Berkeley, the school of ivy league rejects?

<p>The top 50 Berkeley grads will be the equal of the top 50 MIT grads.</p>

<p>Sakky, with all due respect, you are digressing to completely different agendas here. I yet made another point of my argument by explicitly highlighting the fact that I am here arguing which school is better or worse. I am gonna say this again, so read very carefully. </p>

<p>I AM ARGUING THAT THE PERCEIVED QUALITY DIFFERENCE OF UC BERKELEY STUDENTS AND MIT STUDENTS ARE NON-EXISTENT IN THE EYES OF RECRUITERS GIVEN THE QUALITY OF AND THE SALARY OF JOBS OFFERED TO THE STUDENTS OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES. And "better school" -> "thus better students" argument is not persuasive, as I will share a few of my personal anecdotes later in this post.</p>

<p>If you want to argue otherwise, please pick up your phone and call Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, McKinseys, General Electric, and Citigroup, and ask whether they hire exclusive at MIT or not. I have gone through extensive job searching when I graduated from UCLA back in 2001, and one thing I realized is that the names of your diploma means jack**** once you are invited to interview. Like what my professor, a HBS grad who teaches at UCLA, said, "The name of school on your diploma matters only when you are trying to get an interview for your first job. You are on your own, thereafter", the recruiters of major multinational corporations and blue chip firms consider MIT and Berkley as their core schools for the recruiting purpose. Again check with each firm if you are suspicious. I checked my facts, but apparently you havent.</p>

<p>"You yourself invoked the peer evaluation ratings from USNews, and so you can see that MIT has more prestige than Berkeley does."</p>

<ul>
<li>What 's up with your predilection for making far fetched inferences?
Now you want to talk about how "prestigous" MIT is compared to Berkeley. Please, please let's stick to a single topic here which is the PERCEPTION BY RECRUITERS on the grads of MIT and Berkeley.<br></li>
</ul>

<p>Also just because the deans ranked MIT higher on the "academic reputation" (not prestige as you have inferred), it doesnt mean that the students accepted there
are "smarter" and "better" than the students at Berkeley. MIT might offer better education, hence stronger academic reputation, but directly associating "better education" with "smarter students" is unwarranted.</p>

<p>I am noticing a certain trend here, and I would venture to guess that you are still a student in college, given the abundant predilection for making silly inferences here and there. Am I right? I would assume that you are at the most 24, 25 years old. </p>

<p>"Believe me, I am very well aware of what Berkeley is about. I don't want to sound conceited, but I doubt that there is a lot about Berkeley that you can tell me that I don't already know. Just trust me on this one, you don't want to challenge me on how well I know Berkeley."</p>

<ul>
<li>Good for you. As I have mentioned previously, I am not in any way affliated with Berkeley, so lets please stop forcing me to make this statement ever again. How you judge the smartness of students may be totally, completely different from how I judge, and even though I am not interested in defining the term smartness, I would like to share a few stories of mine, true stories indeed. But again, expecting me to taking your words by agreeing to your comment that you know more about Berkeley is totally uncalled me. I can say the same thing. "Trust me, I know enough corporate recruiters, and they ALL tell me that UCLA students are BETTER than Harvard students." Would you believe me, still? :)</li>
</ul>

<p>One of my very close college buddy invested $2,000 in stock market back in 1997 and made about $60,000 by 1999. He got out of the stock market before the crash, and he invested the subsequent profits in the real estate market in LA. As we all know, the property values doubled, tripled in the last few years. He cashed in big time, and now he owns $7 million dollar hotel at the age of 25. Now, I consider him "smart" in a very narrow context of business-sense.</p>

<p>Also, another very close buddy of mine at UCLA received the highest performance review in his first year at a well-known consulting firm, beating several Berkeley, Stanford, and Ivy League grads during the process. He went on to found his own investment banking firm and closed a few consulting projects. During the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998, he came close to complete a $70 million M&A project, doing the work all by himself. Unfortunately, the deal didnt close, and he went on to Dartmouth Tuck MBA. And upon graduation, he won the Dean's Honor, recognition for the top 1% academic performance. Now, this is what I consider "smartness".</p>

<p>I just gave you two real-life paradigm of "smartness". But we all know that there are also other criteria to be considered in the context of "smartness". So I really see this as a very absurd argument, since we will have 100 different definitions of smartness from 100 different people. This is why I am only focusing on the PERCEPTION by Recuiters since we have factual data and information to buttress my argument.</p>

<p>But you still have not provided any concrete data to back up your assertion. For instance, you said:</p>

<p>"It is obviously true that some people leave Berkeley (or UCLA) for some time not because of academic difficulty, but because they found something interesting to do for awhile, so they temporarily leave school. However, the same thing happens at MIT, or any other school. The question then becomes, why would Berkeley (or UCLA) students do that MORE than MIT students would do that? "</p>

<p>Why are you keep dwelling on this fact? I dont see the point of your argument. What are you trying to argue here? Are you trying to argue that the more MIT students stick to graduate and hence they are "smarter" than the Berkeley students? I personally dont like chicks at Berkeley (one of the reasons behind attending UCLA over UC Berkley), and the same could be said for the Cal grads who decided either to drop out or transfer. </p>

<p>But you cannot make any concrete, objective point out of this graduation rate. I quoted the graduation rate simply because people like you misunderstand the underlying components of calculating the graduation rate. The graduation rate could be used to gauge the students' dedication level to academics, but unless we get a full picture of the students who have transferred, we simply do not know how to interpret this data. </p>

<p>You are making an argument that MIT in general is better than Berkeley, while I am trying to educate you with objective, factual data that clearly points that the perception by a real corpoate world is virtually the same given (1) the trend that prestigious company "A" hires both Cal and MIT grads, and (2) they pay the same.</p>

