<p>I do know it’s true, and have acknowledged it. The point of my previous post was actually that these undergrads you speak of, who don’t really care very much about what they’re going to do eventually at all, can probably get the jobs they want from almost any school with good departments. I don’t even worry about them. </p>
<p>I worry about the students who express some decent interest in a department. For the others, frankly I’d not even advise them about job statistics and such things – I’d say what every other fellow on CC always says, which is “Congrats for getting into good schools!! You can’t go wrong either way!” For the ones who express a decent interest in a department – well, OK if one school is marginally higher ranked, I’m no saying they should go totally via rankings. Following rankings blindly is foolish, as that’d say for instance, that an EECS major should never choose Caltech over Berkeley, which is ludicrous – they should based on <em>fit</em>. But if a department is monumentally better known, and you’re somewhat having a feeling you want to study in that department, I’d say you should look more at the department than at job statistics, because you can probably do well for yourself regardless if you’re even at this stage. </p>
<p>So, my entire discussion boils down to: the student, when choosing among good schools, should do what makes him/her happiest, not get bogged down by job statistics, even if having some awareness is good. I think even you have said that you can get a CS job coming out of places other than Berkeley just fine – and for that matter, coming out of somewhere other than an elite school overall. So I don’t worry about job statistics at that point: departments <em>and</em> other school location factors seem the biggest deal to me when you’re deciding how to spend 4 years.</p>
<p>Same story for graduate school. Once you’re looking at the top ranked programs, your chances of getting a good job depend more on what you do in grad school than on the name of the school. Now, if we’re comparing some random school with a good department with a well known one with a somewhat lesser ranked department, different story. But when you’re talking Berkeley and other such schools, I’d not worry about not being able to find a job. I’d worry about going to the right school, where I’d be happiest, so I could <em>do the right things</em> and get a job eventually.</p>
<p>Don’t know. Generically, it counts for a lot that Wilson has an undergrad program and undergrads can major in something at Wilson. If your goal is to do some graduate work in int’l affairs, this is probably a better idea than Penn or Berkeley without getting into the other issues like financing.</p>
<p>If you go to Penn and do PoliSci or IR, you’ll be frustrated at times with the course selection and the emphasis of the professors- I found in the mid-1990’s that they seemed stuck in a Cold War mentality, but I would hope that has changed. </p>
<p>However, I think you will definitely have a greater foreign feel on campus, in classroom discussions, and getting internships in DC or NY.</p>
<p>I think that’s precisely our area of disagreement: I don’t know that those students can get the jobs they really want. To be sure, they’re surely get some sort of job. But when we’re talking about certain intensely selective jobs - which also tend to be the most desirable jobs out there by far - you have access to those jobs right out of undergrad only through certain schools.</p>
<p>Take venture capital. Until a few years ago, I didn’t even know you could be hired into venture capital right out of undergrad, and to this very day, such a notion still strikes me as preposterous. You’re really going to take somebody who has never actually held a real job before his life and allow him to determine who should get venture investment? Really? Nevertheless, what can I say, it happens - but only at certain schools, and unfortunately, Berkeley does not seem to be one of them. Stanford and MIT are, unsurprisingly, two of the gateways. But, interestingly, so is Harvard, despite its relatively weaker engineering programs and the technological bent of VC. What I didn’t realize before, but I see now, is that the VC industry is highly predicated on social networking, which behooves you to choose a school with deep social connections to the industry. Knowing the technology is not as important as knowing the right people. </p>
<p>Sadly and ironically, despite its primo location in the Bay Area, Berkeley is not deeply tied into the venture capital community, not even within Silicon Valley. To be sure, you can get a fine job as an engineer, product manager, or tech analyst in the Valley coming out of Berkeley. But surprisingly few Berkeley graduates actually enter venture capital, at least, without additional credentialing such as a Stanford, MIT, or Harvard graduate degree (especially an MBA). Berkeley undergrads should be dominating that industry if, for no other reason, due to sheer numbers - Berkeley has more undergrads than Stanford, MIT, and Harvard combined. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I am quite sure that many Berkeley undergrads would love to be venture capitalists. I know I would have. What’s not to like? Get paid luxuriously well for a relatively laid-back lifestyle (certainly far less harsh than the Ibanking lifestyle), and experience the thrill of discovering and midwifing the next great tech firm. And do it all in the sunny and posh Menlo Park/Palo Alto area, where the bulk of the world’s VC capital resides. Surely beats the heck out of - oh, I don’t know - working as a barista at Starbucks. Or head cashier at Barnes & Nobles. </p>
<p>The problem, of course, is that the Berkeley guy won’t get the VC offer. Heck, he probably can’t even get the interview. Heck, he may not even be able to find the VC firms in the first place. They don’t really recruit. Getting into them generally requires knowing a contact on the inside. </p>
