Caltech vs. Columbia vs. Berkeley

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>Columbia>Berkeley? In terms of US News undergraduate rankings maybe. Grad school is what matters, though, since it’s broken down by field and focuses on the quality of the faculty. There Berkeley kicks Columbia’s ass in humanities, sciences, and engineering alike. </p>

<p>Th reason Berkeley is so “low” in undergraduate rankings is because the rankings favor small schools over large schools. Berkeley’s student-faculty ratio and acceptance rate are higher than Columbia’s, which drags down Berkeley’s ranking significantly. But they don’t affect the education you’re getting unless you need to be spoon-fed the material in your classes by your professor one-on-one. Even if you need that extra attention, you can go to office hours, or your TA can help you out. But honestly, you shouldn’t need it. You’re supposed to be smart.</p>

<p>That being said, I’d obviously choose Berkeley over Columbia. The fact that the field in question is EECS makes this a no-brainer. Caltech? Personal preference. Depends how nerdy you are.</p>

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<p>To be fair, I would think of this a little differently. Granted our OP is EECS-bound, so there Berkeley and Caltech really would have the edge…but that Berkeley’s departments may be ranked higher than Columbia’s in some other areas shouldn’t make one choose Berkeley automatically. Because the rankings are often bogus. I think one should make an informed choice based on facts and observations of those who know the schools well. There are definitely lots of subtle unsaid things about Berkeley’s maths department that would hardly be evident to someone who viewed the rankings. Likewise, I’m sure with Columbia. In most cases, I don’t think it’s close to clear that Berkeley blows Columbia out. </p>

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<p>If a smart person doesn’t need help, the smart person probably is wasting his/her time and underchallenging himself/herself. TAs having studied a subject for years longer would have valuable insights, as would professors, and courses can be taught under the assumption that students WILL ask for help, if they’re really fast. </p>

<p>That said, getting help isn’t a problem at Berkeley if you really are proactive and go ask. Being at an Ivy hardly guarantees getting help like a princess/prince – those I know who went to Ivies hardly think so. </p>

<p>I want to make it clear that I do not endorse that Berkeley or Caltech easily beats Columbia in this case, because I don’t hear from the OP that (s)he is incredibly strongly committed to EE. I think the nice thing about Columbia is that in non-technical subjects, the student body might be stronger and more committed. While I have dealt only with some of the strongest students here, friends of mine in <em>some</em> non-technical majors may not have had the same luck, depending on which major exactly it was. Committed peers can much enhance the experience. And Columbia offers a broader education than Caltech.</p>

<p>I think I have spelled out the main points to consider that don’t need to be explicitly investigated by a visit (e.g. location and how one likes that). This should be relatively sufficient to discern the right path for the OP.</p>

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<p>Rankings really should not be so dependent on class sizes and student-faculty ratios. The only time it matters that your professors know you is when you’re in the advanced upper division classes for your major. You’re not going to be asking your lower division intro chem/math professors for rec letters and the only big classes at Berkeley are these intro classes that everyone has to take.</p>

<p>And nobody actually complains about having big lecture halls. The anonymity/flexibility is pretty nice. You don’t have to go to every lecture if you’d rather just self study and you don’t have to worry about being called on if you’re not caught up with the material yet. And you can always get your questions answered through discussion sections and emailing professors/gsis. And no students ever complain about not getting enough attention. More professors actually complain during classes that not enough people go to their office hours.</p>

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<p>Well, for some of us yes, but I hear some upper division biology here can get to be big. I’ve been fortunate that the math department’s higher level classes are small.</p>

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<p>That’s true actually.</p>

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<p>Is anybody able to elaborate a bit on the EECS culture at Berkeley? I’ve visited and I know many people currently at Berkeley, but no one that is there for EECS.</p>

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What do you want to know?</p>

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<p>is it insular? is it intense? how does it compare to that of caltech?</p>

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<p>Thomas is an EECS major, though I can tell something too since a lot of my acquaintances are. The EECS major usually is full of people either fairly into what they’re doing and a few who’re not so strong but pull through because they get help from those who are strong. There is usually a point when some start taking more of just EE or more of just CS. More people choose CS is my impression. I think the culture at Berkeley’s undergraduate CS program is more practical, in that the students tend to take a lot of the standard project-based classes to prepare their skills and endurance. The culture in CS includes many majors sitting in the base of Soda Hall programming for long hours, finishing up hard projects. However, for those who want it, the faculty at Berkeley CS have incredibly rich theoretical interests, and a few students are like that. Plenty of people just want to get a job after they graduate. Some want to go to top graduate programs and become researchers, and the strongest students succeed in going to Berkeley, MIT, CMU, and all the amazing CS and EE schools. I think there might be a little less distinctive EE culture. </p>

