<p>first of all congrats to OP for getting into Berkeley EECS. I graduated from Berkeley EECS about 8 years ago and my husband graduated from Caltech. Both are very good schools for engineering. One thing I can tell you from experience is that Berkeley grads have a HUGE network here in the Bay Area, and I can tell you that my resume has floated to the top multiple times because of my Berkeley degree. At the first company I worked for the VP in charge of hiring told me that they toss any resumes that aren’t from Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Caltech for engineering. When he met my husband he did say that Caltech is a better school, but Caltech grads are like unicorns so their network is very small. Either way, as long as you survive Berkeley EECS you shouldn’t have a problem finding a job later. Some of the classes are really large and you really need to find some good project partners. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about all the news rankings. That’s all just mostly propaganda to get more donors. It doesn’t really matter that people in the east coast or midwest don’t care about Berkeley because Silicon Valley cares, and investment firms also actively recruit Berkeley engineers, too. I almost went to work for a mutual fund. As long as you graduate, you will have a bright future ahead of you. A lot of freshmen get weeded out of Berkeley EECS so just keep your head straight and work hard.</p>
<p>^^ Hey!! No one told me about the weeding out! What happens, Do they just put you in some other major?</p>
<p>and I thought I could chill in college…</p>
<p>@garggaurav - something in your above post seems like ■■■■■■■■. Of course, you know you can’t chill if you are an EECS major 
And weeding means, folks drop out when they keep failing or cannot handle the stress. Not sure what your stats are but if you are from the pressure cooker Indian school system, my guess would be you would be fine. You need to understand Berkeley’s admission is holistic and not all the public schools are as competitive so there are a lot of students who get in, especially to engineering, who are not prepared for the immense hard work and expectations.</p>
<p>Hmm…just saw your post <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1443314-rejected-everywhere-what-do.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1443314-rejected-everywhere-what-do.html</a>
Are you always so paranoid? You also seem like a person who second guesses everything. Is finance any consideration since you are international? Rather than worry about prestige, perhaps you should be asking if 250K for EECS berkeley is worth it.</p>
<p>
They aren’t that big. The intro math courses are about 200-350 students for the lecture section. Engineers take a different physics series than life science majors…those lectures are capped at 220 students. Lower division engineering lectures are about 60-150 students. </p>
<p>[Home</a> Page - Online Schedule Of Classes](<a href=“http://schedule.berkeley.edu/]Home”>http://schedule.berkeley.edu/)</p>
<p>The rankings also take into account Berkeley’s faculty strength - which is phenomenal.</p>
<p>yup pretty much all the “intro” classes are weeder classes designed to get people out. I think the year I went the drop out rate was around 15 to 20% and there were 2 suicides that year. Most kids don’t get out of Berkeley completely but they switch to some easier major. I’ve slept in Soda Hall before…and sometimes late at night this professor would come down into the “dungeon” computer lab and pass out donuts. I’d say that it was worth it because everything after college just seemed easy by comparison. Yeah Berkeley doesn’t have affirmative action but they do take a lot of top students from less competitive high schools all around California. It is a rule for the UCs to accept the top 4% of high school students here so some kids from less competitive schools end up failing. There are a lot of really smart kids and some really clueless kids, but the clueless kids mostly get weeded out unless they bust their butts and catch up.</p>
<p>yeah the undergrad engineering classes are not 600 to700, but I’ve had an anthropology class that was that big. They actually encourage you to not go to the lecture because it’s a fire hazard. You can watch most classes online from your dorm and replay it.</p>
