<p>I would have to disagree with you there. Most Berkeley guys I know are smarter than the Stanfurd guys I know. </p>
<p>Asian Americans who score 1500+ on the SAT are sooo numerous, that we are like a dime a dozen. So an Asian with 1500+ on SAT might end up at UC Irvine, or Harvard. Yes, but they will be of the same intelligence. Thats the funny thing. The status differential doesn't work with Asians for the most part.</p>
<p>Getting into Stanford sets you for life, whereas getting into Berkeley means having to work your ass off for four years. And the Stanford person still ends up way more successful. Gee, I wonder where kids want to go for college? </p>
<p>Choosing Stanford is like choosing to play in Disneyland for four years and becoming a millionaire. Choosing Berkeley is like choosing to work in an auto-repair shop for SIX years and coming out a loser.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Getting into Stanford sets you for life, whereas getting into Berkeley means having to work your ass off for four years. And the Stanford person still ends up way more successful. Gee, I wonder where kids want to go for college? </p>
<p>Choosing Stanford is like choosing to play in Disneyland for four years and becoming a millionaire. Choosing Berkeley is like choosing to work in an auto-repair shop for SIX years and coming out a loser.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not if you work in finance. In finance/consulting and other areas that rely more on intelligence, there is significant emphasis placed on SAT.</p>
<p>That means a Berkeley grad with 1500 on their SAT will get a higher paying, more successful finance job at a hedge fund or investment bank than a Stanfurd grad with a 1450 on their SAT. I'm sorry, but thats just the way the world which places the highest emphasis on intelligence works.</p>
<p>So for some, after you take your SAT, and your SAT II's, it doesn't really matter where u go to school. You can slack off, and rely on your SAT scores to get you into a field that is highly dependent on pure intelligence. Lets face it now, Stanfurd grads have a reputation for being lazy investment bankers, and they are not known for letting in the smartest people now. The only way to distinguish random admissions decisions is to base intelligence on SAT. Thats just the way the smartest hiring managers view things.</p>
<p>Look, guys, I think this conversation is turning into the theater of the absurd. However, there are some things that I think we can all agree on about the undergrad programs. I'm not talking about the graduate programs, just the undergrad programs.</p>
<h1>1 - Stanford is overall, more selective than Berkeley is. Just look at the admissions numbers and I think it is plain to see that Stanford is simply more difficult to get into than Berkeley. More people who apply to both schools and get rejected from one and admitted into another get admitted to Berkeley but are rejected from Stanford than vice versa. That's not to say that there aren't some rare vice-versa cases, but like I said they are rare.</h1>
<h1>2 - From #1, it is also true that Stanford undergrads are, on average, more accomplished and more intelligent than Berkeley undergrads. Again, that's not to deny that Berkeley doesn't have its share of geniuses. But the reality is that Berkeley has a very long tail-end of undergrads who, to be perfectly honest, are really not very good at all. I think even californiapride/california1600 will have to admit that this is true - there is a large horde of Berkeley undergrads who are quite mediocre. I know that's harsh to say, but it's the truth. And those people drag down the average. California1600, I suggest that you go hang out with some of the Berkeley American Studies majors or the Legal Studies majors and I think you might change your mind about how most Berkeley guys you know are still smarter than most Stanford guys you know.</h1>
<h1>3 - Grade inflation does help and help immensely when it comes to professional-school admission, especially law-school and med-school admission. It doesn't help so much for B-school or PhD admission, but for law-school and med-school admission, it does help a lot. This is why if you want to get into a top law school, one of the wiliest and shrewdest strategies may be to major in American Studies or Film Studies at Berkeley - or maybe even better- major in American Studies at a CalState and just rack up easy A after easy A after easy A for doing nothing.</h1>
<h1>4 - I'm afraid I have to disagree with the last post and say that finance/consulting do not really rely on pure intelligence and hard work. Don't get me wrong, intelligence and hard work is part of the equation. But they also rely on 'smoothness' and contacts.</h1>
<p>Case in point - if finance and consulting really relied on intelligence and hard work, then why don't they just hire all engineers, math, and physics majors. After all, who is more intelligent and harder-working than the engineers, math, and physics majors? However, let's also be perfectly honest - a lot of engineers, math, and physics majors, whether at Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, or anywhere else don't exactly have a lot of social skills. You know what I'm talking about - those guys who haven't showered in months, those guys who can't hold a normal conversation to save their life, those guys who are just really really weird. Sure, many of those guys are absolute geniuses who also work extremely hard, but do you really think a consulting company or an IB really wants to hire them? I don't think so. Consulting companies and IB's would rather hire a guy who is not as smart as those guys (but still pretty smart) and not as hard-working as those guys (but still pretty hard-working) but are also smooth operators who look good and can talk good. Just go to any consulting company and you should notice how all the men tend to be handsome and great talkers and all the women are gorgeous and also great talkers.</p>
