Berkeley versus the rest

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>hey, there is an interesting thing I saw when I was scrolling through the acceptance rates of several top school. Now, if you drop below the top 10 schools (these are your very top privates like HYPS), then you will something quite interesting</p>

<p>Berkeley’s acceptance this year overall: 26%, Ranking: 20</p>

<li>WashU: 19%</li>
<li>Northwstern: 30%
13.Cornell: 27%</li>
<li>JHU: 35%</li>
<li>Brown: 15% (okay, so this one really is low)</li>
<li>Uchic: 40% (holy crap!)</li>
<li>Rice: 25
18 Notre Dame: 32%</li>
<li>Emory: 37%</li>
</ol>

<p>Okay, granted, you can say that acceptance rates don’t fully show the challenge, and yes Berkeley is public, so they are getting maybe lower quality students from within the state, BUT STILL, i mean come on, Berkeley’s acceptance is pretty low, and it is below all of these schools according to USnews. now, maybe it is below for a variety of other reasons. but all im trying to say is that probably a lot of the students who got into berkeley could also get into these schools, but they chose berkeley. that means that berkeley, although when compared to the top 10, is not as selective, it is STILL quite a selective school in comparison to the, lets call them, the middle of the top of the line schools.</p>

<p>i guess this explains the reason why, as an OOS, when i tell ppl im going to berkeley it holds quite an impressive weightage, that regardless of the ranking, is just not there if i tell them im going to emory or notre dame or uchic. berkeley may have some match up problems with the top 10, but i think it matches up quite well with the second 10.</p>

2

<p>Berkeley's acceptance rate for Fall 2006 was 23.6%, not 26%!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>Well, there's one serious flaw with this analysis. Namely, you haven't included the transfer admissions. Berkeley runs a far larger transfer admissions regime than any of the other schools that have been mentioned in this thread. Depending on the major, a pretty darn high percentage of transfer applicants get admitted. </p>

<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Transfer_06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Transfer_06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Seriously, the Molecular Toxicology major (in the College of Natural Resources) admits 86% of its transfer applicants? That's a pretty darn high percentage, you must admit.</p>

4

<p>According to the website you offered, the admit rate is 28.8% (3000/10400). Thats not that high.</p>

5

<p>Uh, it's 33%. It's 3440/10400, you forgot to include the spring admittees. You have to count them for, after all, they still got admitted. </p>

<p>But the point is, it's still higher than the reported 23.6 or 28% of the freshmen.</p>

<p>Furthermore, it simply illustrates the fact that it's far easier to get into certain programs at Berkeley than into others. Hence, I would say that certain programs at Berkeley are fully deserving of a higher rank. Other programs, not so much.</p>

6

<p>Wow 26%... For international students, getting into Cal is hard as getting into any of the top 10 colleges...</p>

7

<p>Rankings are not solely based on acceptance rates though. There's much more to it. The FAQ on the USNews website gives some information on how the rankings are established.</p>

<p>However, that's just one ranking. If you look, for example, at the "Academic Ranking of World Universities" of the Institute of Higher Education (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) you'll see that Berkeley has always been in the top5 there. Right after Harvard, Stanford and, this year, Cambridge.</p>

8

<p>Hey sakky just reminded me of something: I don't think spring admits are counted in the official acceptance rate numbers. And, I don't know of many other schools that admit for the spring semester (or at least not as many as Berkeley...I think UCSD admits winter semester). Is this an example of Berkeley's playing with the numbers to make itself seem more selective and boost rankings?</p>

9

<p>Not really. Students are admitted in the spring because some students graduate in the fall thus freeing up space for more students. Other universities have students graduating in the fall as well but they choose not to admit students for the spring.</p>

10

<p>okay sakky, your right, it is easier to transfer. you have a point, but can you not at least admit to the fact that as a whole berkeley is pretty selective. okay, so there are lots of transfer students, you are often the one saying that that is a big flaw of berkeley, that you CANNOT transfer departments(namelly the engineering and business department) that easily. but here you are saying that they high transfer rates.</p>

<p>not to mention the fact that the transfer rates for Berkeley's hot subjects, like engineering and science are not THAT high. so, when a student speaks of how competitve or good a school is, normally he is talking about the areas where the school excels. you would not talk about caltech as a terrible school because it has bad humanities. you say its good becuze it has solid sciences and technology. similarly, in the hot subject at berkeley, 1. the transfer rates are not so low that ppl cannot transfer in if they want to and 2. they are not so high that it becomes unselective.</p>

<p>so i would argue that berkeley is on the whole, still quite competitvely selective and compares very easily to the schools from rank 11 through 19.</p>