<p>"That's not the right way to look at it. It's not just about comparing salaries within a particular company. It's not just about who gets to apply and who doesn't apply. The key variable that you have neglected is how easy it is for students at a particular school to get into that company. Sure, once you get into the company, it's all the same. But that's not the point. The point is that it is easier to get into certain companies in the first place by graduating from certain schools rather than other schools."</p>

<p>Ok, Mr. Holmes. Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that getting a job from certain company by graduating from MIT is easier than graduating from Cal.</p>

<p>Any data, any surveys? Is there, or has there been any survey that interviewed companies that has stated or even remotely stated that they prefer MIT students to Cal students under any circumstances? The last part "any circumstances" is very critical to this argument, since you seem to point out that many companies would choose MIT grads over Cal grads under any circumstances. As I have mentioned about five posts ago, this is not the place for you to make outrageous speculative statement by using equally speculative vocabularies such as "much easier", "better", "more", etc. </p>

<p>If you want to argue, lets focus on the topic discussed here. If you want to buttress your argument, I want to see some real data and facts.</p>

<p>"And it is also indisputable that the Valley is one of the highest-paying, if not the highest-paying large geographic region in the entire country for EECS students. Hence, Berkeley EECS students enjoy a geography-based salary advantage over MIT EECS students. Nevertheless, MIT EECS students still make more, on average."</p>

<p>Two questions here.</p>

<p>First, I want to see some data as to back up your assertion that Berkeley EECS students actually go on to the Sillicon Valley jobs. Second, I want to see data that the companies in Sillicon Valley actually pays more than the companies do in East Coast, especially in NY for the SAME JOB.</p>

<p>By the way, you shouldnt have mentioned the MBA part, because obviously you dont know how to read into some of those MBA data, especially the McKinsey stuff you just brought. I am quite familiar with the MBA application, job market for MBA, and certain trends for graduating MBAs, etc, because I am in the process of waiting for a final verdict from some of the top MBA schools at this point.</p>

<p>Unlike you who wants to go to the best school in terms of reputation, wants to work for the best company in terms of reputation, wants to get paid best in terms of reputation, and lives the best life in terms of repuation, many people dread working for management consulting firms. </p>

<p>HBS grads go on to the consulting business because the school is general management focused, so it is the CHOICE of the students at HBS that prompted a large number of students to apply to consulting. On the other spectrum of general management focused school, there are schools that focus on finance, such as Chicago, Columbia, and Wharton, to a lesser extent. Invariably, there are far more students who wish to get into Ibanking or Sales & Trading than those who wants to go into consulting. </p>

<p>I am not sure whether you have actually interviewed with MC firms, but the deciding factor in getting hired is how to crack the case studies. I have done some cast study interview (with Boston Consulting) a few years ago, and in the first round, I saw a Cornell grad, Stanford grad, and other well know school grads. And in the last round, I was the only man standing. </p>

<p>I have news for you. If you are hoping that the name of schools on your diploma would get you hired at MC firms, you face the prospect of getting b!tch-slapped by every MC firm in the first round. MC firms also have something called "Core Schools", and they invite students from every core schools (yes, Berkely and UCLA included) based on the PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE. And how you do on the case study will determine your candidacy, not your school name.</p>

<p>Please check with your facts. I am tired to making counterargument to your posts that clearly lack any substances.</p>

<p>Also, please make sure that you do some outline before posting here.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I AM ARGUING THAT THE PERCEIVED QUALITY DIFFERENCE OF UC BERKELEY STUDENTS AND MIT STUDENTS ARE NON-EXISTENT IN THE EYES OF RECRUITERS GIVEN THE QUALITY OF AND THE SALARY OF JOBS OFFERED TO THE STUDENTS OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES. And "better school" -> "thus better students" argument is not persuasive, as I will share a few of my personal anecdotes later in this post.</p>

<p>If you want to argue otherwise, please pick up your phone and call Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, McKinseys, General Electric, and Citigroup, and ask whether they hire exclusive at MIT or not.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And you have now apparently missed the point that I have been making. Did I ever say that these companies go around exclusively hiring MIT graduates? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that that happens.</p>

<p>I am arguing that it is EASIER to get into many high-profile companies coming from MIT than from Berkeley. Again, I never said that it was impossible to get into those companies from Berkeley. Again, please provide me my quote where I said that it was impossible. It is just more difficult. You are constantly confusing trend-shifts with absolutes. Just because something is harder to do somewhere doesn't mean that it's impossible. Harder just means harder. </p>

<p>Specifically, to your point, how about you pick up the phone and you call these companies and ask how many students in general are hired into those companies from Berkeley and MIT, and then compare those numbers to the overall student populations at those schools. What do you think you will find? I think you will find, as I have found, that schools like MIT place a higher percentage of its students into those companies than schools like Berkeley. Does that mean that Berkeley places zero? Again, of course not, and to say that is to deliberately choose to misunderstand what I am saying. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You yourself invoked the peer evaluation ratings from USNews, and so you can see that MIT has more prestige than Berkeley does."</p>

<ul>
<li>What 's up with your predilection for making far fetched inferences?
Now you want to talk about how "prestigous" MIT is compared to Berkeley. Please, please let's stick to a single topic here which is the PERCEPTION BY RECRUITERS on the grads of MIT and Berkeley

[/quote]
</li>
</ul>

<p>No, it was YOU who brought up the USNews ranking first, not me. Go through the thread and you can see for yourself who raised this issue first. The real question is, if you are saying that it is not relevant, then why did YOU bring it up? If you say that you didn't mean to bring it up, then that's fine. But don't go around saying that I brought it up, when it was you who first brought it up. </p>

<p>
[quote]
the perception by a real corpoate world is virtually the same given (1) the trend that prestigious company "A" hires both Cal and MIT grads, and (2) they pay the same

