<p>Rooster, did you READ my post? It's not a matter of which is "probably" better, look at the statistics. Compute them yourself. Stanford kids have a negligible difference in SATs scores from OOS Berkeley kids. Period.</p>
<p>"Thats not true. When applying to HYPSMC, etc, you specify which college you are applying to: school of engineering, business, college, etc. Each department has different admission standards. Besides, you can petition to change your major to any harder/easier major at Berkeley."</p>
<p>This is precisely the kind of myth I wanted to dispel. Trust me when I say that you are not admitted to a certain department when you spply to HYPSMC. My friend applied to Stanford as an art major and now he is doing chemical engineering. At any time before your junior year, you can declare any major you want. Right now I am deciding between majoring in chemistry, biology, chem E, and psychology. I originally applied to Stanford undeclared. There is no petition process when it comes to switching majors. You just log on to Axess and switch. It's as simple as that. </p>
<p>The same goes for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and MIT. I'm not sure about Caltech, but I think it's the same there too. Switching majors is a non-issue at HYPSMC. Everyone on campus was admitted under an equal admission standard.</p>
<p>Well Gamma, to quote communist smurf: "Just so that you know, I didn't read one word of your post and I don't plan on it."</p>
<p>LOL just kidding. I read your post and you make a good argument. The Stanford pool is only slightly better than the Berkeley OOS pool. I am surprised to find that out, but it still proves my point that Stanford is harder to get into than Berkeley OOS. The admission rate to Stanford is about 12% and the admit rate to Berkeley OOS is somewhere around 20 percent. Since the admit pools are about equal in terms of SAT scores, Stanford is still considerably harder to get in. I hope that answers the OP's qeustion.</p>
<p>Sorry, but the statistics I gave were not of the admission pool, but instead of the accepted students. As a result, it is conclusive that Stanford and Berkeley OOS, as measured by SAT, are of equal difficulty to be accepted.</p>
<p>"Additionally, as seen on Table 37 of the Moores Report (which, as some of you may know, caused quite a furor over UC Berkeley's admission practices), accepted OOS students had an average GPA of 4.44 as opposed to the Californian 4.25. Also, OOS students had an approximate average SAT score of 1432, while residents had an approximate average SAT of 1325."</p>
<p>I looked at table 37 of the Moores report. Where does it say that the avg SAT score is 1432? I thought that the number was unusally high so I double checked. Please tell me where you found the number because it sure aint in table 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, or anywhere in that report that I looked. Of course I might have missed something so enlighten me.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, I performed the calculation by "weighting by percentage and assuming SAT distribution within each of the 100 point spreads is symmetric." Under this directive, I multiplied the assumed average of each range (850 for 801-900, 1150 for 1101-1200) by the percentage of acceptees (18/1299 for 1001-1100, 404/1299 for 1501-1600) and summed. Sorry to cause confusion. Stanford provides precisely the same table and this method of computation, provided the limited data set, seems to minimalize unforeseen deviations in distribution. I'm interested to hear your response.</p>
<p>While you are at it, why don't you do a hypothesis test of two means; to see if the scores are statistically equal or not? I'm sure it would not be hard to find sample standard deviations for SAT. </p>
<p>Yet again statistics is pwning ignorance.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Trust me when I say that you are not admitted to a certain department when you spply to HYPSMC.
[/quote]
I remember specifying I want to apply to the school of engineering for all the schools I applied to and I know for a fact that admission to, for example, Columbia's Fu Foundation (of Engineering) is harder than getting into Columbia College. When you apply to the Fu Foundation, you can request your application to be reviewed by Columbia College if you are not accepted to the Fu Foundation. This is how the primary admission works. But after you're admitted, you can switch your major as much as you like.</p>
<p>The "C" stands for CalTech and not for Columbia. However, there is some consideration for a prospective major. If an admissions official at Yale sees a kid submit art slides, win significant art awards both regionally and nationally, talk about art in his/her essays, have recommendations from TWO ART TEACHERS, and lists that he/she intends to major in Studio Art as a first option- yeah, it's going to make the officials think about that kid's major once he/she hits college. Can anyone choose any major once they get in? Absolutely, no one refutes that. But there are instances where it makes sense for admissions officials at the top private colleges to look at 'intended major.' Why? You don't want to p*ss of your top professors in Near Eastern Studies by not having ONE student major in that subject on a given year. It's really a hit-or-miss approach, but it's silly to think admissions officials give ZERO consideration during the admissions process just because it's simply to 'transfer' in and out of majors once junior year swings around.</p>
<p>TTG</p>
<p>I got into Berkeley out-of-state..and I don't think I could have gotten into Harvard if I had applied.</p>
<p>It's more difficult but not like Harvard's admissions.</p>
<p>I don't think there's a question of that...no one was talking about Harvard.</p>
<p>Well, Stanford's admissions are a little bit more flaky than Harvard's. (I didn't apply there, so I can't say for sure whether or not I would have gotten in.)</p>