Berkeley's shortcomings

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
181

<p>eastcoastbound,</p>

<p>Yes, the difference in means is VERY meaningful. While our DFs are very tight, you have to remember that we have several years where this trend holds true vertically and horizontally. We can create indexes (or just do it log form) and see percent differences-- which are large.</p>

<p>
[quote]
we can interpret the data and you social scientists can debate about the meaning.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You know, I don't like how you impugn upon social scientists so much. For one, I'm using the SAME tools as you are, and using the SAME methods that you are. Your ad hominem stance is just silly, because what you're trying to do is say, "I'm a scientist, I'm smart. You're a social scientist, you're dumb. You don't think like I do."</p>

<p>Economists are social scientists, and yet they're generally accepted as being pretty good and making scientific models. </p>

<p>"We..." c'mon... stop.</p>

182

<p>UCLAri,</p>

<p>i dont consider it is a ad hominem stance. you have to agree that social scientists are less rigorous on their studies due to nature of their studies. it has nothing to do with level of intelligence. plus i dont believe in a quantified intelligence anyways. if i offend you on that, i apologize because it wasnt intented to. and please note that i never did name-calling etc., and dont put words in my mouth. lets have an intellectual conversation, or there is no point of continuing.</p>

<p>btw, you haven't addressed the issue of small sampling population. IMO, that is more fundamental than the trend, because you need the right data to make inference upon it.</p>

183

<p>dobby: first, sorry for misstating your sex and immatriculation year. and it's great to hear that your experience at Berkeley has been very positive. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Aside from the fact that not all students filled out that survey question, even if they are "satisfied" - why not work to make it "very satisfied"? There's always room for improvement.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I concurred: "we can still do better, but the current situation is not quite that bad" was my stance. About the first part though, I would just notice that the critics on this site tend ot be far more vocal and active, so if there is an inherent bias in the survey it is perhaps more likely to be a negative one.</p>

184

<p>


</a></p>

<p>Alright! Thanks for the data. :)</p>

185

<p>eastcostbound,</p>

<p>We're not necessarily less rigorous qualitatively, however...</p>

<p>But anyway, I don't think that the sample is that bad, especially considering that it might be a fairly large number of those who apply to med school as it is!</p>

<p>I mean, if you have a school where only 10 people apply to med school, and they all report their data, that's not a small sample...just a small population...</p>

186

<p>yeah but there are only 1 or 2 berkeley students accepted at each school, the true mean of berkeley population cant be extracted by small population like that. also, i just want to make sure we are talking about the same population. do you mean the entire berkeley pre-med population or did u break berkeley students down to application of individual med schools?</p>

187

<p>eastcoastbound,</p>

<p>There's too much collinearity to break them down to individual med schools, I think...</p>

<p>
[quote]
yeah but there are only 1 or 2 berkeley students accepted at each school, the true mean of berkeley population cant be extracted by small population like that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well...not necessarily. If that's the population, then it's the population. </p>

<p>What I think supports my argument (and I think you need to address) is the horizontal stability of this trend. Why is it that the delta each year is almost zero?</p>

188

<p>
[quote]
I concurred: "we can still do better, but the current situation is not quite that bad" was my stance. About the first part though, I would just notice that the critics on this site tend ot be far more vocal and active, so if there is an inherent bias in the survey it is perhaps more likely to be a negative one.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The salient question is not whether it is 'quite that bad', but whether Berkeley is keeping up with its competitors. To wit:</p>

<p>*Why is Berkeley's yield so low, relative to the top private schools?
*Why is Berkeleys' graduation rate, again, relative to the top private schools?
*Why does Berkeley seem to have difficulty, on a per-capita basis, in getting its students into top graduate schools, again, relative to the top private schools?
*Why do Berkeley graduates get paid less, holding one's course of study constant, relative to the graduates of the top private schools? </p>

<p>Hence, the REAL issue is the relative comparison. Now, I agree that if you want to compare Berkeley to any other UC, obviously Berkeley wins. I have never disputed that Berkeley is better than the other UC's. The issue is, does Berkeley stack up to the top private schools? If not, can it do so in the future?</p>

189

<p>UCLAri,</p>

<p>sorry, i was pretty busy lately and im going to my first interview tomorrow, so i probably wont have as much time.</p>

<p>but anyways, i agree with you. so i suggest to compare stats from rejected students.</p>

<p>"If that's the population, then it's the population" (btw how do you quote here?)</p>

<p>i have to disagree on that statement. because there is always a thereotical mean, and the population we can see is the estimate of the thereotical mean. thereotical mean is constant whereas the estimated mean can change depends on the size of sample. so the accepted population is not fixed by theory (it hasnt reached the thereotical maximum). for example you use that mean to estimate if another person has some number in his GPA and MCAT, how likely is he accepted to that school. so what i was saying is that since the sample size is fairly small, the standard deviation is very large, and null hypothesis is unlikely to be rejected.</p>