11

<p>Vicissitudes, I don't know if they are counted, but if they aren't, then they should be. After all, they clearly didn't get rejected, so you can't really count them as rejects. I don't know if Berkeley is doing this deliberately, but it clearly doesn't hurt. </p>

<p>
[quote]
However, that's just one ranking. If you look, for example, at the "Academic Ranking of World Universities" of the Institute of Higher Education (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) you'll see that Berkeley has always been in the top5 there. Right after Harvard, Stanford and, this year, Cambridge.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure, because Jiao Tong is mostly a graduate ranking, as evidenced by its methodology. After all, where is Williams College on Jiao Tong? Where is Amherst? Where is Swarthmore? Where is Wellesley? UCSF and Rockefeller are on the list, but UCSF does not have a true undergraduate program in the way that is commonly understood and Rockefeller doesn't have an undergrad program at all. </p>

<p>I have always agreed that Berkeley is a good place to go for graduate school. It's the undergraduate rankings where things start to break down. Jiao Tong would have you believe that schools like the University of New Hampshire or the University of Rhode Island are somehow better schools than Williams or Amherst. However, I think it's safe to say that, unless money is the problem, very very few people are going to turn down Williams or Amherst for the University of Rhode Island.</p>

12

<p>vicissitudes, you have the wrong idea of what kind of school Berkeley is. UC Berkeley is not a corporation out to lie and decieve in order to make itself look better or to make a profit (in this case the profit would be increased rankings). Berkeley is a public school and its objective is to educate the population of CA, not to make itself increase its rankings.</p>

13

<p>and Thomas_, you make a valid point that this is just one ranking. and i would, just like you did _thomas, argue here that based on the THES berkeley is ranked 6, (yes, it fell from 2 last year...still good ranking though). but the ranking that american students typically look at when selecting college is USNews. since berkeley is ranked lower according usnews, and since college is a consumer good, and sicnec the ppl look at usnews, this means that a student who has to choose between columbia and berkeley would generally pick columbia. so the quality of students overall at berkeley is probably lower because of that. but we cannot forget that because THES did rank berkeley so high, that means it is an excellent institution still, with maybe not the peer group the top privates have, but still a damn good education.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
okay sakky, your right, it is easier to transfer. you have a point, but can you not at least admit to the fact that as a whole berkeley is pretty selective. okay, so there are lots of transfer students, you are often the one saying that that is a big flaw of berkeley, that you CANNOT transfer departments(namelly the engineering and business department) that easily. but here you are saying that they high transfer rates.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, I think you have misunderstood me. I am using the word 'transfer' in 2 different context. There are transfer students, meaning students from other schools, usually from community colleges, who then transfer into Berkeley. And then there is the phenonom of transferring BETWEEN different majors within Berkeley. Actually, the latter is more properly termed 'switching majors', although I and others will often times use the word 'transfer'.</p>

<p>My take is that it should be easy to transfer (or, in other words, switch) BETWEEN various majors at Berkeley. Take Stanford for example. If you go to Stanford thinking that you want to major in English, and you discover that you actually want to major in computer science, or vice versa, you just switch over. Nobody will stop you. It's not that easy at Berkeley. Plenty of Berkeley students try to switch to another major and are not allowed, and hence get stuck in a major that they don't really want to be in.</p>

<p>But that's a far cry from saying that it should be easy to transfer FROM ANOTHER COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY to Berkeley. That should be hard - in fact, at least as hard as getting admitted as a freshman.</p>

<p>The transfer rates that I have posted on the pdf have to do with people trying to transfer in FROM OTHER COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES, usually the community colleges. This is an entirely different topic from people who are already in Berkeley, but trying to transfer/switch majors WITHIN Berkeley. </p>

<p>Again, if it makes it clearer, here's an example. If you're already a Stanford undergrad, then the 'transfer rate' of switching majors is 100%, because like I said, you are free to choose any major you want and switch at any time. But if you're a student at some other university and you want to transfer into Stanford, then the admit rate is very small - probably something like 5% (maybe less).</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
Berkeley is a public school and its objective is to educate the population of CA, not to make itself increase its rankings.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's better to say that Berkeley is a public school and its objective is to provide UG education for as many CA residents as it can given its resources, not to make itself increase its USNEWS "America's Best Colleges" Ranking.</p>

16

<p>"i guess this explains the reason why, as an OOS, when i tell ppl im going to berkeley it holds quite an impressive weightage, that regardless of the ranking, is just not there if i tell them im going to emory or notre dame or uchic."</p>

<p>Actually pooty, its not THAT much harder to get in OOS as opposed to in-state. The website below shows that the difference in acceptance is only 6.5%:</p>

