<p>
I keep hearing that, but I've yet to hear a single thing to back it up. Berkeley is a fantastic school and has a lot of resources for a biology major, so why don't its advocates bother to list them? I listed (repeatedly) the resources Duke offers.</p>
<p>I'll start: it has a paleontology museum :)</p>
<p>ucb offers many opportunities but many students just can;t get them due to the large population O.o, privates offer the best opportunities due to small size</p>
<p>"ucb also has a large population making it hard for many undergrads to get those avaliable opportunies"</p>
<p>Have you been to UCB? Have you studied there? I'm guessing not. Many Cal students tell you that it isn't difficult at all to get in on those opportunities, and undergrads can, too. The fact that it has a large student body is something often used against Cal, but that's misunderstood -- the large student body doesn't hinder opportunity at all. (When the number of students increases, the number of opportunities increases, too.)</p>
<p>"look at those middle 50% sat range and compare that w/ dukes...i think duke's is higher."</p>
<p>Yes, and? Duke is letting in fewer students, with 6,000 or so undergrads. Now take the top 6,000 students at Berkeley, and compare their stats to Dukes. I would hardly think they're any different. Not that SAT really gauges the quality of the student body, anyway ...</p>
<p>"but also has people who r just simply the top 4% of their school "</p>
<p>Indeed. So does Duke. Ohnoes! Duke is substandard now!</p>
<p>"...i don;t think i ever said ucb students don;t have potential"</p>
<p>You implied it with "while duke takes in students w/ actual potential."</p>
<p>"but i also know people who are full jerks and jsut got in because they were top 4%"</p>
<p>Does this really even matter? There are tons of jerks at every university, and they only got in because they excelled in their stats.</p>
<p>"i'm just saying students in duke are of much more of the same caliber"</p>
<p>Same caliber as ...?</p>
<p>The major issue with 'strength of program' is that most undergrads simply don't know what they want to major in, and most of them end up switching around majors anyway. This is unlike grad school where your 'major' is set. You can't enter a PhD program in EE and decide that you don't like it and simply decide that you'd rather switch to a PhD program in English. But that sort of thing happens routinely in undergrad.</p>
<p>And are you telling me that a thing like that did not happen at grad schools???</p>
<p>Check out the student profiles of Haas graduate business school students, Stanford GSB, HBS, Sloan?s, etc? They all come with all sorts of masters programs. Some are even doctors and lawyers. Some are university professors already. So, if things like that are happening for hose who have masters, why is it wrong for undergrad levls...???</p>
<p>"ucb offers many opportunities but many students just can;t get them due to the large population O.o,"</p>
<p>Do support this.</p>
<p>kyle take the bottom 6000 students in ucb and yes there is a big difference lol =D and no privates do nto care for class rank as much as ucs do...and you took my implication wrong...by making a comment about duke i never inferred all the students in ucb are weak O.o and no ucb has jerks who basically just had nothing but classrank but don;t worry ucb is improving i heard of their hol. approaches now =D caliber in terms of having about the same stats and achievements =D
Please don;t get angry at me, kyle, I'm actually objective about this...i'm not even applying to nor am i in duke...i hope you are also objective in that you are not in any ucs...please don;t get angry...we are here to fully express ourselves =D
edit: OMG i'm a california resident LOL</p>
<p>***I don't "know" that USNews is anti-public. Just take a gander at the USNews Graduate ratings. For example, while I greatly respect the MBA program at the Haas School of Business, even I suspect that their #7 ranking is too high. Haas is not an "M7" school. Similarly, 3 public law schools (Berkeley, Michigan, and Virginia) get extremely high placements. Berkeley obtains excellent PhD rankings. </p>
<p>Now, I know what you are going to say. You are going to say that those are USNews graduate ratings, not undergraduate ratings. But that's exactly my point. If USNews were really so "anti-public", wouldn't they be anti-public in ALL of its rankings? Why would it only be anti-public in its undergraduate rankings? That seems to undercut the argument that USNews is supposedly 'anti-public'.***</p>
<p>There's actually a thread for this topic. </p>
<hr>
<p>I don't "know" that USNews is anti-public. Just take a gander at the USNews Graduate ratings. For example, while I greatly respect the MBA program at the Haas School of Business, even **I suspect that their #7 ranking is too high. Haas is not an "M7" school</p>
<p>I see you don't trust USNews as well. So what's the point discussing all these when both you and I don't trust USNews rankings that much??? LoL........</p>
<p>See? You only favor to rankings in an isolated case or only matters that give your school an advantage. </p>
<p>Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia and UCLA are all great schools and can rival those top privates anytime of the day. </p>
<p>BUt I insist that we discuss this in a thread where it is appropriate.</p>
<p>I guess I'll have to research Berkeley's resources and opportunities myself. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>[ul][<em>]UC Botanical Garden
[</em>]Entomology Museum
[<em>]Paleontology Museum
[</em>]Herbarium
[<em>]Vertebrate Zoology Museum
