Berkeley recognizes the existance (and influence) of College Confidential

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>I don't think sakky's vote is for or against. I think he tries to give you all the info and let you decide your own vote. He just gives mainly negative points because those aren't highlighted as much. I've seen him defend Berkeley undergrad as "argubly the best public undergrad in the nation."</p>

<p>The problem, as I see it, is that no one is pointing out the negatives at other schools as articulately, so in comparison Berkeley seems bad.</p>

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Though amusingly enough, when I first found College Confidential, the posts in the Berkeley forums were dominated by you and LC/PA/CST (Polite Antagonis at the time). If I purely went off of those, I should have run screaming the other way from Berkeley

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<p>Same here. I was pretty turned off but tried to keep an open mind. I think if many of my friends were to read them they would be swayed into choosing somewhere else (keep in mind, somewhere they know very little about, so it could be a worse fit). I think sakky's posts are fair, while most of CS/PA/LS/CST's posts are borderline ridiculous (although it takes a while to tell).</p>

<p>Sakky, I think to be fair, when someone asks between Berkeley and another school, you should point out Berkeley's faults but also the negatives of the other school.</p>

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However, I see no reason why people would not be "deterred" by your posts.

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<p>Like I said, if I talk about some information that highlights one of the problems of Berkeley, and that convinces you not to go, then so be it. I believe that decisions can only be helped by better information, including negative information. For example, if I'm out looking to buy a car and I discover in my research that one car model is unusually unreliable or has low resale value, then I might choose to buy something else. But certainly I would want people to tell me these negative things about a car. Certainly I would want to know these things before I buy. </p>

<p>Now, for those people (not you,allorion, I'm talking about other people) who simply don't WANT to know anything bad about Berkeley, then fair enough, don't read my posts. Nobody has a gun to your head. For those of you who prefer to make decisions with your eyes shut, then go right ahead and ignore me. </p>

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I don't think you would deny that your vote would generally be against, your points and observations considered

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<p>I disagree with this characterization. I believe I have generally given very high marks to the Berkeley graduate programs, not only on CC but in real-life, to the point that people have told me that they felt encouraged by me to go to Berkeley for grad school. </p>

<p>I call it the way I see it. When something is good, I will say that it is good. The Berkeley graduate programs, for example, are good. When things have problems, I am going to say that they have problems. </p>

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Sakky, I think to be fair, when someone asks between Berkeley and another school, you should point out Berkeley's faults but also the negatives of the other school.

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<p>I don't know that it's really my responsibility to go around talking about the faults of other schools, especially of schools that I know less about. Rather, it should be the responsibility of every single CC category to come up with a poster who is willing to give full pictures. </p>

<p>For the record, I think that Berkeley undergrad is arguably one of the best public programs in the country, and perhaps the best. I also suspect that Berkeley undergrad is probably better than some of the rival private schools such as Cornell. Berkeley is also a quite good school for the stronger and aggressive students who have the personality to access Berkeley's resources. So if the competition consists of, say, the other UC's, then I have no problem endorsing Berkeley. </p>

<p>The problem comes when Berkeley undergrad is matched up against the top private schools or against elite public foreign schools like Oxbridge. Berkeley grad can match up against anyone. But Berkeley undergrad has matchup problems against this level of competition.</p>