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<p>I assume that these are the accepted numbers – not matriculants? (Check back when the official CDS is published in the fall.)</p>
<p>Cal for CS? What. There’s just no contest outside MIT/Stanford/CMU/Cornell/Caltech. Take the opportunity.</p>
<p>Would the social opportunities at Cal be greater? Also consider the male/female ratios of each university.</p>
<p>violet1996, I dont mean this is disrespect but curiosity but can you tell me how Cal is superior in engineering? Is it the staff? </p>
<p>@thelianking: How could anyone in this thread think that RPI compares to Berkeley when it comes to ComSci?</p>
<p>Here’s the starting salary data:</p>
<p>RPI: <a href=“Students | Career and Professional Development”>Students | Career and Professional Development;
<p>Berkeley EECS: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a>
Berkeley L&S CS: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm</a></p>
<p>Sure, there’s year-by-year variation, but I don’t think that alone accounts for the $20k/yr+ starting salary variation.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s best days may be behind it, but it still dominates- especially when it comes to Computer Science. There are four really, really good programs when it comes to ComSci (and they’ve been the top 4 for as long as anyone can remember, although Cornell/Caltech/etc. obviously aren’t out of the running either): Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon… and the University of California at Berkeley. EECS is absolutely legendary when it comes to rigor (sure, grad students might show up instead of the professor, and sure there’s going to be some huge classes… but in the end EECS is indisputably challenging). The kids in Berkeley EECS and L&S CS, from my experience, are the cream of the crop and an incredible bunch to be around.</p>
<p>I mean, Berkeley and Stanford kind of built this place called Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>And the part that stands out to me the most- until I was midway through my college search, I’d never heard of RPI. On the other hand, Cal-Berkeley’s one of six American universities that have a strong global brand (<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efkk45gkfe/the-worlds-most-reputable-universities/#gallerycontent”>http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efkk45gkfe/the-worlds-most-reputable-universities/#gallerycontent</a>). A Berkeley degree is one the very, very few that’s going to help someone in places like Hong Kong- which grew under massive British/etc. influence and aren’t familiar with any American universities, except for a few which are well-represented in their businesses.</p>
<p>They’re absolutely incredible- it’s 2014, 123 years since the founding of one of the best American private universities- Stanford- and Berkeley, a public university, has still not been overshadowed by its massive neighbor with 6 times the endowment. Instead, Berkeley- unlike Rutgers, Penn State, and even UVa- has gained representation in the uppermost echelon of the American scientific/research community, been involved in iconic projects like the Manhattan Project, and- well- I can’t seem to find Renneslaerium on the periodic table. Their history is just legendary, and now they’re on the cutting edge of computer science, running a program very similar to a lean startup.</p>
<p>Outside MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cornell, Caltech, and maybe Harvard, Berkeley really has no competition. I’m surprised anyone here (except for the RPI alumni) even places Cal and RPI in the same tier.</p>
<p>Edit: Sure, the reputation might vary depending on whether you’re on the East Coast (speaking as a Texan, Berkeley sure has a solid reputation here while RPI is one of those “where is that again?” schools)… but the peak of the tech industry is all in the Bay Area. Even businesses created by East Coast entrepreneurs (Facebook and Microsoft) end up on the West Coast- simply because the area has the best concentration of venture capitalists (who can choose where they want to live, since business follows them, and I wouldn’t fault them for choosing someplace with good weather).</p>
<p>@dividerofzero I absolutely agree in the sense that Cal is very reputable globally and RPI does not come close. I just keep hearing that RPI is a good engineering school, and when I looked at their entrance stats, it just seems to the untrained eye, I guess, that the incoming students are very similar. Starting salary also seems very similar with RPI too. So I was wondering if it was the faculty of engineering (not just compsci) that put it at the top. Also, supposedly, CMU placed RPI as a peer school which I thought was interesting. Thanks!</p>
