Berkeley vs Reed?

College Search & Selection
1

I’m a senior awaiting admissions decisions from a few schools, and UC Berkeley and Reed College are at the top of my list.

Discounting money (I’ve got scholarships/grants lined up), I’d like to know which would be a better choice for my intended major.

I’d like to major in environmental studies. I like various things about each school, and I’ve also heard negatives about both. Berkeley has a fantastic reputation and a breadth of resources but it’s a huge school with crazy large classes. Reed has an amazing classroom environment (or so I’ve heard) and great academic atmosphere, but it’s intense and possibly stifling.

Any input on which school might be better for me? I’m willing to divulge more personal info and preferences if necessary.

2

Berkeley has some of the top environmental sciences-related departments in the country, and being a large research university, there are likely to be more classes and more research opportunities in that field there. That’s not to say that it’s better - it’s really an unfair comparison, because Reed by default is not included in departmental rankings because it has no PhD program. Note also that Reed is one of the top producers of PhD recipients in the country, ranking above Berkeley in many (most?) cases. There are plenty of research opportunities there, too. One thing to consider, though, is that the environmental studies major at Reed is really made up of a bunch of different classes from different departments that are related to environmental studies. There are a lot of them, but most of them are actually in the social sciences and not in the life sciences. Berkeley has a dedicated department with a dedicated faculty and their classes are a mix of life sciences and social sciences.

So for your particular major, Berkeley is the better choice. However, selecting an undergrad is about more than the major - because, among other reasons, you may change your mind. Do you want to go to a large university or a small liberal arts college? At Berkeley the lower-division environmental sciences classes are the basic life science classes, and they are likely to be truly huge - a friend of mine was pre-med at UCLA and she said her intro biology class had 600 people in it. Your upper-division classes are likely to be smaller, but still pretty big (a colleague of mine here at Penn State is teaching a 300-level engineering course with 150 students in it). That’s not necessarily a bad thing; you just have to decide for yourself whether you would mind that kind of environment.

I don’t know what you mean by “stifling”. I would doubt that Berkeley is any less intense than Reed.

3

Thanks for your detailed reply. In regards to Reed being stifling, I’ve read in numerous places and heard from students that Reed is all academics, all the time, and that this intensity is overwhelming at many times. I guess I haven’t really heard much specifically about classroom life at Cal, I’m sure it’s tough.

However, the smaller class sizes at Reed do appeal to me somewhat. I know I have the ability to succeed in a large class among hundreds of students at Berkeley, I just think the discussion environment at Reed sounds exciting and potentially a huge source of growth.

In the end, I’m looking for a great education in the field I want to enter, and based on your words along with various internet sources, it seems that Berkeley’s department is at an advantage compared to Reed’s, and that might be what pushes me toward the East Bay.

4

To begin, both are unquestionably fine schools. Recognizing that your academic focus is important, Berkeley may initially appear to be a better choice (for reasons well documented in post #1). However, I suggest you additionally consider four substantial “judgmental factor questions:”

  1. Which school’s (and community’s) “cultural fit” better suits YOU?
  2. Where would you rather spend the next four years – academically/intellectually as well as in day-to-day living – which also may suggest in which “institutional constituency” you’ll feel more comfortable, and that can be important for many decades?
  3. Critically, do you have a preference for the mega-university versus the LAC environment (you could hardly find a more stark contrast)?
  4. Finally, were you to change your major (over half of undergraduates do, often more than once) would that make either excellent school preferable?
5

Environmental Engineering? Hmmm…did you know Reed has it’s own nuclear reactor?

6

Not specifically environmental engineering, more ‘studies’, but yes, I’ve actually visited the reactor. Pretty crazy thing for undergrads to run, as even those majoring in humanities get a chance to run it.

Now, in response to the third post, particularly the last question: as there is a chance that I might switch my major, would it not be a wiser choice to choose Berkeley? They seem to be very strong in all departments, and I can use AP credit to knock out general ed classes there.

7

If you are headed to Graduate School, I would heavily consider Reed. If you aren’t, I would lean towards UCB.

