Berkeley VS Stanford -- which is better and why :)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
21

<p>
[quote]
I'm not sure it's really true that the number of Berkeley grads = the number of Stanford grads in most SV companies, but even it if were true, I doubt that that's a point in favor of Berkeley, given the vastly larger population of Berkeley students compared to Stanford students. Berkeley people ought to be dominating SV due to its sheer size alone, and if the ratios are actually even, then I would actually say that that shows that Stanford is the better choice.

[/quote]

Actually Stanford has a lot more students in EE/CS than Berkeley. Berkeley do not have a lot of MS students. By comparison, Stanford has thousands due to the popularity in their MS program. The number of engineers from Berkeley and Stanford I said earlier include Stanford MS students.</p>

22

<p>
[quote]
Sakky, if the OP is smart enough to make it into Stanford, he can graduate from Berkeley. Especially since Stanford is impossibly selective for transfers. I have friends that dream of making it to Stanford. They get rejected, go to Cal, and manage to graduate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, he probably would be able to graduate from Cal. But why take the chance? It's like choosing to drive a car without a seatbelt. Sure, you probably won't get hurt because you won't even get in an accident, but, again, why take chances when you don't have to? </p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, as you've mentioned before, the tough part about Berkeley are the weeders, of which the OP gets to skip. Unless Berkeley's upper div is still harder than Stanford's, I don't see the risk.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, no, the OP doesn't get to skip over all the weeders. He gets to skip some . The ones that remain can still snag him. </p>

<p>The very fact that he is coming in as a transfer will make Cal more dangerous, not less, for several reasons. One, he can't build up a 'reservoir' of relatively easy lower-division non-EECS classes to use as a GPA buffer the way that freshman-admits can. To graduate from Berkeley, you need a 2.0 GPA in your classes at Berkeley. Having top grades from your other school doesn't help you fulfill that requirement. Hence, if you transfer to Berkeley and you get a bunch of C's and C-'s in your first semester, you'll be immediately placed on academic probation because your Berkeley GPA will already be below a 2.0, and hence you'll be close to expulsion. On the other hand, those students who had come in as freshmen had the opportunity to take a bunch of easier breadth requirements that will pump up their GPA. {Heck, I know an EECS student who avoided expulsion only because he had high grades in a bunch of Spanish courses, and that kept him over the 2.0 threshold.} </p>

<p>Secondly, and even more importantly, Berkeley has strict limits about how much time you are allowed to be there - far stricter than Stanford does. Hence, if the OP comes to Berkeley and then finds out that he doesn't want to major in CS after all (or finds out that it's just too hard), then he will have to present an action plan regarding what he will now major in and how he plans to graduate in a timely fashion. Stanford seems to be significantly more lenient about people who want to take extra time to graduate. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Actually Stanford has a lot more students in EE/CS than Berkeley. Berkeley do not have a lot of MS students. By comparison, Stanford has thousands due to the popularity in their MS program. The number of engineers from Berkeley and Stanford I said earlier include Stanford MS students.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Then your point is irrelevant to the OP, because the OP is clearly going to be going to an undergrad program. Who cares about what the graduate students are doing if the OP isn't going to graduate school?</p>

<p>The relevant question is then who has more employees in SV - the Berkeley undergrad EECS/CS program, or the Stanford undergrad EE/CS program.</p>

23

<p>Good point. I guess Berkeley imposes more risk in just about every facet. The best plan of action is to first matriculate at Stanford, then make a decision. Berkeley is a fairly easy school to make it into. If the chooses to go to Stanford and dislikes it, he can just opt to transfer to Cal. However, the converse doesn't work in the sense that its almost impossible to be admitted to Stanford twice; last yrs' admission rate is <2%(this yr it could be even lower). Making it twice reminds me of the futileness of expecting to win the lottery again after having won it once.</p>

24

<p>^^i can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious.</p>

<p>When was Berkeley a "fairly easy" school to be admitted to?</p>

25

<p>Because all one needs to have is a 3.7+ gpa from a JC to transfer into Cal. But Stanford on the other hand....</p>

