<p>I.e., if I were premed or something (maybe even in any professionally inclined situation), I'd want to go to an Ivy with reasonable grading (not Cornell, for instance)! Plus, general university prestige, and all that counts more for me then!</p>
<p>Right now, I'm very happy here because I mainly want access to a top faculty and research atmosphere.</p>
<p>To defend Steven, </p>
<p>If it were not for CC, I would have little idea what "Cal" meant, and would have NO idea that it was a particularly strong academic school. </p>
<p>Cal's prestige outside of California is VERY VERY diluted. That is an inevitable symptom of having 90% of your students come from in state. </p>
<p>I think you would be hard-pressed to find a person outside of California who would argue that Cal and Stanford, or any of the Ivies or top privates, were even in the same league. However wrong they may be. </p>
<p>Not that prestige means anything, but let's be honest.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If it were not for CC, I would have little idea what "Cal" meant, and would have NO idea that it was a particularly strong academic school.
[/quote]
This is true.</p>
<p>Up until this year when I was searching for schools, I thought Cal was just a sports school, like Oregon or something. I had no idea they were considered strong at academics. And I NEVER would have put them in the same class as Stanford. Most everyone I know would probably say the same thing.</p>
<p>In real life, nobody would ever consider Cal to be on Stanford's level, no matter how much people try to argue that it is.</p>
<p>^ I agree with the last statement. Most people put Stanford on the same level as Ivies.</p>
<p>^Also, a lot of people base their views on colleges solely on what USNWR says (despite how us "enlightened" folk here on CC know better ;)). So, when they see that Stanford is ranked 4th and Berkeley is ranked 20 something-th, it's going to sway their opinions on Cal.</p>
<p>Well, as long as you guys aren't actually SUGGESTING that Cal's academics are weak, I'd agree with you that most people want to go to a private school and/or Ivies.</p>
<p>Most people also don't know what they want to study very well! And most people aren't shooting for grad schools. So, an overall super prestigious undergraduate program IS what they need on many levels. I myself admitted above, that if if I were less sure of what I want to do, I'd rather go to an Ivy. Stanford, I consider to be a great choice, because it both is arguably more prestigious than quite a few Ivies and has excellent graduate departments -- which is actually beneficial to an undergrad who wants exposure to top class faculty in a given area.</p>
<p>But for engineering, I really think it's Cal, Stanford and MIT. Now Caltech and Harvey Mudd are terrific schools, but are DIFFERENT (not worse), so I don't put them in this category.</p>
<p>And as a picture, for grad school while Stanford and Cal are heavily on my list, I'm not even greatly considering lots of Ivies (two big exceptions)! Neither is a friend who just applied to schools.</p>
<p>"In real life, nobody would ever consider Cal to be on Stanford's level, no matter how much people try to argue that it is."</p>
<p>This is pushing it =] I know plenty of people who'd rather go to Cal than some of the standard Ivies, though the very top Ivies are of course super attractive.</p>
<p>I think the main place where Cal has "overall prestige" is in engineering. Just graduating Cal engineering is supposed to be a big deal. But probably only the engineers heard of it.</p>
<p>Among engineers though, I think there're a good number of Cal students who'd spit on just about any school but Mudd, C-Tech, Cal, Stanford and MIT. Not that they have the right attitude, but on the topic of "overall prestige." Oh, and even Mudd, while I think one of the most appealing of these schools to me, lots of people would go "pshaw, haven't heard of that, go to Cal."</p>
<p>"In real life, nobody would ever consider Cal to be on Stanford's level, no matter how much people try to argue that it is."</p>
<p>Whoops, that comment was about Stanford, not Ivies. My bad. Um, again pushing it, I think engineers would consider Cal very much on Stanford's level for instance. Graduate school wise, I'm pretty sure plenty of Stanford students would love to come to Cal, and vice versa.</p>