Harvard or UC Berkeley with Regent Scholarship

Parents Forum
81

<p>I agree with blossom about age of the parents being an important factor. My DH is early 50s and our D3 has 1 year remaining. His brother also has three kids to put through college, the 1st kid is in their first year of college and bro is in his early 60s. </p>

<p>I am glad we are almost done because we have been scrimping for tuition for 10 years, and the lifestyle complaints about the downturn in the economy shows that every one else is just joining me :wink: But we have an extra 10 years with no required educational contribution required to recover from the economic downturn. Bro lost $ in the market, in real estate, in work, in 529s and has barely begun the process and is near retirement age. Painful!</p>

<p>My DD at Cal has had several highly reputed profs, and found great connections with several- nope, not in Ochem where her mid term is curved with the other 1200 people the prof taught in various sections that term, but with others, yes. Mostly upper div profs have been very accessible, but the L&S school has a series of freshman & sophomore classes designed to meet the GE requirements all of which are taught by excellent invited profs, like Filippenko in astronomy, a fascinating guy, check him out on you tube:
<a href=“Webcast and Legacy Course Capture | Research, Teaching, & Learning”>Webcast and Legacy Course Capture | Research, Teaching, & Learning;

82

<p>If your daughter turns down Harvard how will you feel, how will she feel? Does she understand what it means to be accepted at Harvard? </p>

<p>The people, the quantity and quality of classes, the unbelievable professors, the intelligence and stimulation, etc. The contacts/friends she will make there will practically guarantee success in her future. There’s a reason why Harvard is known all over the world and most people would give their proverbial right arm to have a chance to attendl</p>

<p>That being said, not every college is for every kid, even Harvard. You need to do what you and your daughter are most comfortable doing, no one can solve this for you. Just understand that you (and your daughter) will be explaining to those people who know she was accepted to Harvard why she chose the local school instead for a long time.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

83

<p>no university “practically guarantee[s] success” though some people might give their right arm to go to Harvard…some thinking it would guarantee success even for someone without a right arm!</p>

84

<p>

</p>

<p>Agree that going to Harvard is no guarantee of success in anyone’s future.</p>

85

<p>

</p>

<p>Its graduate schools.</p>

86

<p>To all the supporter of Cal; If Cal is so great then can you point to the reason why the yield is so poor compare to all the other top schools including Harvard?</p>

87

<p>Here are some courses at Cal TAUGHT BY PROFESSORS including top professors, to freshmen and sophomores in small sections WITHOUT TA’S:
[Seminars</a> for Freshmen at UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://fss.berkeley.edu/freshman.lasso]Seminars”>http://fss.berkeley.edu/freshman.lasso)
<a href=“http://fss.berkeley.edu/sophomore.lasso[/url]”>http://fss.berkeley.edu/sophomore.lasso&lt;/a&gt;
And you can see for yourself. Here are some webcasts of undergraduate courses taught by REAL Professors. Top ones. (Probably with TA’s doing small sections.)
<a href=“Webcast and Legacy Course Capture | Research, Teaching, & Learning”>Webcast and Legacy Course Capture | Research, Teaching, & Learning;

<p>Silly to talk of yields in a public vs. private school. BTW, nobody here disputes that Harvard is prestigious; of course it is. And no reasonable person can dispute that Cal is a great University. But the question that the OP posed (and probably has long ago resolved, without much help from this thread) is whether it is “worth” spending over $100,000 more for a Harvard undergraduate degree vs. one from Cal with a Regent’s scholarship if it will be a serious financial sacrifice.</p>

88

<p>

Why is it silly? It shows how many people consider it worth spending $100,000 more. If $$$ is so important then the yield should be much better at the great public universities. I think you are contradicting your own logic here.

</p>

89

<p>

One reason is UCLA. </p>

<p>Having two top public universities in one state cannabalizes each other’s yield to some degree.</p>

90

<p>ParentOfIvyHope, I’ve done the math a while back, but the yield for Berkeley is better than a lot of schools.</p>

<p>For class of 2012,</p>

<p>Cal yield rate is 4449/10364 = 42.93%. (RD only)</p>

<p>Compare this to Williams RD yield, 312/1053 = 29.63%
<a href=“http://www.williams.edu/admission/williamsprofile2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.williams.edu/admission/williamsprofile2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Amherst RD yield, 300/1006 = 29.82%
<a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/&lt;/a&gt;
Overall is 438/1144
But out of 438 admits, 138 were from the ED pool.
So (438-138)/(1144-138) is the 29% RD yield.
ED yield (138/138) 100%
RD yield 29%
Aggregated yield is 38%.</p>

<p>Dartmouth overall yield (ED & RD) is 1095/2228 = 49.15%
[Class</a> Profile](<a href=“Home | Dartmouth Admissions”>Home | Dartmouth Admissions)</p>

<p>Ceteris paribus, Berkeley would have .4 + .6*.4293 = 65.76% yield had they set aside 40% of the avail slots for ED. This is with UCLA winning 40-60 cross admit. Without UCLA, the yield would be quite a lot higher.</p>

