Columbia or Cal?

<p>Well, I honestly don't know at this point. I uncovered the fact that Cal stopped funding NMS scholarships several years ago 'cause apparently they found it to be a bad investment as against other scholarships, and its number of actual scholars went down dramatically. UF has apparently taken the opposite approach, as you alluded to viva sweet love; I saw the articles on this.</p>

<p>But I AM pretty sure that the list I had in my memory was of the National Merit Finalists. The list was here on CC somewhere and no search parameters I could think of uncovered it.</p>

<p>Of course, on a per capita basis the number of Finalists whatever it is would be lower. My point was a point about absolute numbers, not per capita. Per capita numbers never work that well for state schools, such as Nobel Prizes per capita.</p>

<p>There's a lot of quality is my point, though the numerators of some of its indicators are spread out over a much broader base, of course.</p>

<p>Yeah, i would definately agree that the best Arts and Sciences grad programs go to Cal (better than any other school overall in Arts and Sciences)
Politics grad are better at columbia slightly. </p>

<p>But anyway, for someone to say that the academic level of Cal students is not comparable to Ivy students, Bull *****. they only big difference between students is that Cal students arent the best at everything, while at Ivys, not only is everyone smart, but they are super good at a sport, community service, leadership etc.</p>

<p>But i guarantee you that kids have it tougher at Cal. Do you think teachers hold your hand at Cal like they do at most every top private...H311 no. They throw you into the ocean and let you keep yourself alive.</p>

<p>I'm sorry was that comment for or against Cal? lol.</p>

<p>Berkeley current has seven Nobel laureates on its faculty; Columbia currently has eight, by my count.</p>

<p>The statement that "Columbia has the most Nobel prizes in the world" is misleading. To cite one example, Stanford currently has 14 on its faculty, and another three who are at the Hoover Institution on campus. Columbia lists everyone who has ever been affiliated with the school who has been awarded a Nobel prize, including Teddy Roosevelt.</p>

<p>I have nothing against Teddy, although I think he's a little out of place on Mount Rushmore with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. I don't believe his status as a Columbia alumnus tells us much about the reputation of the university these days.</p>

<p>Here's a pretty good listing of Nobel Affiliations:</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Sometimes its comparing apples and oranges. Berkeley doesn't have a med school and Stanford and Columbia for instance do. On the other hand, Berkeley's med school functional equivalent UCSF has had 3 Nobel Prize winners.</p>

<p>I think in the case of these schools, it's an embarrassment of riches. They all have stellar Nobel Prize track records. Most nations would be thrilled with the track records these have.</p>

<p>Oh, by the way, I counted 8 on Berkeley's faculty, including Steven Chu who got his doctorate at Berkeley, was on Stanford's faculty when he won it, and has returned to Berkeley to head the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. But perhaps my counting is wrong.</p>