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, you have missed the basic point that I was making. Let me give you another example. I know 2 guys who work at Goldman Sachs. One graduated from Harvard. The other graduated from City College (CCNY). Both of them were hired at the same time and got the same salary. So we see that Goldman hires both Harvard graduates and CCNY graduates, and pays them the same. So does it then follow that the Goldman recruiters see Harvard and CCNY as equivalent? But hey, why not - according to YOUR OWN LOGIC, if a company hires students from 2 different schools, and pays them the same, then that must mean that the company sees those schools as equivalent, right? Hey that's your logic, not mine. So that must mean that Goldman sees CCNY as entirely equivalent to Harvard. Otherwise, your logic is flawed. </p>

<p>And in this particular case, I think we can see that the logic is clearly flawed. Specifically, in that office, that CCNY grad was the only CCNY grad who was working in that whole office, whereas that office had many many Harvard graduates. Hence, it's not simply about whether a company hires from certain schools and/or pays the same salary, but also about HOW MANY people from that school will get hired, as measured by a percentage of the school population. Getting to Goldman Sachs from CCNY is more difficult than getting to Goldman from Harvard. Obviously not impossible, but harder. THAT'S THE POINT. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Ok, Mr. Holmes. Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that getting a job from certain company by graduating from MIT is easier than graduating from Cal.</p>

<p>Any data, any surveys? Is there, or has there been any survey that interviewed companies that has stated or even remotely stated that they prefer MIT students to Cal students under any circumstances? The last part "any circumstances" is very critical to this argument, since you seem to point out that many companies would choose MIT grads over Cal grads under any circumstances. As I have mentioned about five posts ago, this is not the place for you to make outrageous speculative statement by using equally speculative vocabularies such as "much easier", "better", "more", etc.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Simple. Average salary. I have already shown you that MIT EECS graduates make more than Berkeley EECS graduates do, on average. Would you care to explain that? And not just in this year, but every year since data has been available. Why? </p>

<p>The easiest explanation to me is that the high-paying jobs tend to go to the MIT graduates. Note, again, that doesn't mean that the Berkeley graduates don't get some of them. Of course they do. But the point is that, at the end of the day, the MIT graduates must be getting more of them, as a percentage of their class, for how else can they be making a higher average salary, every single year? You tell me. </p>

<p>
[quote]
First, I want to see some data as to back up your assertion that Berkeley EECS students actually go on to the Sillicon Valley jobs

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh come now, you're really going off the reservation. You don't think that Berkeley EECS students are disproportionately going to the Valley? Just look at the companies at which they are going, and notice how a large (in fact, a strong majority) are located in the Valley.</p>

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

<p>
[quote]
Second, I want to see data that the companies in Sillicon Valley actually pays more than the companies do in East Coast, especially in NY for the SAME JOB

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And why are you bringing up NY? MIT is 4 hours away from NY. Furthermore, New York is not a tech center. </p>

<p>Secondly, you want data, you got it:</p>

<p>For BSEE holders in:
Boston - 81500
San Jose - 84500</p>

<p>For the entire state of California - 79000
For the entire state of Mass - 78000
For the entire state of NY - 68600</p>

<p><a href="http://www.payscale.com/salary-survey/vid-3786/fid-6886%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.payscale.com/salary-survey/vid-3786/fid-6886&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And to your last post - everything that you said only points to the main point I have been saying all along. If you want to get into consulting, if you really want to go to consulting, you should go to HBS, if for no other reason then that lots of other students from there have gone into MC, and so the path is very well-trod. MC's are highly familiar with the school and hence are highly familiar with the quality of the students there. Furthermore, if you go there, you will be surrounded by an atmosphere of students who are also trying to get into MC. That makes the road easier. It's far easier to do things in a group than to do it yourself. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I have news for you. If you are hoping that the name of schools on your diploma would get you hired at MC firms, you face the prospect of getting b!tch-slapped by every MC firm in the first round. MC firms also have something called "Core Schools", and they invite students from every core schools (yes, Berkely and UCLA included) based on the PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE. And how you do on the case study will determine your candidacy, not your school name.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And when did I say that it was all about the school name? Did I say that? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that the name of the school is the only thing that matters. Oh, can't do it? </p>

<p>I said that it is a factor that will get you to the table. It doesn't close the deal by any means. But clearly, the name of the school helps. It's easier to get in if you come from HBS than if you come from a no-name B-school. Not impossible, but harder. </p>

<p>After all, you said it yourself - MC's will consider people who come from core schools. But why? Why not from all schools? So clearly, the name of the school matters in that sense - if you are not part of the group of core schools, then your chances are rather low. </p>

<p>And furthermore, what is this core group of schools? Clearly, it's different from company to company. But the point is, the very best schools tend to get included first in the group of core schools, and then later other schools will get included. When Michael Porter founded Monitor, his first school in the 'core group' was HBS (later, of course, Monitor vastly expanded that group). The point is, the better your school, the better your chance at getting first crack at anything. </p>

<p>And finally, about all your personal insults about my age, who I am, and what I do or do not know about business-schools, consulting, and all that, I will give you a warning. You don't know who you are dealing with here, and you have no idea what I know and I don't know. If you truly believe that I really don't know anything about Berkeley, or about elite B-schools, why don't you email me privately, and I will be happy to share details with you about a lot more about who I am. I don't like to make my biography an issue on CC, but I will if you insist. But trust me, you're not going to win on this one.</p>

<p>I would also add that since you seem to want to talk specifically about what recruiters perceive about students from MIT and Berkeley, I pick up my copy of USNews best graduate schools and I flip to the section of Top Engineering schools, and I take a gander at the 'Recruiter Assessment' category. What do I see here - MIT has a 4.8, but Berkeley has a 4.5. Hmm, well, isn't that interesting. I thought you said that recruiters see engineers from MIT and Berkeley as being the same, and yet here I see that, according to USNews, the recruiters see MIT as better. Are you saying that those recruiters who responded to USNews are lying? </p>

