Berkeley is ranked number 2 in the World

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>One is often prone to forget that in the 1970s and 80’s Berkeley was ranked in the top five universities in the world. Nowadays, the US News ranking methodology has an extremely high amount of emphasis on funding and college resources that favors ivy league schools. </p>

<p>The rankings as everyone in the academic community knows, is highly suspect and biased. Think of the BCS rankings that constantly need fixing, but with US News, the administrators are ivy league produced, so why change the system?</p>

<p>A highly respected London publishing firm ranked Berkeley as the second best university in the world. Harvard was first. MIT and Cal Tech are third and fourth respectively.</p>

<p>Go Bears!</p>

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<p>Are you rayray222, or perfectsat?</p>

<p>First of all, you gotta be careful about your allegations about USNews. You said it yourself - there was a period of time not that long ago when Berkeley had a much higher ranking in USNews. So if you say that USNews is biased towards the Ivies because it is Ivy produced, then why would such bias have hurt Berkeley only recently? Shouldn't USNews have ALWAYS been biased against Berkeley? So why now? Why would such bias make its effect felt only now? </p>

<p>Furthermore, if you really believe in a supposed USNews Ivy-bias, then why would such bias only show up in the USNews undergraduate ranking? I look at the graduate programs, especially the PhD programs, and I see that USNews gives Berkeley extremely high marks. So I'm curious to understand why such supposed bias would only hurt certain Berkeley programs and not others. Shouldn't it hurt ALL Berkeley programs? </p>

<p>Surely you cannot simply dismiss the possibility that Berkeley suffered in the undergraduate rankings because Berkeley undergrad actually got worse. And I think that's exactly what happened. Let's face it - the Berkeley golden years were from the late 40's to the early 60's, when Berkeley lavished in tremendous funding and built out truly great programs, graduate and undergrad. Since those times, I believe that while the Berkeley graduate programs maintained their strength, the undergraduate program steadily declined. It's still good, but it's not like what it was in the golden years. Hence, the Berkeley grad programs are still great, but the Berkeley undergrad program fell from being great to now just 'good'. I think that is a far more fair interpretation of what happened than the simplistic excuse of USNews bias. </p>

<p>Besides, let's look at the sources of this supposed bias. You finger such things as college resources as evidence of bias because Ivies have more resources. Well, uh, pardon me, but aren't resources important for a strong academic experience? I don't know about you, but I don't think that too many schools can run good programs without any resources. And let's face it, the more resources you have, the better your programs will tend to be, all other things being equal. I have never heard of a single student in my life say that their school ought to provide them with less resources. So if the Ivies have more resources than Berkeley does, then it only makes sense that the Ivies will get a higher ranking than Berkeley will. That's exactly the way the rankings should work. If Berkeley won't provide sufficient resources per capita to its undergrad students, then Berkeley deserves to lose undergrad ranking points. And that's exactly the way it should be. </p>

<p>To say that this is just a matter of bias is like me saying that a ranking of the top 50 basketball players in history shows a bias towards people with great athletic ability and great basketball skills. Uh, great athletic ability and great basketball skills are part of what makes you a great basketball player. Similarly, having lots of available resources is part of what makes a great program. Like I said, I have never heard of a single student of any program ever complain that his program has too many resources. </p>

<p>You also say that USNews is biased, and yet you seize upon another ranking that to me is plain misleading. I have always held that the Berkeley graduate programs are great. But that should have no influence as to whether you should choose to go to Berkeley for undergrad. So this ranking says that Berkeley is the #2 school in the world, better than Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Caltech, Oxford, and other highly prominent schools. But ask yourself - as an undergraduate, would you really turn down Stanford for Berkeley unless you wanted to save money? As an undergraduate, would you turn down Yale for Berkeley? As an undergraduate, would you turn down Oxford for Berkeley? For your PhD, sure, but for undergrad? Come on. Get real. Let's face it. The Berkeley undergrad program is not as good as the one at Stanford, or Yale, or MIT, or others. </p>

<p>None of that is to say that the Berkeley undergrad program is bad. I said it before, it's pretty good. But the reality is that it's not as good as it was during the golden years.</p>

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<p>Sakky. I have worked in investment banking for several years with peers from the best schools in the US. Sometimes, the things they recant out of their mouth that their professors said, I could not believe the boorishness of their education.</p>

