<p>Cal is a great school but does not have the “wow” factor in the USA as do HYSP, at least at the undergraduate level. MIT, Cal Tech and our military academies also have the “wow” factor. That’s pretty much it.</p>
<p>Sent from my SGH-T989 using CC</p>
<p>I’ll add my voice to the chorus: I’m a high school student born and raised in the Bay Area, and the perception among my crowd is that Berkeley is a school for Stanford rejects. (This reputation is not undeserved - several people in my class applied to Stanford, got rejected, and are going to Cal instead.) </p>
<p>It’s certainly prestigious, but it just as certainly doesn’t have the HYPSM wow factor. Not to Cali kids, anyway.</p>
<p>“Wow Factor” - I guess not. (Maybe EECS to some extent) But C’mon, how does that even matter? Cal is an amazing school and is one of the best in the world, especially at STEM and Business. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise - for undergrad or postgrad.
Have you seen the UC Berkeley US news and rankings page, something that Americans depend so dearly on? It’s a rampage. Cal is in the top 5 in the country for almost every undergrad course it offers. Not many schools can boast of that. I agree US news rankings system has many flaws but I would much rather go with it than with some random guy on College Confidential.</p>
<p>People are always complaining about the large student body and the large classrooms. Okay, I have never been to Cal but I am sure there must be some reason that you can find so many posts along the lines of “Berkeley has been my dream school since I was in class 8…” It’s the culture that people love. I can picture the large student body getting effectively split up into smaller groups, where everyone can find a community. And obviously, all of this is subjective.</p>
<p>As for the “Wow factor” - that comes with selectivity. Tougher a college is to get into, more is its prestige. I guess that is the reason why there are so many threads like this one. People simply can’t digest the fact that a college so highly ranked has an acceptance rate of 21% (btw, it’s around 19% this year). As a public university, it’s no surprise that Cal has a much higher acceptance rate than other universities of its caliber. But don’t worry, if you want to go into STEM, the employers would not be judging you by your college’s acceptance rate. Just keep your GPA high.</p>
<p>Even So, answering OP’s question - Here’s how I see the prestige ladder,</p>
<p>Top - HYPMS
tier 2 - Columbia, UChicago, Caltech, Duke, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth
tier 3 - Berkeley, JHU, Northwestern, UW, Cornell, Rice.
tier 4 - Georgetown, Tufts, Vanderbilt, etc.</p>
<p>JeeGee, I agree with your tiering. Where would you place Emory and U Michigan?</p>
<p>Hmmm…
IMO, Emory would be tier 4 and UMich a little lower.</p>
<p>Also, on a second thought, I think Vanderbilt deserves tier 3.</p>
<p>Updating,</p>
<p>Top - HYPMS
tier 2 - Columbia, UChicago, Caltech, Duke, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth
tier 3 - Berkeley, JHU, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, UW, Cornell, Rice.
tier 4 - Georgetown, Emory, Tufts, UCLA, UVA, etc.</p>
<p>That cross-admit chart is pretty interesting. Bracket-ology for undergrad college choices. Out of those 17 schools, UCB gets the #15 seed.</p>
<p>In head-to-head matches, Tufts goes 0-16, UCLA 1-15, UCB 2-14, NW 3-13, UVA 4-12, Duke 5-11, GT 5-11, Cornell 7-9, Penn 8-8. </p>
<p>Harvard 16-0. Yale 15-1. MIT 14-2. Stanford and Princeton 13-3. I guess that’s why the HYPSM acronym exists.</p>
<p>That chart is from 2006. Wonder what would be different today.</p>
<p>Yeah, but just saying - that chart is only based on data provided by 3200 students.</p>
<p>Don’t take it as some official statistic.</p>
<p>"I am currently working in a top management consulting firm and went to an Ivy League school. If you didn’t know this already, management consulting at a top firm is considered to be one of the most prestigious job in the US. My company recruits from all the top schools (Target schools) and I am involved heavily with recruiting. To give you some rough example, last year around 200 students from MIT applied to my company and 5 received offer. </p>
<p>From my experience and what I encountered, even Lower Ivy Schools (Cornell, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth) carry more prestige than Berkeley. I would put Berkeley prestige around Georgetown/Johns Hopkins (At least in the East Coast, which is where I am at). I believe that the only place that Berkeley is considered as prestigious as any of the Ivy School is in the Tech/Engineering circle. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, your EECS degree will be sought after from top tech companies in the Silicon Valley. Just make sure to keep your GPA above 3.0! EECS at Berkeley is very demanding and many students switched out of it after their freshmen year."</p>
<p>lol…i have extreme doubts that you actually work for a MC firm (and a top one at that) - your grammar and personality is extremely suspect. Do you work at a non-SF/NYC rural satellite office? McKinsey offered far more than just 5 from MIT last year, and I’m pretty sure BCG and Bain did as well (which further leads me to question your credibility). Additionally, non-lower ivies like NU and JHU (while not a MBB target similar to how caltech wasn’t last year due to the high amount of grads going to grad school as opposed to consulting) are not on the same level as Berkeley for undergrad.</p>