<p>And it's not only for this year. In every year since that ranking was published, the MIT School of Engineering has received a better Recruiter Assessment rating than Berkeley did. It's consistent. So are you saying that not only did the corporate recruiters lie to USNews this year, but that they also must have been lying to USNews in every year that the ranking has been created? Otherwise, what exactly is your explanation of how MIT always seems to beat out Berkeley on the Recruiter Assessment category? I thought you said that Berkeley and MIT were seen by recruiters as the same. Last time I checked, 4.8 did not equal 4.5.</p>

<p>I think I know what you're going to say - that these are graduate rankings, not undergraduate rankings, and so you are probably going to try to contend that graduate rankings are not related to undergrad rankings in the eyes of recruiters. Well, first of all, in the case of MIT, the two are intimately linked for the simple reason that , particularly because of things like the highly prevalent and popular M.Eng program, but also because of the high favoritism that the MIT SM and PhD programs have towards MIT undergrads (it is even said in the MIT student handbook that the easiest way to get into MIT graduate school is to come as an undergrad and never leave), many MIT engineering undergrads will leave MIT not only with a bachelor's degree, but also with a graduate degree. Hence, any corporate recruiter's assessment of the MIT graduate engineering program is necessarily deeply linked with an assessment of the MIT undergrad program. </p>

<p>The linkage between the Berkeley undergrad and grad programs is less tight, because less Berkeley undergrads attend Berkeley for graduate school than do MIT undergrads attending MIT graduate school, and Berkeley has no comparable program to the MIT MEng. Something like 40-45% of all MIT graduate students were former MIT undergrads. I don't remember the exact figure for Berkeley graduate students, but I know it isn't 45%. </p>

<p>Not only is the linkage between Berkeley grad and Berkeley undergrad less tight, but it is also a generally held opinion (and a justified one in my opinion), that the Berkeley undergraduate programs are, overall, not as good as the Berkeley graduate programs. This is something that been discussed at length in the Daily Cal, has been discussed in the Princeton Review, and in fact has been discussed here on CC by current and former Berkeley students. I'm not saying that the Berkeley undergraduate program is bad, but I think it is a widely held consensus that the Berkeley graduate programs are better. </p>

<p>Hence, if the Berkeley undergraduate program is viewed as not as good as the Berkeley graduate programs, and the Berkeley graduate program is already viewed by corporate recruiters as worse than the MIT graduate program (again, 4.8 vs. 4.5), coupled with the fact that the MIT undergrad program is tightly linked with the MIT graduate program, whereas the Berkeley grad and UG programs are not as tightly linked, then what do you think that implies about the corporate recruiter's assessments of the MIT UG program vs. the Berkeley UG program? </p>

<p>Look, the simple fact is that MIT is viewed as a better engineering school than Berkeley is, and is viewed that way not only by academics, not only by students (after all, more Berkeley engineering students would like to transfer to MIT than vice verss), but also by the corporate world. That's not to say that Berkeley is viewed as bad, but it is to say that MIT is viewed as better. We can talk about how much better and all that, but at the end of the MIT is viewed as better. If a company is founded at a neutral site (i.e. not the Valley and not the Northeast), and the company can only choose to recruit elite engineers at one top-flight school, that company is more likely to choose to recruit at MIT than at Berkeley. The company might choose neither, but in any case, if it has to choose one, it will probably choose MIT over Berkeley than vice versa. </p>

<p>Look, DaRaverLA, I actually agreed with many of the points you were making vis-a-vis ubermensch. Berkeley is a fine school, and does offer many opportunities for people who are willing to exploit them. And corporate recruiters do view Berkeley students highly. However, when you asserted that they view Berkeley students as equivalent to MIT students, that's where we part company. The salary figures do not support that assertion. USNews does not support that assertion. I think that even the many of the biggest Berkeley backers here on CC would have difficulty supporting that assertion. In short, you are not subscribing to a mainstream opinion by any means.</p>

<p>Ok, lets do this. We are going to break down all the points raised here and number them, and we gonna go a point-by-point approach in trying to clear some of the misunderstandings we are inherently confronted with.</p>

<ol>
<li> "Sakky, with all due respect, you are digressing to completely different agendas here. I yet made another point of my argument by explicitly highlighting the fact that I am here arguing which school is better or worse. I am gonna say this again, so read very carefully. "</li>
</ol>

<p>Typo: Please insert "NOT" between "the fact that I am here" and "arguing which school is better or worse."</p>

<p>I forgot to type "not", a common mistake I seem to make from time to time, but if we all know that I have been meaning to say the opposite. Check the subsequent paragraph to see the correct version.</p>

<ol>
<li> You said: </li>
</ol>

<p>"No, it was YOU who brought up the USNews ranking first, not me. Go through the thread and you can see for yourself who raised this issue first. The real question is, if you are saying that it is not relevant, then why did YOU bring it up? If you say that you didn't mean to bring it up, then that's fine. But don't go around saying that I brought it up, when it was you who first brought it up. "</p>

<p>But it was you who actually brought the USNews report into this topic. I didnt even type the word "USNEWS" in my previous posts. It was you who first brought it up:</p>

<p>"You can look at all the USNews rankings ever since the ranking started, and you will see that MIT consistently graduates a higher percentage of its students than does Berkeley."</p>

<p>I think you owe me an apology. As much as you claim to know a lot of Berkeley, I think you should be a man enough to apologize for the false accusation you have made here :)</p>

