Berkeley versus the rest

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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Those schools have an international reputation approaching zero, thus it's no surprise that they don't show up on int'l rankings.

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<p>And the University of Rhode Island does have international standing that is better than the elite LAC's? The University of New Hampshire does? I would argue that URI and UNH have an international reputation approaching zero also, and certainly not significantly better than what the LAC's have. </p>

<p>But even if that were true (and I highly doubt that URI really has a better international ranking than the elite LAC's do), it hardly matters. The fact remains that the elite LAC's are not going to lose too many cross-admits to schools like URI. Most students who apply to the elite LAC's won't even apply to schools like URI, and of those that do and get admitted to both, the vast majority are going to choose the LAC. So that either means that that LAC is a better school, or those students are being stupid. </p>

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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.

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<p>I think it's actually rather typical of you to dismiss the importance of transfer admissions. After all, these students become Berkeley students. So why shouldn't they be counted as part of a proxy to determine the quality of the student body? It's like saying that the Cal football players (or the players of any Division 1A football team) shouldn't count as part of the student body because they got admitted through a special process. So what? They are still students, and they therefore still have an impact on the overall quality of the student body. </p>

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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.

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<p>How does it add to the quality of the education? Admitting poor people by itself doesn't automatically add to the quality of the education. The key is to admit poor, but STRONG students. Otherwise, you could say that the CalStates or the community colleges really offer top-quality education because they educate even more poor students than Berkeley does.</p>

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<p>on sakky's post #18: nonsense. </p>

<p>it's quite clear that Berkeley has a substantially less active PR bent than other top schools. Berkeley is good despite its poor PR effort, not because of its PR.</p>

<p>As far as Cal Athletics, there certainly was no hidden agenda to "win at all costs". The violation in football occured in the late 90s on the sole discretion of a stupid faculty member who decided to give two players a break and pass them. The basketball violation occured because our past coach was a cheater. It was certainly not with the knowledge or approval of the Athletic Dept. </p>

<p>Cal currently operates one of the best athletic dept, if not the very best in D1 both in terms of athletic and academic achievements.</p>

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As far as Cal Athletics, there certainly was no hidden agenda to "win at all costs". The violation in football occured in the late 90s on the sole discretion of a stupid faculty member who decided to give two players a break and pass them. The basketball violation occured because our past coach was a cheater. It was certainly not with the knowledge or approval of the Athletic Dept.

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<p>That's the point! People within Berkeley have hidden agendas that often times countervail the intent of Berkeley. That simply proves that just because Berkeley says it is going to do something doesn't mean that it will actually get done. Berkeley is composed of human beings, and human beings always have their own agenda. </p>

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Cal currently operates one of the best athletic dept, if not the very best in D1 both in terms of athletic and academic achievements.

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<p>Oh really? Isn't it interesting that Berkeley has not only never won the NACDA Director's Cup/Sears Cup, it hasn't even ever finished in the top 5? UCLA, on the other hand, has finished 2nd several times, including this year. </p>

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it's quite clear that Berkeley has a substantially less active PR bent than other top schools. Berkeley is good despite its poor PR effort, not because of its PR.

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<p>I disagree completely. I would argue that Berkeley actually has BRILLIANT PR at the undergraduate level, in the way that Berkeley constantly tries to hitch the undergrad program to the star of the grad-programs. It's BRILLIANT, because it makes many people think that the undergrad program is going to be just as good as the graduate programs, when careful observers realize that the Berkeley grad programs are far better than the undergrad program is.</p>

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<p>If you believe that poor students are inherintly dumber, then you would be right. Personally, i think that is a ridiculous idea. The fact is, students from richer backgrounds (who constitute the majority of the student bodies at top American universities) are better-equiped to apply to universities, with access to higher-quality secondary education and professional coaching for the standardized tests. That doesn't mean that they are inherintly more worthy of being admitted, to the contrary.</p>

<p>As well, having a student body that is very much skewed towards the upper socio-economic echelon leads to a student body that is less open and diverse to different cultural currents and perspectives.</p>

<p>About transfers: it's quite clear that freshmen admit rates are comparable across universities. Some schools actually do fudge their numbers, like USC who admits Spring HS graduates with lower scores into the following year's spring terms based only on their lower metrics as opposed to their actual schedule of graduation.</p>

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<p>"BRILLIANT" undergrad PR, and ranked 20th in the USNWR? LOL.</p>

<p>As far as athletics, if you include men's crew and rugby, Cal would be in the top 3 this year in the Director's Cup. the fact that Cal has a far better football program than that of the other schools ranked in that top 3 this year puts Cal over the top IMHO.</p>

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<p>GoldenBear.. I'm an international student.. Intl acceptances last year were 12% which is in the league of HYPSM...</p>

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BRILLIANT" undergrad PR, and ranked 20th in the USNWR? LOL.

