Berkeley's shortcomings

<p>I love how it's 4:30 and we're all posting</p>

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No need to go so far as to describe a mathematical model. I think we get the picture.

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<p>You're no fun...:(</p>

<p>Hey, if you really want to...I'm not going to stop you.</p>

<p>incidentally, Todai is also a Japanese buffet restaurant in the LA area, it's ok, sometimes it gets a B rating from the health inspectors.</p>

<p>I agree with Fair Vangie 200% here – Berkeley is special.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong- UCLA, UCSD, Umich, and UVA etc are all great public universities, but theyre no Berkeley - they simply don’t have berkeley’s world-class name recognition, prestige, academics, alums, etc.</p>

<p>Yes, Berkeley should be preserved as the “national university” and be re-named accordingly. </p>

<p>*Berkeley-Lawrence National University *</p>

<p>like</p>

<p>Tokyo National University (#1 in japan)
Seoul National University (# 1 in s. korea)
Kim Il-Sung National University (#1 in n. korea)
Taiwan National University (#1 in taiwan)
IIT (#1 in India in tech)
.
.
.</p>

<p>"I wonder then, since Stanford law is ranked #2, why we dont see numerous stanford "leaders"?"</p>

<p>well, we did have a couple. justices o'connor and rhenquist. but, i think there's more to come!</p>

<p>"incidentally, Todai is also a Japanese buffet restaurant in the LA area, it's ok, sometimes it gets a B rating from the health inspectors."</p>

<p>:rolleyes: wait... B ratings?!</p>

<p>vangie,</p>

<p>I invented stories, or you just didn't read my post? I didn't say ALL. I said MANY. </p>

<p>Why don't I list some of the political alumni of Keio and Waseda?</p>

<p>Keio:</p>

<p>Ozawa
Koizumi
Hashimoto</p>

<p>Waseda:</p>

<p>Ishibashi
Takeshi.ta
Kaifu
Obuchi
Mori</p>

<p>I only mentioned prime ministers and one president of a major party (Ozawa.) So what did I make up?</p>

<p>Rabban I hate to say it but Berk isn't all you think it is. On the east coast Mich is considered a better school, more prestige, more name recognition, and I think it would be safe to say umich alum > berk alum. If I were going to live on the West Coast I'd take berk any day, east/midwest I'd take mich... to call either of them the national university would be a joke though.</p>

<p>LaxAttack09,</p>

<p>Wait, do you mean the alum network, or the alums themselves? If it's the latter, I think you're pushing it just a tad. The former, I'd probably agree.</p>

<p>I notice that Michigan alumni networking is quite good. That's one of its greatest strengths, and one thing the UCs need to develop.</p>

<p>I come back from school and what do I see? 100+ responses that are 90% off topic. Come on, people. :P</p>

<p>LaxAttack09:</p>

<p>"Rabban I hate to say it but Berk isn't all you think it is."</p>

<p>Perhaps it's more than you think it is.</p>

<p>"On the east coast Mich is considered a better school, more prestige, more name recognition,"</p>

<p>I'd disagree. Generally, Berkeley's more well known, both nationally and internationally.</p>

<p>"and I think it would be safe to say umich alum > berk alum."</p>

<p>That's far from safe.</p>

<p>Let's look at Berkeley's profile.</p>

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Berkeley's faculty includes 221 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 83 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 132 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 84 Sloan Fellows, and 7 Wolf Prize winners. 61 Nobel Laureates are associated with the university, the sixth most of any university in the world; twenty have served on its faculty.

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<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_faculty%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_faculty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>7,000 courses in nearly 300 degree programs.</p>

<p>The student-faculty ratio is 15.5 to 1</p>

<p>Berkeley ranks first nationally in the number of graduate programs in the top ten in their fields (97%, 35 of 36 programs) [NRC]</p>

<p>SAT Reasoning Verbal: 580 - 710 [middle 50%]
SAT Reasoning Math: 620 - 740 [middle 50%]</p>

<p>99% in top 10th of graduating class
100% in top quarter of graduating class
100% in top half of graduating class </p>

<p>Average financial aid package: $16,460</p>

<p>Student body: ~30k</p>

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Berkeley physicists played a key role in developing the atomic bomb during WWII and the hydrogen bomb soon afterwards. The University has managed the nation's two principal nuclear weapons labs (now also used for more peaceful research) at Livermore and Los Alamos ever since. Berkeley scientists invented the cyclotron, discovered the anti-proton, played a key role in developing the laser, explained the processes underlying photosynthesis, isolated the polio virus, designed experiments that confirmed Bell's Theorem, and discovered numerous elements, including Seaborgium, Plutonium, Berkelium, Lawrencium and Californium. Berkeley computer scientists are also credited with creating BSD. But Berkeley faculty have a no less distinguished record in fields outside the sciences as well, including four Fields Medal winners in mathematics, and nine recipients of the prestigious James S. McDonnell Foundation award.