<p>The views that our Berkeley professors teaches, they are the most respected in their field. What you learn and recant about European history, the viewpoints, the analysis of lets say American colonialism in the context of religious purposes, will be what is considered to be the most advanced view in the world. This is something you only realize after you graduate, and frankly I am very proud of my education.</p>

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<p>it's one thing to be proud of your own education.
it's another to base your opinions of another school based simply on what a couple kids said their professors said.
i'm sorry to say this, but most people are proud of their own educations and believe that what they learned is "considered to be the most advanced view in the world."
just because you've worked in investment banking doesn't make you an expert on which "viewpoint" is most advanced. in fact, how can any one "viewpoint" on "American colonialism" be any more "advanced" than the next?</p>

<p>bottom line, your pride borders on arrogance and you're not doing berkeley justice by acting like that</p>

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<p>it's one thing to be proud of your own education.
it's another to base your opinions of another school based simply on what a couple kids said their professors said.
i'm sorry to say this, but most people are proud of their own educations and believe that what they learned is "considered to be the most advanced view in the world."
just because you've worked in investment banking doesn't make you an expert on which "viewpoint" is most advanced. in fact, how can any one "viewpoint" on "American colonialism" be any more "advanced" than the next?</p>

<p>bottom line, your pride borders on arrogance and you're not doing berkeley justice by acting like that>.>>>>></p>

<p>Actually even if everyone thinks that their view is the most advanced in the world, most likely they are living a lie. Because you see, there is something called departmental rankings. A history major from a number 10 ranked school will simply have an inferior outlook and opinion on most historical matters than someone from a number 2 ranked school. This is why Universities pay hundreds of thousands if not millions to try to poach the best professors from each other.</p>

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<p>does rupert murdoch own US News?</p>

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<p>The problem with departmental rankings is that they are based on research productivity. I've never disputed that Berkeley profs are highly prolific when it comes to research. The problem is to determine how much of that research proclivity translates into a good undergraduate experience. I myself have taken many classes from professors who have published lots of stuff, but couldn't teach to save their lives - and in fact, I learned nothing from their classes that I couldn't have learned just by reading the book. Hence the fact that that prof was a famous researcher really didn't add any value to my academic experience. </p>

<p>Besides, look at it this way. I look at these departmental rankings, and I notice that none of the top LAC's like Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore are listed anywhere. So should I then conclude that anybody who went to AWS got an absolutely terrible education, because they weren't taught by a highly ranked department? So because the elite LAC's don't have highly ranked departments, I should conclude that the elite LAC's just suck and that they are some of the worst schools in the world?</p>

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<p>You said this before about half a year ago. I remember. </p>

<p>My personal experience is during my applications to PhD programs, admissions departments said they place the greatest importance on recommendations. If a Berkeley professor vouches for you, the admissions PhD committee looks upon you extremely favorably. I can tell you that a rec from a Berkely professor holds as much weight, if not more than HYPS professors (depeding on the department). Inferior ivies like Dartmouth or Brown, their profs wont be able to get you into a good PhD program to save their lives (based on recommendation alone).</p>

<p>Personally, I found my professors to be extremely intelligent and I learned a great deal in lecture, especially in upper division courses. I naively at the time thought that all professors at elite universities taught the same viewpoints. But after graduation, after speaking with Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell students, some of their viewpoints on political/economic issues seemed straight out of AP Economics, instead of a true intellectual viewpoint. I felt sad for them rather than superior.</p>

<p>Only 4 years after I graduated, did I truly realize how different a Berkeley education really is.</p>

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<p>Sakky, I have said this before but never dwelled on it because it comes only from personal experience and to be honest, no one knows if I am lying or not. You and I both agree that personal experiences carry little weight in debates. Regardless, I would like to bring up again that in my graduate studies in economics, I found that UC graduates more than hold their own against Ivy League, Stanford, and other prestigious schools. I am not only talking about Berkeley and UCLA graduates either; I am talking about Irvine and San Diego grads as well. I found that not only could we match them in intellect but often times we surpassed them. I also noticed this at work I would like to restrict this comment to academics. Now, I doubt you have ever heard me outright disrespect any Ivy League schools. I have tremendous respect for them. They are all great schools. In my opinion, Harvard is the 1st or 2nd best school in the United States. I just agree with California1600 in that they are not as great as so many people make them out to be. I also think that the UC system is greater than people on CC give it credit for.</p>