<ol>
<li> "Again, you have missed the basic point that I was making. Let me give you another example. I know 2 guys who work at Goldman Sachs. One graduated from Harvard. The other graduated from City College (CCNY). Both of them were hired at the same time and got the same salary. So we see that Goldman hires both Harvard graduates and CCNY graduates, and pays them the same. So does it then follow that the Goldman recruiters see Harvard and CCNY as equivalent? But hey, why not - according to YOUR OWN LOGIC, if a company hires students from 2 different schools, and pays them the same, then that must mean that the company sees those schools as equivalent, right? Hey that's your logic, not mine. So that must mean that Goldman sees CCNY as entirely equivalent to Harvard. Otherwise, your logic is flawed. "</li>
</ol>

<p>No, your basis for introducing this story as an analogy is flawed. </p>

<p>We are comparing the perception of the schools within the "core schools", the schools companies regularly come, visit, and hires students on campus. I dont think CCNY is a core school for any multinational corporations that we often associate with the term "prestige" a la Goldman, BCG, Deutche Bank, Morgan Stanley, etc.</p>

<p>But Berkeley is a core school for just about any companies I have mentioned hitherto, as MIT is.</p>

<ol>
<li>"Hence, it's not simply about whether a company hires from certain schools and/or pays the same salary, but also about HOW MANY people from that school will get hired, as measured by a percentage of the school population."</li>
</ol>

<p>"I said that it is a factor that will get you to the table. It doesn't close the deal by any means. But clearly, the name of the school helps. It's easier to get in if you come from HBS than if you come from a no-name B-school. Not impossible, but harder. "</p>

<p>Are you sure you wanna use this criteria as your basis?</p>

<p>If you insist, you are wrong, very wrong, and deadwrong. </p>

<p>According to the BusinesWeek contents, HBS sends 29% of the students to consulting. Dartmouth Tuck also sends 29% and Northwestern sends 32%. Thus, according to your criteria, Northwestern is the best school for consulting, followed by Tuck and HBS. So using your logic, every student should go to Northwestern for consulting gig over HBS, right? Wow, do you see how damaging can oversimplification can be?</p>

<p>Now to your statement about how much you know about MBA stuff...ahem</p>

<ol>
<li>"Simple. Average salary. I have already shown you that MIT EECS graduates make more than Berkeley EECS graduates do, on average. Would you care to explain that? And not just in this year, but every year since data has been available. Why? </li>
</ol>

<p>The easiest explanation to me is that the high-paying jobs tend to go to the MIT graduates. Note, again, that doesn't mean that the Berkeley graduates don't get some of them. Of course they do. But the point is that, at the end of the day, the MIT graduates must be getting more of them, as a percentage of their class, for how else can they be making a higher average salary, every single year? You tell me. "</p>

<p>The salary information you have provided alone cannot be used to settle this. Your penchant for oversimplification doesnt help resolve this issue at all. </p>

<p>If what you claim is indeed is true and many Berkley grads go on to the Sillicon Valley-based firms, then you are leaving one big, crucial component of the salary information - the annual end of year bonus. And according to the method you have introduced, the salary information do not incorporate the annual bonus. With the annual bonus that should heavily skew toward the Sillicon Valley firms, we have a totally different purview of the salary data.</p>

<p>As you can, it is very, very tough to evaluate the true picture of "A" vs. "B", unless we have data of salary in terms of same salary structures from the same company in the same geographic location, as I have numerously mentioned previsouly as the most objective set of rules in comparing the data.</p>

<ol>
<li>"I would also add that since you seem to want to talk specifically about what recruiters perceive about students from MIT and Berkeley, I pick up my copy of USNews best graduate schools and I flip to the section of Top Engineering schools, and I take a gander at the 'Recruiter Assessment' category. What do I see here - MIT has a 4.8, but Berkeley has a 4.5. Hmm, well, isn't that interesting. I thought you said that recruiters see engineers from MIT and Berkeley as being the same, and yet here I see that, according to USNews, the recruiters see MIT as better. Are you saying that those recruiters who responded to USNews are lying? "</li>
</ol>

<p>For your information, I have already posted my reply to your statement here about five or six posts EARLIER. So please scroll up and check the post I wrote:</p>

<p>"And as far as what the recruiters think on their own subjective ways of each school's grads, it can go either way.</p>

<p>I once saw a survey on which the majority of the recruiters highly ranked U of Michigan's grads for the students' strong penchant for teamwork and capacity for independent thinking, far higher than they ranked the grads of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."</p>

<p>As you can see, we cannot just take the recruiting survey at face value. Recruiters, like many of us, can be biased. The subjective opinions of recruiters cannot be incorporated, because often times, you would see U of Mich topping several lower ranked Ivy League schools in the survey.</p>

<p>But what we can take at face value is the starting salary data given to the grads of core schools and, as you have mentioned, the # of students who received job offers out of the # of students who applied for the certain positions, to a lesser extent.</p>

<p>And talking about the latter part, let's use hypothetical situation to further put this in an appropriate perspective.</p>

<p>As a CEO of company ABC, you have one opening. So you screen the resumes of your core schools, MIT and UC Berkeley. At the end, you decided that there are about 10 candidates worthy of interviewing: 7 from MIT and 3 from Berkeley, because many people believe that MIT has "far more better" students than Berkeley does.</p>

<p>But we all know that once you step in the office for an interview, the name of your school goes out the window, and you are left with your own character and prior working experiences. Once you crossed the initial screening of qualification, "fit" is all that matters.</p>

<p>Thus, as you can see from this situation, MIT might send more kids to that interview room, but who gets hired there purely depends on the performance and the demonstration of "fit" by each candidate. </p>

<p>If an MIT students gets hired, you have 1/7 succcess rate for MIT as a whole. ON the other hand, if a Cal student gets hired, you have 1/3 success rate for UC Berkeley as a whole.</p>

<p>If you dont agree with the above hiring process or the monumental significance of interview process (that far exceeds the significance of the name of school), you havent been to the "real" world yet.</p>

