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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.
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<p>See, right there, that's the problem. That's just harsh social Darwinism - that if you don't do well at Berkeley, it's solely your fault. I don't think so. It's the fault of * both * you * and * Berkeley. It's a collective partnership with joint responsibility. To lay all of the blame on the student is just unfair. </p>
<p>Let's face it. These are 17-22 year old kids here. People of that age do foolish things all the time. That's why we don't allow underage people to drink, because we know that if they could, many of them would really be out of control. Academically speaking, students should be allowed to fall down, make mistakes, and learn from them. It's pretty rough to tell somebody - oh, you made an academic mistake, well, that's your problem, too bad for you. </p>
<p>What you keep calling a 'crutch' or 'spoonfeeding', I would just call support. What's wrong with support? Let's face it. We live in a competitive world where having the most support you can get can only help you. </p>
<p>Let me tell you a story. I know some people back at Berkeley who were thinking of competing for the Rhodes Scholarship. The problem is, unlike the top private schools, Berkeley does not have a strong system in place to help its students win scholarships like the Rhodes. Other schools basically have entire armies of consultants to help you prep your application, and a well-established process to help you get everything you need to make your application package look as polished as possible. They run mock interviews practice sessions, some with actual former Rhodes winners. They can put you together with those former Rhodes winners so that you can ask them what you need to do to market yourself properly to the scholarship committee. Basically, it's an entire machine working to boost their candidates.</p>
<p>Berkeley has none of that. If you want to put together a Rhodes package, it's all you. You're the one responsible for getting all of your rec's together. You're the one responsible for figuring out what to say on the apps. You're the one who has to figure out what to say on the interviews. Berkeley just doesn't give you much support.</p>
<p>Berkeley has 23,000 undergrads, which dwarfs all of the top private schools. I am convinced that, given the sheer size of the student population, a good number of Berkeley students are Rhodes-caliber. But the truth is, Berkeley wins very few Rhodes. The last one was in the 2002-2003 academic year. This academic year alone (2006-2007), Harvard undergrads won 9 Rhodes Scholarships (actually, it won 10 total, but 1 was from Harvard Medical School, so 9 winners came from the undergrad program). That's a testament to not only the high quality of the students at Harvard, but also to the support that Harvard provides in helping its students. Is that a 'crutch'? Is that 'spoonfeeding'? Well, call it anything you like, but those Harvard Rhodes winners are laughing all the way to Oxford. I know for a fact that the Berkeley people that I know who wanted to win the Rhodes (but didn't even make the final cut) wouldn't have minded to have that Harvard 'crutch' or 'spoonfeeding'. </p>
<p>But hey, why talk in anecdotes when the data is available? Just take a look at the graduation results of Berkeley students. Click around the various majors and you will see that while indeed some students go on to top jobs or top graduate schools, plenty of others end up in rather mediocre jobs or graduate schools. </p>
<p>For example, let's take poli-sci. I use poli-sci because it is a huge major. While some ended up in elite PhD programs like Harvard or Yale, others ended up in graduate programs such as Sacramento State or Cal-State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay). While some ended up in top law schools like Harvard or Yale, others ended up in law schools like the University of Dayton.</p>
<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/PolSci.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/PolSci.stm</a> </p>
<p>It's rather harsh to say that everybody who doesn't do well at Berkeley was just being (in your words), dumb or lazy. Yet you accuse us of elitism? You did well. Good for you. But what about the people who don't do well? Seems to me that you don't care about them.</p>