[</em>]Bodega Marine Lab (administered by UC Davis)
[<em>]Cancer Research Lab
[</em>]Electron Microscope Lab
[<em>]Behavioral Research Field Station
[</em>]Biological Research Station in Polynesia
[<em>]Human Evolution Research Center
[</em>]Nature Reserve
[<em>]Biology Scholars Program
[</em>]Research Apprenticeships
[<em>]Summer Research Opportunities Program
[</em>]Undergraduate Student Instructors[/ul]</p>
<p>Honestly, isn't this more helpful than bickering about selectivity and rankings?</p>
<p>i think the most trusty thing on us news is peer assessment if you are planning to go to grad/prof school lol =D...however us news rankings are pretty stable through the years...schools in the top 10 r usually always in the top 10 vice versa w/ top 15, top 20, top 25, etc</p>
<p>Sorry, warblersrule86, this thread's going fast. :P And I was talking more about resources in general, not confined to biology ...</p>
<p>darkhope:</p>
<p>Peer assessment is the least trusty thing in US News rankings (they ask people who are biased, obviously).</p>
<p>"however us news rankings are pretty stable through the years...schools in the top 10 r usually always in the top 10 vice versa w/ top 15, top 20, top 25, etc"</p>
<p>lol are you kidding me? See this:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Such movement itself - while perhaps good for generating attention and sales - corrodes the credibility of these rankings and your magazine itself. Universities change very slowly - in many ways more slowly than even I would like. Yet, the people behind the U.S. News rankings lead readers to believe either that university quality pops up and down like politicians in polls, or that last year's rankings were wrong but this year's are right (until, of course, next year's prove them wrong). What else is one to make of Harvard's being #1 one year and #3 the next, or Northwestern's leaping in a single bound from #13 to #9? And it is not just this year. Could Johns Hopkins be the 22nd best national university two years ago, the 10th best last year, and the 15th best this year? Which is correct, that Columbia is #9 (two years ago), #15 (last year) or #11 (this year)?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>kyle...omg i am not biased i am not trying to lie to you...peer assessment is not biased b/c if it is then you r calling the schools who will admit you for grad/prof school biased and well...i don;t think they will care if they r biased or not...but i think we should care what they think even if they r biased O.o lol
stable through the yrs yes they r...i never meant stable between 2 years or so but through the yrs check back at a previous thread i posted which has the rankings shown through the years</p>
<p>***See this:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-pr...6gcfallow.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-pr...6gcfallow.html</a> ***</p>
<p>thank you for showing to us this link, kyledavid80.</p>
<p>See? I am not the only one who think USNews' undergrad ranking was stupid. This is Stanford's PRESIDENT sharing the same view as mine. I felt vindicated.</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=280581%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=280581</a>
edit: i think i started the thread LOL so funny lol
edit: us news ranking is stupid each year;however, when combined together they provide an accurate and approximated result of reality</p>
<p>"kyle...omg i am not biased i am not trying to lie to you"</p>
<p>I didn't say you were biased; I said the peer assessment score in US News rankings is based on the reports of people who don't know any other university than the one they're ranking, and/or who are biased in their assessment of the university.</p>
<p>US News isn't even stable throughout the years. Let's look at the extreme places of some universities:</p>
<p>Caltech - #1, #9
Berkeley - #13, 27
UPenn - #4, #16
WUSTL - #9, #24
Cornell - #6, #15
Emory - #9, #25
UCLA - #17, #31</p>
<p>And these are just some extreme examples. All the universities jump a few spots over the years, back and forth. Now really, I agree with Casper: it corrodes the credibility of the rankings.</p>
<p>top blah is usually stable with exceptions of some extremes
caltech top 10
ucb top 25
upenn, yes this is the one exception it moved up alot ovcer the yrs =D
wustl-top 15, it manupulated it's way to top 9 through manipulation of its data...same thing done by university of chicago
cornell top 15
emory top 20
la top 30</p>
<p>of course it's impossible to classify college by an exact number but we can put them in tiers</p>
<p>edit: i'm not even sure if my tier ranking above is correct...check the link that i gave and rank yourself b/c i'm only working by my bad memory lol</p>
<p>
[quote]
same thing done by university of chicago
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is simply not true. Chicago was ranked in the top 10 long ago, as well as now, and has only recently revamped the way it sends data to USNews.</p>
<p>"of course it's impossible to classify college by an exact number but we can put them in tiers"</p>
<p>I agree. But even there, it's debatable. How big should the tiers be? If I were to go by tiers, they'd be larger than traditional tiers (which are oftentimes roughly 3 schools).</p>
<p>"and has only recently revamped the way it sends data to USNews."</p>
<p>What do you mean? (I keep thinking email vs. snail mail... lol)</p>
<p>uchic is usually top 15 not top 10 O.o</p>
<p>ok I WILL MEET NO OPPOSITION W/ this comment hehe =D...anycolleges listed on us news as being top 100 is better than a community college =D undebatable I WIN =D</p>