<p>{Now, to be fair, most students at those other schools won’t get VC jobs right out of undergrad either. Those jobs are indeed extraordinarily difficult to obtain. But at least those guys have the chance. Berkeley guys don’t even really get the chance. I wish they did.}</p>
<p>I’d love a warrent to your last post. I know a few graduating seniors this year who are going to do venture capitol from Berkeley. I think it’s possible you just don’t know what you’re talking about unless you’re aware of some master sheet that shows Berkeley fails to produce people going into venture capitol. Heck, I know a guy in EECS who’s already started his own company worth millions and is just continuing with his education to get a degree before he moves over to running it full time.</p>
<p>Basically, I’m fairly sure your last post was 90% BS so feel free to prove me wrong with something you actually warrent.</p>
<p>Now, perhaps you might argue that lists only the student-reported information, although that begs the question of why students would be getting jobs in VC and simply not reporting that information. Confirmatory information can be found from the venture capital firms themselves, as many (probably most) of them will list the bios of each and every one of their investment professionals. I have yet to find one of any repute that has actually hired any Berkeley undergrads right out of school. If you say that you really know some seniors that are supposedly heading to venture capital, then perhaps you could list the names of those VC firms, and then we can check back in a few months after they’ve graduated, to verify that they have indeed joined VC firms. </p>
<p>That is different from actually successfully starting your own firm as a Berkeley student, or even obtaining such VC investment for such a firm. I have no doubt that that happens, although I find it curious that somebody who has supposedly already started his company that really is worth millions would want to stay to finish his degree. Who said the company was really worth millions? Was this a VC valuation based on a term sheet? If so, then they would surely require that that student drop out of school to run the firm full-time immediately, as no VC is going to wait for you to finish your degree before you develop the company. Or was this valuation purely wishful thinking on the part of the entrepreneur? Then I would say that that’s, frankly, the mark of a foolhardy entrepreneur. Tech markets change all the time, and a company that may indeed be worth millions now may be worth nothing tomorrow. For example, if Google or Microsoft launches a feature tomorrow that replicates your product, then you’re basically toast. </p>
<p>So basically, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. If you insist that you do, then perhaps you can provide more information on these cases that you have raised.</p>
<p>OK very frankly, I don’t understand where this even comes into question – if your objection with my advising students based on departments is that most people don’t care, well if these jobs are so super-selective, even intensely selective, as you say, would you really advise students to go to Berkeley or not based on such jobs, over the departments?</p>
<p>Most people I know just want some sort of pretty good job out of college. If they’re engineers, they want to do something interesting at an engineering company. Another guy wants to go to law school, and of course, I obviously know math majors, both those who are computer science savvy and very clever people, who’ll probably go work for some company or something, and those who’re just into pure math, and heading for grad school. Now ALL these people actually cared <em>somewhat</em> about departments. There’re obviously a bunch of students at Berkeley who don’t even care this much, and frankly aren’t even all that ambitious – they take it easy now they’ve come to Berkeley, maybe do easy majors. Then, there are those who do a lot in Berkeley academics, but don’t have the most ambitious career plans. </p>
<p>Basically, I think most undergraduates aren’t bent upon super-selective jobs, and most aren’t bent upon top departments. Hence, I don’t see a reason to disagree with the premise of advising based on departments, because let’s face it, most undergrads really just want to go to a prestigious school and make some money afterwords, enough to be comfortable.</p>
<p>And again, here, I would disagree. I used venture capital as an extreme example - which is why I am excitedly awaiting biomech to identify all these VC firms who supposedly hired Berkeley undergrads right out of school - but I suspect that many, perhaps even most, Berkeley undergrads want highly selective jobs. As I remember it, every year during the career recruiting fairs, the lines for the consulting and banking firms stretch far and wide, in one year and for one company (I think Goldman), spilling all the way out of the auditorium and into the hallway. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you another way. Over the last few years, something like 40-50% of all Harvard and MIT undergraduates who entered the workforce took jobs in banking or consulting. What that also means is that surely many others wanted to get a job in banking/consulting, but just didn’t get an offer. {MIT, admittedly, still has a bit of a problem in producing some graduates who are technically brilliant, but who just don’t have the social acumen that consulting/banking firms want.} </p>
<p>Granted, many Harvard and MIT undergrads head to graduate school, but that often times means a professional program such as law or med school, and also means that they don’t want to go to just any law/med school, they want to go to top law/med schools. Or, grad school just means a temporary waypoint to banking or consulting. For example, I know a guy who did his undergrad at MIT, stayed at MIT for grad school… and then took a job in banking. </p>
