Berkeley's shortcomings

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
161

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you asked a few good questions. unfortunately that is beyond what the stats reveal. maybe a redo of data collecting?

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<p>Well, I can't exactly go out and sample students myself...it's not like I have the resources to do so...</p>

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comparing admits do not tell a whole story because as you mentioned data might be skewed because you cant test whats lowest stat a berkeley student can have and still get admitted.

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<p>That's not exactly what I said. I said that it's possible that the data is not a representative sample.</p>

<p>However, I find it hard to believe that the sample would be so skewed vertically and horizontally year after year. Unless it's only the students with the highest GPAs that are saying that they get in (which to me seems odd), then we have an interesting situation. </p>

<p>Even if there is a problem whereby the bottom deciles of reported students are too high to be representative, how much lower can they really be? Just look at the numbers of students and then extrapolate how many Berkeley is sending to med school each year. The totals suggest that we're not seeing a vast overreporting of the top deciles. </p>

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im sorry, but i study science, so i cant accept anything less than a rigorously conducted experiment, no mean to be nitpicking.

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<p>Well, I hate to break it to you, but social science does not really allow for experimenting. This is one of the inherent limits we face when trying to make models or evaluate data. I mean, not only can we not actually run a counter-factual, most of the time it's not even ethical to experiment in the social sciences.</p>

<p>But then if you think that the uncertainty is so high, why are you rejecting the null hypothesis here?</p>

162

<p>dobby, </p>

<p>[Moderator's note: personal attacks are never acceptable on CC.com]</p>

<p>i do not condone all skinner's ideas. (behavior engineering blatantly ignore free wills of people) but you cant deny some part of his ideas such as operant conditioning. maybe it has been a while since my psych class. so please enlighten me, whats the current idea of explaining one's behavior.</p>

<p>please tell me about berkeley's education of grad students? by making them slaves in labs?</p>

<p>frankly, i really fail to see what the university can do to improve undergrads without compromising research capacity of the university.</p>

163

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frankly, i really fail to see what the university can do to improve undergrads without compromising research capacity of the university.

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<p>Why does it have to be zero-sum?</p>

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<p>so im glad i didnt study social science then ;) my null hypothesis is that there is no difference in stats. so naturally i cant reject null hypothesis because of high uncertainty. (here the hypothesis is that cal students stats are higher than mean stats of accepted med students.)</p>

<p>it is possible that people with lower scores do not report. this will definitely skew the stats. i really think by lumping all cal students, it bears minimal information because of this skew. plus each school chooses students independently etc... all these uncertainty gives the distribution a broad Std deviation. i really fail to see how it is possible to extract a p-value out of this. like i said before, subdivide the data to each corresponding schools will be much helpful. and since rejection #>> acceptance #. test p-value between rejection and norm of that med school can yield the info that cal students performed as well but not being accepted. here hypothesis is rejection is significantly less than norm, and null is there is no difference.</p>

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<p>because of the three premises i put out earlier. you are welcome to add more.
alright, i worked 12 hrs at lab today, and im really exhausted. i will be back tomorrow to continue this discourse.</p>

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<p>eastcoastbound,</p>

<p>You can be smug about social science's limitations all you want, but you're engaging in it...interesting. ;)</p>

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it is possible that people with lower scores do not report. this will definitely skew the stats.

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<p>Again...this seems highly unlikely. What would allow for this much skew year after year vertically and horizontally? I think you need to demonstrate a reason here.</p>

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plus each school chooses students independently etc...

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<p>Sure, but then why is each school's average consistently high? Why is it that privates report much lower averages for med school admits?</p>

<p>It doesn't make sense to me. </p>

<p>The null should of course be that there is no difference. You're saying that there IS a difference from the mean, and that we have to reject and say that there's greater variation in the data than the sample allows (in other words, there's a greater than 5% chance that the population mean isn't 0...) So let's say that that's the case.</p>

<p>Where are these students going to come from?</p>

167

<p>Okay, let's say that the data that Berkeley reports IS heavily skewed.</p>

<p>Then it's still a bad outcome for the school! Because then the message they're sending to potential admits is that you have to work harder to get into the same med school!</p>

<p>So let's say you're someone who just KNOWS they're destined to go to med school. You only take bio and chem and whatnot because all you care about in life is becoming a doctor.</p>

<p>Why would you attend the school that is advertising that A) it grade deflates and B) it takes a higher GPA from a grade deflating school in order to get into the same med school that your other elite school peers get into with lower AND deflated grades?</p>

