<p>Bottom line, which university is better for pre-med? Please give details as to why one is better over the other.</p>
<p>The better one is the one where you feel the fit will allow YOU to reach your potential best. For a variety of reasons many people may have a better experience and one or the other, you must determine which is your best fit</p>
<p>Uh
Stanford is one of the 3 best Universities in the world. You don’t get TAs teaching classes at Stanford. You get Nobel Prize winning Profs teaching undergrad at Stanford. Stanford’s biology and chemistry depts are some of the best in the world.</p>
<p>Where is the comparison. (unless you want drugs which are easier at Berkeley.</p>
<p>I have trouble believing that stanford’s bio and chem department are better than berkeley’s. Berkeley is also, I think one of the top 3 universities in the US for graduate schools, the other two being stanford and harvard.
To denigrate Berkeley because of its drug culture is laughable. Sure, you won’t get the personal attention you get at Stanford, but seriously, it’s still very good.</p>
<p>I’ve heard good things about both institutions. Instead of asking a nutshell question as in which one’s better, you want to think about which one’ll give you better grades and overall, GPA. There is really no easy answer to which one’s ever… Both are very good schools.</p>
<p>US News Best Colleges: Stanford 4 (score 94), Berkeley 21 (score 77)
[Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college)</p>
<p>Top Biology Grad School: Stanford #1, Berkeley #2/3
Top Biochemistry/Biophysics Grad School: Stanford #3, Berkeley #7.
Top Chemistry Grad School: Stanford tied #1, Berkeley tied #1
Top Earth Science: Stanford #2, Berkeley $4
Top Medicine, Research: Stanford #6, Berkeley No Med School</p>
<p>Football Stanford: 55-45-11</p>
<p>worry about getting in first.</p>
<p>I think there’s no dispute that Stanford is more selective for its undergraduate education. What I mean to say is that their graduate programs are comparable. </p>
<p>For an average premed, Stanford’s close advising can certainly help, but it’s not like people from Berkeley just smoke weed all day.</p>
<p>Well I was at Palo Alto in the 70s and not only did the people at Cal smoke week all day, they fornicated in Sproul plaza.</p>
<p>How is that relevant to someone applying to college now?</p>
<p>shades,
Don’t think it has changed, has it? Cal is still Cal, home of the Dirty Golden Bear. Probably the most liberal school in America</p>
<p>And liberals are the degenerates of American society, I see you point.</p>
<p>With all due respect, I don’t think PD is referring to liberals in the Obama-Clinton sense; political liberals well within the mainstream of society. I get the impression he’s referring to the way-out-there atmosphere at Berkeley, which (growing up seven minutes away) I can tell you is still alive and well, although perhaps not to that extent.</p>
<p>Walking down Telegraph Avenue, you will still smell secondhand marijuana. You will have people accosting you to read your palm for a fee, Berkeley’s version of New York’s formerly-prominent “squeegee men”. You will have people waving crystals over your involuntary head to disperse the negative aura (voting Republican?) that surrounds you. Homeless people’s signs do not mention veteran status or tough times; the most famous one literally proclaims “[profanity redacted], I just want to get high.” Communes which share… uh, everything… are very common and well accepted.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between being a Democrat – being against the Iraq War, wanting to expand health insurance, preferring Sotomayor to Alito – and being a Berkeley liberal.</p>
<p>thanks blue devil.
Well put.</p>
<p>I did not think things had changed.</p>
<p>Bottom line.
Berkeley is the best school of public schools in Ca which are going broke.
Stanford has one of best endowments and “owns” much of Palo Alto and Menlo Park.</p>
<p>Stanford has med school and Berkeley is loosely affiliated with San Fran, but has no med school.</p>
<p>At Stanford you will take classes from Nobel laureates and not TAs, not so at Berkeley.</p>
<p>Stanford has better football team and much better band.</p>
<p>Whoa, whoa, whoa…Cal’s going to be a preseason top 15 team this year. Stanford, has made progress since the horrors of the 1-11 season that got Walt Harris fired, but, they’re not going to beat Cal this year or finish higher in the Pac-10 than the Golden Bears anytime soon. Phil Steele does have the Cardinal as one of his most improved teams this year which means they’ll probably make a bowl, but Cal has the opportunity at a MNC if they play as well as they’re capable and get lucky against SC…</p>
<p>alright… </p>
<p>you go to the college that suits you the best. berkeley has excellent science departments and stanford has it’s prestige, ok? college is what you make of it. and you go there because you feel that this place is the best place to flesh out your fullest potential not because your daddy looked up some statistics on News Week. and let a some faceless executives make a (idiotic imo) survey to determine your next four years in college. </p>
<p>if that is the case though. forget stanford and berkeley and go to harvard. obviously. </p>
<p>if not. then stop asking people who are just going to give you statistics you could look up in seconds. you know the rankings already (hopefully). but your experience won’t be an number to you (even if it is to others) and neither should your college. get personal, ask people who have attended the schools about their experiences (yes, there will be bias) and determine what you want to do from that. </p>
<p>stop talking about football. </p>
<p>one more thing: culture is culture, if you can’t handle cultural intensity then don’t go to berkeley. that is all.</p>
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<p>Well this is just a silly statement. Everything is a culture of some kind. NASCAR and sweet tea make up culture just as marijuana and tie-dye make up culture; there’s Starbucks and business suits; there’s orange hair and bubble tea; there’s football jerseys and Budweiser. The question is what kind of culture builds healthy young people, prepared to lead and take responsibility for their lives and families in the year to come? That’s a debate I won’t get into here, but my choice to move from California to North Carolina probably speaks for itself.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make any sense to speak of “intense” culture, only of different kinds.</p>
<p>I think one important factor in the decision would be the net cost, Berkeley is much less expensive than Stanford unless you qualify for amazing financial aid. If you are paying the entire COA out of pocket, I would save my money for med school.</p>
<p>My DD survived and even thrived at Berkeley though she would probably have appreciated the attention one can expect at a private. She was exposed to many things in Berkeley which are not her preference, but she was strong enough in her self-knowledge not to feel threatened, but rather entertained.</p>
<p>I would say she never loved it there, but she had a good and memorable time, graduated with a solid GPA and some good professorial relationships. It was a lot more work to make those connections than her sisters at a small private experienced and than I would assume it would have been at Stanford. Also, grading, how are the pre-med curves at Stanford? Berkeley curves are pretty brutal, but I cannot imagine that a pre-med course at Stanford is any guarantee of a 4.0!</p>