<p>Okay, since this is about prestige, can the OP define prestige first? Nevertheless, I don’t see in which area is Cornell viewed more prestigious than Berkeley. Even the top professional schools accept more Berkeley grads than they do Cornell grads. There are several threads about this, and Berkeley trumps Cornell, ALWAYS.</p>
<p>How is Berkeley doing for funding? What is Berkeley’s 4 year graduation rate? I think Berkeley is a great option for CA residents, but for out of staters, I don’t know why people would pay that kind of money for a state school.</p>
<p>^ oldfort, Cal has shored up finances by several methods:</p>
<ol>
<li>Increasing out-of-state and international undergrad population from 10% to over 20%. Other top publics like UMich and UVA are ~30% OOS. This fall’s incoming frosh class was 30% OOS.
<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/07/01/qt/u_of_california_enrolls_more_from_out_of_state[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/07/01/qt/u_of_california_enrolls_more_from_out_of_state</a></li>
<li>Increased private philanthropy. They are currently on target to raise $3 billion by 2013.</li>
<li>Increase federal research grants.</li>
<li>Find efficiencies through cutting overhead, streamlining purchasing and making energy efficiency investments. Chancellor has a goal to save up to $75 million in annual expenses. [UC</a> Berkeley - OE Vision - What is OE?](<a href=“http://oe.berkeley.edu/vision/whatisoe.shtml]UC”>http://oe.berkeley.edu/vision/whatisoe.shtml)</li>
</ol>
<p>State funding has decreased and Cal is finding ways to adjust to the new financial model without impacting academic excellence.</p>
<p>Even at most top professional schools, Berkeley outperforms Cornell. Look.</p>
<p>Top Feeder Schools to Yale Law
[Yale</a> University Bulletin | Yale Law School 2011?2012 | Law School Students](<a href=“Welcome | Office of the University Printer”>Welcome | Office of the University Printer)
UC Berkeley - 16
Cornell - 11</p>
<p>Top Feeder Colleges to Harvard B-School
[Top</a> Feeder Colleges to Harvard B-School | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/)
UC Berkeley - 23
Cornell - 14</p>
<p>Top 25 Feeder Colleges For Wharton’s Class of 2013
[Top</a> Feeder Schools To Wharton’s MBA Program | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/)
UC Berkeley - 21
Cornell - 19</p>
<p>Harvard Law School
<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070531213708/http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php[/url]”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070531213708/http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php</a>
UC Berkeley - 48
Cornell - 45</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
<a href=“http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bin/u/p/SOMCatalog0910.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bin/u/p/SOMCatalog0910.pdf</a>
UC Berkeley - 17
Cornell - 16</p>
<p>Berkeley has 11k more undergraduates than cornell and they perform in relatively the same amounts when it comes to grad school admittance. </p>
<p>Sounds like Cornell is better to me.</p>
<p>I would imagine Cornell is almost non-existence at Stanford Med, Stanford Law, Stanford Business School, Haas, Berkeley Law and UCSF. These are professional schools way more prestigious than Cornell’s own professional schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But you also need to understand that not everyone at Berkeley would apply to professional schools. Look, we’re not even counting top graduate schools in engineering at MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and Caltech – the top 5 schools for engineering yet. And, when you add that to those who are in top grad schools for physical sciences, and those who are in the top grad programs for social sciences, liberal arts and languages, the more you’ll see Berkeley leads soar up. And, there are way many more Berkeley grads win prestigious scholarships abroad. There are also way more Berkeley grads that join each for America and the peace Corps. </p>
<p>This thread is about prestige. As you can see, all data lead me to believe that Berkeley is head-and-shoulders more prestigious than Berkeley. Again, it’s not even close.</p>
<p>Okay, here’s the answer to the OP’s question:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley - 74.7 points on Reputation Score