<p>Bad advertising, if you ask me.</p>

168

<p>UCLAri,</p>

<p>i dont see why it is unlikely that people with lowers score have low probability to report. i can only assume that career center send out a career survey and it is voluntary for people to send back their responses. (i remember receiving emails from them) This is not a very good sampling method because it has potential to be really biased since some people are too embarrassed to report. and i can see this happens year after year. if you can show me that same conclusion is reach using at least 3 different sampling methods, then i'll gladly yield my position.</p>

<p>also, when you address the null hypothesis, it is helpful to indicate with analysis i was refering to. there are two analyses:</p>

<p>1) OVERALL berkeley pre-med stats are above average of each school
2) rejected berkeley pre-med in each school is below average of that school.</p>

<p>my assumption is that 1) you cant reject the null hypothesis because the nature of this stats indicate high standard deviation. 2) you can reject the null hypothesis, and stats of the berkeley rejected population is significantly lower than of general accepted population. of course, there is not much stats to play with to reach that conclusion. but you cant extract info to say otherwise.</p>

<p>well as for advertisement, i dont think career center people use this to show potential admits how great berkeley is. they just report faithfully what responses they get. i dont see this as bad advertising but good science. berkeley GPA always holds water in med schools, thats why im kind of surprised by your claim that berkeley people need higher GPA than the grade inflated private schools to get into a med school.</p>

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<p>CalX,</p>

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[quote]
About office hours, which you complained about, the student survey showed that 78.5% of Berkeley students are satisfied with the availability of their faculty outside of class. We can still do better, but the current situation is not quite that bad.

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<p>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. </p>

<p>One of the biggest problems I see with office hours is that often, professors are overburdened by students because there are simply too many students waiting in line. How can a student say anything meaningful and truly establish a relationship if s/he is being pushed out the door in less than 5 minutes because other students are waiting? Mind you, these are the professors who actually bother to have office hours. Many do not.</p>

<p>The end result is that professors who do have regular office hours, are nice people, and like talking to students, sometimes end up writing an unreasonable amount of letters of recommendation. For example, I'm friends with a professor who wrote 70ish letters of recommendations this past fall. I have no way of knowing how personalized the letters were, but I get the impression that they weren't very personal and we all should know that that's a bad thing. When you consider that other professors in the same department probably wrote no letters because they simply refuse to interact with undergrads, you should realize that there is a problem here. If you don't want to teach, you shouldn't be allowed to become part of the "teaching faculty." It's that simple.</p>

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Isuue two - I think it's commendable that Birgeneau is striving to preserve socio-economic and ethnic diversity at Cal. I don't think it is a Berkeley shortcoming that it has more economically disadvantaged undergraduates than the entire Ivy League, I actually think it is a great positive and am proud of this. I really loved the fact that in my dorm, the crown prince of a European monarchy lived next to the son of Mexican migrant workers. "Excellence and Diversity" is Cal's unofficial motto.

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<p>Look, I'm not saying "diversity" isn't important. I think it's a very important issue and I'm in favor of having a "diverse" student population. What I'm opposed to is "diversity" being the single most important issue. We should not pretend that it is not Birgeneau does not care about "diversity and inclusion" above all else (except research and grad students) - he was hired precisely because of his record of increasing "diversity" at other top schools. Almost every time I've seen anything written, said, or done by him related to undergrads, it's about "diversity." And mind you, I'm pretty well versed in "Birgeneau studies."</p>

<p>Now of course, he doesn't have a whole lot of power just by himself to carry out his "diversity"-related goals. In fact, I'm not even sure if he actually values "diversity" as much as he says. He may simply be acting as a spokesman for the Berkeley establishment. There's no real way of knowing unless you're a true insider. But the point is, Birgeneau plays a huge role in setting the agenda. Right now, virtually all of the points on his undergrad-related agenda appear to be related to "diversity." I think that's unacceptable.</p>

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One of the biggest problems I see with office hours is that often, professors are overburdened by students because there are simply too many students waiting in line. How can a student say anything meaningful and truly establish a relationship if s/he is being pushed out the door in less than 5 minutes because other students are waiting? Mind you, these are the professors who actually bother to have office hours. Many do not.