<p>i dont find comparing mean of the entire berkeley accepted students to a particular school make too much sense, because standard deviation in berkeley accepted students are higher than means of a particular school, despite of consistency over the years in both x- and y- axes (i only can assume you mean GPA and MCAT scores). please remember that difference in means do not represent dynamic of distribution over the years. if the shape of distribution, not mean is consistent over the years, that would be more convincing.</p>

<p>its such a shame that they do not publish std deviation, because comparison of means is meaningless without proper stat treatment.</p>

190

<p>eastcoastbound,</p>

<p>Good points... One of us could always plug the data into Stata...</p>

<p>I would, but I have three midterms next week. All you! :p</p>

<p>You're generally right, by the way, and I concede the point. But let's say that the mean IS that high (and representative of the actual accepted population)...that's kinda crappy, don't you think? </p>

<p>Oh well...just another mystery of Berkeley's administration.</p>

<p>BTW, quote tags are
[quote ]
Quote here
[/quote ]
. You would just not put the space between the brackets and word "quote."</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

191

<p>thanks man. i will try it out next.</p>

<p>well, i would if i have more time too :P interviewing is more exhausting than i thought, apart from drinking and partying.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Oh well...just another mystery of Berkeley's administration.

[/quote]

yeah, no doubt. berkeley is far from the best. so its fun to play these stats game, isnt it?</p>

192

<p>I think we should all just calm down, take a deep breath and analyze some data to make sure we're all on the same page here. Data is key in these types of situations. Lets not forget the numbers.</p>

193

<p>Given all these shortcomings - do we still want to go to Berkeley for an undergrad edu?</p>

194

<p>If you can't get in somewhere better, sure. Most of these shortcomings exist at other top schools, to a smaller degree.</p>

195

<p>Woah, not even going to read all the messages in this thread.</p>

<p>As a Berkeley undergrad-alum, this is what I have to say:</p>

<p>1) The undergrad experience at Berkeley was sometimes stressful academically, but socially and personally very rewarding. My years at Cal were some of the best in my life, and if I could do my undergrad all over again and could go to any school in the world, it would be UC Berkeley hands down. </p>

<p>2) The education I received was first-rate, and was of a higher quality than the one i'm currently receiving as a masters student at Stanford. I credit my Berkeley science education with allowing me to score 99th percentile on the MCAT, and with getting me into one of my top choice medical schools (so far).</p>

<p>3) Whether I am walking in the Stanford campus, driving on the freeways in California, or interviewing at top medical schools, I am surrounded by successful Berkeley alums. Get the hint: We tend to do well and there are a lot of us. In one 10-day stretch at Stanford, I had FOUR former Berkeley UNDERGRADS give guest lectures in my classes....including recent Nobel Prize winner Andrew Fire (BA '78). Berkeley will provide you with all the tools to be successful in whatever you pursue. At Berkeley, your aptitude will fall far short of opportunity (ie, your aptitude is the limiting factor)....that's guaranteed.</p>

<p>4) If you visit Berkeley, be sure to check out North Berkeley and the Hills....it's beautiful..... a lot of people only see the South/West sides of Berkeley and get turned off by the sprawl that comes out of Oakland. Also, try to go up to Lawrence Berkeley Lab + botanical garden area if you get the chance.</p>

<p>5) Please take the time to read up on the history of the rich social/humanitarian movements that have their origins in Berkeley. From the Free Speech Movement in the 60s when students demanded to have their 1st amendment rights back after the McCarthy Era, to the Disabled Rights movement and anti-South African apartheid movement on college campuses (among other noble movements), Berkeley has been at the forefront of promoting much of the civil/humanitarian ideals that are widely accepted today.</p>

<p>6) For those of you who have these crazy fantasies of turning Berkeley into an elitist institution, you don't understand the point of having public universities to begin with. The UCs try to provide the best possible education for the cheapest price to the GREATEST NUMBER of students...that is their goal. The UCs don't even try to inflate their students' SAT scores by adding together the highest individual subscores to get a composite like private schools + University of Virginia do. If you are looking for an elitist affiliation so you can impress some idiots who find value in a certain worthless concept known as "prestige", please, please, DO NOT enroll at Berkeley. Shoot for Yale like Bush, Kerry, and other such clowns did. </p>

<p>7) If you are a California resident that gets into an "elite" private school (w/o scholarships) and Berkeley, I strongly urge you to go to Berkeley. An undergraduate education isn't worth private school tuition....especially in this day and age of standardized curriculums, textbooks, and electronic resources....you think most of those grad students and profs that will be schooling you at elite private schools went to HYPSM for their undergrad? Think again. But if you're more interested in buying an affiliation rather than an education, please, by all means, go to an elite private school. You deserve to have to pay a ridiculous tuition for being so naive.</p>