<p>@thelianking I don’t know how CMU determines peer schools, but they’re kind of aggressive when it comes to surveys and this year’s emphasized other schools we applied to/chose CMU over. Based on the c/o 2018 group thread, it seems like a bunch of us picked CMU over RPI. Idk, though- it might also be based on general feel, engineering focus, or maybe even budget and facilities.</p>
<p>As for professors, yeah, Berkeley should have a ton of good professors- I remember Manuel Blum being there until 1999 (when CMU stole him; now he teaches undergrad complexity theory in 15-455… he invented the subject and got the Turing for it).</p>
<p>@dividerofzero do you attend Cal?</p>
<p>@thelianking Nope. CMU. Hence the reference to our c/o 2018 thread.</p>
<p>@dividerofzero Oh haha. How’s the coursework there? Is it very heavy?</p>
<p>@thelianking I haven’t experienced it yet, but classes like 15-251 (discrete math, iirc) are known to crush people- a sophomore just commented “You don’t prepare yourself for 15-251. You prepare your body for 15-251.” I don’t think any ECE or CS class at one of the big programs is going to be easy, and we do have a reputation as “Pittsburgh’s last steel factory,” as described by graduate (and current CEO of Reddit) Yishan Wong:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.quora.com/Why-would-someone-choose-Carnegie-Mellon-over-Harvard”>http://www.quora.com/Why-would-someone-choose-Carnegie-Mellon-over-Harvard</a></p>
<p>But we do trade away Berkeley’s cutthroat competition for perpetually rainy weather.</p>
<p>Umm, RPI is considered to be one of the best STEM schools in the world (Times of London ranking). Obviously, Berkeley is an outstanding program as well. No need to denigrate one to promote the other.</p>
<p>@dividerofzero Oh, I see. I would prefer CMU over Cal. That cutthroat competition is what I’ve strongly of. Good luck to you over there. Hopefully, you can manage it well</p>
<p>Cal’s reputation is based on its graduate, professional, and research programs, which are absolutely top-notch. As for Cal’s undergraduate programs, I’d rate them as similar to those of any other good state flagship. </p>
<p>If Berkeley grads make more money than RPI grads, it’s likely because Berkeley grads stay in the SF/Silicon Valley area. Pay is high, but so is the cost of living.</p>
<p>@simba9 most good CS grads working for a tech company end up there anyway. I would be surprised if SV weren’t one of the top two destinations for a good CS program.</p>
<p>@LakeWashington Not denigrating. Just giving my fair opinion that Cal just has things RPI doesn’t. </p>
<p>@thelianking thanks. Berkeley’s competition can’t be too bad. Most of their grads come out much stronger and all the horror stories I’ve heard end in triumph. Their program is unique and the location is to die for. </p>
<p>I’m sure a handful of RPI CS grads come out here to the Bay Area right after school, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to make any salary comparison meaningful.</p>
<p>When I lived in New York, IBM in the Mid-Hudson Valley would suck up a lot of RPI’s CS graduates.</p>
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<p>Discrete math and CS theory courses often do tend to be a shock to CS majors whose math experience has mostly been in less-proof-oriented math courses (typical frosh/soph level calculus and linear algebra).</p>
<p>The kind of student who would take advanced proof-oriented math courses like real analysis and abstract algebra would probably find these courses easy, but others may find them to be among the more difficult courses that a CS major includes.</p>
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<p>Berkeley is not really cutthroat other than specific courses and subjects like those loaded with pre-meds or those required for students to apply to the competitive-admission business major.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus as always, thanks for the corrections/insight; what about EECS? Is that cutthroat? I only got to talk to a few non-EECS people when I went to the campus, so I didn’t get an insider’s view.</p>
<p>EECS would not be cutthroat in the way that courses taken by pre-business or pre-med students would be, since students are already in the major. There is also an L&S CS major that requires a 3.0 GPA in prerequisite courses to declare, but the introductory CS courses do not grade on a curve, so there is no advantage to cutthroat behavior of trying to sabotage your classmates in the introductory CS courses.</p>