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<p>Some of the worst examples I've seen are profs who hold their office hours at a time when they KNOW that nobody can come. For example, certain majors, particularly engineering, have classes that students have to take in lockstep. For example, in the past ChemE 141 had to be taken along with ChemE 150B in the same semester, if you want any prayer of graduating on time (although the locking sequence might be different nowadays). So if you are a ChemE 141 prof who just doesn't want to interact with the students, you can deliberately hold your office hours at the same time as ChemE 150B, knowing full well that nobody will be able to come unless they are willing to skip the other class.</p>

171

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[quote]
People are rational, but 17 year olds will not always make informed decisions. A 17-year old using this board to decide between Berkeley and other top schools is more likely to be swayed to go elsewhere, in part because you have megathreads titled "Berkeley's shortcoming" in stark contrast with boards from other schools with less active dissenting insider voices.

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<p>Well, I'll put it to you this way, CalX. If Berkeley were to actually fix its shortcomings, then there would be fewer dissenters. </p>

<p>You're just playing a game of 'shoot the messenger'. We're just talking about the shortcomings of Berkeley. We didn't create the shortcomings. It's not our fault the shortcomings exist.</p>

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it has potential to be really biased since some people are too embarrassed to report.

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<p>Why would someone be too embarrassed to report a lower GPA if they got into med school? That seems a bit odd to me. Why would they care? Besides, it's anonymous. </p>

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i dont think career center people use this to show potential admits how great berkeley is. they just report faithfully what responses they get. i dont see this as bad advertising but good science. berkeley GPA always holds water in med schools, thats why im kind of surprised by your claim that berkeley people need higher GPA than the grade inflated private schools to get into a med school.

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<p>Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that med schools look at the average Berkeley med school applicant and think that way? Med school admission is largely a numbers game. All they care about is you having a high GPA. </p>

<p>Even IF it's the case that Berkeley students have to have the same GPA as average admits nationwide, that still means that Berkeley students have a crappy deal-- they have to work harder anyway!</p>

<p>You go on and on about "good science" but you don't realize that this isn't about good science. If the only thing that mattered in the world was good science, then Berkeley's student body would be superpowered. But it's not. Whether you like it or not, there are a lot of students who are going to see those stats and say, "Holy crap...you need to work EXTRA HARD to get into med school at Cal. I'm going to _______ instead."</p>

<p>Bad, bad idea.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
For Princeton students, they only need a 3.4 - 3.5 to get into med schools, even though it's EASIER to get HIGHER grades at Princeton. I had trouble finding data for this...but I did find a passage on their advising website that strongly suggest the number I cited is pretty accurate

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<p>Ask and ye shall receive.</p>

<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/handouts/admit_stats.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/handouts/admit_stats.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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thats why im kind of surprised by your claim that berkeley people need higher GPA than the grade inflated private schools to get into a med school.

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<p>Uh, that's what the data seems to bear out. Fro example, even if we are restricting ourselves to the UC medical schools, Princeton premeds require LOWER GPA's, on average, than do Berkeley premeds. For example, in the last few years, the average Princeton premed admitted to UCSF Medical School had a 3.73. The average Berkeley premed admitted to UCSF Medical School had about a 3.87. See the links above, posted by myself and vicissitudes and you can verify this for yourself.</p>

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and i already concede that berkeley undergrad program may not be best services one can get. im sorry to say but weeding is one way we keep our students competitive in upper classes. i have no idea why they are accepted. if it is up to me, berkeley admission would be much stricter and use a graduate school admission style, which letters of recommendation trump stats.

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<p>Aha, so at least we agree on something.</p>

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Well, I'll put it to you this way, CalX. If Berkeley were to actually fix its shortcomings, then there would be fewer dissenters. </p>

<p>You're just playing a game of 'shoot the messenger'. We're just talking about the shortcomings of Berkeley. We didn't create the shortcomings. It's not our fault the shortcomings exist.

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<p>Who is "we"? You and dobby? dobby is complaining about office hours, but from what I understand she is a freshman who has only been on campus for one full semester. Her experience will change significantly as class sizes become smaller later, in the next three years. </p>

<p>You seem to have a very strong personal bias against Berkeley, your posts about Berkeley are overwhelmingly negative. The "positive" ones are back-handed compliments such as the one saying it is in the top 1% of ALL colleges in the US. While the shear volume of your posts is huge, that in itself does not mean that your views are representative of the Berkeley experience. </p>

<p>For instance, 78.5% of Berkeley students are actually satisfied with their level of access to the faculty outside of class. If you didn't have an agenda, you wuold have stated that outside of that one Chem E prof the overwhelming majority of profs are accessible. That is the experience of the great majority of Berkeley students. But instead, you present the isolated case of the worst possible anecdote and by doing so are willingly presenting Berkeley in the worst possible light.</p>

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[quote]
so for undergrads, it is their responsibility to explore these opportunities. it is unique about berkeley because berkeley is a public university which means it has to serve the people of california, so that the students body is naturally more diversed (in term of their socio-economic status and etc. and probably not geographically or racially) than private schools and personal support is less.

