<p>wow rooster stop being a jackass. bring that **** to some immature counter-strike or gaming forum</p>
<p>leave gaming out of this plz n00b :)</p>
<p>I am a Cornell Graduate, I have employed or worked along and befriended graduates from the other Ivy league schools, as well as UCLA, UCB and Stanford. Each and every individual seemed remarkably well educated....all schools are opportunities to learn at exceptional levels...the results are from how well a student fits with the school they are in. That includes considering the weather as well as the class sizes.</p>
<p>I have not been on Stanfords campus but I have been on UCLA and UCB campuses this year. They both look great. Both have large lecture halls and a number of smaller classrooms. I have spoken to students who said they finished their last large lecture class during sophomore year and have been in smaller classes since...but that could have something to do with course selection, so I don't doubt that some juniors are taking large lecture classes.
Berkeley has over 9 million books in its library.</p>
<p>A number of my courses at Cornell were large lecture classes, I remember Calculus being in a large lecture hall with two large classrooms with televisions for those who couldn't fit into the lecture hall...smaller TA led discussion/lab classes met to supplement the large lecture classes. The down side to large classes is that it is hard to meet a prof. The upside is that you can learn a skill at meeting and working with hard to reach busy people. (One tip...go see them early in the semester before all hell breaks loose and you need a favor)</p>
<p>As for Berkeley being a school of rejects....this is an absurd idea; there could many reasons a person would choose to live and study in Berkeley over the northeast. Remember, while jealous driven, mean spirited attempts at humor may get your roomate to giggle next to you at the computer, it does your college a real disservice to publically express what an idiot you are and how much time you have to spend annoying people. </p>
<p>I join the rest of the world at being impressed by Berkeley as a premier place of learning.</p>
<p>Rooster -- I got into Stanford too, and I think you're being an ass. You don't represent the views of everyone there.</p>
<p>Please shut up. People choose schools for tons of different reasons.</p>
<p>first off, im a stanford person. always have been. my message to berkeley people: hate stanford because you're supposed to, not because of people like rooster, however difficult that may be.</p>
<p>i think berkeley was ranked number two (after harvard) in an international study of schools all around the world. of course, berkeley could have been ranked based on its fabulous grad school, not undergrad.</p>
<p>the article if anyone's interested:
<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1343642,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1343642,00.html</a></p>
<p>stanford is number seven
again, i don't know how much this means.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Berkeley's graduate schools, particularly its PhD programs, are fabulous. </p>
<p>However, I think even the biggest Berkeley fanatic would have to concede that Berkeley's undergraduate program is not as good as its graduate programs. That's the truth about Berkeley. The UG program is pretty good, but not as good as the graduate programs. And for those of you (i.e. West Side) who insist that a school needs top graduate programs in order to have a top UG program, I would point to the top LAC's like Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore - schools that have limited (or no) graduate schools and yet are still widely held to be top UG programs. Clearly, that must mean that you can have a very strong UG program without top graduate programs. I would also point out that that Times ranking had Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore nowhere to be found. So does that mean that because they are nowhere to be found on the ranking, that they are some of the most terrible places to get an undergraduate education? </p>
<p>Anyway, getting back to the point, the reality is that quite a lot of Berkeley students are in fact going there as second choice - usually to HYPSM. Yes, there are certain people who turn down Harvard to go to Berkeley because of personal reasons or cost or whatnot. But the truth is that the top reason why a given Berkeley person didn't go to Harvard is because they didn't get into Harvard, and if they had, they'd be going. Again, yes, you will have some people who got into Harvard and still wanted to go to Berkeley. The point is that they are in the minority. Furthermore, relatively fewer (not zero, but fewer) people who are going to Harvard are doing so because they wanted to get into Berkeley but didn't get in. In short, I think common sense would tell you that there is a greater percentage of Berkeley students who would rather be at Harvard than the percentage of Harvard students who would rather be at Berkeley. </p>
<p>On the other hand, to be perfectly fair, lots of people end up going to their second choice. The reality is that only a fraction of people really get to go to their first choice. And when I say 'first choice', I mean their TRUE first choice, and not just their first choice among the schools they actually applied to. I am talking about where they would really want to go in a perfect world, if they had perfect grades and test scores and EC's. For example, I know one person who says that his first choice is UCDavis, among the schools he applied to. However, in reality, that person's TRUE first choice is actually Stanford or Harvard, yet he didn't apply to any of these schools because he doesn't think he has a serious chance of getting in. Hence, this person's 'realistic' first choice is Davis, but his actual first choice is elsewhere. I am not talking about 'realistic' first choices, I am talking about 'true' first choices. The fact is, only a minority of people actually get to go to their true first choice. </p>
