. Should I also need to remind you that -- this thread is also intended to Berkeley students? I think you're not helping in this thread so I'm requesting you to just stick to your job as a moderator and do not do anything that would ruin this thread.</p>

<p>We've already heard about you saying --- oh not cal is good but it's not Stanford, Harvard, and all those crooked and weird claims -- and I don't wanna hear that in this thread. please leave this thread so we can maintain a more helpful and harmonious discussion in this thread. just for this thread. please.</p>

27

<p>gee, it was a while ago. i got in cal, ucla, ucsd and ucd. i was too lazy so i only had one application out of high school :).</p>

28

<p>
[quote]
UCLAri, you're anti-state US and anti-Berkeley.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm anti-state US? Huh? You mean I'm anti state university?</p>

<p>How does that make any sense? I graduated from one for undergrad and will have my master's from one for grad. Your argument makes absolutely positively no sense whatsoever. NONE.</p>

29

<p>Yeah, I missed typing it correctly. US shouldn't been = Us as in State Us. U = university. Us = Universities.</p>

<p>All I'm saying is that -- this thread is for legit Berkeley students and alumni. Are you?</p>

30

<p>vangie,</p>

<p>No, and you have no right to determine who can and cannot post in a thread. I will not warn you again to stop with this line of discussion.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
Yeah, I missed typing it correctly. US shouldn't been = Us as in State Us. U = university. Us = Universities.</p>

<p>All I'm saying is that -- this thread is for legit Berkeley students and alumni. Are you?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, according to that definition, I am 'legit'. And I am aligned with UCLAri in terms of his opinions on this thread. So if he just told me what he thought, and I just repeated it (as his ideas are basically the same as mine anyway), would that really make things any better just because I am the one that is saying it?</p>

<p>
[quote]
and I don't wanna hear that in this thread. please leave this thread so we can maintain a more helpful and harmonious discussion in this thread. just for this thread.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Look, if you don't want to 'hear' it, then don't read UCLAri's posts. Nobody has a gun to your head. You can just have a 'harmonious' discussion with the people who you actually want to talk to, and ignore everybody else's posts.</p>

<p>But the point is, you don't own this thread. Hence, you don't have the right to exclude anybody from it. The whole point of free speech is to let people express a wide range of opinions, including opinions with which you may not agree. If people aren't free to express their opinions, then why even have a discussion board at all?</p>

<p>Bottom line, if you don't like it, don't read it. I don't read the vast majority of posts on CC, and I don't even read many of the posts in the threads that I participate in. You can elect to do the same.</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
We've already heard about you saying --- oh not cal is good but it's not Stanford, Harvard, and all those crooked and weird claims -- and I don't wanna hear that in this thread. please leave this thread so we can maintain a more helpful and harmonious discussion in this thread. just for this thread. please.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So it's more helpful to students for posters to post only what you want to hear in this thread, instead of giving their honest opinions?</p>

33

<p>vangie:</p>

<p>"UCLAri, you're anti-state US and anti-Berkeley."</p>

<p>What? I've seen UCLAri praise Berkeley in other threads ...</p>

<p>"this thread is also intended to Berkeley students?"</p>

<p>Is it?</p>

<p>"I think you're not helping in this thread"</p>

<p>I find he was.</p>

<p>"I'm requesting you to just stick to your job as a moderator and do not do anything that would ruin this thread."</p>

<p>Er, I find that UCLAri = member who moderates as he sees fit.</p>

<p>"and I don't wanna hear that in this thread."</p>

<p>You'll have to suck it up, I suppose.</p>

<p>"please leave this thread so we can maintain a more helpful and harmonious discussion in this thread."</p>

<p>Since when were interesting discussions ever harmonious? :P</p>

<p>"All I'm saying is that -- this thread is for legit Berkeley students and alumni. Are you?"</p>

<p>I'm not a Berkeley student or alumni -- hell, I haven't even graduated high school yet. But you'll find that I contributed to the discussion by linking to a page in which Berkeley students tell which other top colleges they got into. But of course, being 'non-legit,' I'm submitting information that means nothing. =)</p>

34

<p>
[quote]
Well, according to that definition, I am 'legit'. And I am aligned with UCLAri in terms of his opinions on this thread. So if he just told me what he thought, and I just repeated it (as his ideas are basically the same as mine anyway), would that really make things any better just because I am the one that is saying it?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Did you study at Berkeley for your undergrad? What course did you finish at Berkeley? Why did you choose berkeley when you don't think it is at par with the best in the nation? I'm just curious because I see your posts all over in this message board contradicting people's beliefs that Berkeley is as competitive and as good as the top provates? If you do not think berkeley is as good as the other elite privates, why did you study at berkeley for undergrad?</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
So it's more helpful to students for posters to post only what you want to hear in this thread, instead of giving their honest opinions?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's actually just sort of a survey thread so I'm avaoiding to have adebate in this thread because there are already so many threads for that. sorry if it came out too authoritative to some of you but trust me, my intension is clean for this thread -- which is to know if all students at berkeley are just there because they were helpless and couldn't find a top private to accomodate them. Again, I'm requesting that we keep this thread free from debates. but if you can't accpet my request, then there's nothing i can do about that.</p>