26

<p>^ Easy for transfers, hard for freshmen admits. </p>

<p>This is why I somewhat regret applying as a freshman and working my butt off in high school.</p>

27

<p>Even for freshmen, its still like a 21.5% admit rate. Fairly high compared to Stanford's 10.3%. Lets analyze transfers; the admission rate for Cal here is about 29% compared to Stanford's 1.5%. For transfers, it almost seems like the only choice is to attend Cal.</p>

28

<p>^^ that is if you transfer from a JC, if you transfer from a 4-year university, the odd is against you. If he doesn't like it at Stanford, he probably wouldn't be able to get back to Cal. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Then your point is irrelevant to the OP, because the OP is clearly going to be going to an undergrad program. Who cares about what the graduate students are doing if the OP isn't going to graduate school?</p>

<p>The relevant question is then who has more employees in SV - the Berkeley undergrad EECS/CS program, or the Stanford undergrad EE/CS program.

[/quote]

It is very relevant because it shows the potential of finding a good job as a Cal undergrad. When come to think of it, from family members and from friends, I only can think of a single person who got a BS from Stanford. Most are international students with a MS degree from Stanford. In these company, a BS from Cal does the same as a MS from Stanford.</p>

29

<p>His academic/extracurricular resume far exceeds virtually any successful Cal applicant from another 4yr university if he was accepted to Stanford as a transfer. So much so, that if he applied as a transfer from Stanford to Cal, he'll easily still be over qualified(in the good sense).</p>

30

<p>No, Cal takes a student after 2 years. By the time he reapply, he would be in his third year == automatic reject.</p>

31

<p>Stanford is pretty damn competitive to get into, no doubt. However, transfer students in general are usually not over-qualified...</p>

32

<p>Stanford's 1.5% transfer acceptance rate is not a reflection of its competitiveness. It is, rather, a representation of the practice of quotas. The number of transfers that are allowed to be accepted are directly related to the number of freshmen admits who transfer elsewhere or drop-out. Stanford uses a variety of different factors when it comes to its consideration for transfer admission, but rest assured that it's not merely based on qualifications.</p>

<p>I do agree, however, that if one was able to be accepted into Stanford, then he/she should have little problem transferring to Cal if so desired. But do take into account that Cal also considers the "need" of such a transfer request. Though unlikely, it's a possibility to be rejected based on the fact that anyone at Stanford is already in possession of all the necessary resources to receive an excellent education, thus negating the actual quantifiable need to transfer.</p>

33

<p>
[quote]
It is very relevant because it shows the potential of finding a good job as a Cal undergrad. When come to think of it, from family members and from friends, I only can think of a single person who got a BS from Stanford. Most are international students with a MS degree from Stanford. In these company, a BS from Cal does the same as a MS from Stanford.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I don't think it's relevant at all, but that's perhaps because your response is unclear. What is 'these company' (sic)? Are you talking about a specific company that you know about? </p>

<p>Ultimately, what matters is whether a BS from Stanford is more marketable than a BS from Cal. Sure, I agree with you that there are lots of MS students at Stanford. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the marketability of the BS programs.</p>

34

<p>The usual suspects like Intel, AMD, Xilinx, Nvidia.<br>
To be honest, if two candidates have equally impressive resume, I dont think employer will automatically pick the Stanford EE over Berkeley EECS. One does not have an advantage over another. To think otherwise is very naive. Most companies are made up of engineers from a lot of lower tier schools so when they find either a Berkeley or Stanford grad, they're very happy.</p>

35

<p>I can agree that most established companies probably are indifferent between Berkeley vs. Stanford.</p>

<p>But I'm not talking about that. The truth is, most companies are not "made up of engineers from a lot of lower-tier schools", for the simple reason that most companies (in SV) are startups. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of startups in the Valley, with new ones being founded every week. Like I said, most startups don't have formal hiring practices because they can't. After all, when you're still just two guys in a garage somewhere, you don't have the time or expertise to run a formal hiring screen. At that stage, you end up hiring through your social network, i.e. your friends, something that has been documented time and time again by numerous researchers (i.e. Saxenian). Social networks are, far and away, the most prominent method that startups use to hire. </p>

