Berkeley's Standing

College Search & Selection
121

<p>collegeperson12, I hope you get into Stanford when you grow up, and that they will teach you humility and respect for others who make different choices from you.</p>

<p>I think Stanford must have a lot of nice things to offer students, but it would be a fool to think that the school is the be all of education. At the individual level, there are schools that are just as good, and that have a range of students and professors that equal and on occassion exceed any of the schools that get mentioned in these posts. </p>

<p>People who are so insistant that their school is better than everybody elses reek of inferiority complexes. It isn't the school, its the person that counts.</p>

122

<p>(1) Berkeley is not nearly as selective as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, or Caltech.</p>

<p>(2) The average Berkeley student is (in quantifiable measures) not as accomplished as the average HYPSMC student.</p>

<p>(3) The qualifications of the students are spread across the academic spectrum to a greater degree than at any other major selective university in the nation. </p>

<p>Many posters have written that the undergraduates at Berkeley are not “ivy-caliber.” I challenge this assertion, as I dare someone to rigorously convince me that Cornell or Penn students are somehow academically stronger than Berkeley students. The problem with this assertion lies in the academically meaningless grouping that is the “Ivy League.” There are significant differences in the measurable academic accomplishments of students at, say, Cornell and Penn, and those at, for instance, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. </p>

<p>A few posters have even said that it’s almost impossible to attain acceptance to any of the Ivy League schools even with impressive grades and board scores. I highly doubt that Cornell or Penn (excepting Wharton) would hesitate for the slightest moment before accepting most 3.9UW 1500 students who chose to apply. The same applies to Berkeley. While I agree that Berkeley is not HYP-caliber, I think it’s clear that the idea that Penn or Cornell are significantly more selective, that is, that Berkeley is not “ivy-caliber,” is tenuous at best.</p>

<p>Another problem that I noted as people were comparing schools was that few took the academic spread of Berkeley’s students into account. You truly have some of the most academically accomplished individuals (by quantifiable measures) at Berkeley, and you have a lot of them; these students are indistinguishable from the HYPSMC and the like. At the same time, and on the other hand, you have students who would not even dare to apply to Cornell’s statutory colleges, let alone HYPSMC, and who are just not prepared to attend a selective university. The problem with Berkeley is that there are also plenty of the latter students. </p>

<p>The difference between Berkeley and HYPSMC et al is not that they exist on different floors in the 80-story skyscraper that is academic rankings, but rather that the Berkeley’s section of the 79th story has its floor on the 48th. This difference is not insignificant.</p>

123

<p>I think you are overstating the number of extremely stellar Berkeley students. If you look at the hard data, there are surprisingly few Berkeley students who are of the same caliber as the top HYS students. </p>

<p>This is from a previous thread:</p>

<p>"Last year, Stanford Law accepted 34 Yale College graduates, and 2 Berkeley grads. Yeah, that's right, 2. And the average GPA was a 4.12 for the Berkeley students who got into Stanford Law. That's almost a superhuman feat. Last year, Harvard Law accepted 70 Yale College graduates, and 3 Berkeley grads."</p>

<p>If 70 Yalies got into Harvard Law and only 3 Berkeleyans got into Harvard Law, that says something about the quality of Berkeley's cream of the crop. Even though Berkeley is a huge school, the number of people at the right tail-end of the distribution is not as huge as you would think.</p>

124

<p>And I assert that the data you present is not nearly enough to support your claims. It's clear that perceived institutional prestige (and the market signalling that accompanies it) plays a role in the difference in admit rates.</p>

<p>Our data speaks nothing of ceteris paribus (w/r/t LSAT) admit rates, nothing of applicant pool makeup, nothing of the importance of perceived prestige. You have to make more than a few logical jumps to reach your conclusion.</p>

125

<p>well said 05<em>01</em>04 !</p>

126

<p>05<em>01</em>04 - you simply don't know Berkeley's reputation currently....you seem to be living off the image 20 years ago. I'm guessing you're 40-50 yrs old, am I correct?</p>

