<p>About the Stanford-Berkeley rivalry, Stanford is better than Berkeley undergrad wise, obviously. Grad-school wise they are generally on the same level.</p>
<p>I think the rivalry is over-rated. Both Stanford and Berkeley students know that Stanford students either tried harder in high school or are more intelligent, or have more money to pay their way in, etc.</p>
<p>...or are more content in a boring bubble environment. There is some self-selcetion going on, many prefer Berkeley's environment, but more are swayed by the private school cachet of Stanford and the USNWR arbitrary non-academic ranking factors.</p>
<p>Needadvice, if you plan on moving to Europe permanently, you might want to know that Berkeley is a bigger name there than Stanford. I am from Europe BTW. Princeton is a solid #3 in the ivy, about on par with Stanford reputation-wise abroad.</p>
<p>chose berkeley over georgetown last year (i didn't really consider the other schools i got into, just these two)</p>
<p>CalX...really? That's great news.</p>
<p>CA2006, wow is all i can say.
berkeley over princeton and stanford.</p>
<p>hope you had strong reasons for your decision. If you did, then congradulations with your choice. see you at berkeley!</p>
<p>I am from Europe, too. Princeton does have a name here, believe me. Plus, Berkeley counts among the top colleges here, on the same level as Stanford & Co.</p>
<p>Berkeley over washu, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCI, and UT.</p>
<p>choice between UCLA and cal was so hard...</p>
<p>Berkeley over UCLA honors, UCSD, UCD, and UCI. Stanford reject here, haha. Go Bears!</p>
<p>Berkeley over bunch of UCs (la, sd, etc..) and university of chicago.</p>
<p>Berkeley over UCSB Regents. Hardest decision EVER. I'm only a little worried!</p>
<p>whenever i read people extolling stanford, all i can think about are sony fanboys. selective =/= amazing. of course its a good school, but the kind of people that I have seen get in there because their dad or uncle went kind of tarnishes its image with me. I know some Ivies are kind of like that, but nowhere near the same amount of it. a lot of its reputation comes from people who defend it just for the sake of it because its the kind of school that fosters BS loyalty from its alumni (USC anyone? people get hired in corporate america because they went there and their boss thinks that is a good sign).</p>
<p>it isnt a 'west coast ivy', not until its selectivity outside of the relatives of alumns is somehow matched with its quality of education.</p>
<p>/start your flamewars.</p>
<p>berkeley over rice, northwestern, ucla, ucsd, uw-seattle, cornell</p>
<p>whoa...now don't you sound bitter? maybe those people got in instead of you? frankly, the people i saw there were just all-around amazing, legacy or not. i'd go as far as to say that these people probably had unique characteristics that you don't know about and thus are bashing...</p>
<p>Your entire analysis is wrong; Harvard and Yale and Princeton admit a much higher (or in Yale's case, equal, according to the conflicting data they have at Yale Daily News and from the Yale Alumni Magazine, which I would think is more accurate) percentage of their legacies than Stanford has ever done.</p>
<p><a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=12571&repository=0001_article%5B/url%5D">http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=12571&repository=0001_article</a>
"According to Loverro, Harvards admit rate for legacies is 40 percent versus 11 percent for general applicants...According to Dean of Admission Robin Mamlet, the admit rate for legacies at Stanford is a little over double the admit ratefor the general pool....Fetter added that alumni often criticize Stanford for not being as lenient as peer institutions when it comes to admitting legacies."</p>
<p>That's Harvard's 40 percent versus Stanford's 22 percent. That's a very significant difference.</p>
<p>If you try to pull the "but that's a Stanford source that's biased (even though it's a published research paper)" argument, Harvard students themselves compain about it:</p>
<p>"John Larew 91, in an article in The Washington Monthly published in the month of his graduation, reported that the overwhelmingly affluent, white children of alumnilegaciesare three times more likely to be accepted to Harvard than high school kids who lack that handsome lineage."</p>
<p>Again, reports of Harvard having a legacy admit rate 3x its normal admit rate, compared to Stanford's 2x. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9455%5B/url%5D">http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9455</a>
"Harvard's admissions website claims, "Among a group of similarly distinguished applicants, the daughters and sons of College alumni/ae may receive an additional look." It turns out that the look is rather significant, as Daniel Golden of the Wall Street Journal reported in 2003 that Harvard accepted 40% of legacy applications that year, compared to 11% overall."</p>
<p>Further evidence from Harvard itself to back up a 40% legacy admit rate. That's almost half. </p>
<p>"Last year, 29 percent of legacy applicants were accepted, compared to 13 percent in the overall pool. This 2-to-1 ratio in admit rates is typical across the Ivy League."