<p>I have extreme doubts a true McKinsey associate has enough free time to ■■■■■ a message board.</p>
<p>check out the times I post - we’re off on fridays after flying typically…=). And unlike you, I haven’t been posting continuously for the last couple of years every month. Perhaps you’re not doing that well as a college graduate since you’re posting nearly every single day.</p>
<p>Hah! I’m doing fine. I have a 9/80 schedule with a pretty low stress job. I’m just a bit bored with my current position. Perhaps it’s a good time to move on. :)</p>
<p>A brief follow-up here, I stumbled upon a meta-ranking that takes into account the big global rankings that I’d brought up earlier: </p>
<p>[Meta</a> University Ranking 2012/13 | MetaUniversityRanking](<a href=“http://metauniversityranking.com/worlds-top-50-universities-metascore/]Meta”>http://metauniversityranking.com/worlds-top-50-universities-metascore/) </p>
<p>Berkeley comes in at #11 worldwide. I think that’s probably fair… yes, not HYPSM, but coming in above some of the Ivies (hey, Yale is #9). </p>
<p>It’s clear that the state mandate to accept a certain percentage of CA residents hurts its undergrad selectivity and thus its rankings on that front… hence the focus on grad programs, which don’t have the mandate. If Princeton was taking in 70% of its class from Jersey, then sorry, it wouldn’t be Princeton. But Berkeley pulls it off.</p>
<p>CA residents should take pride in the fact that they have a public U that can go head-to-head with the Ivies/Oxbridge and that also serves a SOCIAL function of giving CA residents a shot at a world-renown diploma. The private schools talk a lot about giving everyone a chance, but Berkeley is bound to that promise by automatically offering a spot to the top X% of all CA applicants. </p>
<p>Students don’t have to have used all of mommy and daddy’s money to have built an orphanage on Mt. Kilimanjaro to get in. If their grades are there, Berkeley gives them a shot. </p>
<p>That’s commendable.</p>
<p>Wooo go caltech!</p>
<p>(I’m so sorry)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. I’ve seen a UCLA ad during the local morning news (KTTV in LA) the past few mornings. I don’t really get what they’re specifically advertising, I think it’s just to get the word out, but I have no idea why a school IN LA has to pay money to advertise to those living IN LA.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad,
You’re right this thread is full of trolls. </p>
<p>205mom,
You made a point. I get that. And good luck with ‘your’ belief - “the American belief that money trumps all.” Hope you get rich.</p>
<p>Post #213 is commendable.
Spot-on, BerkDr.</p>
<p>"A brief follow-up here, I stumbled upon a meta-ranking that takes into account the big global rankings that I’d brought up earlier: </p>
<p>Meta University Ranking 2012/13 | MetaUniversityRanking </p>
<p>Berkeley comes in at #11 worldwide. I think that’s probably fair… yes, not HYPSM, but coming in above some of the Ivies (hey, Yale is #9). </p>
<p>It’s clear that the state mandate to accept a certain percentage of CA residents hurts its undergrad selectivity and thus its rankings on that front… hence the focus on grad programs, which don’t have the mandate. If Princeton was taking in 70% of its class from Jersey, then sorry, it wouldn’t be Princeton. But Berkeley pulls it off.</p>
<p>CA residents should take pride in the fact that they have a public U that can go head-to-head with the Ivies/Oxbridge and that also serves a SOCIAL function of giving CA residents a shot at a world-renown diploma. The private schools talk a lot about giving everyone a chance, but Berkeley is bound to that promise by automatically offering a spot to the top X% of all CA applicants. </p>
<p>Students don’t have to have used all of mommy and daddy’s money to have built an orphanage on Mt. Kilimanjaro to get in. If their grades are there, Berkeley gives them a shot. </p>
<p>That’s commendable."</p>
<p>Not sure I buy this - While not mandated (well sort of informally by the school’s charter/mission) Stanford’s undergrad student body for a while was 50-60% from Cali. It clearly didn’t affect Stanford’s prestige.</p>
<p>@Blah2009: Berkeley has a HUGE student population (like 5500-6000 per class?) and it takes on a lot of transfer students, both of which decrease its prestige nationally compared internationally (whose students are more clueless). </p>
<p>Prestige is a function of how difficult it is to get in, and no offense but having tons of JC transfers, while fully within Berkeley’s obligations, does serve to diminish that prestige. </p>
<p>Look: to prospies, the administration loves to tout its international rankings, but just know that you WILL experience a mismatch between what the rankings say and what you actually experience because the graduate programs are where Berkeley is shielded from its obligations and therefore are where the rankings do hold true. A ton of my friends at Berkeley feel cheated. </p>
<p>The only reason we are having this discussion is because the administration basically ignores USNWR (and tells all their students to ignore it too), creating the impression that these international rankings apply to the undergraduate program when they really apply mostly to the graduate programs. So there is this confusion between expectations and reality.</p>
<p>TheBanker - When you say “that you WILL experience a mismatch between what the rankings say and what you actually experience”</p>
<p>Are you talking about the undergrad academics or the perceived prestige?</p>