<p>The SAT score posted to the USNews is the absolute highest possible, and in reality it is far, far lower! Berkeley has a bad reputation in California because of the droves of community college transfers admitted into the UC system, including Berkeley. The actully UCB SAT average will be MUCH lower than the 1300 presumed.</p>

<p>It is well known on campus that top untenured profs are leaving berkeley for other schools, Stanford + East Coast schools. Why can't berkeley keep them? The Dean himself is frustrated by the low SAT scores imposed by board of regents via the "comprehensive review", and spoke out about it in an article.</p>

<p>If you were younger, you'd understand the reason why not many people respect Berkeley as much any more. Sure the grad schools are good, but the remaining 90% (undergrad) is quite average.</p>

127

<p>Let us get real people. Sure Cal is better at the graduate level than at the undergraduate level. But its not because its undergraduate programs are subpar, but rather, because its graduate programs are unbeatable. Cal is one of the top 3 graduate schools in the US, but it's also one of the top 6 or 7 undergraduate insitutions in the nation. Anybody who thinks otherwise is living somewhere near that "2nd star to the right!" In short, it is not possible for an institutions undergraduate programs to lag their graduate counterparts by much. </p>

<p>Some here seem to think that Cal's student body is not good enough. Well, that is not true...and even if it were, so bloody what? The faculty is punishing and only the best will survive. But like I said, it is not true. The top 70% of Cal's student body has SAT scores in the 1300-1600 range. </p>

<p>To those who say that Cal is only strong at the graduate level, get real. That's what jealous or insecure schools (and alums of schools) with weak graduate programs say. </p>

<p>At the end of the day, when academe is asked to list the top undergraduate universities in the US, Cal is always listed among the top 6 or 7.</p>

128

<p>"The top 70% of Cal's student body has SAT scores in the 1300-1600 range."</p>

<p>It's much lower than that. Thousands of students transfer from community college every quarter, and the SAT for those is much lower !</p>

129

<p>Alexadre:</p>

<p>why should you even attempt to add some reality to this thread. The con arguments are so rediculous and fact-free, they make the thread entertaining! :)</p>

130

<p>BlueBayou, I couldn't care less about Cal. In fact, since it is better than Michigan and a fellow state university, I hate Cal! LOL But we have a responsibility to help students chose universities wisely and the information on this thread is horribly wrong.</p>

<p>Golubb, I have said my piece. I need not say more.</p>

131

<p>Alexandre:</p>

<p>I concur that the info on this thread is "horribly wrong" but it is SOOOO wrong, I find it entertaining. Heck, I was cynically hopeing that this thread alone would reduce Cal's apps by 30-40k, so my kids would have a chance to get in. LOL</p>

<p>golubb:</p>

<p>which 'Dean' are you referring to?</p>

132

<p>Golubb, you've said absolutely nothing that convincingly refutes any of the (in my opinion) cautious, limited, and reasonable statements I've made. Instead of debating the facts and presenting your interpretion based on that, you needlessly condescend. </p>

<p>There is no professor exodus from Berkeley due to as you put it, the subpar SAT scores of students. The fact is that Berkeley is in an unfavorable position compared to it's private counterparts (and, w/r/t to faculty prominence, it's uncontestable that it's true peers are HYPSMC) when it comes to luring in young rising stars and raiding the faculties of other schools. That however, for the purposes, of this discussion, is neither here nor there.</p>

<p>Regarding the SAT scores that you claim are the absolute highest due to the inundation of transfer that you portray, my only rebuttal is that all we have to use as data to compare universities w/r/t board scores are the data for freshmen. Moreover, freshmen board scores are a far more accurate indicator of selectivity than the board scores of any other class. Your speculation isn't enough, especially when no school gives us the data that would either support of refute your claim.</p>

133

<p>golubb_u, </p>

<p>you really know nothing about Berkeley's reputation in academic circle. I guess you're just a high school kid who lacks exposure. Wait until you're a senior in a college and see how good Berkeley is. FYI, It's harder to get into Berkeley graduate schools than Stanford's.</p>

