<p>wacker1990 –</p>
<p>“several of [your] professors” might be right, but for a reason different from what has been discussed thus far.</p>
<p>Let’s use an example more realistic than the Berkeley - Sac. State… let’s use Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>IF the SAME STUDENT at Berkeley is in the 50% of his/her engineering class, while at UCSB would be 15%, it is likely that AT UCSB this student will get encouragement, mentoring, and proactive invitations to participate in research projects that the SAME STUDENT would not get at Berkeley due to being 50%. What Professor is going to reach out to a 50% student at Berkeley? </p>
<p>Let’s use a sports analogy – a youth soccer team. What if a kid could start and play on an average rec league team, but would ride the bench and play 10% of the time on a Travel Club team? Further, on the Club team non-starter kids won’t get may reps in practice and just play a support role. Most sports parents would say – get on the best team WHERE YOUR KID WILL START. Starting games is the equivalent of faculty access in college. The same argument could probably be made for a sophomore who could ride the bench on Varsity, or be a team leader on JV. Just as it is hard to make significant improvement without being on the field most of the time, it is hard to make significant progress academically (access to a quality grad school) in the absence of faculty mentoring.</p>
<p>Mentoring is GOLD. A student should attend the school where their % standing among peers will facilitate access to faculty, internships, research, and faculty letters of rec. At an LAC, that is just about anyone in the top 50%, while at a public research University, it would normally require top 20% or even top 10%.</p>