<p>Perhaps, there are some compelling reasons why MIT students go on to the graduate schools as you have mentioned. And Using your shallow, ill-fated, absurd, chest-thumping, "I am better than THOU", "I know more than you", "My dad can beat your dad!" like statements as a defining sample of the MIT grads, I would conclude that the MIT grads go on to the graduate school simply because they are not prepared to enter the job market, the real world, upon the graduation from their UG program.</p>

<p>Oh, Sakky, by the way, you are not going to win one, because we all know I have just won this argument.... by a mile. </p>

<p>Not even close. :)</p>

<p>for your information, this is "not an invitation" to continue this discussion. </p>

<p>Frankly, I am really tired of some non-sense you are putting here. Also, I am by now well aware of your tendencies to digress to different topics, oversimplify several factors into one big number, and emotionally proclaim your "righteouness".</p>

<p>
[quote]
But it was you who actually brought the USNews report into this topic. I didnt even type the word "USNEWS" in my previous posts. It was you who first brought it up

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ahem, post #55, from you, on this thread:</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."</p>

<p>So, tell me again how is it that you didn't type in the words "US News" in a previous post of yours? Explain that part to me again.</p>

<p>
[quote]
We are comparing the perception of the schools within the "core schools", the schools companies regularly come, visit, and hires students on campus. I dont think CCNY is a core school for any multinational corporations that we often associate with the term "prestige" a la Goldman, BCG, Deutche Bank, Morgan Stanley, etc.</p>

<p>But Berkeley is a core school for just about any companies I have mentioned hitherto, as MIT is.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Of course we are, but I used an extreme analogy to prove my point. Some schools are indeed core, and I agree with you that Berkeley is often times a core school. But the fact is, we both know that some schools are, shall we say, "more core" than others. The designation of 'core' is not a binary value - it's not like you either have it or you don't. There are gradations of core. </p>

<p>Is Berkeley a good school, as seen by recruiters? Of course it is. I have never said otherwise. But my point is that MIT is seen as a better school by recruiters, on average. We might argue about how much better and so forth. Maybe it's only a little bit better. Maybe it's a lot better. That has a lot to do with how you define 'little' or 'lot'. But that's neither here nor there. </p>

<p>
[quote]
According to the BusinesWeek contents, HBS sends 29% of the students to consulting. Dartmouth Tuck also sends 29% and Northwestern sends 32%

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would argue that the BW data is wrong.</p>

<p>Here is the data from the employment reports themselves:</p>

<p>Tuck - 21%</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/tuck/jobs/stats.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/tuck/jobs/stats.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Northwestern - 27%</p>

<p><a href="http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/career/employer/placement/2004/industries.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/career/employer/placement/2004/industries.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Now, what do you think I should believe - Businessweek data, or the data from the B-schools' OWN EMPLOYMENT REPORTS? You tell me. </p>

<p>So tell me again, how is it that I don't know much about B-schools? I would argue that maybe you don't know much, because you're sitting there relying on data from BW rather than going straight to the horse's mouth and reading the employment reports directly. </p>

<p>
[quote]
The salary information you have provided alone cannot be used to settle this. Your penchant for oversimplification doesnt help resolve this issue at all.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Come on, now. If you are accusing me of oversimplification, then I can say precisely the same for you. You know that to say that Berkeley is seen as entirely equivalent to MIT or any other elite school is a gross oversimplification in its own right. So is your attempt to invoke USNews in this thread, which you have denied doing, and that's why I had to revive your old quote for you to see.</p>

<p>Look, we are both trying to simplify things to make things amenable. </p>

<p>
[quote]
If what you claim is indeed is true and many Berkley grads go on to the Sillicon Valley-based firms, then you are leaving one big, crucial component of the salary information - the annual end of year bonus. And according to the method you have introduced, the salary information do not incorporate the annual bonus. With the annual bonus that should heavily skew toward the Sillicon Valley firms, we have a totally different purview of the salary data.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And who's to say that Silicon Valley people, and in particular, the Berkeley EECS Silicon Valley people, are going to necessarily earn a bigger bonus than the MIT EECS guys? You asked me for data to back up my claims, now it is my turn to do the same to you. Present to me data that indicates that Berkeley EECS guys in Silicon Valley would earn enough of a bonus, on average, to compensate for the higher salaries that MIT EECS guys make. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As you can see, we cannot just take the recruiting survey at face value. Recruiters, like many of us, can be biased. The subjective opinions of recruiters cannot be incorporated, because often times, you would see U of Mich topping several lower ranked Ivy League schools in the survey.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Come on now, what are you trying to say here? First you say that corporate recruiters see Berkeley students as equal to MIT students, and so we ought to trust their judgment on that. Now you are saying that you can't take recruiters at their face value and that they can be biased, etc. So which is it - can recruiters be trusted, or not? If the answer is yes, well, here are the US News recruiter rankings. If they cannot, then why even bother bringing up corporate recruiters in the first place? </p>

<p>
[quote]
As a CEO of company ABC, you have one opening. So you screen the resumes of your core schools, MIT and UC Berkeley. At the end, you decided that there are about 10 candidates worthy of interviewing: 7 from MIT and 3 from Berkeley, because many people believe that MIT has "far more better" students than Berkeley does.</p>

<p>But we all know that once you step in the office for an interview, the name of your school goes out the window, and you are left with your own character and prior working experiences. Once you crossed the initial screening of qualification, "fit" is all that matters.</p>

<p>Thus, as you can see from this situation, MIT might send more kids to that interview room, but who gets hired there purely depends on the performance and the demonstration of "fit" by each candidate. </p>

<p>If an MIT students gets hired, you have 1/7 succcess rate for MIT as a whole. ON the other hand, if a Cal student gets hired, you have 1/3 success rate for UC Berkeley as a whole.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'll play along and I will point out the flaw in your argument. In your scenario, it is not true that you have a 1/3 success rate for Berkeley as a whole, and a 1/7 rate for MIT as a whole. You missed the vital step - the fact that the guy picked out 7 MIT guys and 3 Berkeley guys in the first place. If you didn't get picked, then you already lost. Hence, it is true that if you happen to be one of the 3 Berkeley guys that got picked out, then, in your scenario, you have a 1/3 chance of winning. On the other hand, what are your odds of even being picked out in the first place? </p>