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<p>I have always wondered what it means for Berkeley to have to serve the people of California. After all, Berkeley's graduate programs are public (in the sense that they do get state funding). Yet many of them don't really 'serve the people of California'. There are Berkeley PhD programs that haven't admitted a single California state resident in years. Granted, these PhD students often times later BECOME state residents (because it is fairly easy to become a state resident if you're a funded PhD student that is over the age of 24, which is generally the age of many PhD students), but they weren't state residents when they got admitted. It's not like those PhD programs have lower standards to admit candidates who are from California. They're not going around turning down top candidates from other states/countries because they have to reserve spots for less qualified Californians. </p>

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personally, i find this comparison of berkeley to other top schools pointless. frankly, undergrad education does not mean much in one's professional career.

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<p>Oh yeah? What if you don't even graduate? Only 87% of Berkeley undergrads will actually complete their degree, whereas that figure is well into the 90's for the top private schools. Putting aside those people who simply drop out because they find something better to do (which private schools have too - i.e. Bill Gates), plenty of Berkeley students either don't graduate because they either flunk out, or they are dissatisfied with the experience. How is not even graduating helpful to your career at all? Certainly, not even graduating does nothing towards helping you go to graduate school. </p>

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I was obviously referring to the Bay Area economy, which is a world leader in technology. Berkeley is at the heart of that economy. MIT and Harvard are the engines of the Boston economy, which is far less influential on the global or national scale

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<p>Like dobby said, first of all, I would not characterize Berkeley as being at 'the heart of the Bay Area economy'. Stanford has a far stronger claim to that mantle.</p>

<p>Second of all, you seem to be far too obsessed with regionalism anyway. The truth of the matter is, Harvard and MIT grads move all over the place, including, yes, to Silicon Valley. In the case of MIT, frankly, I would argue that MIT actually has a stronger claim to the mantle of tech business leadership than Berkeley does. After all, MIT has just as much of a claim on Intel as Berkeley does (as co-founder Robert Noyce came from MIT). HP, the first true Silicon Valley company, was co-founded by an MIT grad (Bill Hewlett). MIT grads founded Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Lotus, 3Com and Genentech. And that's just the companies that weren't even founded in Massachusetts. If you want to add the Massachusetts companies too, the list gets even longer. Berkeley, by comparison, can't really match that. </p>

<p>Now, if you want to bring Harvard into the mix, well, Harvard obviously has a long and distinguished list of business leadership. To just give you one topical example, Harvard (along with Stanford) dominates Silicon Valley venture capital. Heck, the modern venture capital industry started with Georges Doriot who, you guessed it, is a Harvard graduate. Frankly, you find far far more Harvard grads than Berkeley grads as partners in Silicon Valley venture capital firms. For example, the top VC firm in the world is probably Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Perkins and Caufield went to Harvard (Perkins also went to MIT). NONE of them went to Berkeley. </p>

<p>And that's just Silicon Valley venture capital. Obviously if you want to include Boston venture capital, or New York investment banking, or general management consulting, I think there is little comparison to be made between Berkeley and Harvard. Sad but true. </p>

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Furthermore, any financial windfall on campus will have ramifications elsewhere as it will affect the bottom line, and thus affect the entire university.

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<p>I think the key here is that it's all relative. Berkeley is supposed to be competing against the top private schools. And frankly, the top private schools earn more than $500 million a year ** on just interest alone * from their endowment. For example, Harvard is sitting on a $30 billion endowment. Even if they were to stash that bundle into super-safe 2-year Federal bonds (which I assure you, they are not doing), they would earn about $1.5 billion dollars a year just on the interest. And of course, Harvard wouldn't just be earning interesting. Harvard would be collecting more and more donations during all that time. </p>

<p>But the point is this. Yes, the $500 million donor is of course a good thing. But Berkeley still has to do a lot of climbing to do to catch up to the financial resources of the top privates. The sad fact is that once a school (like Harvard) has built a huge endowment, it's almost impossible to catch up, because the interest alone will keep propelling it further and further ahead. </p>

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i can easily refute that schools like MIT or Harvard take berkeley undergrads lightly. this year MIT bio department send out interview invitation to roughly 100 people and 5 of us are from berkeley.