<p>I don’t think that Berkeley students are any less ‘pre-professional’ than those at Harvard or MIT. You offer a consulting or banking job to Berkeley students, and I think most of them would probably take it. The problem is that many of them just can’t get those offers, which is why they pursue more ‘realistic’ jobs such as regular engineering. </p>
<p>Look, I’m not trying to criticize Berkeley. Berkeley is one of the best schools in the country. Without having to think twice, I would recommend Berkeley over 99% of all of the schools in the country. {Literally speaking, as there are over 2700 schools in the country, 99% of which are not serious competition to Berkeley). But I happen to think that that top 1% does have some impressive competition.</p>
<p>Look, if you’re advising students on, say Harvard vs. Berkeley for law school, frankly you’re looking at quite a select group – those who got into both schools, and are interested in law. And let’s extend to any pre-professional discipline. I am all for your advising these students, but like you said, in the vast majority of cases, i.e. 99%, students won’t necessarily have better options.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be arguing if you hadn’t disagreed with the very premise of advising students about Berkeley’s departments as a primary factor in choosing or not choosing the school. I never claimed that this is the one primary way a student should attend a school – more important is fit, how happy the student is, etc. Just that it is important. </p>
<p>My point very much is in accordance with what you say:
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<p>To students who have several top ranked schools to choose from, I’d advise <em>on an individual basis</em> – your advice on professional school may be irrelevant to them, and my advice on, say, graduate departments may be irrelevant – it depends on the person. I agree plenty of undergrads may want selective jobs; I don’t agree, however, that it warrants that the first thing you should advise someone about when selecting a school is regarding pre-professional prospects of X, Y and Z ultra elite schools of the nation. </p>
<p>Frankly, also, I think quite a few students accepted to all these top schools are more likely to be academically involved and actually care about the departments the schools offer. If you’re talking someone accepted into Harvard and Berkeley, and the someone wants to do engineering, I honestly would advise Berkeley.</p>
<p>It is pretty clear that you two come from very different educational backgrounds. Judging by sakky’s knowledge and biases, he probably has a business degree. People in business care more about money. People in academia, like mathboy, care more about prestige, and prestige doesn’t mean what school you go to (Nobel/recognition from peers/etc…). </p>
<p>As far as I know about business-oriented people, the brand name game is more important than for academia. From what I have observed, getting top jobs is about networking. Industry-type people that go to business school go to network, or they go to a highly selective undergraduate institution partly to network. These institutions accept these students partly because they believe these students will network well with each other and that these students can contribute a lot to networking. It seems that it would be natural for a job-oriented person to be attracted to the most brand name programs.</p>
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<p>Undergraduates at the most selective colleges are generally not accepted to those kinds of schools purely on their academic capabilities. They tend to be accepted because they are well rounded individuals who happen to be pretty decent at math, science, and/or humanities in high school. This type of selection process (which I am oversimplifying) for undergrad at these schools allow for more control, so a company can afford to spend time and money to recruit undergraduates at these schools. Because these students tend to be more well-rounded, companies can find more “polished” people in terms of business skills at a higher rate. Furthermore, these students tend to have other ambitions beyond engineering because of their well-rounded background.</p>
<p>With a large institution like Berkeley, there’s a lot of variance between undergraduates. Is it worth the time for a banking/consulting company to sift through the vast number of highly variant students? It seems like it would be most efficient for these companies to allow Berkeley to weed and then have the top students pursue an advanced degree. That would seem like the best strategy in this case. Furthermore, the top students at Berkeley are generally not as well-rounded (they occur at a much lower rate). Some are purely academically focused (mathboy98), and only a very small handful of purely academically minded students get into the most selective undergrad programs.</p>
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<p>Graduate school is not professional school. In my opinion, graduate school implies that the school pays the student to attend (PhD). MS is very different. Professional programs are very different. MS and professional programs tend to be a great vehicle to get into industry, not academia.</p>
<p>If you are referring to PhD students, there are a myriad of reasons why people do PhDs. If you are talking about engineering PhD, you may be right because a large percentage of engineering PhD’s head into industry. If you are talking about the hard sciences /humanities/social sciences (mathboy98 is probably hard science), these types of students tend to pursue a PhD with academic/prestige aspirations. Since the competition is extremely tough, the ones that can’t break through move onto other careers. One example is Emanuel Derman (PhD in Physics). He wanted to be the next Richard Feynman, but once he found out he wasn’t good enough, he moved into another field, finance, because he was still good.</p>
