<p>^The kids from “top colleges” such as Harvard have insane grade inflation. Publics, such as Berkeley, are quite deflated. Berkeley is not a “top school” in the aspect that it’ll hand out free A’s.</p>
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I can absolutely guarantee to you it is true. Given the students are exactly the same in every other way, graduates schools don’t play the silly rankings game nor are they fascinated by <em>gasp</em> prestige. I’d like to add .6 GPA points is a huge difference! The Berkeley student may not have even made the cutoff Belevitt is talking about. For many individuals, going to a more competitive undergraduate university does not pay off.</p>
<p>Some students who want to have an easier time earning a high GPA while maintaining some research opportunities choose the mid-tier UCs as a compromise.</p>
<p>EDIT: I’d like to add that Berkeley does have an advantage in particular industries such as Finance and Investment Banking that would be impossible at Sacramento State but for grad school, in terms of the exact same determined student attending the two different universities, its advantages are less evident.</p>