<p>Additionally, is either UCLA or Cal more of a regional school than the other?</p>
<p>After graduation, if I go to UCLA am I more apt to get a job in Los Angeles whereas if I go to Berkeley the job will be anywhere?</p>
<p>I am from San Diego and kinda afraid of being "stuck" in Southern California all my life.</p>
<p>Well, at least in Japan, UCLA is seen as "cool" in a cutting-edge, savvy sort of way. It has a business appeal. Berkeley has a more academic "nerdy" appeal. Both are seen as excellent institutions, and both have a good name over there.</p>
<p>And yes, of course Cal is at the top.</p>
<p>I'll be working in DC after I'm done with my MA (from UCSD, no less.) Is that far enough out of SoCal for you? :)</p>
<p>Haha yeah DC would do.</p>
<p>I know that have a better knowledge of Japan, but is there any way you can project how the differences are viewed in Europe? Right now I'm assuming that it would be relatively the same.</p>
<p>Most of the Euros I've met see both as about the same if they know them at all.</p>
<p>Euros' opinion from Times of London</p>
<p>I say Berkeley is pretty well known in some european circles.</p>
<p>it may not matter much to us, but in other parts of the world, that thes ranking is very influential, esp in asia. it may be a debatable ranking system, but it's already been established in many other places as the major university ranking system. </p>
<p>thus, the fact that berkeley is in the top 10 speaks volumes about its prestige in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Not necessarily.</p>
<p>You're trying to make an argument about an endogenous variable with another endogenous variable. It may be that you have two different issues here altogether.</p>
<p>Well then, if the Time of London list is no good, anecotely, in my parts of the woods, Berkeley is always ranked higher than UCLA. No logical reason, just the way it is.</p>
<p>Here is a listing of Universities with the highest number of graduate programs in the top 10...</p>
<ol>
<li> UC Berkeley (35)</li>
<li> Stanford (31)</li>
<li> Harvard (26)</li>
<li> Princeton (22)</li>
<li> MIT (20)</li>
<li> Cornell (19)</li>
<li> Yale (19)</li>
<li> Chicage (18)</li>
<li> Penn (15)</li>
<li>UCSD (14)</li>
<li>Columbia (14)</li>
<li>Michigan (14)</li>
<li>Misconsin (14)</li>
</ol>
<p>This is from UC Berkeley's hand out based on some "Endogenous" inputs and variables. Like it or not, list like this carries a lot of weight in Europe and Asia. By the way, I see UCSD, but not UCLA.....I know, I know, just a cheap shot.</p>
<p>Peace</p>
<p>ev700,</p>
<p>I don't see how that has anything to do with this argument, but I never argued otherwise.</p>
<p>Besides, why do you think I go to UCSD for grad school?</p>
<p>But prestige is not based solely on graduate programs. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Wisconsin is more prestigious than Caltech, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Duke. That list is not normalized for the size of the program. I bet that if you normalized it, it would look very different.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Here is a listing of Universities with the highest number of graduate programs in the top 10
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, actually, we should be clear in saying that it's the highest number of programs * as counted by the NRC *. Personally, I think the NRC has a rather odd way of counting. Specifically:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Why exactly are Biological Sciences broken up into 7 different "programs", but other fields like economics or mathematics or computer science only counted as one program each? Seems to me that if you want to unpack biology into a host of discrete "programs", the same can be done for other fields too. After all, it's not like there are 7 times more people getting PhD's in Biological Sciences than there are in some of those other fields.</p></li>
<li><p>Plenty of other fields aren't even counted at all. Why not? For example, what about business doctoral programs? Or public policy? Or organizational behavior? Or education? I would argue that far more people are getting doctorates in these fields than in, say, in geography (which is one of the NRC program categories). </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The point is, I'm not sure that you can truly conclude that simply having the 'highest' number of ranked programs within the NRC is the mark of quality that it seems to be. Plenty of other schools happen to offer top-ranked doctoral programs in fields that the NRC simply chose not to include.</p>
<p>Sakky I think that if the NRC split up economics, mathematics, and computer science into "programs" It would be even more beneficial to Berkeley... look at U.S. News, Berkeley is in the top 3 for 5 out of the eight specialty areas in mahtematics, with the other three most likely in the top ten. In Computer Science Berkely is ranked in the top three for 3 out of 4 specialty areas. In Economics, according to U.S. News Berkeley is ranked in the top three for two out of 8 specialty areas and I would bet in the top ten for most the others. You can complain about how the NRC chose to organize there study, why they chose to specialize some subjects and not others, but in the end I think most academics will agree that the NRC report is the most reputable report on grad education in the U.S. I don't think the way that the NRC organized there report beniffited or penalized Berkeley any more than any other comprehensive grad school. Anyway the new NRC report due this coming Fall is much more comprehensive I believe than the last one- we will see how Berkeley does in there new way of ranking. I usually don't agree with U.S. News but if you go to there website I was truy surpised how many specialty areas Berkeley was listed in the top three. I didn't see any other institution that had more, or even the same amount, but I could be wrong there- maybe Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>sofla951,</p>
<p>The point shouldn't be how many are in the top 10, but what proportion are in the top 10. Berkeley's a huge school. Caltech, by comparison, is very small. If you normalized the program sizes, Caltech might do better than it does now.</p>