<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

17

<p>okay, thanks for clearing that up. i thought when you transfer departments it is the same percentage acceptance. it just doesnt make snese to me that it is so hard to transfer from WITHIN the university to a different college, but it is much easier from a different univ. so ur saying that if i am a student in engine at berkeley and i want to switch to LandS it is actually harder for me than it is for a student froma different univ</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
vicissitudes, you have the wrong idea of what kind of school Berkeley is. UC Berkeley is not a corporation out to lie and decieve in order to make itself look better or to make a profit (in this case the profit would be increased rankings). Berkeley is a public school and its objective is to educate the population of CA, not to make itself increase its rankings.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's a nice theory, and that's certainly what Berkeley's stated mission is, but the fact is, all organizations in the world have hidden motives and hidden incentives. To give you an example, not that long ago, both the Berkeley football and basketball team were discovered to have violated NCAA rules regarding the paying of players and/or providing unauthorized aid to players to help them maintain their eligibility (i.e. having other people complete the assignments of players). Both programs were placed on probation. Now certainly it wasn't within Berkeley's public mission to have illegal sports programs, and I'm sure that from a public relations standpoint, Berkeley never wanted to have dirty athletic programs. But that's precisely what happened. There was a hidden agenda within the athletic department to produce winning football/basketball teams, regardless of whether the rules were being followed. Hopefully that is all cleaned up now, but the point is, what an organization is actually supposed to do can be completely different from what an organization actually does. </p>

<p>
[quote]
and Thomas_, you make a valid point that this is just one ranking. and i would, just like you did _thomas, argue here that based on the THES berkeley is ranked 6, (yes, it fell from 2 last year...still good ranking though). but the ranking that american students typically look at when selecting college is USNews. since berkeley is ranked lower according usnews, and since college is a consumer good, and sicnec the ppl look at usnews, this means that a student who has to choose between columbia and berkeley would generally pick columbia. so the quality of students overall at berkeley is probably lower because of that. but we cannot forget that because THES did rank berkeley so high, that means it is an excellent institution still, with maybe not the peer group the top privates have, but still a damn good education.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I believe that Thomas was citing Jiao Tong, not THES.</p>

<p>But regardless, again, both of these rankings are mostly graduate rankings (again, where are the top LAC's?). I have always agreed that Berkeley is a great graduate school. Berkeley gets a lot of top graduate students because of its high graduate rankings. But the question is and has always been - what about the undergrad program? I think even the most biased observer would have to agree that the Berkeley graduate programs are better then the undergraduate program.</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
where is Williams College on Jiao Tong? Where is Amherst? Where is Swarthmore? Where is Wellesley

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Those schools have an international reputation approaching zero, thus it's no surprise that they don't show up on int'l rankings. </p>

<p>It's also kind of typical for you to dismiss the figures using a contorted argument, Berkeley's acceptance rate of freshmen should be compared with other schools acceptance rate of freshmen, transfers are a separate matter. Berkeley practices a kind of affirmative action towards transfers because they are usually less financially affluent. That's part of the university's mission, and it actually adds to the quality of the education since Berkeley has three times the rate of less affluent students than other top universities.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
okay, thanks for clearing that up. i thought when you transfer departments it is the same percentage acceptance. it just doesnt make snese to me that it is so hard to transfer from WITHIN the university to a different college, but it is much easier from a different univ. so ur saying that if i am a student in engine at berkeley and i want to switch to LandS it is actually harder for me than it is for a student froma different univ

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes! Now I think you're starting to understand some of the issues at Berkeley. Not only are you wondering about it, so have I, and so have a lot of other people at Berkeley. There is a very strong feeling within the Berkeley community that it may in fact actually be easier to transfer into certain majors at Berkeley from another university completely than it is if you are already a Berkeley student (but in another major) and just trying to switch into that major. And you're right - it doesn't make sense.</p>

<p>Now, again, let me reiterate that I don't know that this is happening. But I do hear a lot of continuing Berkeley students saying that they tried to switch into such-and-such a major (usually in engineering) but didn't get in, but then that major admitted a bunch of transfer students who, quite frankly, were not very good. </p>

<p>What I think should happen is that ALL students who want to get into certain impacted majors, whether they are transfer students from another school, or continuing Berkeley students, should all have to take an entrance exam that has to do with that major. The top X scorers of that exam are admitted to the major, and the rest are denied. That would be completely fair. You either score well on the entrance exam, or you don't. But everybody would take the same test so there would be no griping about unfairness. Right now there are parallel systems to getting into impacted majors, and since the two paths are not the same, one path might be easier than another. You just don't know, and that's where the problem is.</p>