<p>“Quants often come from physics or mathematics backgrounds rather than finance related fields, and quants are a major source of employment for people with physics and mathematics Ph.D’s. Typically, a quant will also need extensive skills in computer programming.”</p>
<p>Now, Emanuel Derman is just one case, but he’s not an isolated case; his book is fairly popular for a reason. I don’t have any statistics on the motives of why PhD’s move into finance, but I have seen many people who move into finance because easy money is a nice consolation prize to prestige for academically minded people.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. I just think that most undergraduates don’t really know what they want, so they go with the safest pick. Getting a high paying job by going to a well known school is a pretty safe pick.</p>
<p>Thank you crescent. That was some very helpful information. I understand what you said about Princeton but that school is just gruesome…absolutely horrific. I know without a doubt that I would be incredibly miserable there. </p>
<p>to the on going argument above…I think that it really is subjective whether it is better to advise a student based on department or job opportunities. Therefore I will tell more about my situation and aspirations. </p>
<p>My plan is to go into diplomacy (I wanted to do this since I was 10 or 12, when I moved from China to France and then to the US. I am really attached to the diversity of this world and to the phenomenon of how countries with substancially different values, customs and background can work together despite their differences. Although at some point in my life I had thought about architecture because of my love for art, my interest always shifted back to diplomacy). But if that doesn’t work out, definitely IR whether in the business world or purely academic. I have not decided yet because I’m banking on my number one option. Because I plan to go straight to grad school (law or PhD) after getting my ba, I don’t really factor in what school would open more doors for job opportunities. I only care about what school will get me into a top notch grad school. Therefore, I need a school (between Berkeley and Penn that is) that would offer me the most research AND internship opportunities that relate directly to my major. Although it would be nice that the classes are taught by prof who are great teachers as well, I feel that it’s not quite as important as internship and research; I can teach myself with text books, etc., especially since my major is not nearly as intense as the engineering ones. :)</p>
<p>Having said that, will you guys give me an assessment based on the criteria offered and in light of my intended major? </p>
<p>Oh and also, one thing I like about Penn is the “One School” policy, meaning that although I am accepted to College of Arts and Science, I can still take classes and earn credit at the school of Engineering, Nursing, and Wharton. That means I can have a major in poli sci at the College and a minor in business at Wharton or something of that sort. Does Berkeley have the same deal? For example, let’s say, for some strange reason, I want to double major in chemistry and polisci, would that even be possible?</p>
<p>These are actually very good points that I had almost forgotten, and all the more reason why a bunch of the strong students at Berkeley probably will want advising based on departments. Generally, some of the strongest students at Berkeley will be engineers, who might by nature have been fairly purely academically minded – not the kinds of people who’d get into the so-called “highest end” Ivy Leagues or something, at least on
average.</p>
<p>As for my opinion of which one of two very good institutions is best for you I will offer the following.</p>
<p>First, my biases, I was both a Penn CAS and engineering undergraduate and a HYP professional school graduate. Also, my daughter, after visiting a few competitive schools chose Berkeley after a visit there last weekend. Her loves are architecture, art history and international relations in that order - the claimed flexibility of Berkeley was the determining factor. I know you are enthusiastic about the One School policy, but as a dual degree graduate of Penn, I can tell you that it far from works on automatic pilot and will require a good deal of active involvement on your part. Schools are in marketing mode and you have to try to look beyond the promotion and see the realities - both the institutional realities as well realities of what type of person you are.</p>
<p>Penn undergrad is large and bureaucratic. Berkeley undergraduate is larger and seemingly more bureaucratic. In both cases you are not talking about a small liberal arts college with more personal attention but fewer academic resources and opportunities. You have a smorgasbord of choices at both schools - but you might be closed out or on the wait lists at both schools for your preferred courses or professors - a proactive approach by the student to get what he or she wants. Berkeley with its well developed international and Washington programs might offer you a greater array of choices - that is, if your nature is to be aggressive and go after what you want before you find yourself closed out or on a wait list. </p>
<p>Both Penn and Berkeley, as larger schools, are more impersonal - particularly towards undergraduates. Both schools direct a disproportionate share of their wealth towards their respective graduate programs. So, though Penn might have a larger endowment (with Berkeley getting more research grants and funding due to its preeminence in so many different graduate areas - as noted in prior posts), the question, in both cases, is what trickles down to the undergraduate. I believe very little in the case of both institutions - so I would not use the relative “wealth” of either institution as a deciding factor. I do not believe that, as an undergraduate, you will see the benefit of "public versus private"in terms of your day to day educational life. For me, being in an introductory course with only two hundred students is not that much better than being in a introductory course with four hundred students.</p>
