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<p>Why does being public make a difference?</p>
<p>I’m a statistically competitive student applying to Berkeley and Northwestern…I have a 24% chance of getting into Berkeley and a 30% chance of getting into Northwestern.</p>
<p>Berkeley rejects many top applicants…</p>
<p>Sam Lee:</p>
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<p>I didn’t say you said that. =p</p>
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<p>That’s what you hear. It’s really not so. You can do IE and math without much difficulty. As I cited before, some of the applied math courses are directly offered by the IE department.</p>
<p>But even then, the OP didn’t say anything about *double-majoring<a href=“it’s%20an%20or,%20not%20an%20and”>/I</a>.</p>
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<p>There really isn’t much of a difference here. There is no real “liberal arts” approach to math at Berkeley – it’s simply that it’s held in L&S.</p>
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<p>Berkeley can be as flexible as you want it to be. =)</p>
<p>(Really, I don’t think flexibility is an issue.)</p>
<p>elsijfdl:</p>
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<p>I’ve heard this many times, and it really makes no sense. “Stastically weaker”? Would you really consider x difference amount of points (which is very small) to be “weaker”? I mean, technically, yes, but that translates to nothing in reality, and so “statistically weaker” is pointless.</p>
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<p>As far as “competition” goes, I don’t think so. I’m willing to bet that Berkeley has many more applicants than NU – probably near 50,000 this year. And the # spots in the freshman class are the same.</p>
<p>Note, though, that competition =/= difficulty.</p>
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<p>This is assuming that the SAT is even worth something, and we all know GPA is more indicative. Not to mention that Berkeley does not superscore the SAT, whereas NU does, and that causes a difference as high as 50 points in the SAT.</p>
<p>But look at the GPA stats: Berkeley’s students are, on average, “superior” to NU. (No, I don’t believe that this proves much. But I don’t think your comment on the SAT does, either.)</p>
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<p>From what I’ve seen, I’d say they’re roughly equals in that aspect.</p>
<p>20LEGEND:</p>
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<p>Um, no, that’s not a reason at all. Simply because it’s public doesn’t mean it isn’t more selective. Berkeley is more selective than the majority of publics. Hell, many publics are more selective than many privates.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t really matter much, as the # of in-state applicants is huge and the students are competitive; not to mention there are thousands of out-of-state and international students applying. They’re very comparable despite their inherent differences in admissions. (I could say the same of NU, in that it gives legacy preferences, URM preferences, etc. whereas Berkeley doesn’t.)</p>
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<p>no, because the applicants northwestern accepts have significantly higher test scores. the admission rate is only higher for northwestern because its pool is more self-selective and candidates who know they have very little chance of being admitted don’t even bother to apply (and pay the app. fee/spend the time), while people DO do this at berkeley, likely because it is a state school and they can receive discounted tuition, but it doesn’t matter what the reason is</p>
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<p>you’re not arguing with me here, you’re arguing with the premise of using the SAT to guage the caliber of students, and thus are arguing with the paradigm of american college admissions in general</p>
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<p>you’re right. what he meant to say was comparing Berkeley admissions to northwestern’s is comparing a top public to a top private, designations that place them in separate leagues. admission to top public schools has not, to this point, approached the selectivity of admissions to top private schools, and in fact the difference is becoming more pronounced.</p>
<p>and just to summarize, no one was saying berkeley wasn’t competitive to gain admission to. it is. but arguing that it is more or as selective as northwestern is just pointless</p>
<p>This is exactly the reason why I don’t want to make a personal comment to my cousin because I could be biased to Berkeley as it is my “dream” school and NU does not appeal to me. I would rather go to UChicago than go to NU. I really believe that NU is no match to Berkeley. </p>
<p>elsijfdl: I don’t think NU is more selective than Cal. Yes, Cal is less selective to California residents but, in general, Cal is more selective than NU, and even USNWR has said that as well.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you why Cal is more selective.</p>
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<li>Cal’s admits rate is 23% in contrast to NU’s 30%. For OOS, the admit rate at Berkeley is even smaller. If you’re a New Yorker, for instance, you would have a BIGGER chance of getting into NU than getting into Cal. Florida residents would find NU easier to get into than into Cal. This is a fact that you failed to think and consider.