<p>{Now don't get me wrong. UCDavis is a fine school, and for some people it really is their true first choice. But I think it is indisputable that a lot of students there would rather be going to Berkeley, Stanford, or Harvard instead. For example, if this year, Stanford offered automatic transfer admissions to every UCDavis student, I think we can all agree that the UCDavis student population would plummet}.</p>
<p>Berkeley is not full of Ivy rejects. Sure most people would bail on Berkeley and o to an Ivy if given a chance, but most of the Berk population is poor. They couldn't afford an Ivy education without fin-aid even if they got in, so many of them just apply to the UCs and hope they get in somewhere.</p>
<p>That's not the main thing that you need to worry about. The thing that really sucks is that a huge chunk of the population at UCB are community college transfers. There's so many of them that no one can be sure who got in from where, and that's the thing that's hurting Berkeley's reputation.</p>
<p>Most people see the university as a whole -- ugrad + grad -- and with so many ugrad outnumbering grads, the ugrad picture tips the scale in the wrong direction. The grad schools are actually quite good but unfortunately most people only meet ugrads...the grads are few and far in between.</p>
<p>Well, on the bright side (well, maybe it's not really the bright side if you're an undergrad), the recruiters, both academic and corporate, usually understand the difference between Berkeley grad and Berkeley undergrad. For example, a Berkeley PhD carries tremendous weight in the academic world. A Berkeley Boalt JD carries strong weight among lawyers. The Haas MBA is highly respected. </p>
<p>I wouldn't characterize the Berkeley student population as 'poor'. If anything, the Berkeley student population is, on average, one of the wealthiest student bodies of all the student bodies in public universities nationwide. I believe that if you were to take a survey of the family income of all Berkeley students, the average family salary would most likely exceed the average family income of all families in California. At the very least, it is clear that the average family income of the students at, say, Fresno State, is significantly lower than that of the students at Berkeley. </p>
<p>I think what you actually mean to say is that Berkeley students are relatively poor - that is, relative to the students at the Ivies. And to that, I would say that that's probably true. But let's not take that too far. If you are truly dirt-poor, it is often times the case that it is actually CHEAPER to go to an Ivy than to Berkeley, simply because the Ivies tend to be far more generous when it comes to financial aid (especially when determining proportion of grant money vs. loan money). I know one person, a California resident, who came from quite poor circumstances and was given a complete full ride - 100% grants, including living costs - to go to Harvard, whereas Berkeley only provided partial grants. He actually saved money by going to Harvard. </p>
<p>But anyway, that's really neither here nor there. The point is that Berkeley does have a lot of students who would rather be elsewhere but either couldn't get in, or feel they can't afford it, or both. But regardless of the reason, it doesn't take away from the fact that they would still rather be elsewhere. Just because I can't afford a Lamborghini doesn't mean that I don't want one.</p>
<p>However, I am pointing out that it's really not that bad to be a school of second-choice. Almost every school other than Harvard could be said to be a school of second-choice in the sense that it is more common to find a student at school X who'd rather be at Harvard, but couldn't get in, than a Harvard student who'd rather be at school X but couldn't get in. {Yes, there are rare Harvard students who wanted to go elsewhere but didn't get in, but the operative word there is 'rare'}. Therefore, in this regard, Berkeley is no worse than almost all schools out there.</p>
<p>I JUST WANT TO SAY I LOVE YOU BERKELEY and I will choose you anytime over them ivies.</p>
<p>Sakky, I, for the most part, agree with what you've said. But just to put this in perspective, the fact that most students consider Berkeley a second-choice to HYPSM is not exactly keeping me up at night. That said, some posters (not you) are not only saying that Berkeley, on average, is not at the level of HYPSM (which to me is undisputable), but that Berkeley is some inferior school that doesn't come close to schools like Cornell, Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, etc... This (again, IMO) is what some may interpret "not being at the HYPSM-level" to mean.</p>
<p>Berkeley is NOT at the level of Cornell, UChicago, Hopkins, Northwestern, etc. I think you have the false impression that Berkeley is just one notch below the HYPSM category. This is most certainly not the case. Berkeley is several notches below because the caliber of students entering Berkeley is not as impressive as the caliber of students entering Cornell or Northwestern. In my high school, for example, some very average kids who got C's on their transcript got into Berkeley. I cannot imagine one of those kids getting into Hopkins or Rice.</p>