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<p>Don't get me wrong, I never said that the UC system was overall bad. In fact, I have said many times that it is overall pretty good.</p>

<p>What I'm saying is that you should not overhype the UC system. The UC system is very good, and in many cases, excellent for graduate school, particularly PhD's. The problem is that in many cases, the UC undergraduate schools are basically trading off the good-name of the graduate schools. I have seen it time and time again - whenever people start complaining about problems in the UC undergraduate schools, the administration responds by pouring even more money into the graduate schools, thinking that the strength of the graduate programs will blind everybody to the problems in the undergraduate program. </p>

<p>The situation is not helped by people like california1600/rayray222 who deliberately ignore the problems of the undergraduate programs. When people like california1600 go around talking only about the good points of the Berkeley undergraduate program, that only encourages the administrators to sit around and do nothing, claiming that everything is A-OK. And it isn't. There are problems.</p>

<p>Specifically, I agree with you that if you can get a strong rec from a prominent Berkeley prof, that's a powerful filip for you to get into a strong PhD program. But you and I both know the problem - it's not that easy to get that rec because it's not that easy to get to know your profs. Basically, you have to be a mentally strong and confident person to cut through the morass and make yourself known, and a lot of people are not mentally strong and confident. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. Again, look at the Berkeley undergraduate math graduates, and the kinds of graduate math programs that they go to. Some of those programs are indeed highly prominent. But then there are others like San Francisco State and the University of Nevada-Reno, that you must admit are not exactly prominent. Obviously for those guys, things did not go as planned. They obviously wanted to go to a highly prominent graduate math program, but things didn't work out.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Math.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Math.stm&lt;/a> </p>

<p>So I'll say again what I've said before. The UC system is very good for some undergraduates, but not for others. It certainly isn't for everybody. It is good for strong, mentally confident students who are not afraid to fight for resources and attention. But if you are not that kind of person, then you will become roadkill. The UC undergraduate programs have little mercy for those people who aren't strong enough to stand up for themselves. That's why such a large percentage of students drop out/flunk out of the UC undergraduate programs. </p>

<p>Look, at the end of the day, the UC undergraduate programs have strengths that we should acknowledge, but also weaknesses that we should acknowledge. It helps nobody to tell people only one side of the story. I have always maintained that the UC undergraduate programs are overall good, but they are not for everybody.</p>

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<p>Thats ridiculous. I just asked three of my professors who I have not seen nor talked to in 7 years or so, and they are writing me strong recommendation letters for grad school. Its never too late to get to know your professor, even as an alumni. =)</p>

<p>My issue is not that UC's are overhyped, its that Ivy Leagues are overhyped. They will never self criticise to improve themselves like you do with UC's sakky. See, in the end you should be honored because I want the ivy leagues to be more like you and more self critical.</p>

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<p>Sakky, it is pretty rare that I agree with you and now is one of those times (at least partially). Coming from UCLA as an undergrad, I understand the fighting and struggling that you speak of in your last two paragraphs. In fact, I have admitted this to you on a few occasions in the past. Berkeley and UCLA are not hand-holding institutions. I agree that this can be a negative for some people. This can also be a positive though. The way I see it is that this gets you ready for the real world. When you graduate no one is going to hold your hand and walk you through life. If you work for a large corporation your boss sure as heck doesn’t have the time to spoon feed you. I know; I work for such a company. Anyway, I have never heard you say that these schools lacked tremendous resources and hopefully you never will. Since there is no apparent lack of resources, the students who actually do utilize the abundance of facilities, programs, and faculty have a one up on those who come from smaller schools who do no have this luxury. I agree with you that these types of schools are not for everybody. At the same time I hope you can admit that smaller less prestigious schools are not for everybody also. I think I told you this before but if a student has the world at his fingertips and doesn’t take advantage of it then I don’t particularly feel sorry for him if things don’t go his way.</p>

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<p>So, California1600, quit dodging the question - what happened to those Berkeley math graduates who ended up at grad school at SF State? Oops, I guess something bad clearly happened here, but you will always turn a blind eye to it. I will continue to point this out until you give me a satisfactory answer.</p>