Cornell - 17.5 points on Reputation Score</p>
<p>Like I said, when it comes to reputation, Berkeley is head-and-shoulders more reputable than Cornell. The surveys have spoken.</p>
<p>[Top</a> Universities by Reputation 2011](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/reputation-rankings.html]Top”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/reputation-rankings.html)</p>
<p>I hope this evidence will seal the issue now.</p>
<p>RML, you need to understand you’re making some strong assumptions. There is no concrete evidence you can pullout to support what you’re saying (“Not everyone at Berkeley would apply to professional schools”). Unless you go out and do some polling in Berkeley and Cornell then you won’t ever have a coherent reply.</p>
<p>The way I look at it. Schools are homogenous in their students. I make a reasonable and honest assumption that the same ratio of students from both Berkeley and Cornell are willing to attend grad school. The amount of students from the Berkeley ratio is considerably higher than Cornell’s. And when they put in relatively the same amount of students into grad school it makes Cornell look a lot better when it comes to down to the specific percentages that get into a grad school. </p>
<p>And lol @ that link you posted. Some no name site and it placed Berkeley as the 4th most prestigious school in the world? You srs brah? You ever leave California?</p>
<p>Ankur, </p>
<p>Yale Law, for instance, accepts 250 students per year. About 90 slots of those were already reserved for their own undergrads, which leaves only 150 slots available for other schools to fight for. Then you have Harvard, Stanford and Princeton which are viewed as Yale’s rivals and are superior to both Berkeley and Cornell, so the slots would even become narrower. Now, even if Yale would give all the remaining slots to Berkeley and leave one slot, to say, Pomona, then Pomona would win over Berkeley based on your logic and reasoning. Does that really make sense??? Of course, it doesn’t. </p>
<p>Another example. </p>
<p>I’ve learned from a friend’s son that Goldman absorbed 27 Berkeley grads this year – 16 from Haas and 11 from Econ and Industrial Econ. Berkeley, together with Stanford, are core schools of Goldman Sachs. Simultaneously, Goldman took in 1 grad from Pomona in the same year. Pomona isn’t a feeder school for Goldman. They rarely hire from that school. In fact, Goldman hasn’t had a Pomona grad for a while before this year. Now, based on your logic Pomona is a better feeder school than is Berkeley to Goldman. Again, my question is: Does that make sense to you? Well, it doesn’t to me. </p>
<p>The only thing that can be drawn from my data is that at the very top professional schools in America, from Yale Law to Harvard Business School to JHU Med, Berkeley is more represented. Meaning, you would see many more Berkeley grads at those top schools than you would see Cornell grads, that despite Berkeley is in the West Coast and Cornell is, in fact, a “neighbor” school. The bigger presence of Berkeley undergrads at those schools would in-turn make Berkeley a more prominent school at those campuses. That would later translate into prestige. </p>
<p>
I don’t think that’s true. About 1/4 of Berkeley’s student body are Pell grantees. Those students are more determined in working right out of college. </p>
<p>
LOL … I am not even in America. I am Italian, educated in Cambridge, LBS (and Stanford as an exchange student) and am currently living in Asia. But I am not the subject here, so let’s not talk about me.</p>
<p>@Ankur1521</p>
<p>Times Higher Education (the site RML linked), QS, and the ARWU are some of the more popular world university rankings. I wouldn’t call THE a “no name site”.</p>
<p>Here’s [QS’s</a> rankings of colleges by academic reputation](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/indicator-rankings/academic-peer-review]QS’s”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/indicator-rankings/academic-peer-review). Berkeley comes in at number 4 and Cornell at 17, but with only 0.2 difference in scores between the 2.
By [employer</a> reputation](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/indicator-rankings/employer-review]employer”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/indicator-rankings/employer-review). Once again, Berkeley is at number 4 and Cornell at 15.