8

@IncorpXand‌ (re post #5):

That’s a good question; however, I’d respectfully suggest Reed, notwithstanding your excellent points that favor Berkeley. Here’s why:

  1. Good LACs (and Reed is one of the best) are all about broad academic/intellectual exploration, they are relatively small, and they tend to be much less bureaucratic, in comparison to mega-National Research Universities (here, too, UCB is one of the best).
  2. For these reasons, approval of changes to one’s major AND conservation/utilization of already-earned academic credits may be a LOT easier at “a Reed” than at “a UCB.”
  3. Please note, the foregoing is a generalized – small, good LACs versus huge, good public Flagships – comment; I do NOT have detailed Reed/Berkeley expertise.
  4. I have know MANY students at large, public Flagship universities who required extra semesters to graduate after major changes, principally due to inflexible departmental and university policies (and, essentially, due to intrenched academic bureaucratic intransigence). Simply said, it seems to be MUCH easier to receive approvals for things of this sort when there are (perhaps) <5,000 undergraduates, rather than (possibly) >30,000.
9

Reed does not have an env studies department, but it has professors in poli sci, chem, Econ, bio, who specialize in the env. sciences. The env studies program is probably one of the hardest ones at Reed in terms of requirements.

10

Thank you @TopTier for your input. @International95, I am interested in hearing your comments on the future outcomes of students majoring in Env. Studies at Reed. Is there a trend toward immediate employment, or, like with other programs, do students go on to earn PhD’s?

11

Be careful with your jaunty assumption:

Your AP credits will count toward your degree, but they may not satisfy any of your general education requirements, depending on your school within UCB. I am not sure what the College of Natural Resources requires:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/advising/graduation-requirements

12

The env. science program at Reed is fairly new, so there isn’t much data available. I met this one dude recently who was an ES-Econ major. He works at an environmental consulting firm now.

Is there such a thing as a PhD in environmental studies? Env. studies is really interdisciplinary, so I would think that there are few PhD programs in env studies. Env. science, however, would be a different thing.

13

These two schools are very different in many respects. Have you done overnight visits to both schools?
Reed is intense … but do some students find it “stifling”? That’s the kind of thing you ought to be able to explore in an overnight visit.

If you haven’t even been accepted to either school yet, how can you be sure about your net prices?

In my opinion that really is a bad thing … or at least “not ideal”.
Of course it depends on how many of them are “big” (so big that they not only have to be taught as lectures, but also don’t allow for much if any engagement with the professor through discussion or writing assignments). Liberal education is a contact sport. You need a certain level of engagement by the time you reach those upper-division courses (and ideally before that in order to build a good foundation.) On your campus visit to Berkeley (or somehow), try to assess whether the faculty (and if not them, the TAs) are meeting that need. Is there a thesis (or senior project) requirement in your intended major? How many 5-page (or longer) papers are assigned per term? Do they come back with written comments? How many students in the major participate in significant research projects? How involved are the professors (or TAs) in that work? Do they lead students on off-campus field studies? etc. Ditto for Reed. Although I assume all those things are happening there, they may not be happening equally well in all programs.

14

@International95‌ (re post #11): “Is there such a thing as a PhD in environmental studies?”

Yes, and there are numerous, far more detailed, environmental studies PhDs offered, as well (Master’s, too). Here’s a sample from Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment: http://nicholas.duke.edu/programs/doctoral-degrees.

15

“Note also that Reed is one of the top producers of PhD recipients in the country, ranking above Berkeley in many (most?) cases”

In fact, Berkeley is THE top producer of future PhDs in the country. Reed only appears near the top on a different list, “future PhD production per capita”, one created by dividing the # phds produced by all students attending an institution, irrespective of whether all those other students want PhDs, and are intellecually capable of getting them.

16

This is a list of the actual top 70 producers of PhD recipients getting PhDs from 1994-2003.
From an old CC post.