<p>Also, the large proportion of Wharton undergraduates does affect the character of the Penn. Whether that is viewed as a positive or negative, depends on whether you prefer of more pre-professional and competitive environment or one that is more academically oriented. On the other hand, from my limited experience, Berkeley students seem to be a self critical lot - perhaps it comes from dealing with the internal bureaucracy. My opinion is that they sometimes feel that the grass might be greener elsewhere - but the reality is that except for a handful of universities and colleges, difficult bureaucracies are the norm. Or perhaps this critical nature comes from number of engineers and scientists to be, my engineering peers were always looking for perfection!!</p>
<p>Now in terms of getting into a graduate program for a PhD or a professional program for a law degree, you are talking about two different animals. Graduate program admissions tend to be very narrowly focused where you have to demonstrate what you can bring to the discipline. Having good grades in your field, in a well recognized department in the field with ideally a confirmation from a well recognized faculty member are key ingredients. Being a graduate of an “Ivy” institution is a secondary or subsidiary consideration. So, are you better off in Berkeley at its International Politics, Political Science or Public affairs departments which are all top 5 or 10 at the graduate level or at Penn an Ivy institution that is not as strong in these areas? This will depend on your ability to both do well in the programs and to gain access to, work with and gain recognition of the relevant faculty members. If your nature is a proactive one, and your goal is to enter a strong PhD program, then I would say Berkeley is a better place. If your nature is more passive, then perhaps leaning on an Ivy name might be a better route. Though I do remain highly skeptical of what an Ivy affiliation alone would bring to a highly selective graduate department - absent demonstrated ability in the field.</p>
<p>As for professional programs, what is your goal? Law? Again, in this case your grades and your LSAT scores and your activities will be important factors. Everything else being equal in terms of grades and test scores, geographic diversity will also plays a part in the selection process (more so than for graduate programs but less so for than at the undergraduate level). So where do you want to go to law school? At a Yale or a Harvard or a Columbia or at a Berkeley or a Stanford? This might influence your consideration of when to switch coasts. Good Berkeley students are well recognized by professional schools, and they are a relatively scarce commodity on the east coast in comparison with the deluge of Ivy and east coast lac applicants that they receive.</p>
<p>Both schools are very good. Both schools can get you to your finish line (when you in fact determine what that finish line actually is!!). The question more relates to you and who you are. In my opinion, Berkeley offers more potential opportunities (since you mentioned a PhD or Law degree as your next potential milestones) while Penn offers the name of an Ivy institution (as well as many very good opportunities). If you told me that your first objective after college was a job on Wall Street, I would slightly favor Penn (I am on Wall Street and I see the benefit of the long embedded network that benefits even non Wharton Penn undergrads). But whichever institution you choose, please realize that you have to take charge of your destiny - neither institution, despite their outstanding reputations, will do that for you - despite whatever marketing hype you receive during final days counting down towards your decision.</p>
<p>And this is precisely where we would disagree. I return back to the arguments I made before: many (almost certainly most) prospective undergrads don’t really know what they want to study, even if they claim that they do. What happens if somebody chooses Berkeley over Harvard for engineering, but then later finds out he doesn’t want to major in engineering anymore? Mathboy98, you yourself are a living example, having switched from EECS to math. Furthermore, most of them don’t know what they want to do for a career, apart from what they may actually study. Like I said, even at a top engineering school like MIT, many of the engineering students end up not taking engineering jobs, instead strongly preferring jobs in finance or consulting. Heck, even people who get PhD’s may not want to stay in their industry, instead preferring some other career. For example, quite a few engineering PhD grads from MIT decided not to take engineering jobs, instead opting for jobs in - wait for it - consulting and finance.</p>
<p>So, again, I’m basing my statements on what people actually want, as demonstrated by their revealed preferences. Whether we like it or not, the fact is, only a minority of undergrads students at even the top schools will ever go to academia, or even think they want to. The vast majority of them just want a decent job. That’s the reality on the ground. Maybe the world would be better if colleges were not the professional proving grounds and gateways for companies to determine who they should hire, and should instead be true ivory towers. But we don’t live in that world. Like it or not, college has become the standardized route point towards getting a decent job. Students have revealed to me time and time again their preferences for pre-professional preparation.</p>