<p>My Father asked my buddy where he wanted to go to college (top 25% of class, 1670 SAT’s, some clubs but not too many) and he said Berkeley. A couple days later, my Father and I were talking about colleges, and my Dad was like “He’ll definitely get into Berkeley; it’s a public school!” After refreshing my Father on the actual prestige of Berkeley in comparison to its perceived prestige, we came to a consensus that my friend was not going to get into Berkeley. Then I thought, “Do all people who don’t look at Berkeley’s stats dismiss it as an international giant… just because it’s a public institution?” I have no empirical evidence, and I didn’t go survey anyone, but I think that to a certain extent it does. US News ranks it below Emory University. I am almost sure that UCB is a much better and more renowned school than Emory, but Emory is private. According to US News, no public schools even make the top 20.</p>
<p>When I went to visit the university with some of my classmates, it was very “sketchy” (ans dirty) and we basically concluded that it was overrated as opposed to Stanford which had a BEAUTIFUL campus and the ivy league schools.</p>
<p>“Sketchy” and “dirty”… Some strange takeaway from a day trip. </p>
<p>I appreciated the comment about how Berkeley must take the top 4% of</p>
<p>CA HS students. Such a policy would ruin Berkeleys peer institutions in the private sector. </p>
<p>I think this is an interesting question because of how Berkeley jumps around in the rankings.</p>
<p>So, to get to OP’s question directly, if you are talking to high school students, particularly in CA, no, Berkeley won’t have the same “wow” factor as HYP. See this study:</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley places 27th nationally in improved ranking system - The Daily Californian](<a href=“http://www.dailycal.org/2013/02/24/uc-berkeley-places-27th-in-improved-ranking-system/]UC”>http://www.dailycal.org/2013/02/24/uc-berkeley-places-27th-in-improved-ranking-system/)</p>
<p>which places Berkeley’s desirability among high school students at 27, oddly ahead of University of Chicago (it goes to show what high school students know). This somewhat tracks with the US News and World Report National Rankings, which are most popular among high school students and take into account metrics that put public universities at a disadvantage. US News puts the school at around 21</p>
<p>But who cares what high school kids think? Let’s, for argument’s sake, take the big 3 global university rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li>THE (The Times Higher Education): 9</li>
<li>ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities): 4</li>
<li>QS: 22</li>
</ol>
<p>Average = ~12 (11.6), globally</p>
<p>But then US News and World Report and The Times Higher Education also do reputational rankings, where they ask academics to rank universities around the world. Here Berkeley does even better.</p>
<ol>
<li>THE (The Times Higher Education) Reputational Rank = 5</li>
<li>US News and World Report Reputational Rank = 6</li>
</ol>
<p>Average Reputational Rank = 5.5</p>
<p>So, when you are talking with your peers (you know, once you are in a professional environment and not on CC), yes, they will be impressed by your Berkeley degree, especially when it’s in engineering.</p>
<p>Of these rankings, I think the THE is the most respected. They are published jointly by Reuters News and The Times of London Newspaper. QS is some random company and ARWU comes out of a university in China. It’s almost funny that US News doesn’t reconsider their algorithm when the reputational numbers they publish (6) diverge so drastically from their own rankings (21).</p>
<p>I love the Berkeley campus, I used to live near Stanford and find it “too pristine”…“too empty”…there doesn’t seem to be anyone around…(guess students just bike class to class in the Huge campus). If you like the urban environment you will love berkeley. Granted, I have only taken summer classes there but love the libraries and the architecture.</p>
<p>For folks not used to urban, it may take a bit to get used to. And the BART is awesome ! Also the person who said no fast food around campus, I am so surprised. Plenty of options in downtown berkeley and yes prices are not very cheap but that is bay area in general. Still lots of options and ethnic cuisine. </p>
<p>[University</a> of California-Berkeley - Videos, Photos, and Visit Reports](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/university-of-california-berkeley/]University”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/university-of-california-berkeley/)</p>
<p>These pictures were taken awhile ago, but give good sense of the campus:
[Atkinson</a> Photographic Archive || Berkeley](<a href=“http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/campus_planning/atkinson_archive/ucb/index.html]Atkinson”>University of California History Digital Archives)</p>
<p>Other UC campus photos can be found here:
[Atkinson</a> Photographic Archive](<a href=“University of California History Digital Archives”>University of California History Digital Archives)</p>
<p>I’m from South Carolina and I would say absolutely not.</p>