<p>Little tidbits. EE is more homework and exam-based, CS is often more project-based, although they still give hard exams. You really have to like doing certain kinds of math calculations to like EE. Especially the signals and systems courses – lots of Fourier transforms and the like. The basic premise in those is that a signal is a function, and a system is an operator on a collection of functions – as I’ve posted before, this lends itself to a fairly linear algebraic language, and those who appreciate that language might follow better. Of course, there are EE classes where you have to build stuff, and I think EE 40 is a required class where you have to do one of those. But again, it’s still pretty homework and test dominated. </p>

<p>There is a decent bit of elitism among some engineers at Berkeley, because their major is genuinely a huge cut harder than most nontechnical majors, and the caliber of students is much higher on average. However, plenty think that elitism is silly, and are accepting.</p>

<p>The big difference with Caltech would be that you can just do EECS and not much else at Berkeley. At Caltech, you will have a big set of general maths/science requirements, which are absolutely no joke, because Caltech is hard. People who don’t care to spend plenty of time gaining all that exposure wouldn’t necessarily like it. I know some folks who just wanted to do their EECS majors and their outside interests were more in the humanities. </p>

<p>I don’t know anything about Caltech’s actual EE culture. People like to say it’s more theory-focused, but I don’t like to say this for sure because people tend to speak too soon. Ask lizzardfire in the Caltech threads – he’s a successful Caltech EE student who’s headed to Stanford for graduate school and did lots of research at Tech.</p>

<p>One other random addition: people at Berkeley in CS often get internships very, very early. Plenty of people ready to hook you up with connections if you’re motivated. Even friends of mine more into EE managed fine at getting stuff to work on over summer, i.e. even though EE generally is a field requiring more explicit education to actually do something, CS being a little more a “learn it as you go if you have the general skills” friendly.</p>

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If you are entering as a freshman you will have lots of time taking classes outside EECS in subjects you are interested in. If you manage your time will you will also have enough spare time to enjoy life. I manage to work around 10-20h/week part-time and pursue another hobby while getting pretty decent grades in my EE/CS classes. Still, it will be more intense than many other majors. At some point you will be wondering “Wow, how does this guy do it? How can he do all of this extracurricular stuff and still get good grades?” Well, it’ because he is not an Engineering major. Judging from the Humanities classes I have taken here (which are not many since I am a transfer student), other majors really do have much less work.</p>

<p>You can make whatever you want out of your time here. If you are REALLY into EE/CS you can take lots of interesting classes, join clubs related to CS, work on research with professors, and so on. On the other hand you could as well choose to do the minimum amount of work required for your EECS degree and take tons of classes in other areas, join student clubs, fraternities, etc. It’s really up to what you want. And I feel that’s a choice you don’t really get to make at Caltech.</p>

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<p>I’m not an EECS major, but I know many people who are. EECS is recognized as one of the hardest majors and you get instant respect from everyone. But they are surprisingly very socially included with the rest of the school and are much more likely to be at frat parties playing beer pong than any math/physics/other engineering majors.</p>

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<p>fireshark- You going to Prefrosh Weekend? Hope so.</p>

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<p>I’d suggest CalTech hands down, even if you’re considering EECS. Berkeley pales in comparison to the university. Aside from an extremely talented students body, half of Caltech students do research under the SURF program. At CalTech, there will be a myriad of opportunities before you that take next to no effort to attain. CalTech has one of the highest percentage of students who go on to attain PhDs amongst universities in the nation. If you care about your future career at all, you will go to CalTech.</p>

<p>Berkeley is a “traditional” education alright; but with that education comes with the traditional “rat race” to the top whether it be for grades, internships, etc. While you may optimistic of what lies ahead and waving this off right now, I forewarn you to be aware of the rat race. It is a game that most students will have to lose. Berkeley, like every other public university, does not have the resources to take all its capable, intelligent students the whole nine yards.</p>

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<p>My experience says this is primarily rhetoric, and not well-founded. Those who are intelligent at Berkeley usually have no trouble getting access to good resources, because the rest of their peers simply pale in enthusiasm and ability. </p>

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<p>Caltech selects students who often want to get a PhD. Within Berkeley, it is not so much a rat race as a matter of figuring out which group of students you want to associate with. If choosing the grad school track, you will associate with the right people and get where you need. The difference is, a huger percentage of Caltech is on the grad school track.</p>