<p>umm Alot of you Berkeley people seem to talk a lot about SAT scores. Is that all they really go on? If so then that docks it a little right there. And man Cali1600 you are really full of pride for Berkeley. I mean yea, they do have a number one rated engineering grad school, but for undergrad? A lot of non californian soon to be undergrads go on name basis alone since most don't really do that much research except to look at the US News and World Report rankings. And those people make up the companies that run the business world so even if grading at Berkeley is harder than Stanford and so many SAT scores are 1500's (mine is a 1550 and you dont see me running around promoting it) the Stanfords win on two counts- Name recognition/respect and higher grads that get them to grad schools.</p>
<p>Sakky, some of the lower tier finance professions require good speaking, personal relations skills. However, at the quantitative analyst, hedge fund analyst, derivatives etc... these kind of finance roles, SAT is extremely important. And yes, a lot of math/stat majors do go into these fields. However, sometimes they do look for a more qualitatively skilled person, meaning being able to draw in a big picture analysis, and being able to reason inductively etc... which may be more of a social science major field. But regardless, intelligence is key, and no, not all of the smartest people go into math/physics etc... That kind of stuff bores some smart people... so an overall comparison even inbetween majors would still be the SAT score.</p>
<p>"Choosing Stanford is like choosing to play in Disneyland for four years and becoming a millionaire. Choosing Berkeley is like choosing to work in an auto-repair shop for SIX years and coming out a loser."</p>
<p>LOL. I love that quote. It's so true.</p>
<p>It's the dumbest BS I've EVER heard on these boards. Seriously, the rivalry is fine and all, but it gets ridiculous when you start to make things up. People who go to Berkeley come out losers? Idiotic. It's one of the best schools in the world. So is Stanford. Argue about the football team or school spirit, not academics. That's just a dead-end road.</p>
<p>Got to agree, AIM78. That would make my list of nominations for "Dumbest Post of the Week." Fortunately, its a highly competitive award.</p>
<p>"Argue about the football team or school spirit, not academics."</p>
<p>Dude, academics are the only thing we can competitively argue about. Our football team sucks, and our school spirit isn't that great. Besides, you guys can't take a little exaggeration? Of course Berkeley people don't come out losers, but it's fun to say that :)</p>
<p>West side, I don't deny that intelligence has something to do with finance, particularly the quant side.</p>
<p>However, I think you would agree that social skills also has something to do with it as well. What is the point of coming up with brilliant insights if you can't communicate those insights to other people? The point is that even if we're talking about the pure quant-side of finance, you know and I know that there are quite a few people who are out-and-out geniuses at all schools (not just Berkeley but all schools), who would never get hired simply because of their lack of social skills. There really are a lot of people who truly are geniuses but absolutely cannot communicate to save their lives. More to the point, finance is a field that rewards initiative, boldness, and basically channelled aggression, even within the quant subfields. There are a lot of people who are geniuses but don't have any personal initiative or boldness. They are meek geeks. I think you know who I'm talking about. </p>
<p>Now, I never said that ALL geniuses go to math/physics. But that's not the point. The point is not about where they all go, the point is where do they predominantly go? Just because people say that smoking is dangerous doesn't mean that absolutely everybody who smokes will die young. It's about the odds. Or look at it from the eyes of the employer. A bank wants to hire some quant-jock geniuses to do their finance models. Where are they more likely to find these people? In the American Studies major? They might, but probably not. They are more likely to find them in the tougher majors, like physics, math, engineering, and so forth. So that's where they tend to go to increase their odds of finding good candidates. It's like when you go fishing, you want to cast your line at the place where the fish are teeming, not where they are rare. If you're very lucky, you might cast your line at a bad spot and still get a very good catch, but what are the odds? It's far more efficient for you to cast your line where the fish are teeming.</p>
<p>The notion that getting into Stanford or Harvard or any school will set you for life is laughable. Yeah, it's easier to do well in chemE at Stanford than at Berkeley. But coming out of a prestigious undergraduate institution doesn't guarantee you the top spot at the medical school you go to - nor does it make you an automatic CEO. There are plenty of people at Stanford (though fewer than at Cal) that can't hack EECs or ChemE (or premed) and opt for easier majors.</p>
<p>As a sophmore at berkeley, I can tell you: it doesn't have to be hard. some of my best friends are majoring in eecs and cs. Their lives are hell. I'm going the law school route, so a nice light Political Science major is just fine for me (and my GPA) but it isn't so insubstantial that I would have trouble getting a job if I choose not to pursue a career in law. BTW, somebody up there mentioned PEIS as being one of the majors that garners respect... I don't know what school he's been going to because at the berkeley I know, PEIS is a failout major for people who first failed to get into Haas (business) and then failed to major in Econ. So... Btw I'm figuring out what classes to take next semester- I got an early telebears appointment- has anyone actually taken a film studies class at cal? are they really that easy? I'm looking for at least 6 units of easy A filler if NE1 has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.</p>