134

<p>Why anybody would even listen to some highschool kid (golub) is beyond me. I also love the logic behind his cc tranfer argument. He says that Cal's sat average would be much lower if you counted tranfer students. Well guess what? I think all the cc tranfers scored 1600 on their sats, which means that Cal actually has higher averages that HYP. See how fun and easy it is to prove your thesis when you're not bogged down with all that pesky factual evidence? Golub, you're a genius. I'm sure you'll do well in college.</p>

135

<p>"It's much lower than that. Thousands of students transfer from community college every quarter, and the SAT for those is much lower!"</p>

<p>What? THOUSANDS transfer to Berkeley every quarter huh?</p>

<p>What are the statistics on the number of transfers?... i guarantee it isn't 'thousands every quarter' because each class only consists of roughly 5000 students</p>

<p>regardless, you're automatically assuming that all or most CC transfers had low SAT scores... and therefore used CC as a backdoor. and you're wrong. There are countless numbers of people who attend CCs strictly for financial and other reasons. I happen to be one of them. I scored a 1410 on my SAT, but still chose to attend a community college for the first two years (I'm at Michigan now) because I went to school FOR FREE... i didn't pay for a dime. No living expenses, no nothing. I happen to finance my education myself so this was important. Apparently to many of the CC elitists, the logic with this is somehow flawed =/</p>

<p>Anyway, every other transfer I met was very similar to me. But go ahead and keep assuming CC students are inferior. For the small number that do get admitted who actually aren't qualified, odds are they aren't going to graduate. and if large numbers of these transfers weren't qualified, and therefore didn't graduate, I have reason to believe that there would be far less CC transfers admitted to the top state schools.</p>

136

<p>I drove down to the Berkeley campus this weekend, looked at books in the bookstore and went into several buildings to look at classroom condition and size. I also had the opportunity to speak with several current undergraduate students, I also dropped into a tour as it crossed the campus and asked a few questions.</p>

<p>I found the students bright and articulate, the books for courses appeared challenging. While each of the buildings I went into appeared to have one or more small auditorium sized rooms, the vast majority of rooms didn't look large enough to handle thirty students. The library is the fifth largest in the country with over 9 million books. If I heard right, under one of the park like areas are several floors of library stacks, one or more of them the size of a football field. The students agreed that they had some pretty big freshman and sophmore classes (with smaller TA led discussion groups) but in the middle of the second year they felt the class sizes got much smaller as you focused into your major. </p>

<p>The graduate schools are impressive, but it is not uncommon for graduate schools to be more selective (naturally selective, since brighter people tend to go on with additional degree work) than undergraduate. </p>

<p>Smaller schools that only take top scoring students can continue to brag about how they tend to graduate top scoring students, but I respect Public Universities that teach the top high school students and others who develop their desire for an education along a different path. If a student is doing well in community college or any other school and wants to transfer in, I say great, it doesn't weaken the school, it strengthens it.</p>

137

<p>Mr B, people trash Berkeley because of jealousy.</p>

<p>You can go to school for half the price of a private, on a great campus, in a great college town, in the SF bay area, with incredibly intelligent students of all financial backgrounds, and have fantastic college professors.</p>

<p>And the school knows there is more to brilliant students than SAT scores.</p>

<p>It's jealousy.</p>

138

<p>DStark, I agree. People are jealous of Cal. They are jealous of any top university, but a school like Cal is easy to attack because of its state university properties (slightly larger classes, research faculty, smaller endowment, slightly lower mean SAT score etc...). It would be ridiculous to attack Harvard or Stanford because they really have not Achilles heel. But schools like Cal, which are almost as good as Harvard or Stanford academically, will always inspire resentment and attract jealousy.</p>

139

<p>Golubb is a joke. The anti-Berkeley posts here don't back up any claims with comprehensive facts. Berkeley has many people ranked VERY highly, and in nearly all academic circles, Berkeley is recognized as a school that produces very talented individuals.
And those who mention that some people who don't score very high should realize that Berkeley probably drops more undergrads than any other school. If you dont do well, you're dropped. Simple as that. </p>

<p>Even so, 26% of the students who enter the university score at least 1450 on the SATI, and the avg. GPA is 4.24. </p>

<p>.25 x 25000 = 6500
That's about as many students as Harvard.</p>