<p>"Like UCLAri said, Californians care about having THEIR kids into a top UC, which means they want UCs to accept MORE students, not FEWER."</p>
<p>Well, I was thinking that there are UCLA, UCSD, etc, and the Cal State Us and the Cal Poly for those who are not good enoug to get into Berkeley...</p>
<p>Sure, but if you're a Californian, do you want your kid to go to Berkeley, or Cal State Long Beach? And with more students applying every year, Berkeley can either reject more students, or admit more students. It's hard to tell taxpayers "more students are applying to Berkeley than ever so your kid wasn't good enough to make the cut this year." It's unpopular for Berkeley to admit fewer students because no one wants their kid to have less chance of getting into a top college. You wouldn't really care how prestigious Berkeley is if you can't get into it, right? So like I said, even though I think it's a good idea for more students to enroll at a lower UC like UCSD, it's not a popular idea.</p>
<p>
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Well, I was thinking that there are UCLA, UCSD, etc, and the Cal State Us and the Cal Poly for those who are not good enoug to get into Berkeley...
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</p>
<p>First of all, UCLA is not for those who "are not good enough." Over the past years, thousands of students have gotten into both schools and picked UCLA over Berkeley (and of course, vice versa). For many students, it just comes down to fit. As a transfer student, UCLA was my first choice (I actually submitted my SIR to UCLA before receiving the response from UC Berkeley). </p>
<p>Second, in response to post #16, UCLA is widely regarded as a national university, one of the top 10 in the nation in fact. On a world-wide scale, it is ranked #12 or #14 in the world. You can't get more national than this.</p>
<p>But vicissitudes, if Berkeley becomes super, super selective, it would mostlikely become a top 2/3/4/5 school for undergrad. If the people in California would then be aware that Berkeley is going to compete the best in the nation, they would also be prepared for the consequences and I think the Californains would eventually accept that.</p>
<p>In the process of Berkeley becoming super selective, the rejected ones (but still very competitive students) would go to UCLA, San Diego, ect... which are also top schools, btw. That would improve the rest of the other UC campuses even more in the the process. </p>
<p>The idea is this -- make one university in the US (or california) that would be considered -- the NATIONAL university, for the best and the brightest (creme of the crop). It would still give a little preference to top Cali residents but should also open more of its doors to top students from other States and countries.</p>
<p>
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First of all, UCLA is not for those who "are not good enough." Over the past years, thousands of students have gotten into both schools and picked UCLA over Berkeley (and of course, vice versa). For many students, it just comes down to fit. As a transfer student, UCLA was my first choice (I actually submitted my SIR to UCLA before receiving the response from UC Berkeley). </p>
<p>Second, in response to post #16, UCLA is widely regarded as a national university, one of the top 10 in the nation in fact. On a world-wide scale, it is ranked #12 or #14 in the world. You can't get more national than this.
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<p>Can we cut this please. UCLA is an excellent school, I am not denying that. However, people know that it is NOT as prestigious as Berkeley and the only reason why they would choose UCLA over Berkeley is for the money. Otherwise, Berkeley would most likely be their preferred choice. </p>
<p>Again UCLA is an excellent school but Berkeley is a more superior school than UCLA. That's the generally accepted fact here.</p>
<p>vangie,</p>
<p>That's a fact according to whom? You?</p>
<p>UCLA's reputation has grown much faster in the past couple of decades than Cal's has relative to other schools, and many of its grad programs are equal to Cal's-- the rest are nipping at its heels.</p>
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the only reason why they would choose UCLA over Berkeley is for the money.
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<p>I chose UCLA over Cal because of location, the quality of life, and the atmosphere. I actually got a slightly better fin aid package at Cal.</p>
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However, people know that it is NOT as prestigious as Berkeley
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<p>Not quite, but it's certainly narrowing the differential pretty well.</p>
<p>"That's a fact according to whom? You?"</p>
<p>According to all credible ranking surveys, whether local or internatonal surveys. </p>
<p>"UCLA's reputation has grown much faster in the past couple of decades than Cal's has relative to other schools, and many of its grad programs are equal to Cal's-- the rest are nipping at its heels."</p>
<p>that's because CAL has been very famous since the start, to begin with. In other words, as you reach the peak, it's getting harder to improve. </p>
<p>Please let's not turn this one into a Berkeley vs UCLA war thread, ok?</p>
<p>vangie,</p>
<p>You're the one saying that UCLA, which has done a good deal to improve its programs, should just be made into Berkeley's little puppy to be abused whenever.</p>
<p>The problems that you're ignoring are</p>
<ul>
<li> The US is federal. A "national" university makes no sense in a federal system.</li>
<li> UCLA may be a model for Berkeley to emulate, depending on how the next few years pan out</li>
<li> each UC sees itself as a fairly independent entity, and is unlikely to want to be relegated wholesale to some subordinate position</li>
<li> Americans are, for the most part, incredible skeptical of nationalized anything</li>
<li> Nationalizing a school is likely to HURT it more than it helps it. Look at how awful Todai is relative to top American universities.</li>
</ul>
<p>"Not quite, but it's certainly narrowing the differential pretty well."</p>
<p>See? This is what I mean -- it's peaking up but still not there yet. I'm talking of NOW, not the future because we wouldn't know what's going to happen to both schools in the future. </p>
<p>Again, UCLA is an excellent school but it is not as famous and as prestgious as Berkeley. Berkeley has a wow factor and can compete with the best private schools. I don't think people are "wowed" if you tell them you go to UCLA. Berkeley is just WOW! please get my point.</p>