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<p>Batllo-yes I am.
mathboy98- thanks for the many words of comments, both in here and in the other threads I’ve posted. they provide good content for me to think about :wink:
I suppose i should thank everyone else here too, before they feel left out.</p>

<p>also, I would like to go to grad school.
how would berkeley and caltech stack up from a grad school adcom’s standpoint if I am exiting undergrad with EE(CS) major, and entering grad school in some STEM related area? what about business?</p>

<p>edit: obviously there are 345289235342e99 opportunities for research at caltech, inside and outside SURF. is it hard to do undergrad research at berkeley? or rather to find it? do i get paid? (unlikely)</p>

<p>thanks!</p>

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<p>Undergrad research is pretty easy to land. I get paid for my research position, but I’m not sure about other people.</p>

<p>Grad school might like Caltech better, but Berkeley undergrads in CS are heavily demanded. If you have >3.5, you’re golden.</p>

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<p>Folks, if you’re doing CS at Berkeley or Caltech, the least of your problems in applying is your institution’s reputation, and I wager quite strongly it won’t matter one bit. </p>

<p>Here are the categories that will be considered for CS grad school, NOT in order of importance: 1) GRE, 2) GPA along with depth of coursework in context of your university 4) caliber of letters of recommendation and the credentials of the recommenders, 5) research experience. </p>

<p>For Berkeley vs. Caltech, let’s say it’s definitely not likely you’ll receive a much higher GPA at Caltech. Both are very hard. Perhaps Caltech GPAs will be given some little extra room. But really, I don’t think for someone within the GPA range where they’ve got a chance, going to one or the other matters at all, because this is not the most important factor. Rather, your additional research and letters of recommendation will be what make or break you once you achieve a fairly good GPA. If you are miserably failing to achieve a good GPA at Cal, chances are your Caltech GPA would also be too low to warrant a favorable decision – it’s not like going to Caltech somehow nullifies the necessity to have a good GPA. It is, however, true that your additional breadth of maths/science coursework taken at the Caltech core would likely not jeopardize you, because mainly CS work would be taken into account. </p>

<p>As for letters and research – more students do research at Caltech percentage-wise, but I’ve never found a quality CS student at Berkeley having any trouble finding opportunity. And let’s remember the faculty in CS at Berkeley are people whose words carry immense weight. </p>

<p>Short answer: asking whether going to Caltech or Berkeley would look better for CS grad school is the wrong question. It is hard to do well at either school, and you’re better off focusing on how you could do well at either than bouncing in dreamland considering how your choice of [in either case amazing] school would affect you.</p>

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<p>If you’re not fairly sure about going into something technical for life, somehow I think you might find yourself more at home in Berkeley. </p>

<p>For non-technical grad schools, it really depends on the particular one. I think all of what I said applies to graduate school, although for professional schools, having a good GPA is probably the most important thing. I don’t know how much they’ll normalize your Caltech GPA if you went there.</p>

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I don’t think it comes close… I’m not saying Berkeley is bad but its more of an ordinary university and CalTech has always been in its own league, even in comparison to schools such as the Ivy Leagues.</p>

<p>Also, recently, I came across this study by the NSF.
<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
(Look at the chart on page 6.)</p>

<p>35.2% of CalTech undergrads went on to receive phDs in comparison to 5.7% at Berkeley.</p>

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<p>Sentiment, CalTech students self-select and are primarily dedicated math, science and engineering students. Berkeley’s undergrad population is largely just normal folks. </p>

<p>But that has nothing to do with the universities’ academic offerings – it has to do with how many students take advantage of what is offered for a PhD track student. My impression from what Techers say is there’s more of a CS culture by far at Berkeley. But the CS students at Berkeley make up a miniscule part of the university, and most of it is certainly not anywhere near as academically inclined as Caltech.</p>

<p>You’re talking about general university undergraduate student body strength, perhaps. Because in terms of how much CS is going on, I don’t think any Ivy comes anywhere near the level of Berkeley. I don’t even think Caltech itself is so much of a CS school – always heard of CMU, Berkeley, Stanford and MIT as the big schools for CS. The fact that you included the Ivies at all in a CS discussion means we’re not talking about the same thing.</p>

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<p>To clarify in short: I think what’s available to a CS undergrad at Berkeley is the best of the best of the best of the best…and few places compare. How many choose to use this to prep for PhD studies is different, and how many care about academics at Berkeley at all is different.</p>