<p>Hence, I return back to my original statement. The first thing that prospective students should prioritize is the potential for the school to launch them into top jobs or top graduate schools. Why? Because that is what most students seem to want, hence it is the most risk-averse selection strategy. The fact is, you are more likely to find that you care more about getting a decent job than about the strength of your particular department. </p>
<p>Now, is that to say that you shouldn’t care about departmental strength at all? No, and I never said that. Departmental strength does have some value. However, again, what is likely to have more value is the potential of the school to launch you into a decent job because, again, that is what you are more likely to really care about. </p>
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<p>Oh, I don’t know about that, and I think mathboy98 would back me up on this one. Academia is arguably the most brand-name oriented profession I have ever encountered. It is a common social norm within academia to post your complete CV on your website - in contrast with the business world where most people will not publish their resumes publicly - and list the schools from which you obtained your degrees on the first page, before any of your publications or grant awards. </p>
<p>Furthermore, many departments will decide which candidates to bring in for job talks solely on where they got their degrees. For example, a certain department at Harvard that shall remain unnamed, recently extended job talks to those graduating PhD’s only from the top 5 departments in that field. As it turned out, some of them failed miserably in their talks, but at least they got the talk flyout. You could have graduated from the #10 program in your field and with brilliant research, yet Harvard wouldn’t have even given you a flyout slot. I imagine the same thing happens at other top schools. As a newly minted PhD who is looking for a strong assistant professorship or post-doc, you probably don’t have a list of strong publications. In certain fields, notably in the social sciences or humanities, you are likely to finish your PhD without a single publication in a decent journal, due simply to the long publication lag times in those fields. Hence, the one thing that hiring committees can focus on is your school’s brand name. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the power of the university brand name has been found to extend even to the academic peer review process. Peters & Ceci (1982) ran a seminal study in which they took papers that had already been published in top journals and written by famous authors at top schools, and resubmitted them, but with the author names changed to unknown people and the school names changed to unprestigious places. Some of the resubmissions were identified as such and rejected. However, of those that were not caught as resubmissions, most of them were rejected for supposedly not passing muster. Again, these were the very same papers that those journals had already published, yet now that they were seemingly written by no-name authors from low-ranking schools, they were not accepted. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that brand name matters more in academia than in arguably any other industry. The CV-obsession of academia inevitably means that you are always being sized up by where you went to school. Now, obviously, strong work over time can overcome a university branding deficiency within academia just as it can within the private sector, nevertheless, the fact is, the world of academia is highly cognizant of, dare I say obsessed, with branding, especially from young scholars. Personally, I think it shouldn’t be that way. But it is that way.</p>
<p>Professional schools are often times seen as a subset of grad schools. For example, the USNews Graduate Rankings include the rankings for a number of professional schools (i.e. law, medicine, business, etc.) Hence, when somebody says that they’re headed for grad school, they often times mean a professional school.</p>
<p>In relation to what I said previously, many undergrads at the top schools want to head to graduate professional school, or what you would just call a professional school. So, again, they don’t really care about the specific strength of their department. Somebody at Harvard doesn’t really care that the French department may be relatively low ranked - which it is according to the NRC - if he’s just going to head to law school or medical school afterwards anyway.</p>
<p>These are well articulated points. It’s interesting to note that there has been little-to-no discussion as to whether or not the OP has visited each of the schools. Since this is such a hair-splitting decision, shouldn’t the OP consider intangible factors such as location, fit, etc? The OP should definitely consider social life and happiness as well. </p>
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<p>So your comments reflect students looking for top jobs. What % of society do you think are after top jobs (top 1 %)? I would assume total # of unique applicants applying to very competitive schools divided by the total # of high school graduates/dropouts in the US would give a rough estimate. I am guessing the number is going to be lower than 10%.</p>
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<p>You’re right. It is norm to do that in a CV. Academics even “hide” their Nobel Prize in the long list of awards they win in their CV. It’s definitely not at the top of the CV. However, I would argue that the Nobel Prize / Fields Medal / Pulitzer / etc. are much more coveted than what school an academic position at a brand name school. Brand name schools do tend to attract Nobel talent, though. </p>