<p>And I know some very average kids with Cs on their transcripts who got into Cornell and Penn. This get us nowhere.</p>
<p>I am not a Berkeley graduate. Rather I picked UCLA over UC Berkeley for a personal reason back in 1995.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned that UC Berkeley is not on an equal term as Cornell, Northerwestern, Chicago is.</p>
<p>I beg to differ. Actually, I think you are right: they are not on equal term.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley is ranked #6 on US News "Peer Evaluation Ranking" by a group of the nation's college deans, provosts, presidents, etc. And if anything, I think this index should give you the best picture of the true prestige ranking of the school. Surveying a group of me, me, me students like Roosters would only make this worse than it is in reality. And from the recruiters I have been talking to and working with in a variety of workforce situations, UC Berkley students are spoken in the same breath as U Penn, MIT, Columbia, although not in the same breath as HYP.</p>
<p>As for me, I would pick UC Berkeley over Cornell, Northwestern, Chicago anyday.</p>
<p>"In my high school, for example, some very average kids who got C's on their transcript got into Berkeley. I cannot imagine one of those kids getting into Hopkins or Rice."</p>
<p>Let's leave personal, empirical anecdotes where they should belong - within yourselve when we should objectively dissect this kind of issue.</p>
<p>As a person who has been working in a private education industry for the past four years, there were a handful of kids who got accepted to Cornell with sub-1350 SAT and there were a handful of kids who got rejected by UC Berkeley with over-1350 SAT.</p>
<p>So shall we still continue to talk about our own, biased personal anecdotes?</p>
<p>DaRaverLA: First - you are doing the right thing to turn down the Cornell MBA program. Two years in Ithaca, NY would be hell. And I'm not sure that MBA's are really worth that much. I've been in business for 25 years and I'd pick a non-MBA with great experience over an MBA - it's the person they are hiring. Nothing you learn in business school is rocket science. I remember after my advanced finance course - at the end of the year - the professor looked at us and said that we'd probably never use anything we learned - that most CEO's only care about payback period in making investment decisions. Given the short term nature of the stock market today, it's probably doubly true.
Second - my son is thinking about UCLA - would you choose it again. Can you comment on your experiences there. Thanks in advance. Good luck on your career.</p>
<p>My friends who graduated from the MBA program at Cornell, seemed to have found it rewarding. I loved my time at Cornell but would tell anyone who does not tolerate Cold that it is not the place for them. There is plenty to do on campus and in Ithaca, but very little time to do any of it. </p>
<p>Students from low incomed households would do well to go to a selective private school that has a generous financial aid program. Princeton, Harvard and (if the protestors have it their way) eventually Yale don't require undergraduates to get buried in debt.</p>
<p>People who get high SAT scores and high grades often think that they are the only tools or that they are the best ways to evaluate a student. This simply isn't true. A hard working student who has a passion for something outside of academic subjects or who is distracted by social, familial, or health issues might not get great scores but they may have something else going for them. A number of students who do well on tests have taken test prep classes, have family pressure to do well on tests and perhaps have school support as well. Admission officers in California have looked for other measurable considerations to attempt to balance the impact of standardized tests.</p>
<p>What percent of IVY students are not at their first choice school? Why does it matter?</p>
<p>"Nothing you learn in business school is rocket science."</p>
<p>In fact, I am slowly catching up to the very wisdom of this advice. I am now planning to launch my own business without the benefits of MBA education. And I think I will do just fine :)</p>
<p>I just edited my previous post because I dont want to upset some of the loyal Cornell students/alumni who might understood the context of my previous post.</p>
<p>To answer your question, as with making just about any knid of business decision, there are always pros and cons, especially when evaluating the merits of going to college A vs. college B.</p>
<ol>
<li>Large student population: Depending on the nature of student's upbrining, this can be either positive or negative. And depending on where you are, your son may feel very isolated on the UCLA campus at least for the first two quarters. In fact, I vividly remember the conversation I had with my dorm floor mate who had come from Boston. It was really hard for her to make close friends despite the fact that she was always with a large group of acquintances whenever she went to eat. And soon, she finally broke down and cried, yelling that she wanted to go back to Boston. Within a few days, her mother came and they packed their bags in a hurry. Fortunately, a few of us tried really hard to pursuade her to discuss things over in a less emotional fashion. And she did, and I think she eventually graduated from UCLA with cum laude back in 2000.</li>
</ol>