<p>The true chance of success, according to your scenario, is that first you get picked as one of the 10, and then you get hired out of the 10. If MIT gives you a better chance of being picked as one of the 10, then it is a better school to go to. At least you got picked, so at least you still have a chance of winning. You probably won't win, but at least you still have a chance. If you don't get picked, you have precisely zero chance of winning. Hence, in your scenario, while MIT didn't win it for you, it did give you a greater chance of getting in the interview room in the first place. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Frankly, I am really tired of some non-sense you are putting here. Also, I am by now well aware of your tendencies to digress to different topics, oversimplify several factors into one big number, and emotionally proclaim your "righteouness".

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You know, DaRaverLA, you have insulted me personally, you have called my posts nonsense, and basically acted in a highly unprofessional manner. Much as I would like to, I have refrained from responding in kind. Disagreement is one thing, but personal attacks and insults are quite another. I believe I am well within my rights to report you to the moderator right now, if I wanted to, and have you banned. But I won't do it. What I would say is that if you really want to go to business school and have a successful career, you might want to rethink the way you communicate, because I would advise you that you are going to meet lots of people who won't agree with you on various issues, and if this is the way you communicate with them, you're probably not going to go far. You don't always get to work with people that you like or agree with, sometimes you have to work with people who you don't agree with. Like I said, I'm happy to take this discussion offline.</p>

<p>it never ceases to amaze me how people can get so heated( at least enough to write the long messages) to reply to an anonymous person sitting behind a computer</p>

<p>amen to that :p</p>

<p>I thought this was kinda interesting...from: <a href="http://channels.netscape.com/ns/pf/package.jsp?name=fte/topuniversities/topuniversities%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://channels.netscape.com/ns/pf/package.jsp?name=fte/topuniversities/topuniversities&lt;/a> </p>

<p>~The top 10 universities in the World University Rankings are:</p>

<p>Harvard University (United States)</p>

<p>University of California, Berkeley (United States)</p>

<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States)</p>

<p>California Institute of Technology (United States)</p>

<p>Oxford University (United Kingdom)</p>

<p>Cambridge University (United Kingdom)</p>

<p>Stanford University (United States)</p>

<p>Yale University (United States)</p>

<p>Princeton University (United States)</p>

<p>ETH Zurich (Switzerland)</p>

<p>There is absolutely no doubt that Berkeley's graduate schools, particularly its PhD programs, are great, and they greatly enhance the quality of the overall school.</p>

<p>The question that is relevant here is how good the quality of the undergraduate program is. After all, what's the point of going to an undergraduate program at a school just because that school has good graduate programs? You should choose an undergraduate program because of the quality of the undergraduate program. And I think even the biggest Berkeley fanatic has to concede that the Berkeley undergraduate program, while pretty good, is not as good as Berkeley's highly eminent graduate programs.</p>

<ol>
<li>"Simple. Average salary. I have already shown you that MIT EECS graduates make more than Berkeley EECS graduates do, on average. Would you care to explain that? And not just in this year, but every year since data has been available. Why?</li>
</ol>

<p>The easiest explanation to me is that the high-paying jobs tend to go to the MIT graduates. Note, again, that doesn't mean that the Berkeley graduates don't get some of them. Of course they do. But the point is that, at the end of the day, the MIT graduates must be getting more of them, as a percentage of their class, for how else can they be making a higher average salary, every single year? You tell me. "</p>

<p>The salary information you have provided alone cannot be used to settle this. Your penchant for oversimplification doesnt help resolve this issue at all.</p>

<p>If what you claim is indeed is true and many Berkley grads go on to the Sillicon Valley-based firms, then you are leaving one big, crucial component of the salary information - the annual end of year bonus. And according to the method you have introduced, the salary information do not incorporate the annual bonus. With the annual bonus that should heavily skew toward the Sillicon Valley firms, we have a totally different purview of the salary data.</p>

<p>As you can, it is very, very tough to evaluate the true picture of "A" vs. "B", unless we have data of salary in terms of same salary structures from the same company in the same geographic location, as I have numerously mentioned previsouly as the most objective set of rules in comparing the data.</p>

<p>You have been using this type of logic alot. Its the same logic people used to defend the bible as being based on fact. You ask for data that you know is not going to be compiled, you place the burden of proof on Sakky when it shouldnt be placed on either. To continue my law analogy the debate as you see it is more like a crimininal case in court than a civil case when you ask Sakky to provide facts when you dont. </p>

<p>"If what you claim is indeed is true and many Berkley grads go on to the Sillicon Valley-based firms, then you are leaving one big, crucial component of the salary information - the annual end of year bonus. And according to the method you have introduced, the salary information do not incorporate the annual bonus. With the annual bonus that should heavily skew toward the Sillicon Valley firms, we have a totally different purview of the salary data."</p>

<p>this part i thought was funny given you previously said the data set were skewed because of relocation compesentation but once Sakky used the Sloan data to show that was not true you bring up end of year bonuses, at this rate more increasingly insignificant factors will be brought up till we end up debating if the type of gasoline they use on their cars on business trips and how they are compensated for it will skew that data.</p>

<p>DaRaver just remember that nobody is saying that it is impossible but HARDER(which there was bigger font), you could argue how much that it is pointless</p>

<p>"You have been using this type of logic alot. Its the same logic people used to defend the bible as being based on fact. You ask for data that you know is not going to be compiled, you place the burden of proof on Sakky when it shouldnt be placed on either. To continue my law analogy the debate as you see it is more like a crimininal case in court than a civil case when you ask Sakky to provide facts when you dont. "</p>