<p>Furthermore, it is (sadly) indisputable that, for various reasons, there is more entrepreneurial activity around Stanford than around Berkeley. The upshot is that Stanford engineers have greater opportunity to join startups than do Berkeley students via social networks. The Berkeley engineer may be just as good, or even better, than the Stanford engineer, but that doesn't matter if he doesn't even know about the startup when it is young, which is precisely when you want to join a startup. Certainly, the early employees of Google - the bulk of whom were Stanford buddies of Sergey or Larry - aren't complaining. Sure, a Berkeley grad has ample opportunity to join Google now,but you don't really want to join Google now, you'd want to join Google back in 1998.</p>

36

<p>Remember that 9 out of 10 startups fold in a year or two. they have longer working hours, less benefit, lower salary. How many startups actually made it? It's literally one in a million. So going to Stanford doesn't mean that you'll end up in a successful startup.<br>
My uncle's been in the valley way too long and he's addicted to startup. Only one company he worked for actually had moderate success, and that was due to the bubble in the 90s. The rest folded so quickly, he literally had a company dinner on Saturday and then to find out on Monday everyone was laid off. Going to either school will be great for OP. Going to Berkeley means OP will have to work extra hard for a decent GPA.
Personally, as long as Berkeley is cheaper, I'd go to Berkeley.</p>

37

<p>
[quote]
Remember that 9 out of 10 startups fold in a year or two. they have longer working hours, less benefit, lower salary. How many startups actually made it?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, working for a startup almost certainly pays better, on average. As Paul Graham said:</p>

<p>While perhaps 9 out of 10 startups fail, the one that succeeds will pay the founders more than 10 times what they would have made in an ordinary job. That's the sense in which startups pay better "on average."</p>

<p>The</a> Power of the Marginal</p>

<p>That holds not just for founders, but also for early employees. For example, the early engineers at Google are easily worth in the in the 9 figures if they had held onto their stock options, maybe even in the 10 figures. After all, with Google now having a total market cap of nearly $200 billion, even holding 0.5% of the equity of the company - which the early engineers could each have easily received - would be worth $1 billion. </p>

<p>Now of course, clearly not everybody is lucky enough to choose Google. But even if there were 1000 total competing search engines and 999 of them completely failed and Google was the only 1 that succeeded, that would mean that the average stock option payout would be $1 million. Remember - that's just from the stock options; it's on top of the salary that you would also be paid once the company is investor-funded (and Google and others were funded quite quickly). Furthermore, there weren't 1000 competing search engines out there. Not even close. In fact, probably no more than 100. </p>

<p>I would also dispute the notion that you are really working longer hours at startups. What - you think you're not working at long hours at established companies? Trust me, engineers at Microsoft, Intel, (now) Google, and these other big firms work pretty darn long hours. The major difference is that they don't have a chance to become filthy rich. The days of hypergrowth of those firms is long gone. </p>

<p>Lower salaries and benefits are also a point of contention. In my personal experience, startups actually paid the most: often times nearly twice or (in one case) nearly three times what established firms were paying in salary, without even talking about the stock options. That's because when a startup is looking to expand and compete quickly (i.e. when they've just received a large infusion of VC cash and are looking to ramp up fast), one of the most effective ways to do so is to simply overpay salaries to attract people. For example, during the dotcom boom, there was one firm that literally didn't pay any of the technical staff less than $120k just to start, and this was back in 2000 dollars. There were guys fresh out of school who were immediately being appointed to Vice President and Director positions. Heck, one guy hadn't even graduated from college at all yet was offered a Director position. You never have that in established firms. </p>

<p>I think what you mean to say is that the startup lifestyle is riskier in that while the average outcome of joining a startup is clearly better than that of joining an established firm, the variance of the outcome is also far higher. You can end up filthy rich. Or you can end up with nothing as the company goes bankrupt. That is true. </p>