<p>Now, to shyboy13, I would argue that while the UC system does indeed have strong resources, the problem is not resources per se, but rather with resources per capita. Sure, there are lots of resources. But there are also lots of students consuming those resources. You must admit that if you were at another school, you might be able to enjoy more resources per capita. Consider the case of Caltech, which spends an average of over 100k per year per undergraduate. I don't think that Caltech has an equivalent total amount of aggregate resources than UC does, but I think that few students who were admitted to both UC and to Caltech would choose to turn down Caltech, except possibly to save on tuition. </p>

<p>The point is that what matters is resources per capita. Nobody enjoys standing in line waiting for something. Nobody enjoys having things rationed to them, like class seats, or lab facilities. Everybody, even california1600, would prefer to have as many resources per capita available to him as possible. Why fight for resources if you don't have to?</p>

<p>Finally, I suppose we have to say that in your final sentence, that's the difference between you and I. You don't have any sympathy for people who don't take advantage of opportunities. I would say that many of these opportunities aren't exactly easy to take advantage of. When you have snarling profs, a bureaucracy that really couldn't care less if you lived or died, and a general coldness and alienation as many of the UC undergraduate programs often do, let's face it, it's difficult to take advantage of opportunities. Now, you might say that that's just tough, people should be tougher than that. That's funny because people have often said that UC is a more compassionate and more sympathetic school than the private schools are. I would actually argue the way you are - the UC's are actually more cold and distant. If you're tough, you will benefit, if you're not, then you lose. That's actually quite Darwinistic. Now maybe you agree with that sort of philosophy, and that's fine. I don't. A lot of people just don't have the gumption to deal with that kind of coldness, and therefore don't thrive well in that kind of environment. Consider the difference between Yale Law and Harvard Law (note, I am not saying that the Berkeley undergrad program is anything of the quality of Harvard Law, or even close to it - this is just an example). Both can provide you with a top-level legal education. But one is highly nurturing and anti-competitive, whereas the other emphasizes competition and shark-like behavior. Who's to say that one sort of philosophy really is better than the other.</p>

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<p>Its a public school jeez. I attended University of Chicago for one year in their graduate program, and I found the service there to be quite exceptional. They called me to make sure I didn't want to drop any classes. I was like "WTF? They do that?" LOLZ</p>

<p>However, there is no way I would have traded my experience and education at Berkeley. I saw the undergraduates at other privates, and I was so thankful to have gone to Berkeley. I realized how sheltered and secluded we are in idealism at Berkeley. </p>

<p>Also, I have seen the differences, and while it may be better service at private schools, that exists for all public schools. There are other benefits to public schools, such as football programs, athletics, social life, etc... that outweigh getting a phone call about dropped classes. Thats just me though.</p>

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<p>I have several friends who dropped out of Berkeley. I personally got kicked out, but managed to pull off a late drop so that I got back in. I feel sympathy for them, however, if they didn't come to Berkeley, we would have never met, so there lies my dilemma.</p>

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<p>sakky. I get it, your one of those super smart kids at Berkeley who dropped out and now you're really mad... I'm sorry about that man. I completely understand why you would be so vocal about this issue. I agree, something must be done.</p>

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<p>How is it that I'm one of those supersmart kids at Berkeley who dropped out? That's an interesting non-sequitur. I have always said that Berkeley is indeed a good school for highly capable students, for they are the ones who are most likely to benefit from the resources that Berkeley has to offer. However, you must agree that there are quite a few students at Berkeley who really aren't that exceptional, and you must agree that they end up suffering. They are the ones who are barely passing their classes because they really aren't that good. They are the ones who don't feel the confidence to stand up to the profs and to the school and demand academic resources, probably because they aren't performing well. You must agree that these students don't get a good Berkeley experience.</p>

<p>And that gets down to what I've been saying before - Berkeley is not for everybody, and that is something that bears mentioning. Hence, Berkeley should not be overhyped. For some students, it is indeed an excellent school. For others, absolutely not. The question is whether you are strong and exceptional enough to take advantage of the opportunities. I think that even a strong Berkeley-partisan like yourself has to agree that Berkeley is not going to hold your hand and if you get into a jam, then Berkeley isn't really going to help you out. </p>

<p>I remember one Berkeley student who wanted to fly out on a job interview on the exact same date as one of his midterms. He asked the prof if he could take the midterm on some other date, and he even said he had no problem in taking it early. Nope, the prof said that the time of the midterm is the time of the midterm, simple as that. You can't take it late, you can't take it early. He ended up taking a zero on the midterm because the prof absolutely would not budge. That's the sort of inflexibility that Berkeley sometimes throws at you. </p>