On top of that, Cal admits rate for international students in only 7%. That’s near to Harvard’s 6% admit rate for international students. What does that mean? The answer is simple. If you’re applying from England or France, you’d have a lesser chance of getting into Berkeley than getting into NU. </li>
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<p>I understand Cal is easier to get into for Cali residents. But that’s beside the point b/coz that’s Cal’s mission. However, for both of us, Cal would be harder to get into. </p>
<p>Somebody mentioned here that NU has a stronger student body. How is that possible when almost everyone at Cal belonged to their top 10% of their high school class? And time and again, SAT has not proven to be a better measure than high school grades. And even if we count in SATs scores, we can see than the average difference between the 2 schools is not that big. In fact, there are many more students at Cal with better,higher scores than there are at NU. This is significant here but which you failed to see again.</p>
<p>Re NU sends more students to grad school, show me a proof that NU grads count more Cal grads in grad schools.</p>
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<p>Well, the simple fact that NU doesn’t have an OOS bias. So I presume if UCB wasn’t a public school, the acceptance rate <em>might</em> just be even lower.</p>
<p>if any of you read my posts about why the admit rate is nonmaterial, you would understand that what you are posting is incorrect.</p>
<p>the admit rate to berkeley is lower because it receives many more throwaway apps from people with no chance of ever getting in (as evidenced by its lower overall score distribution). this is likely because it is a state school and many people from california apply, even if they are in the lower tiers of their high school class, but it doesn’t matter what is the reason.</p>
<p>this does not mean you have a 23% chance of getting into berkeley and a 30% chance of getting into northwestern. it means that an applicant with a 1450 SAT has a much better chance of getting into berkeley because they are in berkeley’s top 25th percentile of SAT scores, while they are exactly average at northwestern.</p>
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<p>if UCB wasn’t a public school it would then have to compete with other top privates as it would no longer offer discounted tuition to state residents. being a state school draws more applications and increases yield than does being a comparable private school.</p>
<p>and what are we talking about, anyway, “if” berkeley was private… what kind of debate is that</p>
<p>Well, my point is that Berkeley, because of its Cali bias does reject a ton of top OOS applicants who might otherwise get in.</p>
<p>elsijfdl: what I mean to say is that it takes a very, very long time and an enormous amount of effort (and perhaps even money) – total sacrifice , so to speak – for high school students to prepare himself to obtain an excellent grade so that he will graduate with honours THAN to prepare for a one-sitting SAT test. If you review for a couple of weeks or a month prior to the SATs tests, you can improve you SATs scores. However, and please take note of this, it takes years to work on your GPA and maintain that so you would graduate on top of your class. Schools like Berkeley and other top public schools have seen that. So, next time, tell me something other than the SAT because I’m not a big fan of SATs.</p>
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<p>you, like kyledavid, are then not arguing with me but instead are arguing with the entire set of principles that college admissions in the united states are based on.</p>
<p>Every single elite accredited college has chosen to rely on the validity of SAT scores when investing millions and millions of dollars into student education, so although you may not be a “big fan” of SATs, arguing their validity when discussing admissions selectivity is immaterial</p>
<p>LOL, elsijfdl…on other threads you seem to despise publics. “If” Berkeley were private, you might hold it in a little higher esteem. ;)</p>
<p>We all like getting a rise out of each other. I like the debate.</p>
<p>I agree with you that since Berkeley is on the UC common application, many in-state applicants likely just check off Berkeley on a whim and pay the extra application fee, all the while shooting for a different UC. This likely skews the admission numbers. </p>
<p>OOS and international applicants would be less inclined to do this.</p>
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<p>i did transfer from a public university (not of berkeley’s caliber) to northwestern, and i do indeed have ‘unresolved’ issues with public schools haha.</p>
<p>although i do, in fact, hold berkeley in very high esteem. especially their engineering school which at the beginning of this thread i concede is at least more prestigious, if not outright better, than northwestern’s</p>
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<p>This is just an assumption which I think is a wrong one. I have cousins who live in Daly City, California. I once paid them a visit and they toured me around their high school (which I forgot what the name was.) According to the guidance counsellor of their school, only top students do apply to UC schools because UC schools, especially Cal and UCLA look for/value more the student’s high school rank/high school grades than SATs. So, when the students know that they don’t stand a chance of getting into Cal, they would not apply because it’s just a waste of time. </p>
<p>This is how I actually see this. </p>
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<li><p>If you’re a highly achieving student – the A type of student all throughout high school, you would get a chance at Cal. </p></li>
<li><p>Even if you didn’t do well during high school but scored high in SATs even if it was by chance, you’ll have an excellent shot at NU.</p></li>
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<p>There lies the difference</p>
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<p>Then again, you ignored the performance of the students during his high school life. That’s the phase in your academic life that you invest more. It’s not fair to disregard that by a onetime sitting test (SATs).</p>
<p>I transferred to Berkeley from a Cal State, particularly for chemical engineering.</p>
<p>Best decision I ever made. Transfer students seem to have more passion about their respective schools on these boards.</p>
<p>powergrid, the facts belie your argument</p>
<p>while the definition of what is a “top” student may be in flux, and it may very well be true by one definition that only “top” students apply to cal, the fact that the average SAT score at the school is lower while they also have a lower acceptance rate implies (actually by necessity denotes, as long as we are operating on the assumption that schools are attempting to maximize class strength) that the pool of students that is applying to cal delves significantly deeper into the lower percentile of student quality, as measured by the SAT.</p>
<p>you have to understand that the SAT is graded according to relative performance of your peers, that is, that there are a defined and limited amount of students in the country who score at certain values, and when one school has lower test scores than another, it signifies that that school did not experience the same level of matriculation of the very top students.</p>
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<p>no.</p>
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This is not true again. In fact, some LACs are gradually accepting students without SATs. The UC schools are planning to follow suit soon, I’ve been told.</p>
<p>Again, for both of us who are not Cali residents, it would be harder for us to get into Cal than for us to get into NU.</p>
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<p>i am SO happy about my transfer too. when you experience a school you don’t enjoy, it makes the positive qualities of the school you transferred to all the more salient</p>
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<p>it’s funny you can make that claim although there is no factual basis for evaluating this since cal doesn’t release it’s admissions figures specifically for out of state students.</p>
<p>not to mention that statement was entirely irrelevant to the discussion, what we were discussing was the comparative strength of the overall student bodies, not the level of selectivity of berkeley oos admissions.</p>
<p>and also, just re your % in the top 10% of high school class argument, we can only conclude since berkeley does in fact have a higher % than northwestern that the high schools that berkeley students are matriculating from are of a more modest competitive level than those of students matriculating to northwestern, since the scores of northwestern students on a reasoning (IQ) test are higher.</p>
<p>therefore we can assume that since northwestern students are overall more capable, that the reason there are fewer of them in the top 10% is because their high schools were more competitive overall than the high school of berkeley matriculants</p>
<p>i think this can partially be explained by the fact that 93% of berkeley students are in-state and the california public school system (from what i’ve heard and read) is in abysmal shape. every single person i’ve met at northwestern from california went to a competitive private school</p>