<p>At least at my D’s NY Metro area high school, there’s often a disconnect between prestige or name brand value and actually quality of education/ programs when one looks deeper. Purely on the basis of knee-jerk, superficial brand-name value, schools like JHU, Tufts, UVA, and possibly Vanderbilt are at least as prestigious as UC Berkeley, if not more so. The Ivies (except for Cornell) carry shamanic powers.</p>
<p>Here in america, we really DON’T care. Rankings are useless.</p>
<p>In the South, Berkeley is actually looked down upon by most for its communist pinko/hippie reputation :P</p>
<p>For undergrad degrees here in the U.S., the brand/prestige perception (for what that is worth) pretty much tracks how selective the admissions are. The “best” schools are the ones that are the hardest to get into. Like Groucho said, everyone wants to be a member of a club that won’t have them. The USNWR rankings basically track this.</p>
<p>HYP are ranked 1, 2, 3 in the USNWR rankings; Berkeley ranks 20. HYP have higher SAT scores and lower admission percentages than Cal. Among West Coast schools, Stanford (expensive and private and hard to get into) is considered way more prestigious than Berkeley (a state school) and has a much higher USNWR ranking.</p>
<p>There’s also an east coast aspect to Berkeley’s weaker brand and prestige. Lots of east coast folks don’t know what school is attached to a “Cal” sweatshirt. The brands for Stanford, USC and UCLA are much more clearly known in the east than “Cal”, “Berkeley”, “University of California”, “UC/Berkeley”, etc. “Berkeley” for many people means commie-hippie-druggie from the late 60s as much as anything else.</p>
<p>Internationally, Cal has a much higher prestige/brand because of its graduate programs particularly in STEM. Probably because a lot of international grad students came to Cal to get their STEM degrees and then took those degrees back home.</p>
<p>Going to a high prestige school has some drawbacks. There are funny prejudices out there, believe me. Many Harvard students try to hide where they go to school. Unless your employer and/or peers also went to HYP etc., there can be an attitude towards you at work. Just be grateful that you are headed to a high quality program and don’t worry so much about people’s reactions to sweatshirts :)</p>
<p>One thing , IMHO, that hurts Cal’s rep. is their willingness to make much greater concessions for athletes than most of the top colleges. You’d never see a guy like Marsawn Lynch admitted to Ivy or other top colleges.</p>
<p>@compmom- Very well said. The truth behind the elites is their extensive marketing budgets, glossy brochures… Enticing high school kids to apply. They increase applications and then reject, thereby decreasing their acceptance rates, improving their rankings.</p>
<p>I’m in the Midwest and I’ve not encountered people hearing Berkeley and thinking, “Wow!”. Many of us hear Berkeley and think “Hippies, marijuana, protests, anti-establishment”.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that’s fair or accurate. But perceptions often aren’t fair or accurate.</p>
<p>When I found out that my baby’s urologist got her medical degree at Harvard, I did say “Wow!”.</p>
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<p>Really? I can understand Stanford but USC and UCLA as well? I thought Berkeley was the clear winner among the UCs. And USC - Never even heard of it.</p>
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<p>Well said.</p>
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<p>LOL! Seriously? If I were from Harvard, I would make every attempt to let people around me know. But I guess I am more prestige hungry than most people. (probably why I started this thread :))</p>
<p>I think I am getting a hang of what it’s like there in US. East coast is more about status symbol, elitism, the “upper” class and hence it frowns upon Berkeley, which is known for its Hippie Culture.</p>
<p>Personally, I would much rather prefer a liberal setting than a pretentious one. But then again, I would also love to have the brand name of the East coast schools. I guess that makes Stanford the best university in the world. It has its elitism and name tag but the artificialness is probably diluted by its location in California.</p>
<p>As for acceptance rates, it is unfair to compare the acceptance rates of a public uni to that of a private uni. And yet, Berkeley’s acceptance rate is only a tad higher than some of the private schools that have been mentioned above - Cornell, Tufts, Northwestern, etc.</p>
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This is true of all research universities. Faculty drives academic reputation.</p>
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Heck, even lots of west coast folks don’t know this either.</p>
<p>^^ LOL!! Totally agreed. Few people know that Cal is associated with Berkeley. In fact a lot of the students only find out once they join the school. So that argument is invalid.</p>
<p>I know in the prep school circle, top students NEVER consider berkeley…HPYSM, ivies, JHU vandy duke UVA-all are favored over berkeley</p>
<p>As someone who has grown up less than a 30 minute drive from UC Berkeley, I can say that in my area, and even at my (average public) high school, going there has much less prestige than any Ivy or even a highly selective private. To paraphrase a dialogue I heard in the band room last year:</p>
<p>Student A: “I got into UC Berkeley for Political Science!”
Student B: <em>shrug</em>“Oh, that’s nice. I got into CMC for the same.”
Everyone in room: "WHAT! <em>gasp</em> THAT’S AMAZING!!! <em>endless congratulations in awe of student B</em>
Student A: “That’s insane!!! I’m so jealous!”</p>
<p>Granted, these are high school students, but trust me, especially this year, some of the people who got into Berkeley (from our school) don’t deserve it. I think in our eyes, it’s losing some of the prestige that it’s had in the past.</p>
<p>However, it could be another story with engineering. Personally, I’m curious to see how someone in another part of the country would choose between undergraduate engineering at two schools like Berkeley and Dartmouth. While Dartmouth is ranked 1st by USNWR for undergraduate studies and Berkeley 8th, Berkeley is also ranked 3rd for engineering and Dartmouth much lower. However, this could also be due to the fact that Berkeley places much more emphasis on its graduate programs, while Dartmouth’s graduate engineering program is (practically) nonexistent. Also, since Dartmouth seems to be considered one of the “lower Ivies”, how would it stand up against a Berkeley degree? What happens if we throw schools like Northwestern and Vanderbilt into the mix? What then?</p>
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<p>Academic prestige and social prestige are two entirely different things. Don’t think that highest academic prestige = highest social prestige. Caltech has a lot of academic prestige but not as much social prestige. The old Seven Sisters schools have a lot of social prestige but not as much academic prestige. Pick one definition, otherwise there’s no point to the discussion.</p>
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<p>No. You’re not getting it. It’s not that the East Coast “frowns” on Berkeley. It’s just not on their radar screen as much as the schools in their backyards. Just like the West Coast doesn’t “frown” on Amherst, Williams, et al – they just aren’t on their radar screens as much. Prestige is regional. Everywhere.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree Berkeley does not have prestige among prep schools…they’re looking for social prestige as Pizzagirl alludes. Small and private in certain circles = more social prestige.</p>
<p>Academic prestige-wise, Berkeley can easily go toe-to-toe with the elite privates. </p>
<p>That’s what makes Berkeley unique and why threads like this only exist for places like Berkeley…it’s big and public but offers top academics.</p>
<p>removed sss</p>
<p>“Most people will LMAO at Harvard EECS.” </p>
<p>Sounds like a line from the show Big Bang Theory. </p>
<p>Name some famous Cal grads. Umm, well… Did Patty Hearst and Aaron Rogers graduate? And some Nobel Prize winners (not that I could pick any of them out of a line-up if my life depended on it).</p>
<p>Name some famous Harvard/Yale types – Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Al Gore, George Bush 2, George Bush 1, John Kerry, John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, half of the U.S. Senate most of the time, most of the U.S. Supreme Court and lots of Wall Street.</p>
<p>9/9 supreme court justices have degree from HY…</p>
<p>cal is great, just in a different league when it comes to prestige</p>