<p>Using your own analogy, whenever a person drafts a certain contract, the person will be liable for any lack of clarity caused by vague wording in contract. The person who drafts the contract will be liable.</p>

<p>And I am merely repetiting this logic here. If you want to express your opinion that wants to get a seal of proof as a fact, you better make sure that you have some factual data to back up your assertion.</p>

<p>That was my whole point. So please refrain yourself from assuming that I am just saying this to "put the burden" back on Sakky. </p>

<p>Assuming anything is a bad thing, very bad.:)</p>

<p>Previsouly, I said: </p>

<p>"You MAY be right. </p>

<p>But there COULD be also other factors in the salary information, such as "relocation expense"."</p>

<p>What part of "may" and "could" dont you understand?</p>

<ol>
<li>She is pretty.</li>
<li>She may be pretty.</li>
<li>She could be pretty.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you think these three sentences convey the same meaning, then I dont know what to say.</p>

<p>Please read carefully what I said. I think you are missing a point here.</p>

<p>"DaRaver just remember that nobody is saying that it is impossible but HARDER(which there was bigger font), you could argue how much that it is pointless"</p>

<p>I wholeheartedly agree that it is pointless, and this is the foundation of my whole argument, since we dont have any tangible data to conclude that MIT students faces a better prospect of landing a certain job than do Berkeley students. I am asking for data since I do agree that it would be virtually impossible to compile such data. And thus, it goes back to my first point: Since we dont have data, we cant conclude either way, so lets leave this out of equation. Simple as that. But we all know that Berkeley and MIT attracts the list of same companies that are identitical in nature but different in terms of location (East Coast vs. West Coast) As much as people want to believe that being MIT students would help them secure a job over other students, what sets the candidate apart from others is not the name of undergrads, but the achievements, grades, network, internship (prior experiences), and finally interview for "fit" purpose.</p>

<p>HOw hard was this? This was my whole argument.</p>

<p>But I do have factual information to conclude that companies do have a policy of paying the same salary to the freshly graduating students, regardless of their ethnic background, religious beliefs, height, sexual orientation, and, of course, the name of the undergraduates.</p>

<p>Your GPA matters only in some rare instances (such as Security Exchange Comission who explicitly stated that they pay higher wage, more than $10,000 difference, to the people with over 3.4 GPA)</p>

<p>JLL pays the same flat rate to the newly incoming recruits from college. Ditto for Boston Consulting. Ditto for Microsoft. Ditto for Citigroup.</p>

<p>I know because I have interviewed with some of the companies, and three of the companies above voluntarily mentioned the company policy that they do pay the same amount to each and every gradautes.</p>

<p>I have my facts, do you?</p>

<p>Do you? </p>

<p>"Not Impossible but HARDER"?</p>

<p>Hmmm, this sounds very abstract, general, generic comment to me that clearly lacks substance. </p>

<p>2bad4u, just do me a favor. Stop relying on your intution or impression when making something that conclusively. </p>

<p>If you want to claim that this is your IMPRESSION, thus your subjective opinion, then state it, so that I can just skip through when reading through this post. But when you try to claim that this is an OBJECTIVE statement, I want to make sure whether I can buy your comment.</p>

<p>Again, I have no attachment to Berkeley, so you can relax knowing that I am not responding or making this up in the form of emotional outburst.</p>

<p>But apparently, you do seem like a person who is affliated with MIT in one way or the other. Am I right? Am I?</p>

<p>"JLL pays the same flat rate to the newly incoming recruits from college. Ditto for Boston Consulting. Ditto for Microsoft. Ditto for Citigroup.</p>

<p>I know because I have interviewed with some of the companies, and three of the companies above voluntarily mentioned the company policy that they do pay the same amount to each and every gradautes.</p>

<p>I have my facts, do you?""</p>

<p>Im not debating that that once you get the job you wont be paid the same but the probabilty of getting the job, as in the likelyhood of getting the job in the first place. and if I recall correctly engineering was being debated not Business, Businness is different than engineering , in engineering its about what you know ,not your attitude like in business, its hard to say you need an MBA to succeed or be better at business , an advanced degree in enginneering does mean you are better at engineering.</p>

<p>"Again, I have no attachment to Berkeley, so you can relax knowing that I am not responding or making this up in the form of emotional outburst.</p>

<p>But apparently, you do seem like a person who is affliated with MIT in one way or the other. Am I right? Am I?"</p>

<p>why is this important, I would feel that your statements are based more on fact if you were from Berkeley, hard to debate about places you have never been to.</p>

<p>you guys all need lives. really. go outside. its prolly a nice day out.</p>

<p>Come now, DaRaverLA, on the one hand, you talk about how it is difficult to ascertain which school is better in terms of getting jobs - MIT or Berkeley. You talk about a lack of data and a lack of this and that such that you can't make a determination. Yet even you have conceded that Berkeley is not as good as, say, Harvard, in terms of getting jobs. One could parrot the same arguments to question that assertion. Using the criteria you have demanded, how can one prove that Harvard is better than Berkeley. I would even go further and say that if you demand exacting standards of proof, then I could assert that the CCNY is just as good as Harvard is. After all, can you 'quantitatively prove' that CCNY is not as prestigious as Harvard? </p>

<p>The point is, if you want to go around demanding high standards of proof, then you should demand it from any and all assertions, including your own. Hence, whenever anybody goes around making a statement that is not absolutely quantitatively proved, then you should get in that person's face. Similarly, if you make any assertion whatsoever, then you have to be prepared to quantitatively prove that it is the case. Just saying that Harvard is 'core' and CCNY is 'not core', or something equivalently qualititative, is not going to cut it, because your standards of proof are so high. If you want to set your own rules, then you gotta be willing to play by them.</p>