4470 University of California-Berkeley
3134 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
3033 Cornell University, All Campuses
2931 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2667 University of Wisconsin-Madison
2613 University of Texas at Austin
2545 Harvard University
2519 Pennsylvania State U, Main Campus
2454 University of California-Los Angeles
2078 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2049 Brigham Young University, Main Campus
1970 University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
1917 Michigan State University
1894 Stanford University
1877 Yale University
1876 Ohio State University, Main Campus
1863 University of Florida
1829 University of California-Davis
1770 Texas A&M University Main Campus
1688 University of Pennsylvania
1654 Purdue University, Main Campus
1624 University of California-San Diego
1607 Rutgers the State Univ of NJ New Brunswick
1592 University of Maryland at College Park
1585 Princeton University
1580 University of Washington - Seattle
1575 Indiana University at Bloomington
1567 University of Virginia, Main Campus
1554 Brown University
1510 University of Colorado at Boulder
1453 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1386 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
1356 University of Arizona
1313 Duke University
1273 Northwestern Univ
1265 University of Massachusetts at Amherst
1263 University of Chicago
1251 University of California-Santa Barbara
1209 University of California-Santa Cruz
1169 SUNY at Buffalo
1164 Iowa State University
1144 Boston University
1138 University of Iowa
1110 Florida State University
1107 Oberlin College
1101 Columbia University in the City of New York
1086 University of Missouri, Columbia
1077 University of California-Irvine
1034 University of PR Rio Piedras Campus
1011 University of Georgia
1005 College of William and Mary
985 Arizona State University Main
983 University of Rochester
983 University of Notre Dame
978 University of Nebraska at Lincoln
952 University of Kansas, Main Campus
951 University of Tennessee at Knoxville
929 North Carolina State University at Raleigh
921 University of Delaware
904 Miami University, All Campuses
897 Washington University
881 University of Pittsburgh Main Campus
847 Colorado State University
844 Louisiana State Univ & Agric & Mechanical Col
842 Rice University
842 New York University
834 University of Utah
817 Dartmouth College
814 San Diego State University

17

Others have posted of such things at small schools. What may be more of an issue at the big schools is that advising for frosh/soph undeclared students may not be very good, so those students may sample courses aimlessly without ensuring that they are working toward the major(s) that they are interested in. When it comes time to declare a major (or they switch to a major that they had not previously considered), they find that they are behind on prerequisites. The greater choice of courses at big schools may also tempt them to ignore needed prerequisites in favor of something else that they see in the schedule.

Also, many of the big state flagships are not that selective, so that needs to be considered in the context of students needing extra semesters.

18

For some purposes, it may make sense to look at the absolute numbers of earned PhDs.
If you are trying to choose a college, in my opinion it makes more sense to look at the number of earned PhDs adjusted either for school size or for major size. Berkeley is of course a much larger institution than Reed. After adjusting for school size, Reed out-performs Berkeley for PhD production in many fields.

You can look at both absolute and size-adjusted numbers in the following study of the baccalaureate origins of science and engineering PhDs:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/
In table #4, Reed ranks 4th, behind Caltech, MIT and Harvey Mudd. Berkeley ranks 43rd.

Now it may be the case that most of the 374 Reed alumni who earned those PhDs would have earned them anyway if they had attended Berkeley instead of Reed. We really don’t know. We cannot easily adjust for the number of students who want PhDs or are intellectually capable of getting them.

But look at the schools first in table 2 then in table 4 of the study I cited. Which list do you believe better represents the colleges that are most likely to motivate and prepare any given student to earn a PhD? Do you think Penn State and the University of Florida (#5 and #11 in Table 2) do that better than Swarthmore and Harvard (the #5 and #11 in size-adjusted Table 4)? I believe the answer is “no” (although it may be the case that some future PhDs would rather go to college with … or be more stimulated by … a bigger, more diverse population of classmates).

19

@tk21769 (re post #17): Why not earned “terminal degrees,” rather than PhDs alone? My problem a PhD-only analysis is it entirely ignores all those who earn the ultimate PROFESSIONAL degrees (after undergraduate school), as opposed to the foremost GRADUATE degree. Certainly the senior degree from Divinity, Law, Medical, etc. schools should have equal – or greater – stature, notwithstanding dissertation requirements. It’s a different, but not an inferior, track.

20

" If you are trying to choose a college, in my opinion it makes more sense to look at the number of earned PhDs adjusted either for school size or for major size."

I think anyone is entitled to believe that. I do NOT, however, think they are entitled to misrepresent data. If they are presenting a table, data or result that represents production PER CAPITA , they should say so, and not call it production without reference to the denominator. Since “production” and “production per capita” are not the same.

IMO you should look at both, along with lots of other things. Then ask questions at the school and apply your brain. Many larger institutions have a larger spread of majors than LACs have. .Also many large institutions enroll a larger spread of capability levels of incoming students.

