<p>But if Berkeley could make it so that the honor's student has the same perks that all students at Stanford get, wouldn't top guys still choose Stanford because of the difference in prestige?</p>
<p>it would become a more level play field for the top students since berkeley wouldnt be sacrificing anything other than prestige. they would equal the academics, housing, perks etc. and if someone had a certain slight preference for berkeley, he would be more likely to choose it over stanford than before.</p>
<p>Sounds like Upenn and Wharton.</p>
<p>why wouldn't anyone always choose Stanford (asssuming economics aren't in the equation) because of grade inflation?</p>
<p>Wow to the first two applicants, and especially the last, who got in with their stats.... maybe their essays made up for the lower scores? I think this is ridiculous though..</p>
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why wouldn't anyone always choose Stanford (asssuming economics aren't in the equation) because of grade inflation?
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<p>It would depend really. If a beautiful super smart engineering woman were to consider which department is more friendly to smart women, or if an idealist that wants to reach his philosophical potential, or something like that can come into factor as well...</p>
<p>To Gutrade, obviously, the optimum solution would be for the Berkeley honors perks to be better than what the average person gets at Stanford. It's basically the same strategy that other places use to lure top students from attending more prestigious schools. You can also be more creative and add other highly desirable perks. For example, how about for super-high achievers who want to go to medical school, perhaps guaranteed admission to UCSF Medical upon graduation from Berkeley? Or for those who want to go to law school, how about guaranteed admission to Boalt Law? These are just some examples. The point is to figure out ways to sweeten the pot and dissuade more of the top-flight students from going elsewhere. </p>
<p>I would also turn the question around and say that if you don't like my ideas, then perhaps you have some of your own? I hope you're not adopting a defeatist attitude as if to say that there is no hope for Berkeley to ever raid the top high school seniors from HYPSMC. Again, I would look at history and point out that it really wasn't very long ago (i.e. 40-50 years ago) when Stanford was basically a no-name school. At that time, the top students wanted to go to the Ivy League. Nowadays, I think we can all agree that Stanford is fully competitive with the Ivy League. How did that happen? Obviously there were many contributing factors, but one crucial factor was that Stanford was able to lure away top students away from the Ivy League, despite the fact that at that time, Stanford was a far less prestigious school than it is today. Stanford didn't start off as an elite school, it had to bootstrap its way there. Stanford was able to come up with a package that proved to be desirable enough to lure away a good portion of the top students away from the Ivy League, and that ultimately built Stanford's reputation as a place where top students study. I believe Berkeley needs to do something similar.</p>