<p>The fact that it is a SON, not a daughter, should alleviate some of the concerns you might have on sending your kid to UCLA. Perhaps I might be not completely gender-blind when it comes down to acculurating to unknown place, but defintely being a male helps to overcome the anxiety and fear that comes with getting used to a new place. Moreover, if your home is at least in California, then again, this is another plus for you, since your son can always take a quick trip back to his sweet home over a weekend.</p>
<p>I always tell my students whenever they told me about wanting to go to Berkley, UCLA, U of Michigan, or any other campus with a large number of students:</p>
<p>"If you are motivated, focused, and organized, then the big campus should give you an array of benefits such as meeting various people, building relationhips, networking, joining clubs, participate vibrant campus events, and most importantly, learning to behave and present yourself even in a "hostile" situation, albeit very remote in today's social climate. However, if you are not motivated enough, you will dread in the first two quarters or so, because you will not make many close friends by then."</p>
<p>So it really depends on the nature of your son's personality. If he's outgoing enough, audacious enough, and courageous enough, I think he will do just fine. For that matter, I wouldnt be surprised if your son calls you right before the break and breaks the news to you, "Hey dad, I am coming home this break. I am going to Las Vegas with my friends!"</p>
<p>As far as the number of students in a normal classroom is concerned, I really believe that the student-to-faculty ratio is a highly overrated and misunderstood component of education. From my personal experience, I rarely had a class with a size of more than 15 students in my junior and senior year. And if you look hard and try hard, your son should find a load of very interesting classes with a size of less than 10 students. Thus, this combined with the rich academic curriculum of UCLA, your son should have access to virtually every academic course he would like in his junior and senior year.</p>
<p>Finally, just to give you a realistic perspective on campus life, as much as UCLA has been advertised for its rich diversity of students, the campus, like many social components in our country, is not de-segregated. Like many places we go, UCLA is not an exception. Your son might make many friends and hang out with them who are different from your son, but in time, your son will be associated with a small circle of his very close friends, eventully. Just an idea for you to consider, even though this shouldn't be terribly surpring to anyone who understands the fabric of our society today.</p>
<ol>
<li>Job Market</li>
</ol>
<p>As much as we should evaluate the merits of education solely in terms of the education itself, the pragmatic aspects of the transition from education to real world must be carefully considered.</p>
<p>And if your son plans to settle in LA and hopes to find a job in LA area, LA is by far the best school to go, period. All the major, Fortune 500 companies in LA market, I mean ALL without exception, have UCLA as one of their "core recruiting schools", along with USC. Thus, when the recruiting season comes, your son will see a string of companies, McKinsey, BCG, Goldman, Citigroup, Microsoft, etc, visiting the campus with the clear intention of hiring a large number of students during on campus recruiting. When the companies come to hire you, as opposed to you sending a batch of resumes to each office, the whole recruiting process makes it so easy for you. More importantly, most of the executives coming to campus for a job interview will be affliated with UCLA or USC, whether the affliation is undergratuate level or graduate level.</p>
<p>While I was contemplating between UCLA and Berkeley, I came across some survey on the number of job offers for graduating seniors from UCLA. And I think the average number of job offers back then was close to "3", surprisingly higher than that of many Ivy graduates. </p>
<ol>
<li>Moderate Liberals.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is the label I am compelled to use in describing the overall students political spectrum. Unlike Berkley which is a dominant far left campus, UCLA is rather a moderate liberals. Many students really have great family values, and smoking marijuana is as far as most students would "venture". The image of corrupt metropolitan lifestyle of living in LA is again highly misunderstood in Westwood. </p>
<p>I am not sure whether I have been much help to you, but if you would like to further delve into some of the points I have addressed above, please go ahead. I will be very happy to help you.</p>
<p>I'd respect a Cornell, UChicago, Dartmouth, Hopkins, or Duke student much more than I'd respect a Berkeley student in terms of academics. This is because the average caliber of a Cornell, Chicago, or Dartmouth student is marketedly higher than the caliber of the average Berkeley student. Sure there may be some statistical anomolies and outliers here and there, but overall, the Cornell or Duke student is just smarter. Now maybe they aren't as smart as HYPSM students, but they are definitely smarter than Berkeley students on average. Anyone can get into Berkeley if they wanted to....either though Spring admission, the community college transfer route, demonstrated hardships, or presistence in the application process. IMHO, the ease of getting a Berkeley degree dilutes it's value. If every Tom, Dick, and homeless bum living in a cardboard box can get into Berkeley, I wouldn't be as proud of that degree as I would be proud about a Dartmouth or Duke degree that is much more selective.</p>