<p>Most Nobel/Field’s winners from less brand name schools don’t go to more brand name institutions after they win that type of prize. Academics that change institutions early in their careers tend to change schools before they received their prestigious awards. Although these are just isolated cases, laureates such as Steven Weinberg, Murray Gell-Mann, and Mario Molina even moved away from their brand name institutions (Harvard, Caltech, and MIT - respectively) after winning a Nobel Prize. Keep in mind, there are many other awards out there particular to specific fields that many academics would kill to have (Wolf Prize, National Medal of Science, Pulitzer Prize etc…).</p>
<p>It is interesting that you point out that the CV starts out with listing the schools. That may be the case because schools are the most easily identifiable part of the CV, but I don’t know.</p>
<p>You’re right. I believe academia is very brand-name oriented, but not necessarily for the school. It can be, but there’s a lot of different ways for an academic to get brand-name recognition.</p>
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<p>This could happen at other schools, but I don’t know for sure. It’s definitely not the case for hard sciences at many prestigious schools. The best way to find out is to actually visit a bunch of faculty websites of top 5 schools for each discipline, but I’m not going to do it.</p>
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<p>So is it the institution name or the author name? Did they run a study with unknown authors at prestigious places versus known authors at “unprestigious” places? </p>
<p>When you do a peer-review process, it is your peers that review the paper - so your own name is more important than the school name. Everyone tends to know each other. I won’t go into the details, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into the peer-review process that hinges on the name of the Principal Investigator. I’d imagine that a prestigious institution can help, but the name of the PI is more important.</p>
<p>Since you seem to be an outsider looking in, you can get good information from the Graduate School Forum on CC too - PI name is one of the most important factors. I agree. Brand name is extremely important, but the brand name doesn’t always imply school.</p>
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<p>You’re right. I just never agreed with the social norm. I just think professional schools and PhD are fundamentally different when you take away the fact that they are done after undergraduate.</p>
<p>Thank you jj214 for you personal imput. It was very valuable especially since came from experience. Your comments have really swayed me because you have touched on exactly what I wanted to hear: internship, resources and chance for top grad schools in your accessment of both colleges in light of IR and poli sci. So thank you very much </p>
<p>SDTB: I have no means to go visit so I can’t say. I have been to Cal but not to Penn. Personally, I like Cal. But I can’t say for Penn. But to be honest, I don’t really mind either way social wise or geography wise. Both places has its pros and cons (diversity and rich culture in the east coast or nice weather, friendly people minus the bums and SF at berk). and as for social life, both schools are large, and therefore, widely varied in social groups (though Berkeley is not as diverse in student body as I would like). I will find my perfect niche at either school.</p>
<p>Are we talking about all of society, or are we specifically talking about the undergrad population at Berkeley? I think the latter population is far more relevant to the topic at hand. After all, the vast majority of society will never get into Berkeley. Like I said before, Berkeley is within the top 1% of all colleges in the US. </p>
<p>As to the population of students at Berkeley, again, I would use the population of other top schools as a proxy. In recent years, about half of all undergrads at HYPSM who entered the workforce chose jobs in banking or consulting. Surely some others wanted to get such jobs, but simply didn’t get a banking or consulting offer, or obtained a better job at a cool company in a more traditional industry. {For example, I would probably take an engineering job at Facebook rather than work in consulting, as Facebook is one of the few engineering firms that actually pays better than consulting does, and that’s not even talking about the opportunity to become filthy rich through the pending IPO. But I would probably take a consulting job over an average engineering job.} I don’t see any reason to believe that the desires of Berkeley students are significantly different from that of those of students at HYPSM. Heck, many Berkeley students applied to at least one of HYPSM. What is different is therefore not their desires but rather their qualifications: they just weren’t good enough to get in. </p>
<p>As further evidence, again, you can attend Berkeley’s yearly career fairs and notice the extensive interest that consulting and banking firms will generate when they show up to recruit. You can also note that the consulting and banking interview slots as run through the Berkeley Career Office are always oversubscribed. Again, this indicates that a tremendous number of Berkeley students do want consulting/banking offers. Most of them just can’t get them. </p>
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<p>Sure, but then there is the question of just how much impact your school’s brand name will have on whether you will even win the Nobel at all. As a famous historical case in point, Frederick Banting and John MacLeod were awarded the Nobel for supposedly discovering insulin’s connection to diabetes, despite the fact that that had already been previously established by Nicolae Paulescu 8 months. In fact, Banting and MacLeod’s paper that eventually won the Nobel actually cited Paulescu’s paper, but mis-cited it by stating that Paulescu had found that insulin injections did not alleviate diabetes, which is actually the exact opposite of what Paulescu had said in his paper. Banting later freely admitted that they had mis-cited Paulescu. However, many people strongly suspect that the fact that Banting and MacLeod came from the relatively highly prestigious University of Toronto as opposed to Paulescu who worked at the relatively obscure University of Bucharest (in Romania) had something to do with his snubbing. </p>
