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And on a less voluntary note, many of the high schools that have high concentrations of Asian students, whose parents refuse to consider private school costs. I know one particular school whose massive number of cross-acceptances to private schools and Berkeley are forced to attend Berkeley due to parents.
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<p>Yeah, but that's really a cost thing. And the elite private schools are now playing the cost card too. For example, now that Harvard has declared that it will offer guaranteed free rides to anybody whose family makes less than 60k, if becomes even harder for me to find reasons to turn down Harvard for Berkeley or any other school who happens to come from such a family. In fact, I believe it is now Harvard that is now clearly the best financial deal for anybody who qualifies for that ride.</p>
<p>That may very well be. But then you have to ask why is it that Stanford can boast of a yield of more than 2/3. After all, something like 40% of the Stanford student body comes from California. So why aren't more of them attracted to UCLA, for the cheaper in-state tuition? Why is Berkeley more robbed of yield by UCLA than Stanford is?</p>
<p>Sakky, Caltech, Chicago, Duke and Johns Hopkins all have sub 40% yield rates. Does that mean they are weaker than say UVa, UNC or Georgetown, all of which have yield rates over 50%?</p>
<p>Sakky used the yield rates as indicators in part of a larger argument about Berkeley's weakness as an undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>For the most part, Sakky is almost always right, and those who argue with him are usually those average students that Berkeley accepts who have the most to benefit from Berkeley having a better reputation than it deserves; mainly because Berkeley will be the only big name that will ever be associated with them.</p>
<p>And yep, I made a mistake coming to Cal. If I had been at any other institution, it would've been easier to transfer out (ala classes where the profs know you enough to give you recommendations), or to get the major and classes you want and leave quickly. Too bad Cal is a bloated mess of a school.</p>
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If I had been at any other institution, it would've been easier to transfer out (ala classes where the profs know you enough to give you recommendations), or to get the major and classes you want and leave quickly.
<p>Dobby: I seem to remember this poster mentioning awhile back he graduated in 06 from Cal and is now a grad student at Cal... </p>
<p>I agree that Sakky is much more coherent and also reasonable. This poster reminds me of "greatstyn" who hasn't been around in awhile... that was another Cal hater.</p>
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I seem to remember this poster mentioning awhile back he graduated in 06 from Cal and is now a grad student at Cal
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<p>That happens quite a lot. Berkeley undergrads certainly can get into Berkeley's grad programs. I've had...two GSIs from Berkeley. That's 25% so pretty good.</p>
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Dobby: I seem to remember this poster mentioning awhile back he graduated in 06 from Cal and is now a grad student at Cal...
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<p>He's not at Berkeley anymore.</p>
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I agree that Sakky is much more coherent and also reasonable. This poster reminds me of "greatstyn" who hasn't been around in awhile... that was another Cal hater.
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<p>Yes greatestyen...I actually think she supported Berkeley more than she hated it. I didn't agree with her but I enjoyed debating with her. Too bad she's not on here anymore.</p>
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Sakky, Caltech, Chicago, Duke and Johns Hopkins all have sub 40% yield rates. Does that mean they are weaker than say UVa, UNC or Georgetown, all of which have yield rates over 50%?
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<p>Obviously yield rates have to be placed in their proper context, particularly in relation to their peer schools. In the case of Caltech, Caltech's main competition is (unsurprisingly) MIT, a school that has the equivalent strength in technical subjects, but also offers a wider selection in courses and probably a better brand name, in addition to (in my opinion) being in a more interesting location (but I don't particularly like suburbs, so maybe that's my own personal bias). To a lesser extent Caltech also competes against schools like Harvard and Stanford. </p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Chicago similarly compete against a number of other extremely strong schools - and yes, none of them do particularly well against their peers in head-to-head competition. In the case of Duke, a lot of Duke admitees will also be admitted to one of the Ivies, or perhaps Stanford, and those schools will tend to beat Duke. </p>
<p>Impilicit in yield analysis is the proper frame of reference - meaning which schools does this particular school compete against. I'm sure I can find 3rd or 4th tier schools with quite high yields, but that only means that they have high yields relative to the schools their applicants apply to. Somebody applying to a 4th tier school is probably not also applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>So clearly yield rates cannot be looked at on an absolute scale. I've never said that they could. Rather, they are part of a larger backdrop of whether a school performs well relative to its peer schools. The king of this is obviously Harvard which garners a higher yield of any school other than the academies. Other schools with high yields are Stanford, Princeton, MIT, and Yale. It's an indication that Berkeley has some ways to go before its undergrad program is competitive with schools like that.</p>
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"greatstyn" who hasn't been around in awhile... that was another Cal hater.
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<p>Considering my many debates with greatesteyn, I would hardly call her a "Cal-hater". Not by any means. If anything, I would say that she is a "Cal-lover".</p>
<p>Between UCB and Stanford, UCB is better. I turned down Stanford's offer for CAL's world-class Physics program. Stanford is a fine school but Berkeley is better and I never considered and will never consider Stanford as CALS's rival school (maybe only in sports). I only consider MIT and Harvard as the rival schools. </p>
<p>If you're very smart and very rich with a very strong personality, UC Berkeley is the best fit for you.</p>
<p>Another quick note about yield. Berkeley doesn't utilize early decisions and wait lists (maybe it should). ED and waitlists are used heavily by top private universities - this ultimately skews the admit percentages and yield ratios for those universities (making those universities appear to have lower admit percentages and higher yields). On another note, the same goes with SAT scores. Instead of the best score in one sitting, many private schools utilize the best scores for each section, regardless of which sittings they were taken in. Their overall SAT averages therefore appear to be higher than if they had only considered the best total SAT score in one sitting (like Berkeley does). Again, another area where Berkeley doesn't "play the game."</p>
<p>ALL of these things work to the detriment of Berkeley in the rankings game ("the numbers") while working for the benefit of the top privates. </p>
<p>With that said, I admit that even if Berkeley were to do all these things (ED, waitlists, and take the best SAT scores from multiple sittings), that doesn't address the cross admit issue. We would still lose many of the cross admit battles with HYPSM... so there is still a lot of work to be done there. In the meantime though, Berkeley's "ranking" in places like U.S. News & World report would be boosted by doing these things mentioned above. Berkeley also has enough "star" power to rise to the prestige level of HYPSM - thanks to the "oomph" and world fame it has already attained from the past... but we need to "improve" some things before we can reach that prestige level for undergraduate. - but we can do it! :)</p>
<p>The difference between taking SAT from multiple sittings and Berkeley's practice is pretty small. Try to play with some hypothetical scenario with some "reasonable" assumptions and convince yourself that's the case. If you go to Berkeley, you should be smart enough to figure this one out.</p>