<a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=20578%5B/url%5D">www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=20578</a> </p>
<p>See? Yale has the same legacy admit rate as Stanford. And remember, President Bush was also a Yale legacy admit.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_11/q_a.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_11/q_a.html</a>
"About 14 percent of last year's entering freshmen were children or grandchildren of alumni of the college, graduate school, or professional schools. The admissions rate for legacies is about 30 percent -- three times the rate for non-legacies."</p>
<p>Seems like Yale is pretty confused. (Or the kids at YDN don't have their facts right...) In the Yale Alumni Magazine, in a Q&A session with Rick Levin, Yale University President and '74PhD, he says the Yale admit rate is about 30% - 3x rate for non-legacies. This puts Yale way past Stanford in terms of legacy admits, and near the Harvard range.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/reports/admission_study/adm-report.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/reports/admission_study/adm-report.html</a>
"While the percentage of legacies in the entering class has gone down over the past decade, the relative admissions advantage for legacy applicants has actually increased. For the past five years, legacy applicants have been offered admission at more than three times the rate at which non-legacy applicants have been offered admission."</p>
<p>Again, Princeton is put in the same pool as Harvard and Yale with a legacy admit rate of MORE than 3x the regular admit rate.</p>
<p>There is a lot more evidence out there if you want to ACTUALLY try to find facts to back up the uneducated claims you're making. But I think it's VERY CLEAR - Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all admit Legacy Applicants at a MUCH higher rate than Stanford. </p>
<p>I'm not going to argue the point anymore, I think it's pretty clear. I don't like to argue with ppl w/o evidence and who just like to strawman arguments anyways...</p>
<p>But I guess the only way it could truly become a "West Coast Ivy" is to triple it's legacy admit rate so that it's equal to HYP. :p</p>
<p>Ebonytear,
Why are YOU so defensive? Why don't you move this over to the Stanford board where someone cares? This is the "Choosing Berkeley over..." thread. You made your decision. Now go live with it!</p>
<p>I don't really know about the legacy issue, but I do know that Stanford is far more than a "West Coast Ivy" with regards to grade inflation. ;)</p>
<p>CA2006, my problem has more to do with unsubstantiated claims than with Stanford bashing. It has nothing to do with my decision and whatnot, and was only in response to a topic that was itself a digression, so of course, the response must also be a digression.</p>
<p>I have a special grudge against people who make frivolous claims without any support; it makes for a terrible debate (and testifies to a terrible education) when people claim that Taiwan has no army and similarly silly things without any evidence at all. (As if there could be any.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/</a></p>
<p>My support, if people thought I was making things up.</p>
<p>Haha, DRab, very funny. :)</p>
<p>I think most Stanford students I've met are great, although I know one huge undeserving tool going there next year, and one person there who isn't anything special (a football player with good grades . . . wow).</p>
<p>In fairness about the grade inflation thing, I would say that I know PLENTY of Berkeley engineers who wish they had grade inflation. </p>
<p>Sad to say, but I have to conclude that grade inflation is actually a good thing, because it really does seem to give you an edge in terms of getting jobs and graduate school. That's not the way it should be, but that's the way that it is, like it or not.</p>