BROWN VS. UC BERKELEY (CAL) help

<p>huge lectures though 300-500 ppl, cramped, intimidating...i wish i could afford brown...sigh*</p>

<p>rchen627, have you spoken w/ brown's fin aid office?</p>

<p>rchen, almost 80 percent of classes at Cal are under 30 students, and only six or seven percent are over 100.</p>

<p>GentlemanandScholar -- those kinds of statistics are pretty misleading.</p>

<p>For example, say there was a school that offered 10 classes per semester. 9 of those classes had only 10 students each, but 1 class had 100 students. The school could brag that 90% of its classes had 10 students or fewer, but at any given moment, 100/190 students, or over 50%, are in a class of 100 students.</p>

<p>...or you could put it this way:</p>

<p>During your time at Berkeley almost 80 percent of your classes will have less than 30 students in them. Either way, your point is lost on me. Those students in the 100 person class go to that once, maybe twice a week, with the rest of their 10 classes having only 10 people. So explain how having 9 out of 10 classes under 10 people is a bad thing, not matter what it looks like on paper.</p>

<p>No, GentlemanandScholar, that <em>doesn't</em> mean that during your time at Berkeley, 80% of your classes will have fewer than 30 students.</p>

<p>Because say in the hypothetical school I mentioned, everybody took two classes. Then there would be not 190 students, but 95 students. Of those 95, they would ALL be in the 100 person class (which is now a 95 person class, obviously), and then they'd each be in a small class with 10 students. So even though 90% of classes have 10 students or fewer, each student is taking 50% big classes and 50% small classes.</p>

<p>Say there is a school with 1000 students. Everyone takes 4 classes.
There is 1 class with 100 students.
There are 390 classes with 10 students.
1 x 100 = 100
390 x 10 = 3,900
100 + 3,900 = 4,000
The average class size is obviously 4,000 / 391 = 10.23, and over 99% of classes have 10 or fewer people (two ways that the school might brag to prospective students).
However, 100 out of 1000 students are taking the 100 person class, which is 10%.</p>

<p>Schools report their numbers in ways that make them look really good, but in order to distinguish between schools, you really have to do the math, and then find out about intro classes for specific departments to find out how many big classes YOU will have to take. For example, if doesn't do you any good that school's average class size is brought down by a lot of small English seminars if you are a pre-med in a school where all the intro chem, biology, and physics classes are all big lectures.</p>

<p>Also, while in general, small classes are better than large classes, some of my favorite classes at Brown so far have been:
PY55: Introduction to Sleep, about 175 students
PS105: Ethics and Public Policy, about 100 students
HI166: The Mexican Revolution, about 60 students</p>

<p>Somebody please correct my math if I'm wrong, since I haven't taken a math class since Calc last year!</p>

<p>ILoveBrown, your last post read so much like an SAT question that I broke out in hot flashes and quit reading it. However, I will post two new stats and see how you deal with them.</p>

<p>Percentage of classes with fifty or more students:</p>

<p>Brown=12 percent</p>

<p>Berkeley=15 percent</p>

<p>Percentage of classes with fewer than twenty students:</p>

<p>Brown=65 percent</p>

<p>Berkeley=58 percent</p>

<p>My whole point was to combat rchen627's statement that Cal had all huge classes and how he/she wishes she could go to Brown (implying that Brown didn't have this problem) If you can find a way in which these very similar class size numbers actually mean Brown has small classes and Berkeley has big classes, I'd be more than willing to hear it.</p>

<p>Well, that's why the SAT is useful (or used to be, before they made it more curriculum-based and less logic based). I think the reasoning in my post is pretty sound, if you read through it.</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm not saying those numbers are useless. If you have comparable numbers for different schools, you can use them to compare the schools. For example, the statistics you posted above clearly show that Cal and Brown have approximately similar proportions of large classes, while Brown has a higher proportion of fairly small classes. However, it's very important to analyze what the numbers actually mean.</p>

<p>And I'll also emphasize what I said before -- what matters less is how many big classes are offered at the school, and what matters more is what departments those classes are in and whether they're required. For example, I believe Neuro 1 at Brown (BN 1) is required only for Neurosciene majors, but a lot of pre-meds and completely non-med and non-science people take it, because it's such a great class. This class ends up being huge because it's really popular and really worthwhile, not because it's required for a lot of people. This is far preferable to a situation in which there's a class of the exact same size that is both boring and required for a lot of people, so people take it without enjoying it. I'm not trying to imply that all big classes at Brown are like Neuro 1 or that they wouldn't be at Berkeley, but that each student, when comparing two schools, should take these kinds of things into account and try to estimate what their individual experience will be rather than just looking at misleading numbers.</p>

<p>In my post above, it would be easy for someone to look at the numbers and make false conclusions. They may read in a brochure about School X with 1000 students that "over 99% of classes have only 10 students or fewer" and get excited, thinking that, since they'll only take about 32 classes, the odds are very low that they'll ever take a class over 10. However, if they had actually done the math, they'd realize that at any given time, 10% of students are in a 100 person class, and that over 8 semesters, the odds are pretty good that they'll end up in that class.</p>

<p>I'm just trying to show that many of the "facts" about Berkeley are actually fiction. I think Brown is an awesome school, but I'm sick of hearing about how schools like Brown are so much better than Berkeley because Berkeley has huge classes, while the Browns of the world has small classes. Its just not true.</p>

<p>UCB is UCB and Brown is Brown. If Engineering or west coast, then UCB does make the cut. But for a BS/Premed, Brown makes sense. The UG population very different at both places. UCB 90% CA, 40% Asians,Tech nerds. Brown you have balanced mix and more eclectic crowd: Folks from NE look at Brown vis avis Harvard Yale Columbia Penn. Open Curriculam nad IVY prestige, small student body and access to Boston/NY. It is Brown all the way.</p>

<p>ILoveBrown made some good points above. If one needs the comfort of home to buttress self-confidence, one is missing out a large part of the college experience.</p>

<p>Yeah, but don't discount the money issue. Living close to home saves a ton of cash on things like food, washing clothes, traveling home on breaks. But yeah, I agree that if you can do it, you're better off getting far away from home. It's served me pretty well!</p>

<p>I would agree with getting away from home,.. at least for a little while. It can open up a lot of things for you.</p>

<p>... you woke up a thread 2 and a half years old.</p>

<p>oh haha, i didn't even realize it was that old lol</p>

<p>i don't feel like reading all the comments posted, so i'll just share my opinion, even if it's been said already:
brown says it is in the top 5 schools for its acceptance rate for pre-meds admitted to med school, and brown of course is not one to bs statistics like that. i may be biased (considering brown is on of my top choices), but i truly believe you would be better off with brown. though berkeley may be cheaper...</p>

<p>That is funny (old thread), but it is not so odd for CA residents to look to UC schools and then put out some apps to away schools. The away experience is important, if you are comfortable with it, do it. But the money has to make sense. For us, UC would have entailed loans, but Brown gave a package of grants. So it made the most sense financially, plus dd never wanted to talk about any other school after Brown acceptance. I cried just a little once, cause UCB is so great. But I can't imagine that she could have gone to any school better suited for her than Brown. Serious.</p>