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<p>BRILLIANT because there are other rankings like THES and Jiao Tong that are commonly cited by yourself and others as proof of undergrad strength, despite the fact that these are mostly graduate rankings. It's really a classic case of bait and switch. You use the strength of your graduate programs to attract people into the undergrad program. Discerning minds generally know better than to equate grad strength with undergrad strength. Like I said, not too many people are going to seriously turn down Amherst College for URI, despite the fact that URI clearly has better grad programs (for the simple fact that Amherst doesn't even have grad programs).</p>

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If you believe that poor students are inherintly dumber, then you would be right. Personally, i think that is a ridiculous idea. The fact is, students from richer backgrounds (who constitute the majority of the student bodies at top American universities) are better-equiped to apply to universities, with access to higher-quality secondary education and professional coaching for the standardized tests. That doesn't mean that they are inherintly more worthy of being admitted, to the contrary.

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<p>And that only leads to the conclusion that the community colleges are truly serving the public good. After all, if you REALLY want to talk about who really serves the poor, it's the community colleges. I am quite certain that the socioeconomic backgrounds of community college students are significantly lower than that at Berkeley.</p>

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<p>About the acceptance rates:</p>

<p>It may seem like the acceptance rates between instate and OOS are only 6.5 percent, but one has to be aware that the quality of the applicants may differ by a lot. The UC application makes it easy for anybody in CA to apply to Berkeley. One just has to check another box. Therefore, the range of applicants increases a lot, including many who are far from qualified. The range of accepted students also varies a lot.</p>

<p>On the other hand, not many OOS students apply. It has a reputation of being very selective with OOS admissions, and only the better students would think of filling out a UC application and applying. As a result, the range of the applicants is most likely a lot better than the instate applicants. There are also a lot fewer OOS acceptances, allowing the admissions committee to pick the brightest of the OOS kids. As a result, I believe though the difference between acceptance rates is only 6.5 percent, the actual difference in the competitiveness is probably higher than it may seem. I'm not saying getting in instate is easy by any means, but be proud of getting in from OOS, and internationally, as well.</p>

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<p>what's the point of this thread? don't we all know that anyone that can get into berkeley has a good chance at the top non-ivy privates? Duh.</p>

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don't we all know that anyone that can get into berkeley has a good chance at the top non-ivy privates? Duh.

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<p>Oh, I don't know about that. The top non-ivy privates are generally taken to be places like MIT and Stanford I question the assertion that anyone who can get into Berkeley undergrad has a good chance at getting into schools like that, and furthermore those who do get admitted to those schools tend to turn down Berkeley for them. I think even eudean admitted that if he/she had gotten into MIT and Berkeley hadn't offered him/her a scholarship, he/she would have gone to MIT. </p>

<p>Besides, the 'point' of this thread is to talk about how Berkeley compares to other schools, and I think we are addressing these concerns. If you are interested in this topic, you are free to participate. If not, then you are free to ignore the topic. </p>

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On the other hand, not many OOS students apply. It has a reputation of being very selective with OOS admissions, and only the better students would think of filling out a UC application and applying. As a result, the range of the applicants is most likely a lot better than the instate applicants. There are also a lot fewer OOS acceptances, allowing the admissions committee to pick the brightest of the OOS kids. As a result, I believe though the difference between acceptance rates is only 6.5 percent, the actual difference in the competitiveness is probably higher than it may seem. I'm not saying getting in instate is easy by any means, but be proud of getting in from OOS, and internationally, as well.

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<p>Well, the thing is, OOS admissions is indeed significantly tougher than in-state admissions, so much so that if you can get admitted OOS, especially if you can get admitted OOS to one of the impacted majors like engineering, then you are also probably good enough to get into schools of the caliber of HYPSM. And, like I said, Berkeley undergrad loses the cross-admit battles with schools like that. This is true even for in-state students who can usually take advantage of in-state tuition (although, granted, the aggressive financial aid of HYPSM tends to blunt this effect, to the point that some in-state students actually find HYPSM to be CHEAPER than Berkeley) So, regarding OOS students, the lack of an in-state tuition subsidy reduces the incentives to choose Berkeley even more.</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong. I still think that Berkeley undergrad is better than the vast majority of programs out there. And certainly if you're an in-state student who's not poor enough to qualify for significant financial aid, then Berkeley can be a good way to save money. It's just that Berkeley undergrad has difficulties in matching up with the top private programs. Berkeley graduate programs are a different story, however.</p>

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The UC application makes it easy for anybody in CA to apply to Berkeley. One just has to check another box. Therefore, the range of applicants increases a lot, including many who are far from qualified. The range of accepted students also varies a lot.