<p>And about your comment about how you wouldn't have traded your Berkeley experience for the kid-glove services (including the offer to drop classes) that the privates provide, again, I would say that that's true perhaps of yourself. But I think you would have to agree that those former Berkeley students who flunked out wouldn't have minded getting some of kid-glove treatment that those privates provided. Those Berkeley flunkouts lost out big, and I mean really big, by going to Berkeley. It would be a tough argument to make to those people that the services that privates supposedly provide is not a useful thing. You must admit, almost anything is better than flunking out of Berkeley. </p>

<p>Finally, I don't know that you can say that public schools have a monopoly on things like sports or social life or whatever. Are you presuming that private schools don't have these things. Really? Tell the people in Palo Alto that for the last few years, they didn't have a fairly decent basketball team, or at least, better than Cal's basketball team. Tell the students at Duke that their basketball team sucks. As far as social life is concerned, surely you can't say that all private schools don't have a good social life. Harvard's social life is, again, quite enviable.</p>

<p>Finally, again, I would argue whether those things are really all that important anyway. I don't see too many people turning down Harvard on the grounds that Harvard doesn't have a good football team. Would you? I don't see too many people turning down Stanford for Berkeley on the grounds that Berkeley has a better social life (which Berkeley does). Would you? </p>

<p>So I think we're coming full-circle. Again, I have never said that Berkeley is a bad school. Indeed, I have said many times that it is pretty good. But there are weaknesses, and in particular, Berkeley is not for everyone. I am happy that you enjoyed your experience at Berkeley, but you have to agree that many other students, especially those who flunked out, probably would have been better served if they had went elsewhere.</p>

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<p>"Because you see, there is something called departmental rankings. A history major from a number 10 ranked school will simply have an inferior outlook and opinion on most historical matters than someone from a number 2 ranked school. This is why Universities pay hundreds of thousands if not millions to try to poach the best professors from each other."</p>

<p>Your argument is completely ridiculous. If by the "best" professors you mean most prolific, as Sakky said, that is just not an appropriate measure for quality of education. Can you tell by a professor's lecture how many books he's written? I doubt it. You validate your opinions by stating that of the people you've met, Cal kids have superior "outlooks" on an issue? What if I told you that I met a dumb Cal kid that didn't fully understand his professor's lectures and therefore misrepresented the "outlook" he got? Does that makes me qualified to state that Cal is an inferior school? You can't quantify a department's quality in such discreet terms, such as "The number 2 ranked department will just simply have an inferior outlook than the number 1." That's like saying that Penn is better than Stanford because USNews ranks it higher and therefore everyone at Penn will somehow magically have a superior viewpoint that year. Schools "poach" the most prolific professors to impress people like you and the people who make the rankings.</p>

<p>Anyways I think Sakky already argued those points, and of course California1600 couldn't address them so I'll shut up about that.</p>

<p>But... I think the issue is that you refuse to acknowledge that any education could possibly compare to that of Cal's because of your own pride, not from of facts. I go to a very reputable school that I think is awesome, but I'm not so naive to think that a kid coming from departments that are "lower ranked" than the ones I'm going to is just simply not going to understand things as well as I can.
Cal is awesome, but your condescension is almost unbelieveable. I know what I would wonder about Cal after meeting you; are they really that full of themselves? (Unlike you, however, I wouldn't generalize and say "yeah they must be; this one individual provides all the proof I need", but rather "this is just an isolated case. every school has weirdos")</p>

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<p>^^ After reading your post, I realized that I did in fact probably sound highly arrogant. I did not realize this, as I have a limited ability to see myself from a third person perspective. For that, I apologize ay_caramba.</p>

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<p>"I remember one Berkeley student who wanted to fly out on a job interview on the exact same date as one of his midterms. He asked the prof if he could take the midterm on some other date, and he even said he had no problem in taking it early. Nope, the prof said that the time of the midterm is the time of the midterm, simple as that. You can't take it late, you can't take it early. He ended up taking a zero on the midterm because the prof absolutely would not budge. That's the sort of inflexibility that Berkeley sometimes throws at you. "</p>

<p>Go to Caltech--take the midterm on the airplane or at the airport--that's efficiency! (All tests/quizzes are take-home)</p>