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Berkeley’s 32 libraries together tie for fourth largest academic library in the United States with University of Illinois, surpassed only by the Library of Congress, Harvard, and Yale. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.

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<p>61 Nobel Laureates affiliated with the university
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_associated_with_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_associated_with_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>7 Turing Award winners
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_alumni#Turing_Award_laureates%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_alumni#Turing_Award_laureates&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Berkeley's enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued</p>

<p>... and more.</p>

<p>I'd hardly think that Berkeley would be inferior to UMich in any way. =)</p>

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The student-faculty ratio is 15.5 to 1

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<p>But the problem is that many faculty don't teach very much. In fact, some don't teach at all - they are known as "research faculty." I can think of 5 faculty members off the top of my head who haven't taught an undergraduate course in over 5 years. I'm sure others can as well. The faculty-ugrad student ratio appears to be relatively good mostly because it is artificially good.</p>

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The faculty-ugrad student ratio appears to be relatively good mostly because it is artificially good.

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Can you say differently for other academically equivalent schools? Or is this just one of those arguments that can't be refuted?</p>

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The University has managed the nation's two principal nuclear weapons labs (now also used for more peaceful research) at Livermore and Los Alamos ever since.

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Is it UC Berkeley in particular or the entire UC system? I think I've read that "the University of California" has managed the labs, meaning the UC system as a whole.</p>

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But Berkeley's name has to be saved because it is Berkeley -- a top brand name in academia.

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<p>There's no imperative as you describe it. It would be nice to think so, but nothing has to be done.</p>

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President Bush comes from Yale Law I believe. So does John Kerry. What does Berkeley's Boalt rank...11th?

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<p>Both men went to yale as undergraduates. Kerry went to Boston College law school, while Bush never went to law school (he has an MBA from Harvard business school). Also, it's helpful to cite whos rankings you use when you talk about rankings.</p>

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The faculty-ugrad student ratio appears to be relatively good mostly because it is artificially good.

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<p>Ducky Dodger said essentially what I was going to- I think that, in large part, at top research schools, the relative misleadingness of student to faculty ratios evens itself out to a great degree. How much? Not sure. But you're dreaming if you think every stanford or harvard prof teaches undergraduates every year. Now, Berkeley's ratio still isn't favorable, but it's not quite as dire as an uncritical look would make it seem.</p>

<p>"On the east coast Mich is considered a better school, more prestige, more name recognition,"</p>

<p>I'd disagree. Generally, Berkeley's more well known, both nationally and internationally.</p>

<p>Really? How many years have you lived in the east coast and midwest? I got 14 in midwest and 5 on east coast. If you have more and feel you are more qualified to answer this question please do so, if you don't I think my opinion holds a little more weight. </p>

<p>"and I think it would be safe to say umich alum > berk alum."</p>

<p>That's far from safe.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Michigan_alumni%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Michigan_alumni&lt;/a> > <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_alumni%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California%2C_Berkeley_alumni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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Can you say differently for other academically equivalent schools? Or is this just one of those arguments that can't be refuted?

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<p>It's really hard to know. You'd have to look at very specific data. Some departments at Berkeley have genuinely excellent faculty-undergrad student ratios. Others, especially the more popular ones do not.</p>

<p>LaxAttack09:</p>

<p>"Really? How many years have you lived in the east coast and midwest? I got 14 in midwest and 5 on east coast. If you have more and feel you are more qualified to answer this question please do so, if you don't I think my opinion holds a little more weight."</p>

<p>I feel I am qualified: I grew up in northern Illinois, having been to Michigan on many an occasion. (Do you honestly want to compare ages? I find that age card crap is irrelevant, especially in this situation.) Notice, though, that I said Berkeley is generally more well known nationally and internationally. See, those are adverbs that restrict the meaning of the sentence. While UMich would be more prestigious in the Midwest, etc., Berkeley is generally more well known and prestigious, across America and in other countries.</p>

<p>Your links simply prove that Berkeley and UMich are definitely neck-and-neck, and neither is really better than the other.</p>

<p>Further, you can quote using the [ quote ] tags. Look for the small tutorial on vB code on this site. (I choose simply to use quotation marks because I'm used to it.)</p>

<p>Yourzer:</p>

<p>"Is it UC Berkeley in particular or the entire UC system? I think I've read that "the University of California" has managed the labs, meaning the UC system as a whole."</p>

<p>Berkeley is often referred to as "the University of California" (or UC, or Cal), as it was the first campus of the system. The article implies that Berkeley is the one that manages the labs, but the articles for the labs imply that it's the UC in general. I'm guessing that it's primarily Berkeley, since otherwise it'd be mentioned only in the UC article and not Berkeley's.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>UC Berkeley, not UC, manages the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory.</p>

<p>Thanks for the clarification. =)</p>