<p>Rough estimate with UCLA out of the picture.
Assuming top 25% accepted at Berkeley also got into UCLA.
.25 * 10364 = 2591 students.
of these 2591 students, 43% will either pick Cal or UCLA, 57%, kids of ParentOfIvyHope included, go elsewhere.
.43 * 2591 = 1114 students.
of these 1114 students, 40% will pick UCLA, 60% will pick Cal.
.4 * 1114 = 445 students go to UCLA.
Without UCLA, it’s very likely that those 445 students will go to Cal. that will drive yield rate up to at least 5%. </p>

<p>Take out UCSD, probably another 2-3 %.</p>

<p>Final yield is 50%+ without ED.</p>

91

<p>It’s not just Harvard’s grad schools - it’s the name. I got a job in a German architectural office based solely on the Harvard name, despite the fact that I did not study architecture at Harvard. It’s not fair, but it is there. Harvard (at least in Europe) has more of a name than Berkeley.</p>

92

<p>Truth be told: someone who does well at either Harvard or Cal has a good chance of getting a job. (So does someone who does well at Northwestern…Pomona…any number of top colleges).<br>
And just as the NE is very Harvardophile, so is California very UC-o-phile. There are many employers in California who will prefer a Cal grad. Some of this is a geographical thing. Some of it is mythology, like the posters who believe that all Cal classes are big and taught by TA’s but all of Harvard’s are small and taught by Nobel Prize winners.</p>

93

<p>Thanks Middsmith for the math. But the problem is when it comes to arguing the Cal supporter argues against HYPMS with Cal and not LACs or Dartmouth.
The cross admits among HYPMS is also large.</p>

<p>Also Cal is California only university and its admit rate is more than double the admit rate of HYPMS. It is almost guranteed to get into Cal with UC GPA > 4.5 and SAT1 > 2200 which is not the case with any of HYPMS.</p>

<p>Cal is great but it is still a local University and is not open to all, while HYPMS is open to almost everyone in this world. The experience at HMSPY is much much better than Cal and should not be compared. It is not in the same league.</p>

94

<p>

I have not seen a single case where a MIT grad is rejected against a Cal graduate at all the companies I’ve worked here in California. I’ve not come across a case where a Harvard graduate is pitted against Cal graduate but to make the point that even though Cal is well regarded in California; MIT grad is still preferred over a Cal grad by a very large margins in California. So it has nothing to do with the geography.</p>

95

<p>mathmom and POIH, it probably depends on the major and the field. In my field (biotech, chemistry, biology, etc.) Berkeley rings many more bells than Harvard does. MIT’s name recognition, on the other hand, is hard to beat… :slight_smile: Frankly, when we interview someone with several years of industrial experience, we do not even look at where they got their undergraduate and graduate degree, however, we pay a lot of attention to their skills, track record and ability to work in a team.</p>

96

<p>BunsenBurner: It is true that experience wins in the long run, otherwise I won’t be here in US to begin with, but when we talk about these things we are talking aboout two people with same experience or skill set but the only difference with their undergraduate or graduate degrees. i could only talk from the point of view of enginerring companies and so I had to give the example of MIT vs Cal instead of Harvard vs Cal.
I already made the point that if some one is comparing Cal Engineering with Harvard then it would have been another thing but the issue here was Cal Humanities against Harvard.</p>

97

<p>

[University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu)
It’s roughly 77.9%. I guess 4/5 with that kind of stats get in. You see the other 1/5 rejected in the Official decisions all the time.<br>
But that wasn’t the point. The point was this, student A and student B both have the same stats, only one gets into Harvard. Is the other one incapable of doing the same work? </p>

<p>

So you see cases where a MIT grad goes up against Cal grad all the time? Really? I thought once a company identify a match, they’d move forward immediately. They don’t stall around waiting for the MIT guy to come along. It’s ludicrous to even suggest that in any actual setting, MIT grads have huge advantage over Cal grads in CA because the chance of that happening is slim to none. </p>

<p>

No on is arguing otherwise. But is the experience 100k or 200k better than one one would have gotten at Cal?</p>

98

<p>The student at issue here is not looking to study a field in the “humanities” - she’s interested in social science or business. The experience would be quite similar academically.<br>
I don’t think the academic experience at Harvard is “much much” better; I think they can be compared, and they are absolutely in the same league. What would be different would be the dorms, the extracurricular culture, the social culture, the weather, and the willingness to tell someone where you went to school without the euphemism that it was in “Boston.”</p>

99

<p>OP,</p>

<p>I am too tired to read through this whole thread, but take it from a Cal grad who majored in poli sci – one of the top departments in the US – send your daughter to Harvard if those two are her choices.</p>

<p>Our S, who also wants to study government, just got back from the admitted students circuit and is probably going Y over H. His parents both went undergrad to big state state schools with top poli sci departments. But then we did grad schools at HYP Ivies. Sure it will hurt to write the checks, but we are ready to pay for what we know from experience is a superior undergraduate educational experience at either Ivy.</p>

<p>Only you know what you can afford, but we believe it is worth every extra penny for our children.</p>

100

<p>

Cal is open to everyone…anyone can apply, and a lot of international and OOS students are admitted every year - even more so at the graduate level.</p>

<p>

Doesn’t this statement contradict your first?</p>

<p>

Whatever makes you feel better shelling out the big $ for MIT. :rolleyes:</p>