But personally, I don’t have much faith in a ranking system that overall ranks Edinburgh or UCL above Berkeley. </p>
<p>That said, I believe Berkeley’s rep largely stems from its strong graduate program. At the undergraduate level, I would think Cornell’s smaller student body might put it at a slight advantage over Berkeley.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, what’s really funny is that you call Times “no name” and use the word “brah” and try to sound credible all in the same post. Now that’s hilarious.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call it advantage. I would call it convenience. Cornell’s smaller student body would translate it to having more convenience for Cornell undergrad students. Similarly speaking, Pomona College is more convenient than Cornell – has better faculty-to-student ratio, higher grad rate, higher funding per student, etc, etc… But there is doubt in my mind as to Pomona being a more prestigious school than Cornell. The USNews, for example, measures convenience rather than academic standard or academic reputation. It’s the PA of that ranking that’s actually the academic prestige ranking and school reputation. And, since this thread is about prestige, Berkeley wins here, hands down.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is a false assumption. Just because someone is a Pell grantee doesn’t mean he/she would work right out of school. It would only be the case if there is a job available and he/she couldn’t get into a paid graduate program. </p>
<p>A full disclosure here, my older daughter went to Cornell, and my younger daughter considered Berkeley. I am not here saying one school is better than other. I think without the budget cut, choosing between Cornell and Berkeley would be a matter of “Do you like East or West coast.” But that’s not what we are facing today.</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley Budget Central](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/budget/]UC”>Tag | Berkeley)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We visited Berkeley because of D2. The campus was still beautiful, but it was run down compared to other top tier schools - building’s signs were missing letters and the ground wasn’t well kept. If a school has to cut budget, it is better to cut the maintenance budget than research or faculty budget, but we could feel the money is a concern. </p>
<p>I felt if all else being equal (between Berkeley and Cornell), why should I spend same amount of money for my kid to go to a school where quality of education is depend on a group of politicians.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? </p>
<p>According to the HBS alumni database:</p>
<h1>of Harvard MBA alumni from the following undergrad schools:</h1>
<p>Cornell - 758
Berkeley - 548</p>
<p>Granted, there is also a “University of California” (without campus specification) field. But that contains only 6 people. </p>
<p>In fairness, it should be said that there do seem to be more affiliates (as opposed to undergrad alma maters) from Berkeley than Cornell who are currently Harvard MBA students, aggregated across both classes 2012 and 2013. Cornell has 39 whereas Berkeley has about 45, although it’s not clear what types of affiliations they may be. {For example, earning your MS or spending one semester at Berkeley/Cornell would count as a an “affiliation”, and I’m feeling too lazy to check every single entry to subtract those who didn’t actually earn their undergrad degrees from the respective school}. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find it highly doubtful that YLS would “reserve” 90 slots for its own undergrads (or heck, even ‘reserve’ any set number of slots at all). If memory serves me correctly, generally more, or at least the same number of, Harvard undergrads are admitted to YLS than are Yale undergrads - which is unsurprising considering that Harvard College is more populous than is Yale College. Hence, if 90 slots are indeed reserved for Yale undergrads, then at least 90 more slots would be taken by Harvard undergrads, leaving only a ludicrously small number of slots for Stanford and Princeton, let alone the remaining number of schools.</p>
<p>Personally, I think they are both highly prestigious world-wide. If you don’t like Cornell/Ithaca (for whatever reasons), then the choice is easy.</p>
<p>sakky, my data for HBS were taken from Poets & Quants. I didn’t know that they fudge their data, if you think they’re inaccurate. </p>
<p>Regarding Yale Law, I’m not sure if there were years in the past when Yale Law did not accommodate about 90 of their own undergrads. I’m not sure if it is correct to say that Yale Law ins’t practicing in-breeding. Regardless, my point was, it is incorrect to say that Cornell outperforms Berkeley at Yale Law admissions merely because Berkeley has more undergrad population.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t say that P&Q fudged their data. P&Q is reporting data about the incoming HBS class for a single year (the current year). On the other hand, the alumni database contains information about every year. That would seem to be a far more comprehensive and meaningful dataset. </p>
<p>As a case in point, we can restrict our discussion to only Harvard MBA graduates from the year 2000 onwards. The number who had graduated from Cornell = 113, the number from Berkeley = 96. </p>
<p>Besides, given the choice between two datasets regarding the undergrad backgrounds of HBS students, would you rather trust a small dataset from a 3rd party blog, or the far larger dataset that comes from HBS itself? </p>
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</p>
<p>If there was a year when YLS truly accommodated 90 of its own undergrads, even if it provides some in-breeding. Like I said, YLS tends to admit roughly as many , and probably more, Harvard graduates than it does Yale graduates. So if it is accommodating 90 Yale graduates, then it must have surely been accommodating around 90 Harvard graduates as well, leaving only 80 total admissions slots out of the 250 total for everybody else, without having even factored in the Stanford and Princeton applicants. That seems highly mathematically dubious to me. </p>
<p>It’s like the difference between judging the Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers solely on the basis of their performance in last year’s playoffs when, truth be told, both of them didn’t perform that well, vs. judging them over their entire histories as being the two most winningest franchises in NBA history.</p>
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<p>So, what really is your point, sakky? That Cornell is more prestigious than Berkeley?</p>
<p>I started this thread. Cornell isn’t more prestigious than Berkeley. Maybe, I s should’ve compared it with penn or brown. I just feel that due to so many incoming students nowdays at Berk, the reputation is going down severely…if you guys know what i mean.</p>