Like most things in academia, methodology will affect outcomes–I was utilizing the ARWU, which the Chronicle of Higher Education called It “the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities.” It has CAL at number 3, and Duke at 32, and factors in other components besides budgets.
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Well, California is known for magic, apparently including substantial research without capital.
Apparently all that moola from the private sector has not had the same productivity as CAL, by evidence some of the following:Faculty that are Nobel Laureates & Field Medalists or Highly cited researchers, alum that are Nobel Laureats or Field Medalists, or Research Output, as measured in Papers published in Nature and Science or Papers indexed in the science citation index…to wit CAL has more–so, I guess you are actually correct–it’s rather magical.
I wouldn’t put a huge amount of stock in absolute placement in the rankings - it kind of doesn’t matter. What matters is overall reputation, and both Duke and Berkeley have excellent ones. You won’t be at a disadvantage coming out of either of them, so this really depends on what kind of experience you want to have.
If you’re asking us, I’d choose Duke. I’d prefer the medium-sized environment, the location in NC (I’d want to return to the South after graduation), the school spirit, the greater geographic diversity, and the social life. Also, the campus and the architecture!
Top Tier, I never said anything about research in this thread.
In past threads I’ve talked about Berkeley’s superior faculty and academic breadth and depth. But I don’t recall specifically saying anything about research between Duke and Berkeley.
@UCBChemEGrad: You’re right, I appologize (this was a carryover from past threads and probably not directly germane to this one).
Top Tier, when comparing research budgets, keep in mind Berkeley doesn’t have a medical school and medical research to support… Medical research is the biggest fundraiser and expensive. I agree medical research doesn’t support undergrads too much.
Berkeley’s medical school and research is across the bay at our medical campus, UCSF.
@UCBChemEGrad: “Berkeley’s medical school and research is across the bay at our medical campus, UCSF”
Isn’t UCSF an entirely independent UC entity? I never knew that it was UCB’s “medical school” (or medical campus, or medical research). Is UCSF’s leadership subordinate to UCB’s?
http://chancellor.ucsf.edu/sites/chancellor.ucsf.edu/files/AdminCampus.pdf indicates that UCSF is no more part of UCB than is UCLA (or any other California public university).
^^^^^Here comes the “de facto” state again!
My point regarding medical research and fundraising stands. Berkeley’s research fundraising doesn’t include medical research while others universities do. UCSF research fundraising is primarily for medical purposes since UCSF remains a graduate only medical sciences campus. Berkeley did not develop another medical campus due to its history with UCSF. Other campuses such as Davis (Cal’s agricultural school) and the Southern Branch developed into full fledged universities with undergraduate programs.
Class sizes are likely findable on each school’s on-line schedule of classes.
If you are interested in economics with a greater math emphasis (e.g. for pre-PhD preparation), Berkeley offers the option of more math-intensive intermediate economics courses. However, Berkeley economics does require a 3.0 GPA in prerequisite courses to declare the economics major. The business major at Berkeley is competitive admission after completing the prerequisites.
@TopTier
The research budget is not a good proxy for everything outside of medicine because as much as 90% of that could be allocated to the medical school for any given university. In other words, out of that $900 millions, maybe only, say, $200 millions or less go to the rest of Duke that undergrads actually take classes in.
You should EXCLUDE the budget for the med school to arrive at more relevant comparison.
Doesn’t medically-related research frequently have applicability in other disciplines (chemistry comes to mind) and vise versa? If so, why would an insightful analyst exclude the entire medical school/medical research budget?
But not the OP’s intended major of economics or business.
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The OP may certainly alter his major (most undergraduates do at least once), but MORE IMPORTANT essentially no scientific research would apply to the OP’s Bachelor’s work, if he retains a business/economics/finance focus.
TopTier,
I think you are stretching quite a bit. Yes, maybe there are couple projects like that. But for the most part, whatever granted to med schools stay there. Many departments at Duke are not ranked anywhere close to what those research dollars suggest simply because they don’t share most of the pie. Chemistry is not highly ranked for example.