<p>I don't get this argument about grad and undergrad peer assesment. We already know that two of the undergrad programs (business and engineering) are ranked in the top three using peer assesment, and we know as a whole, Cal is ranked sixth (I believe) in peer assesment, so I don't see how you could argue that undergrad programs wouldn't be ranked just as high as grad programs if they used only peer assesment. It right there in front of you. Now, you could argue that peer assesment is pointless, but thats a whole other subject.</p>
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Lol, sakky, that's a new reach, Berkeley students overcoming their environment as Fred Douglass overcoming slavery. That's a new low in terms of your low blows...
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<p>And what did I say immediately afterwards? I said that this was just an analogy. Yet you seem to make a habit of never carefully reading what I post and taking words out of context. </p>
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Other than EECS flunkies who were both too dumb/lazy to clear the bar and too thick to not take a different route and ended up not being able to transfer out, there is no basis for your continuous bashing of Berkeley. Not class sizes, not access to faculty, not campus environment.
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<p>Aha, so now I see the truth coming out. You dismiss students who do poorly as all being dumb and lazy. And people say that I am the elitist? How about having some compassion for students who aren't doing well? </p>
<p>Furthermore, this doesn't address the question of why is it that other dumb and lazy students at Berkeley can do well enough to graduate just because they happen to choose an easy major? Hence, it's not a simple matter of being dumb and lazy. Let's face it. The Berkeley football and basketball team aren't exactly filled with future Nobel Prize winners. Yet most of them manage to stay academically eligible to play and a good fraction of them even manage to graduate (those that don't leave early to play pro ball, that is). </p>
<p>Hence, it's not just a matter of being dumb and lazy (if that is indeed what is happening). It happens to do with being dumb, lazy, AND choosing a difficult major that will cause you to have serious academic difficulties. </p>
<p>And besides, even if your assertion is true and these students are dumb and lazy, then that only begs the question of why is it that Berkeley is admitting all these dumb and lazy students? Wouldn't everybody be better off if Berkeley simply didn't admit them? </p>
<p>Any way you cut it, Berkeley has some culpability here. Either Berkeley is not properly helping these students out. Or Berkeley shouldn't be admitting them in the first place. </p>
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The issues with Berkeley all have to do with the fact that it's perhaps the only mass elite institution in the US. No other school has the same standards, undergraduate or graduate, with the same size student body (one could make an argument for Michigan.) But you know what? Those standards are higher than those of all but a handful of US colleges, and being large and more inclusive also means that the educational experience is in many ways richer that that of those other schools with same standards, or those of schools with lower academic standards that get ranked above Berkeley in the USNWR.
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<p>No, actually, Berkeley is really TWO institutions. Not one. Most Berkeley undergrads have no chance at getting into Berkeley for grad school. The undergrad experience is quite different from the grad experience. In short, the grad experience is everything that I wish the undergrad experience could be.</p>
<p>Nor is the Berkeley experience 'inclusive' at the graduate ranks. The Berkeley graduate programs are extremely selective, far more so than the undergraduate program is. The vast majority of applicants to the Berkeley graduate programs get turned down. And most Berkeley graduate programs are quite small. It is precisely this sort of small-program environment that serves to enrich the Berkeley graduate experience. </p>
<p>Heck, CalX, since you're a Haas MBA graduate, you should know EXACTLY what I am talking about. You and I both know that Haas markets itself as offering a small intimate environment. Are you saying that this marketing is wrong? </p>
<p>Look, the simple fact is that complaints have come again and again from the undergrad student body that the undergrad experience is simply too large and too impersonal. These complaints are not new. They have been voiced for years. Hence, whatever you might say about the 'richness' of the experience that size may impart, I think it is clear to most people that Berkeley has gone too far in that direction and probably would be better served by developing a more intimate environment. Things needs to be done to improve the undergraduate experience. This is why I have always pushed for tighter ties between the undergrad and the grad programs. That is why I push for greater flexibility to choose majors. Capped majors only used to be a problem in engineering and Haas. Now I see that the problem has spread to some of the L&S majors. If this problem is left alone, then I can see a day where most of the majors at Berkeley would be capped. And that would be a shame. Berkeley needs to do something to break these caps.</p>
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I don't get this argument about grad and undergrad peer assesment. We already know that two of the undergrad programs (business and engineering) are ranked in the top three using peer assesment, and we know as a whole, Cal is ranked sixth (I believe) in peer assesment, so I don't see how you could argue that undergrad programs wouldn't be ranked just as high as grad programs if they used only peer assesment. It right there in front of you. Now, you could argue that peer assesment is pointless, but thats a whole other subject.
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<p>Then let me explain it to you. </p>
<p>Take English. What is the 'peer ranking' of Berkeley undergrad English? And in particular, imagine trying to rank these following 5 English undergrad programs in order, from best to worst: Berkeley, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and Wellesley. </p>
<p>See, that's the biggest problem right there. Right now, the peer assessments as they exist do not offer a way to compare research universities vs. LAC's. But why not? After all, we're just talking about undergraduate programs, and both universities and LAC's offer undergraduate programs. So why shouldn't they be compared? Why can't there be a system that assesses whether English at Williams is better or worse than English at Berkeley? Both schools offer a BA program in English. So why shouldn't the rankings compare them? This is an issue with the USNews undergraduate ranking that I have never liked. </p>
<p>Obviously it makes perfect sense to exclude LAC's in graduate program rankings for the simple reason that most LAC's don't even have graduate programs. But if we are talking about undergraduate programs, the LAC's almost always have that. So why shouldn't they all be compared against each other?</p>
<p>sacky, get a damn life.</p>
<p>Those are old rankings, though. We've since dropped to #6 in the 2005 rankings.</p>
<p>Sakky, will you at least look at the undergrad rankings for business and engineering? Don't they teach business and engineering at LACs? Yet they somehow managed to rank those departments. Like I said, feel free to argue over the merits of peer rankings, but there is really no argument about what Cal would be ranked based soley on the criteria that grad is ranked. The peer ranking is already there, you just need to look at it.</p>