<p>and, LOL to whoever said that classes that end in "studies" are always easy. Last semester I took a scandinavian studies class, where half the students were engineers, who found it Pick-a-Prof, and viewed it as an easy way to fullfill a humanities requirement, without wasting valuble time and energy that could go towards reading up on circuit engineering or coding ****. It was funny to observe. It was like a bunch of blonde retarded scandinavian studies majors in the first 2 thirds of the class room, and a bunch of pimpily sickly looking CS guys slouching in the back doing Real work on their laptops.</p>
<p>somebody else on this forum had a theory that Berkeley's relatively relaxed admissions standards forced the school to grade harshly in order to fail out the slow kids. That probably isn't right. It's actually really hard to fail out of berkeley. Just look at some of the former or current athletes, or brothers at a few of the more retarded fraternities, or (I hate to say it) some of the kids who got in because they came from disadvantaged high schools: they don't drop out! They stay for 5 years and get on academic probation, but they don't fail out. They probably aren't getting into grad schools or getting really impressive jobs (maybe they are tho IDK) but they certainly don't all throw in the towel or get booted just because they aren't really smart enough to be there.</p>
<ol>
<li>schools like harvard and stanford definitely do grade-inflate (compared to berkeley and other such "grade-killer" schools). That doesnt mean their course of study is any less demanding or difficult, it just means that more people get A's, which probably means more people from stanford and harvard go to better grad schools.</li>
</ol>
<p>(and, in direct contrast to 1,)</p>
<ol>
<li>Go look up some information for grading curves on some berkeley CS classes. even with berkeley's harder curve, its still largely A's and A-'s that they're givin out (usually between 40-60 percent, IIRC). I'll bet its the same for other math/science majors. so stop blaming your crap grades on the school.</li>
</ol>
<p>The moral being that yes, we have it harder on the statistical average, but if you're motivated and sharp, there's no reason you can't get stellar grades at berkeley.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's actually really hard to fail out of berkeley. Just look at some of the former or current athletes, or brothers at a few of the more retarded fraternities, or (I hate to say it) some of the kids who got in because they came from disadvantaged high schools: they don't drop out! They stay for 5 years and get on academic probation, but they don't fail out. They probably aren't getting into grad schools or getting really impressive jobs (maybe they are tho IDK) but they certainly don't all throw in the towel or get booted just because they aren't really smart enough to be there.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This actually points to another wrinkle. I certainly agree that it's practically impossible to fail out of certain majors at Berkeley. But other majors (i.e. engineering), it is quite easy to fail out. I have known plenty of such people.</p>
<p>The real problem is that some majors are simply easier than others. That's why you might notice how very few football or basketball players major in, say, engineering or computer science. The same could be said for those kids from the disadvantaged high schools or those 'retarded' fraternities. Instead, they're majoring in X Studies. For example, you ever notice just how many football players major in American Studies? Are football players really that interested in studying America, or is there something else going on? Heck, sometimes I think those "Studies" majors should be termed "Non-Studies" because they are filled with so many students who don't actually want to study.</p>
<p>California_Ivy posted this back in December 2004 (Post#2):
"PhD programs will accurately adjust your undergraduate GPA. A dean of admissions at a well known university told me himself that a 3.1 from Berkeley is seen as the equivalent as a 3.5~3.6 from most other schools."</p>
<p>Is this true? Do grad schools/business schools/med schools/law schools/etc.. take into consideration WHERE you get your undergraduate degree from (in terms of difficulty)?</p>
<p>Cjue, the truth is, probably not by very much. You can glean this information yourself by looking at the GPA's of the Berkeley students who are admitted to the top law and med schools. </p>
<p>For example, take the elite law school "troika" of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford Law Schools. Notice how the Berkeley students who are admitted to these schools hold an average GPA that is higher than the average GPA of those law schools(which you can glean from USNews, Graduate Edition). That's right - higher. You would think that if such 'GPA correction' was really taking place, then Berkeley students would be getting admitted with lower grades than the average at those schools. In fact, the opposite happens - they need higher grades. </p>
<p>Nor is this a matter of simply the elite private law schools supposedly 'discriminating' against public school students. You can also look at the stats required of Berkeley undergrads to get into Berkeley's * own law school*, and to UCLA law school. Again, they need a higher GPA. </p>
<p>Career</a> Center - Profile of Law School Admissions - UC Berkeley
Career</a> Center - Medical School Statistics</p>
<p>I don’t get it-- why doesn’t berkeley just curb their grade deflation tendencies then, if lower gpa’s are so detrimental to grad school admissions?</p>