BERKELEY vs MIT

Applying to College
1

<p>I have always views MIT as the best engineering school in the world. However, a few days ago i saw the word rankings of engineerings schools and berkeley is actually better. Berkeley was number 1 while MIT was 2nd.
Which is officially better? MIT is extremely popular in the US, far more than Berkeley. But does the rest of the world see that way as well?</p>

2

<p>You can't go wrong either way. Nevertheless, aim for MIT imo since you're Out-Of-State. It's not worth it to pay for an OOS UC education.</p>

3

<p>
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Which is officially better?

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<p>One is not "officially" better than the other. No school is "officially" better than another, especially since it's largely based on opinion, and especially not in this case. MIT and Berkeley are really neck-and-neck for engineering, along with Stanford. In most rankings, MIT is just one above Berkeley; in some, Berkeley manages to get above MIT, but it's usually just by a hair.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#RANKBYAREA%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#RANKBYAREA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As you can see, MIT has a 9, while Berkeley has an 8.57. The same score difference is seen in the US News ranking, the THES ranking, etc.</p>

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MIT is extremely popular in the US, far more than Berkeley.

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<p>No, not quite. Berkeley recently received 48,000 applicants. MIT received just over 11,000, according to its most recent CDS. (This is a bit low in comparison to its peers HYPS, but I think tech schools generally have fewer applicants.) Much of Berkeley's figure is because it's in California, but Berkeley also received more than 7,000 out-of-state applicants last year (probably at least 8,000 this year). So I'd say it's pretty popular, perhaps in part because it offers much more than math/science -- MIT does, too, of course, but isn't nearly as diverse as Berkeley in its offerings. (Then again, few universities are.)</p>

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But does the rest of the world see that way as well?

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<p>Generally, people will assume that MIT > all other tech schools, because MIT is a top school and its focus is engineering/science (though it's branched out). But really, for engineering MIT = Berkeley = Stanford, and you might even be able to throw in Caltech and a few others without too much fuss from people.</p>