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<p>Well, I think the latter would be very hard to do, don’t you think? Take the field of Chemistry. I think every respectable chemist would know that, say, (Nobel laureate in Chemistry) Elias James Corey is at Harvard. You wouldn’t exactly be able to submit a paper supposedly written by Elias James Corey but who is affiliated with some no-name university without attracting a lot of undue attention. The former is also rather difficult, simply because most journal referees/editors probably know the names of all of the people at the top departments in their discipline. For example, if somebody submits a chemistry paper supposedly written by John Doe from Harvard, that might instantly trigger the alarm: “Harvard has this John Doe guy on their faculty, and I’ve never heard of him before?” Academia, as you probably know, is highly gossippy at the high ends, and people tend to know who get jobs at what top school.</p>
<p>But if it’s just some low-level school, people won’t really care. If the paper supposedly comes from John Doe from Northwest Missouri State University, probably nobody is going to notice that anything is amiss. </p>
<p>The point is, it is hard to separate out famous names from where they work, as those two are a known and linked dyad. You have to use unknown names from low-prestige schools. I agree with you that that still leaves open the question about whether the dominant variable is the author name or the university name. However, the fact that we’ve established that academics place their old alma maters prominently on the first page of their CV’s - and that other academics eagerly seek out the CV’s of their colleagues - all strongly indicate that university branding seems to have great value within the world of academia. People will judge you on the supposed prestige of your department. </p>
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<p>If you are indeed working in a field where the concept of a PI actually exists, sure. But what if you’re working in, say, the social sciences or math, in which everybody is either doing their own work, or perhaps in collaboration with a few others, but where no concept of a PI really exists (because there are no large-scale labs)? Or what if you are working in the natural sciences, but on a theoretical piece?</p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. Dei Lee placed as an assistant prof at Harvard in 2004 without a single academic publication to her name (which in her field, is not uncommon). Heck, she didn’t have a single publication until 3 years later. Hence, she didn’t have a famous name to wield within the peer review process. But she can use her Harvard affiliation.</p>
<p>Or, pertaining to the natural sciences, what if you’re the PI? That is, what if you’re a newly hired assistant prof who is now running a lab and trying to build the body of work necessary to win tenure? Yet, because you’re new, you haven’t yet established your name, and in fact, the establishment of your name is the whole point. You don’t have a long CV’s worth of research publications, and whatever publications you may have probably haven’t (yet) been highly cited. Now you have to rely on every advantage you can get, and your university branding can be one of them. That’s the game of academia. </p>
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<p>So you think I’m on the outside looking in, eh? Is that what you think? </p>
<p>I don’t want to get into my biography, but trust me, I know the process quite well. And since you seem to also, I think you would agree that academia is something of a game.</p>
<p>jj clearly made some excellent points, but they may not all apply to kitkat. Your goal seems to be ending up a practitioner, so which place is better for getting into an academic PhD environment may not matter as much as which puts you in best position for a Foreign Service school like Georgetown or Johns Hopkins SAIS. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for Berkeley but I do think the crushing size vs large size makes a difference, especially in the case of Penn where IR, while bastardizing courses from other departments, is small enough as its own department to get you the attention you may want for things like the senior thesis. </p>
<p>Penn’s pre-professional atmosphere is real and emanates not just from Wharton but in those aiming for law school, medical school, and engineering. Liberal arts Penn is not. That said, from what you wrote of your ambitions, this is not a bad hedge for you. I found in interviewing undergraduates as a professional that West Coast students, Berkeley included, were more or less unprepared relative to East Coast ones for rigorous undergraduate business jobs, a reflection of the pre-professional on-campus culture, not their talent. (They do catch up later, I should add, via training programs and osmosis) Incidentally, one cannot get a Wharton minor as a student of another school.</p>
<p>I would figure out how well Berkeley’s programs prepare you for doing something in diplomacy practice and getting summer internships. I had plenty of Berkeley friends met through Model UN do fairly impressive things at the State Department in the summers. Berkeley’s campus better reflects the utopian idyllic picture of a perfect college life than Penn’s next-to-downtown collection of paths and buildings. If you were more hard-core about international studies academically, I would say go to Berkeley, but your practitioner leanings suggest to me Penn would work out better for you.</p>
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