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<p>Uh, I hardly see what that demonstrates. Given Berkeley's huge size as well as the popularity of the MCB program (the most popular program at Berkeley), Berkeley better have some people getting into the top bio grad programs. Sheer numbers would dictate that this be the case. Berkeley has something like 500 MCB grads a year (and another 200 from Integrative Biology, and another about 50 from the CNR 'bio' majors like Microbial Biology and Genetics/Plant Biology). Hence, that's about 750 total bio graduates a year coming out. MIT graduates only about 1000 total new grads a year from the undergrad program, from ALL MAJORS. Sheer numbers would dictate that Berkeley bio students should therefore be dominating the ranks of the top bio programs. To nab only 5 out of 100 letters from the MIT bio grad program? Frankly, I'm not impressed, considering the sheer numbers of Berkeley bio grads. </p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/comm-main.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/comm-main.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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so please stop blaming your own school, and ask yourself do you really deserve to be in berkeley.

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<p>That's pretty harsh, don't you think. You can talk about how the students bear some responsibility for their own success, and of course that is true. But the school does too. I have seen many Berkeley students who didn't get what they wanted (either their desired grad school or job or whatever) who probably could have done better if they had simply gone to another school that offered better support.</p>

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Who is "we"? You and dobby? dobby is complaining about office hours, but from what I understand she is a freshman who has only been on campus for one full semester. Her experience will change significantly as class sizes become smaller later, in the next three years.

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<p>We being, as a subset, myself, dobby, vicissitudes, UCLAri. Probably also DRab and slicmlic, if they care to chime in. </p>

<p>I'm sure dobby will come in to correct you, but I think it bears to mention, dobby is a 'he'. </p>

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You seem to have a very strong personal bias against Berkeley, your posts about Berkeley are overwhelmingly negative. The "positive" ones are back-handed compliments such as the one saying it is in the top 1% of ALL colleges in the US. While the shear volume of your posts is huge, that in itself does not mean that your views are representative of the Berkeley experience.

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<p>And your views are representative? If you say that I am highly negatively biased towards Berkeley, then I could say that you are highly positively biased towards Berkeley. So what's the point?</p>

<p>All I know is that a bunch of people here agree with me. </p>

<p>And besides, let's suppose it's true that my complements about Berkeley are 'back-handed', as you say they are. So what? When was the last time you criticized Berkeley, even in a 'back-handed' fashion? At least I will say positive things about Berkeley. You don't say anything negative about Berkeley. So who's REALLY being biased here? </p>

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For instance, 78.5% of Berkeley students are actually satisfied with their level of access to the faculty outside of class. If you didn't have an agenda, you wuold have stated that outside of that one Chem E prof the overwhelming majority of profs are accessible. That is the experience of the great majority of Berkeley students. But instead, you present the isolated case of the worst possible anecdote and by doing so are willingly presenting Berkeley in the worst possible light.

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<p>I'm not sure you can conclude much from that 78.5% figure. After all, as has been hashed out here on this thread, plenty of Berkeley students are not interested in going to office hours anyway. So to them, their level of access would be 'satisfactory' even if they had no access. </p>

<p>Look, if all you are going to do is present Berkeley in the best possible light, then I think it is my job to counteract you. This is all about getting a balanced point of view. I have defended Berkeley on numerous occasions where I felt the criticism was getting too slanted. Hence, I have attempted to restore the balance. Can you say the same? Have you ever criticized Berkeley when the praise was becoming too effusive?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Who is "we"? You and dobby? dobby is complaining about office hours, but from what I understand she is just a freshman. Her experience will change significantly as class sizes become smaller later, in the next three years.

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<p>First of all, I am a second year male. My experience as a Berkeley undergrad has been extremely good, essentially because I am one of those "determined" people . But unlike you and eastcoastbound, I realize that my experience is by no means representative of the experience most Berkeley students get. I think that's unacceptable. I think that if Berkeley cared even a little more about its undergrads, a friend of mine who works his ass off in EECS wouldn't be under threat of expulsion.</p>

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<p>UCLAri,</p>

<p>if you look closely at the stats:
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.html#connecticut%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.html#connecticut&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>can you honestly reject the null hypothesis? with small number of berkeley students accepted to each school, you think the difference in means is meaningful? like i said before, only way to test this in a rigorous manner is to compare berkeley students that are rejected to each program and average acceptance of each program, because these r two distinct populations with large enough bases. </p>

<p>as for what a potential admit would think, we are mere scientists, statisticians. we can interpret the data and you social scientists can debate about the meaning. we only can tell you when your claim is beyond the information the data can give you.</p>