<p>GO CAL</p>

196

<p>Haha - thanks for the info. It's quite helpful.</p>

197

<p>abcd...</p>

<p>...don't be so quick to dismiss us private school folk. I'm as big a berkeley proponent as there is on this board (though my post count does not reflect this). Just realize, some of us bourgeois private school kids didn't get in to Cal :)</p>

198

<p>
[quote]
2) The education I received was first-rate, and was of a higher quality than the one i'm currently receiving as a masters student at Stanford. I credit my Berkeley science education with allowing me to score 99th percentile on the MCAT, and with getting me into one of my top choice medical schools (so far).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm glad you did well at Berkeley. The fact that you got into Stanford for grad school proves that you did do well. Good for you.</p>

<p>However, I've never much worried about those students who do well. I have always said that those Berkeley students who are at the top will do very well. My question has always been, what about those who don't do well? Trust me, I know a LOT of Berkeley students who don't do well. What about them? </p>

<p>
[quote]
3) Whether I am walking in the Stanford campus, driving on the freeways in California, or interviewing at top medical schools, I am surrounded by successful Berkeley alums. Get the hint: We tend to do well and there are a lot of us. In one 10-day stretch at Stanford, I had FOUR former Berkeley UNDERGRADS give guest lectures in my classes....including recent Nobel Prize winner Andrew Fire (BA '78). Berkeley will provide you with all the tools to be successful in whatever you pursue. At Berkeley, your aptitude will fall far short of opportunity (ie, your aptitude is the limiting factor)....that's guaranteed.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, considering that there are 23,000 undergrads at Berkeley, I would find it very odd indeed if you ** didn't * run into any former undergrads. Frankly, given the sheer numbers of Berkeley undergrads, they should be absolutely dominating the ranks of power in the Bay Area. But they are not. </p>

<p>
[quote]
6) For those of you who have these crazy fantasies of turning Berkeley into an elitist institution, you don't understand the point of having public universities to begin with. The UCs try to provide the best possible education for the cheapest price to the GREATEST NUMBER of students...that is their goal. .

[/quote]
</p>

<p>As has been said before, the UC ** graduate * programs aren't trying to provide the best possible education for the cheapest price to the greatest number of students. Take the Haas full-time MBA program. For a top-ranked program, it is an absolutely tiny program. Harvard Business School has literally about 3 times the number of full-time MBA students that Haas does. Why is that? Or take the Boalt Law School. Again, Harvard Law School absolutely dwarfs Boalt in size. </p>

<p>Take any of the other Berkeley graduate programs, and you will quickly note that none of them are particularly large, relative to competing programs. There isn't exactly a giant horde of EECS graduate students at Berkeley, relative to the number at Stanford or MIT. There isn't a huge horde of Berkeley English graduate students, relative to that at Harvard or Yale. </p>

<p>So that begs the question, why is it OK for the Berkeley undergraduate program to try to cram in the greatest number of students, but not OK for the graduate programs? Are you saying that the graduate programs are wrong? </p>

<p>
[quote]
6) For those of you who have these crazy fantasies of turning Berkeley into an elitist institution, you don't understand the point of having public universities to begin with. The UCs try to provide the best possible education for the cheapest price to the GREATEST NUMBER of students...that is their goal. The UCs don't even try to inflate their students' SAT scores by adding together the highest individual subscores to get a composite like private schools + University of Virginia do. If you are looking for an elitist affiliation so you can impress some idiots who find value in a certain worthless concept known as "prestige", please, please, DO NOT enroll at Berkeley. Shoot for Yale like Bush, Kerry, and other such clowns did.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>By that same token, the vast numbers of Berkeley undergrads who are there solely for the prestige are also a bunch of 'clowns'. Let's face it. There are plenty of undergrads who are at Berkeley only because it was the most prestigious school that they got into. You've seen it, and I've seen it. I've seen plenty of people whose sole college application strategy was to apply to all of the UC's, and some top privatesand then just go to the most prestigious one that they got into it. If they can't get into any of the top privates, but got into Berkeley, they go there. If they can't do that, but get into UCLA, they'll go there. If not that, then UCSD, etc. etc. Are these guys also a bunch of 'clowns'.</p>

<p>The truth is, Berkeley attracts plenty of people because of its prestige. But if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Just because plenty of people will turn down UCDavis for Berkeley for the prestige, plenty of people will turn down Berkeley for Stanford, again, for the prestige. </p>

<p>Besides, prestige is hardly 'worthless'. Michael Spence won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work on college job-market signalling which basically states that prestige carries currency in the job markets because it signals to employers that you were, at the very least, good enough to get admitted to a top college. That's extremely valuable, something without which many labor markets would fail. I would hardly call a man's work that won a Nobel Prize 'worthless'. </p>