<p>I don't get this normalizing thing. So a small school with 1 or 2 top programs is better than a large school with many top programs, just because the small school is small? Do we normalize based on the number of students, number of professors, numbers of TAs, number of grants, grant dollars, number of administrator per student, number of parking spaces, square feet of research space, number of clean rooms, dollar invested in capital research equipment, number of touchdowns scored against Oregon, number of basketball game defeated, amount of coporate dollars...... and on and on...</p>
<p>I say a small school with 1 to 2 top programs is just that; a small wonderful university with a few good programs. Can't compare that to a UC Berkeley. </p>
<p>Why not extrapolate the other way, since Caltech does not have many of Berkeley top programs in the humanities, we can assume that if Caltech do have these programs the programs will not be in the top ten. So by extrapolating, Caltech will end up with a smaller percentage of top programs based on a completely fantom pool of 25,000 additional Caltech students. I just don't think it is that simple.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley has many many programs in the top ten as recognized by experts in their fields. Any statistical manipulations of the data is just that, manipulations.</p>
<p>Anyone can use statistical manipulations to prove their point.</p>
<p>ev700,</p>
<p>What the normalization tells you is, to an extent, whether a school is not making the top 10 list because of the size of its program. Saying that Berkeley is a better school because it has more top 10 programs is disingenuous because it doesn't tell us how it does relative to other smaller programs.</p>
<p>For example, Berkeley sends a large number of students to top grad programs every year. But what is more telling is how many it sends per capita. To that end, LACs beat out Cal by a significant margin.</p>
<p>This isn't "statistical manipulations" just for the sake of statistical manipulation. It's trying to figure out how we can look at something and actually understand what it means.</p>
<p>I still find this normalizing thing as manipulating....</p>
<p>The population mix per capita at Berkeley is very differnt from the population mix at LACs. Most students at LACs expect or need to attend grad school to be marketable. Where as, a large number of Berkeley students in its business, engineering, science, and even the softer sciences programs expect or need to find work right after graduation.</p>
<p>There is an economic need for many Berekeley students to work after receiving their BS. Sould not we factor their family's economic resources into the equations, especailly compared to students attending LACs.</p>
<p>ev700,</p>
<p>The only point of normalizing is to put things in context. Ranking schools based on how many programs are top 10 is somewhat silly if you don't consider the size of a school. It may not tell you what a program does with its resources, just that it has a lot of programs and manages to pump out some good ones from that list.</p>
<p>And where do you derive your argument that LAC grads aren't marketable from? It seems to me that people at top LACs have just as good starting salaries as Berkeley grads, if not better.</p>
<p>Yes, we should control for as many variables as we can, but you're missing the point. LACs send more people to top grad schools PER CAPITA (out of the number of applicants) than Berkeley. In other words, if 100 Berkeley students apply, and 100 top LAC students apply, then more of the top LAC students will get in. </p>
<p>But so what? It doesn't necessarily tell us much. You have to normalize for the quality of the applicants. What would be more telling is if 100 Berkeley grads of a similar quality to the LAC grads applied and still lose to the LACs.</p>
<p>This is why it's important to put things in context.</p>
<p>It shows Berkeley is a much more comprehensive university than caltech. I think the more comprehensive a university the better overall the university is because it can cater to so many different students seeking so many different degrees. Caltech may be better in the limited areas it offers but Berkeley can cater to those wanting degrees in the sciences and humanties. I think its ridiculous to compare LACs to Berkeley..they cater to different demographics. Personally I would never go to an LAC because they remind me of my Catholic High School. I feel its time to enter the real world. Berkeley's impact on the greater good of society is much greater than any LAC. Plus the universities Berkeley basically competes against in the NRC are the usual top schools. Also if you research Berkeley has the highest percentage of programs covered by the NRC in the top ten, more than Harvard, MIT, Stanford and I doubt there is a conspiracy in which the NRC, one of the most reputable academic orgs, designs its ranking so Berkeley is number one. I really think that if you were to cover every program at Berkeley, compared to similar comprehensive universities, there rankings really wouldn't change much.</p>
<p>sofla951,</p>
<p>I'm not arguing that Berkeley doesn't belong in the top 10. It clearly does. And college should be about maximizing the return on your investment. If a LAC will provide me with a superior undergraduate education, despite the lack of a top 10 department in X, Y, or Z, then it may be the better investment. Employers, for the most part, couldn't care less what the NRC has to say. Apparently, neither do grad programs. Since undergrad is about either improving your job prospects or preparing yourself for future study, you should be more concerned with what the employers/grad admissions have to say.</p>
<p>Look, I agree that Berkeley is an extremely impressive university. I've never said otherwise. For grad school, there is very little competition with Cal. But for the average undergrad, who will never touch the research, what difference does it make that someone in some department is doing great research? They want the basics! It's always important to put into context what methodologies these rankings use, because they may not apply to you as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I think it matters a great deal even to an undergraduate, to know that your professor is doing cutting edge research. If not why go to CAL, save some money and attend a CSU.</p>
<p>Because a Cal State offers less value to a hard working and intelligent student than Cal (not an acronym, just an abbreviation.)</p>
<p>But I don't see why saying that LACs have impressive records somehow means that you should instead go to a Cal State. Let's not get into exaggerations here. Would you say that Cal is a better choice than, say, Dartmouth? Or Columbia? (for undergrad.)</p>