If you are an entering student with the aptitude and desire to pursue a Phd in environmental engineering you would like to know whether a given institution can likely provide you with helpful training towards that result. If hundreds of students from a given university are achieving that result, evidently the training they got there must have been sufficient towards same. Even if other people at that same university study English literature, nursing, prefer medical school or law school, get recruited at investment banks, or aren’t smart enough to get Phds… Hence watering down the university’s “per capita” number. The issue isn’t what the other people there do, it’s what you personally can accomplish there, given your interests and capabilities.

I say this as a graduate of a university that offered diverse programs of study, and had a diverse student body based on interests, and abilities too, to an extent. Only 1/3 of its students were in its Arts & Sciences College- which is pretty much all that the LACs are. But people are putting that whole university’s student population in the denominator in making these tables, despite differences in interests, majors and abilities of large chunks of its student body compared to "peer"LACs. Even though all those other people’s destinations had nothing to do with my result., as a particular student with my particular set of abilities with a particular major within the Arts & Sciences college there.,
What I observed from there is, the people who were good enough achieved exactly what they should have. Those who wanted to go on to Phds, and were good enough, did. And there were lots of them. Many didn’t want that though. at my school. Many future MDs, MBAs and lawyers. Most went to work, by choice. And the school helped with that, along with helping those pursuing advanced studies. . Other students weren’t good enough. They didn’t do as well. Big shock.

Here’s another opinion I found on the web:

"“Students can increase their odds of being accepted to graduate school if they earn their bachelor’s degree at a liberal arts college. On a per capita basis, for instance, liberal arts colleges produce twice as many students who earn a PhD in science than other institutions.”

"This reasoning has – and always will be – absurd. I attend one of the touted liberal arts institutions that ranks extremely highly in per capita PhDs (I believe we’re the second-highest liberal arts college in the country in per capita PhD rates), and I can say that part of the reason we produce doctorates is because the students here came in with a predisposition for research and less interest (comparatively) in careers after college.

Presupposing that per capita PhD rates NECESSARILY correspond to better preparation or “odds” for acceptance to a graduate school is not only statistically questionable, but shows a lack of the oft-touted “critical thinking” skills institutions like mine sell themselves as promoting and fostering.

Of course liberal arts colleges will dominate PhD PER CAPITA numbers when non-liberal arts institutions often offer vocational majors and have tens of thousands of students compared to a few thousand at most. Acceptance rates on average for liberal arts applicants vs. non-liberal arts applicants to graduate school at equally prestigious institutions (although finding ‘equally’ would be difficult) could be taken as indicator of quality of undergraduate preparation, but per capita rates alone are meaningless.

Articles like these, which I see floating around all of the time, only serve to make me shake my head in disappointment at the apparently well-educated individuals who are often so critical of other forms of education and who still misuse and misrepresent statistics. The education my college offers is terrific, and many students here who are seniors (including myself) have been accepted to doctoral programs already, but that does not equate to what you wrote."

and another:

"I’m a big fan of liberal arts colleges, but some caution needs to be taken in using “per capita Phd.” rankings. In short, per capita Phd production can be somewhat deceptive.

For instance, according to the American Institute of Physics, which has tracked graduation numbers in physics and phd origins since the 1930’s, notes that in 2010:

Lawrence college had 9 seniors majoring in physics in 2010
Beloit college had 8 seniors majoring in physics in 2010

A 25% rate of students going to get a phd when there are only 9 or so students, means that just 2 students go on to earn a Phd.

Meanwhile, UC Berkeley had 121 seniors majoring in physics, UC Santa Cruz had 114 physics majors, U of Illinois U-C, 103.

An 15% rate from a school with 121 or so students, means 18 students are going on to get doctorates — that means UC Berkeley is sending more than almost 10 TIMES as many students on to phd programs.

In fact, AIP research also has shown that in pure numbers, the LARGEST undergraduate source of phd recipients in phd came from research universities.

This doesn’t take away from the fact that students can – and do – get a very good undergraduate education in physics from small liberal arts colleges. But, it is incorrect to assume or imply that students attending research universities for physics are somehow all doomed to getting an inferior education in physics compared to someone who chooses a liberal arts college."