<p>
[quote]
If you are a California resident that gets into an "elite" private school (w/o scholarships) and Berkeley, I strongly urge you to go to Berkeley.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And what if you're not a California resident? 89% of the country does not live in California.</p>

<p>Or, what if you're from California, but you're poor? I know 2 people from California who got into both Berkeley and Harvard, and found out that Harvard was actually going to be * cheaper * once financial aid was factored in. I will always remember one of them acidly joking that he had always dreamed of going to Berkeley, but he couldn't afford it, so he had "no choice" but to go to Harvard. </p>

<p>Or what if you're Californian, but you're rich - rich enough that you don't care about the difference in cost between a private school and a state school? Again, I think you would therefore be indifferent.</p>

<p>So what are we left with? Just the California middle class. But that represents only a tiny tiny fraction of the total population of the United States. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Think again. But if you're more interested in buying an affiliation rather than an education, please, by all means, go to an elite private school. You deserve to have to pay a ridiculous tuition for being so naive

[/quote]
</p>

<p>See above. Let me ask you again - how do you justify Berkeley over HYPSM to somebody coming from New York? Or Texas? Or Florida? Or Pennsylvania? Can you justify it?</p>

199

<p>
[quote]
6) For those of you who have these crazy fantasies of turning Berkeley into an elitist institution, you don't understand the point of having public universities to begin with. The UCs try to provide the best possible education for the cheapest price to the GREATEST NUMBER of students...that is their goal. The UCs don't even try to inflate their students' SAT scores by adding together the highest individual subscores to get a composite like private schools + University of Virginia do. If you are looking for an elitist affiliation so you can impress some idiots who find value in a certain worthless concept known as "prestige", please, please, DO NOT enroll at Berkeley. Shoot for Yale like Bush, Kerry, and other such clowns did.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uhh, no, we have crazy fantasies about turning Berkeley into an ELITE institution, not an elitist institution. What's wrong with wanting to see Berkeley get better? Would it satisfy you if we wanted Berkeley to get worse? Doesn't make much sense to me.</p>

<p>Look, I'm all for providing a prestigious, quality education to as many people as possible, but the question is, can UC Berkeley handle all the students it takes in. I look at UC Berkeley and often times, what do I see? I see student after student trying to get into impacted majors because the departments can't fit all the students who want to declare that major. I see students with 5, 7 units at the start of the semester with 2-3 classes waitlisted. I see students who would rather give their left pinky to get into a med school (their words, not mine) while the guys on the other side of the bay are having a much easier time. I see a poor 58% graduation rate and I see students weeded out. I'll give you a simple example: the Chem 1A class this semester just had a midterm, and the average was 63%, not curved.</p>

<p>The point is this: I would love to see Berkeley have 23,000 undergrads, or even more, IF THEY CAN SUPPORT IT. Right now many things tell me that they can't, or struggle to. How is it good for the students and for the university if the university admit students but then fail to provide them with proper support, ending in a poor undergrad experience or in some cases, flunking out and not even getting a degree? If every student has an experience similar to your I would have nothing to complain about. But as I see it, there are many students like you, and quite a few students who aren't having a good experience at Berkeley. I'm worried about the latter.</p>

200

<p>I just wrote a long response but it got deleted for some reason : (</p>

<p>Here is some of it:</p>

<p>Vic and Sakky, I don't mean any disrespect, but I didn't read your entire response because I am not trying to have a debate: what I wrote was an opinion narrative based on my personal experiences at Cal, Stanford, and the educational system as a whole.</p>

<p>What I had to say was this: Your opportunities at Cal are boundless. Period. That is not negotiable. You may have to look harder and try harder at Cal than at certain private schools that spoon-feed you, but in the end, your success will be contigent on your aptitude alone. If you are dumb/lazy at Cal, you will not reach your potential. Higher education is an opportunity, not a crutch, and the UCs "understand" this better than most private institutions I know. </p>

<p>If you are a CA resident that didn't get a scholarship to attend a private school or you are not filthy rich, going to a UC should be a no-brainer. A simple cost-benefit analysis of going to a UC versus going to a private school should enlighten you with the above claim. However, if "prestige" constitutes a huge marginal benefit to you, by all means, go to Stanford/IvyLeague/etc etc. I think you are being naive, but then again, that is my humble OPINION based on my experiences at Cal/Stanford and by talking to my friends who have studied at both UCs and at top private schools. </p>

<p>If you are not a CA resident, what I wrote does not apply, as going to a UC would be akin to paying private school tuition. In your case, if weighing the marginal benefit vs. marginal cost of going to a UC versus a private school leads you to the conclusion that you should go to a private school, I think you are being very reasonable.</p>