<p>vangie,</p>
<p>I think you assume that wherever you're from is exactly the same as the US.</p>
<p>Look, we're all mostly Americans-- Californians even. We know from a great deal more experience than you what gets a "wow" from people. I hate to break it to you, but Berkeley is not a big "wow" in America. That sort of reaction is usually left to HPYMS and a few others. But not Berkeley. Not UCLA. </p>
<p>In terms of perception, most Californians seem to see Cal and UCLA as roughly equal in terms of quality. The rest of the country has a slightly wider differential.</p>
<p>However, what you need to get off is this little assumption that because Berkeley is some saintly body in your mind that it is in the rest of the US or even California. Look, we're not super-experts on everything here, but most of us are real-life Californians and Americans who have much better rounded perceptions of how these universities fare in the US.</p>
<p>And for the record, people ARE nominally "wowed" by UCLA. I find that dropping UCLA in conversations has gotten me some pretty nice responses. But hey, I'm only an alma mater in the state of California. ;)</p>
<p>"You're the one saying that UCLA, which has done a good deal to improve its programs, should just be made into Berkeley's little puppy to be abused whenever."</p>
<p>Well, you can interpret it that way, especially the "little puppy" term. Or, you can also interpret it with a more positive attitude. Berkeley's rise would also be UCLA's rise. I am just saying that Berkeley has to improve more so that it can compete with Harvard (for ugrad). And in the process, because the "quota" is strictly more implemented; many more bright students will be turned down. They are still bright but they are not the brightest or those types that usually go to Caltech and Harvard. The idea here is to steal those people from Caltech and Harvard and let them matriculate to Berkeley. It is easier for Berkeley to do that because it is more reputable than UCLA.</p>
<p>Who says Berkeley should serve the same purpose as Harvard? </p>
<p>After all, one of the important questions that other posters have raised is "should we really be making public university undergrad programs into private-lite?" </p>
<p>I suspect you come from a country where public = as good as or better than private. That tradition has not existed in the US, and I suspect you ought to consider that when making your argument.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it sounds to me like what you're proposing is a formal tier system, where students are almost forced to pick schools based on their stats. Americans would almost certainly never buy into that.</p>
<p>"I think you assume that wherever you're from is exactly the same as the US."</p>
<p>Show me more than 2 ranking surveys where it placed UCLA higher than CAL. I'll will wait. If can't show 2 ranking surveys that UCLA is superior to CAL, then please stop it.</p>
<p>"Who says Berkeley should serve the same purpose as Harvard? "</p>
<p>It was just an idea I thought to make Berkeley a more competitive ugrad school which I think it rightly deserves.</p>
<p>You're ignoring my argument.</p>
<p>The average American doesn't sit down and read every ranking to come to a decision as to what a school's ranking is like. They do this though more esoteric means-- perceived academic quality, academics, quality of grads, halo effects of graduate programs, location, and halo effects of sports.</p>
<p>The average American probably would give UCLA a much more noticeable reaction than Chicago, despite the fact that Chicago is almost certainly a stronger overall institution.</p>
<p>But again, you ignore my points: you cannot expect Americans-- or even Californians in particular, for that matter-- to want to create strict hierarchies of universities when they believe in a tertiary educational system that effectively eschews that. Americans value freedom of choice far too much to want the system you're proposing.</p>
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It was just an idea I thought to make Berkeley a more competitive ugrad school which I think it rightly deserves.
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<p>Why does it "deserve" it? Why shouldn't it earn it through apt management and quality programs? Berkeley doesn't deserve squat-- It earns it, and rightly so. </p>
<p>Does Harvard deserve a $20+ billion dollar endowment? Does MIT deserve to be the top stop for budding engineers? Does UCLA deserve to be the top sports school in the nation?</p>
<p>Nope. None of them "deserve" any of that. They earned it.</p>
<p>"Look at how awful Todai is relative to top American universities."</p>
<p>You keep saying Todai, what's Todai?</p>
<p>Todai = Tokyo University.</p>
<p>And before you shoot yourself to the moon and call me some Japan hater, let me explain my position.</p>
<p>Japanese universities underperform a great deal relative to other prestige universities in similar economies. For one, they have a reputation even within Japan for having extremely poor standards after admission. Scholarship is not stressed a great deal once you're there (a common euphemism for Japanese universities is "adult kindergarten."). </p>
<p>One reason, of course, is that historically Japanese high school grads were well-equipped to be shuffled along into top firms (this was prior to the economic slowdown.) That, and the bureaucratic mess that is Japanese education-- heck, I should know, I've taught in Japan and went to a Japanese university for some time.</p>
<p>I wouldn't even begin to compare Japanese universities to American universities. The quality's just not there. I'd say that the IITs blow away even the best Japanese universities.</p>
<p>"After all, one of the important questions that other posters have raised is "should we really be making public university undergrad programs into private-lite?"</p>
<p>Who is saying Berkeley should become "private-like"? I said, it should become the NATIONAL UNIVERSITY and attract the creme de la creme. If it came out to your understanding that that was I was implying, that's because it's competitors are the top privates. Berkeley's becoming a (foremost) NATIONAL university would make Harvard and Caltech cry. That's just the idea here. And please stop the UCLA thing. The people -- in general -- don't think it's that prestigious like Berkeley. You're protecting it because you are an alumnus.</p>