<p>I could name a lot of people (educated people, even) who don’t know anything about Berkeley. The only reason I know that it exists is because one of the characters from The OC mentioned it. (I think he wanted to go there?)</p>
<p>Anyways, Harvard definitely carries the most weight. You don’t have “The Berkeley of the (fill in the blank here)”. You have “The Harvard of the South”.</p>
<p>" You don’t have “The Berkeley of the (fill in the blank here)”. You have “The Harvard of the South”. Ouch!!!</p>
<p>As a West Coast person, I would say that, at the undergraduate level, Berkeley doesn’t have the “wow” effect of the IVYs, among the laypeople. But to “those in the know”, it does…</p>
<p>At the graduate level, it has the highest WOW level…as one of the 4 horsemen of higher education in the US (ie UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford). Peers and employers put it on par with ANY of the other top schools.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>In the STEM fields UCBerkeley is a god, especially at the graduate level.</p>
<p>I live on the East Coast and consider Berkeley a little below Cornell, similar to Emory. I also agree with lloydshapley’s assessment of the school, quoted below:</p>
<p>“Berkeley is overrated in the sub continent. It has great grad schools, but is no where close to the lower ivies/other top privates for undergrad. I’d pick Northwestern, Duke, Cornell, Penn, Chicago, Brown, JHU etc. over Berkeley (for undergrad) with my eyes closed. The university is facing budget problems and accepting almost all international students who apply because they are full pay. It’s undoubtedly a great school, but I for one would absolutely detest the 700 person lectures and the lack of personal interaction with professors. If you’re fine with being just a number, it may be the right school for you, but my friends at Berkeley are none to happy with the education they are receiving there (again, this is the opinion of a handful of students). My cousin got his PhD from Berkeley, and he absolutely loved it. He did say that he was grateful he went to a smaller school for his undergrad work though.”</p>
<p>Part of my opinion comes from the fact that in my public school, one of the best in the state, entry to Berkeley is relatively easy, so it’s basically a safety if you can pay the full cost of attendance…much like NYU…</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t think East Coast people consider Berkeley better than the Ivies, but they certainly know what it is and respect it as the best public university and a great college in general (at least where I’m from).</p>
<p>To AUGirl: since you say “Harvard of the (fill in the blank here)” and not “Berkeley of the (fill in the blank here)” in South Carolina, do you also say “Yale of the (fill in the blank)” or say “Princeton of the (fill in the blank)”, or say “Stanford of the (fill in the blank here)” …</p>
<p>Berkeley < HYPSM (for overall undergraduate education and brand name)
Berkeley = SM (for STEM)
Berkeley > HYP (for STEM, especially for graduate)</p>
<p>For overall reputation and brand name, Berkeley is lower than HYPSM, but H is also a notch above YPSM. That is why we say “Harvard of the (fill in the blank here)” and not “Yale of the (fill in the blank here)”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For CS, CMU reigns. </p>
<p>And I say this as an MIT grad. I’ve seen a number of MIT and CMU grads, and it’s not even close.</p>
<p>In Chicago, when I talked about Cal, people said “What’s Cal?” When I said “Berkeley” They often said “oh thats a good school isn’t it?” Those who know, were somewhat impressed. </p>
<p>When I say any Ivy, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, MIT, etc, they say “Wow!”</p>
<p>Berkeley EECS is one of the best in the world. The overall Berkeley brand name is excellent internationally. It pales in comparison in the east/midwest America, though.</p>
<p>I’m just going to repeat myself from post #24 and #26 , and make this point again, hopefully it will stick. This is <em>not</em> about SUBSTANCE. OP came back to ask why the clear gap between the international perception and the domestic (U.S.A.) one. It is all about PRIVATE vs. PUBLIC, and the American belief that money trumps all.
Europeans and most other civilized countries are used to the very opposite: their most desirable universities are public. The private ones are usually where you’d send a kid who didn’t make it into the top publics, if you have the money. “Rich but not so bright” was my French friend’s take on this phenomenon in her country.
Back to substance: no matter how you slice it, we have a plethora of great choices in the U.S.A., both private and public. Most of the universities mentioned throughout this long-and-getting-longer thread are fabulous.</p>