<p>But to that, I have 2 responses: First, let's not pretend that established firms don't have risk. Since you mentioned AMD, let's talk about AMD. Last month, AMD announced they were going to lay off 10% of its staff. Similarly, Intel instituted layoffs in each of the last few years, and may institute another round this year. Oracle has bought numerous large software companies in the last 5 years and after each acquisition has followed a large-scale layoff. If Microsoft and Yahoo had successfully merged, then that would have also meant big layoffs. Hence, we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that working for a large company is particularly safe. They're safer than startups, but not that much safer. You can lose your job at a large company at any time and with no warning. </p>

<p>Secondly, it is precisely when you're young (i.e. when you're right out of school) that you can afford to take on high levels of risk. You join a startup right after you graduate and it fails, so now you're 23 and broke. So what? Most 23 year-olds are broke anyway. Sure, I can agree, when you're older and have kids and a mortgage to support, the risk may be too high for you to take. But when you're young and have no responsibilities, what does it really matter if what you do fails? If nothing else, you can at least tell yourself that you tried. That's a heck of a lot better than spending the rest of your life wondering 'what if?'. </p>

<p>
[quote]
It's literally one in a million.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, literally one in a million? Please. Use some common sense and some basic math: do you numbers really work out? Surely we can all think of the following 5 highly successful SV-headquartered tech firms just on the Internet *: Google, Ebay, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube (Ok, now part of Google, but it was a standalone startup recently). And that's just talking about some of the most successful *Internet startups, that's not even talking about other successful startups in biotech, enterprise software, telecom equipment, medical devices, semiconductors, etc. </p>

<p>So, we have 5 highly successful Silicon Valley consumer Internet companies. Yet you said that the odds of a startup being successful are "literally one in a million". So that must mean there were 5 million Internet startups created in the Valley, right? Do you believe that? There are only 2.5 million people in Silicon Valley, and obviously the vast vast majority of them do not work in startups, or even in the tech industry in general. </p>

<p>I think a far more reasonable calculation would be as follows: probably at most 10% of the entire population in Silicon Valley works for startups. I think even that's generous, but let's go with it. So, 10%: that's 250,000 people. Obviously many of those startups are not Internet startups (i.e. they are in biotech, medical devices, semiconductors, etc.) So let's say that 1/3 of them were Internet. That leaves about 80,000 people. Let's say the average startup has perhaps 15 people. So we're talking about 5000 total startups. Hence, of those 5000, 5 of them became the superstars (Google, ebay, etc.). That's only one in a thousand, not one in a million. And even of those that didn't become superstars, plenty are still moderately successful. </p>

<p>Look, I don't disagree that startups are riskier, and so the question you have to ask is whether you can take the risk. I would argue that if you are young and free of commitments, you probably can take those risks. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I think what is quite clear is that Stanford has the edge in terms of employment opportunities. After all, even if you don't intend to work for a startup, the threat that you might can serve as useful leverage when you negotiate with an established firm for better salaries or bennies.</p>

38

<p>Is this a discussion about Stanford undergrad versus Berkeley undergrad?</p>

<p>If so, it shouldn't be much of a discussion or debate..</p>

39

<p>
[quote]
Uh, literally one in a million? Please. Use some common sense and some basic math: do you numbers really work out?

[/quote]

it's a figure of speech. and it could be true. Why do you bring up 5 companies that made it? obviously the ratio of the really successful startup to moderately successful that still hang around is very small. Do you hear from folded startups? There are thousands that pop up every day and thousands that fold. Anyway, OP should go to Stanford, join a startup, and pray for the next big break. That is if OP thinks he's likely to get</p>

40

<p>
[quote]
I'd be transferring as a junior, majoring in computer science. Money is not an issue. Quality of life matters a lot. All comments appreciated!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>In terms of quality of life, more specifically the wealth and breadth of the college experience, I would definitely put Berkeley ahead of Stanford.</p>

<p>The one big downside of Berkeley EECS vs Stanford is that the former is a more stressful academic environment. But if you feel confident enough to take that on, then Berkeley would be a better choice.</p>