36

<p>sorry double posts</p>

37

<p>
[quote]
I'm just curious because I see your posts all over in this message board contradicting people's beliefs that Berkeley is as competitive and as good as the top provates?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's not contradiction per se. It's merely qualification. If you look closer you'll see sakky praises many aspects of Berkeley which he thinks are "competitive and as good as the top privates."</p>

38

<p>^ ah, ok. thanks for telling me that. </p>

<p>I hope to see more Cal students post so we can have a glimpse of where else have they been accepted aside from Berkeley. Many thnaks for those who posted and tahnk you in advance to those will post. :)</p>

39

<p>
[quote]
Did you study at Berkeley for your undergrad? What course did you finish at Berkeley? Why did you choose berkeley when you don't think it is at par with the best in the nation? I'm just curious because I see your posts all over in this message board contradicting people's beliefs that Berkeley is as competitive and as good as the top provates? If you do not think berkeley is as good as the other elite privates, why did you study at berkeley for undergrad?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Let me say this. First off, your questioning presumes that everybody has free choice to attend whatever school they want. Come on, you know that's not true. The vast majority of people do not get into their first choice school. With the exception of perhaps one school, all schools have a large chunk of students who would rather be going somewhere else, but didn't get in. {That one exception, of course, being Harvard.} Berkeley is therefore not unusual in that sense. </p>

<p>So when you ask "why did you choose Berkeley when you don't think it is on par with other schools", that's like asking why didn't I date Jessica Alba, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, and Scarlett Johanssen all at the same time? Why didn't I choose to play for the Red Sox? Why didn't I become a huge movie star? You are presuming that I even had those choices available to me. We all have to work with the choices that we actually have available to us, not the choices we wish we had. Like I said, a lot of Berkeley students choose Berkeley because they thought it was best choice of all of the available choices they had. I don't consider that particularly unusual - students at most schools choose those schools because it was the best choice of all the available choices they had. A lot of students at UCDavis or UCSC wish they were going to Berkeley, but didn't get in. </p>

<p>But even if you do actually have many choices available to you, that doesn't mean that you will always choose "correctly" (where "correctly" means that in the future, you will still agree with the choices you made). You live and learn. As you get older, you learn more about what really matters and what doesn't. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. My grandfather was a heavy smoker. And he always used to tell me not to smoke. So one might ask - why did he become a smoker himself? The answer is simple. When he took up smoking, he was just a stupid kid who didn't know any better. And later in life, he found that he couldn't stop. </p>

<p>Now, obviously I'm not equating Berkeley to smoking, but what I am saying is that as you get older, you develop a better understanding of what's really going on. Nobody's perfect. I am quite certain that everybody here has done something in their lives that they wished they could do differently. </p>

<p>Besides, think of it this way. The * whole point * of getting an education is to learn new things and new ways of thinking. And when you learn, you will inevitably change your mind about certain things - you no longer believe things that you used to believe, and you believe certain things that you didn't used to believe. That's what happens when you develop a better understanding of the world. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you even more bluntly. If you already know everything, and there is nothing left for you to learn, then why even bother to get educated? Why even go to college? The whole point of any college, including Berkeley, is to arm you with a better understanding of the world than you had when you started. That better understanding inevitably means a changed mindset and set of opinions. A 22 year old college graduate who thinks in exactly the same manner as he did as an 18 year old incoming freshman might as well not have gone to college at all, as he basically just wasted 4 years of his life. </p>

<p>Hence, having said that, if I knew back then what I know now, certainly, my choices might have been different. Like I said, I think that everybody has done something in their past that they now wished they hadn't done. But the past is the past. You can't change the past. All you can do is help others as they make their choices in life.</p>

40

<p>Wow, that is such a drawn out way to just say that you had to settle for Berkeley... It's quite clear that you don't consider Berkeley a top 10 college, an opinion to which you're perfectly entitled to, but it's only your opinion.</p>

<p>I graduated with very good grades from one of the top 10 high schools in France back in the 80s. I wanted to study engineering in the US because the French system was too stifling and I really liked the American approach of allowing engineering students to take elctives and have a better rounded experience. I got into Princeton, Michigan, Purdue and was rejected from Berkeley and MIT. I appealed the decision from Berkeley and Sproul Hall came through for me in July. What a beautiful day that was... Berkeley appealed to me because it has a certain aura. My parents were very adamant about me going to Princeton despite the extra cost because they had heard pretty bad things about Berkeley from their American friends (most of whom were very conservative -I think that added to its appeal for me-) They were also a bit worried because I finished high school just before turning 17. Ultimately, I was able to convince my parents and now my handle isn't TigerX! =)</p>

<p>MIT rejected me from the onset, they had a pre-application question asking prospective foreign candidates why they wanted to study at MIT. I responded that I wanted to study in a different cultural environment to broaden my horizons. Wrong answer, but boy did they get it right, I would have been quite miserable there. Great insight on their part...</p>

<p>At the risk of sounding repetitive, I can't conceive a better college experience than the one I got at Berkeley. Those years were the most stimulating in my life, at so many levels. I'm doing pretty well today, but I think the path I took to get there and my outlook have definitely been influenced by my experience at Berkeley. I will be able to retire very comfortably before I'm 50 and have a few plans to have a very interesting career tack afterwards. I would probably have done just as well financially at other top schools, but I think I owe a lot of my outlook to my years at Berkeley.</p>