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<p>Wait a minute, if it's the UC app . . it's the one non-CA residents will be using as well. In fact, I'm pretty sure residency has very little affect on what application you will be filling out, about none at all, and that checking another box for a non-CA resident is as easy as it is . . . for a California resident! Yes, there is a different composition of applicants in the different pools, yes people might be applying or not applying for different reasons. But the application is the same, and checking the box (and paying the money) is the same as well.</p>

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<p>Yes, everyone uses the same appliction. My point was that since the UC app makes it so easy to apply, (this is just a speculation) almost everyone in california applies to at least one UC school (again, I don't know if this is true), and it makes it so easy to check one more box and apply to berkeley, even many unqualified students, making the range of the applicants a lot wider. On the other hand, not many people from OOS would bother applying to a UC school because filling out an entire application is quite a hassle (whereas if you're already applying to a UC school, checking off another one is very simple). Only the kids who feel they have a chance would think of applying, resulting in an overall more qualified application pool. I wasn't trying to say the applications were different for people.</p>

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<p>pquote]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.<br>

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<p>No, and I am not saying that it's delibrately set out to lie and deceive. But look, schools want to make themselves look better. It attracts more top students, gets more funding, gets more prestige, etc. It's better for the school and for the students. Now, if you're higher ranked on something used by many as a pretty good indicator of your school quality, like the US News & World Report, then your school is going to look better. And if you report your stats in such a way that it makes your school better, well that's a good reason to manipulate your stats then. Having a higher rank only helps the school and its students. I wouldn't really call this lying, but just good marketing.</p>

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on sakky's post #18: nonsense. </p>

<p>it's quite clear that Berkeley has a substantially less active PR bent than other top schools. Berkeley is good despite its poor PR effort, not because of its PR.

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<p>How is it quite clear? I think it does have less PR than SOME other top schools (WUSTL comes to mind) but like sakky mentioned, it rides off of its top grad programs and its research (berkelium has been cited too many times on this forum and that was decades ago), it makes itself seem cheaper than HYPSM by making its tag-price for in-states cheaper, although sometimes with financial aid HYPSM is actually cheaper. And I just pointed out something else: spring admissions, that may go even further in proving that Berkeley PR may not as weak as we believe it is.</p>

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The UC application makes it easy for anybody in CA to apply to Berkeley. One just has to check another box. Therefore, the range of applicants increases a lot, including many who are far from qualified. The range of accepted students also varies a lot.

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<p>You know, I always thought this is more true for UCLA than for Berkeley. Top students use UCLA as a safety, while not as good students use UCLA as a reach. That would partially explain why UCLA gets so many applications every year. Berkeley is seen, at least by many people I talked to, as too difficult and competitive, so they don't even bother applying! For some reason Berkeley has a reputation of being cut-throad whereas UCLA has not, even though the weeders are both prevalent in both colleges.</p>

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almost everyone in california applies to at least one UC school (again, I don't know if this is true), and it makes it so easy to check one more box and apply to berkeley, even many unqualified students, making the range of the applicants a lot wider.

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<p>I think many students, tens of thousands, maybe more, don't. See how many kids there are who receive high school degrees in CA, see how many applications Berkeley gets from in-state students. </p>

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On the other hand, not many people from OOS would bother applying to a UC school because filling out an entire application is quite a hassle (whereas if you're already applying to a UC school, checking off another one is very simple).

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<p>Yes and yes.</p>

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Only the kids who feel they have a chance would think of applying, resulting in an overall more qualified application pool. I wasn't trying to say the applications were different for people.

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<p>Eh, possibly. I bet plenty of fairly weak students apply anyway. Does anyone think almost all of the rejects from any school are as highly qualified as the class admitted? I agree, more people apply to the UCs schools that otherwise would because they are on the same application. But in addition, you must also realize that these things happen because of the common application. Also, I would speculate that kids are applying to more places than they used to, also contributing.</p>

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<p>usc is cooler!</p>

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usc is cooler!

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<p>The weather is often significantly hotter at USC.</p>

<p>:rolleyes:</p>