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Actually most people would say USNWR top 15 are better than Berkeley.
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<p>a) unsubstantiated assumption, b) ad populum argument</p>
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<p>You love debunking ad populum arguments lol.</p>
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You love debunking ad populum arguments lol.
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<p>They're one of the most popular kind, actually, along with appeal to authority, correlation/causation, and general idiocy.</p>
<p>Harvard is definetly better academically. However I will say that I used to live in California and I went to Berkeley a lot and it's an awesome, diverse campus.</p>
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Duke is a solid target for most investment banking/consulting/private equity firms while Berkeley is a semi-target.
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Any basis at all for making that statement?</p>
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Any basis at all for making that statement?
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<p>Of course not! </p>
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The Duke grads that seek to join lucrative careers don't get paid less than Berkeley grads. In fact, they probably get paid more
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<p>Really? Any basis? Data? Is this just another empty assertion of yours? Of course!</p>
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Why does everything have to be about money anyway?
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<p>Of course, when Duke loses the argument, he states this. I am sure if Duke grads made more, he would be rubbing this data in Butchokoy's face.</p>
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<p>Haha thats what I was thinking as well.</p>
<p>Do you people ever sleep?</p>
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Are you saying that schools like Duke, Penn and Harvard have relaxed learning environments, lower academic standards, and faculty members who have lower morals in comparison to Berkeley and Caltech? Are you out of you mind? Top-notch private schools can afford to be more "caring" because they have far fewer students to deal with and can give all these students the resources and advising they need to graduate from school.
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<p>Penn has 20,000 students total. Harvard has 21,000 students total. That's really a small number of students to deal with, right?</p>
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Do you people ever sleep?
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<p>Nope.</p>
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<p>I actually strongly agree with this, based on personal experience with a nobel laureate professor. I think we place too much emphasis on graduate strength to rate the undergraduate experience.</p>
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If everyone believes in a lie, then does the truth really matter? I think not.
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<p>What the hell kind of logic is this?</p>
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I actually strongly agree with this, based on personal experience with a nobel laureate professor. I think we place too much emphasis on graduate strength to rate the undergraduate experience.
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<p>The problem is that everyone has a different opinion on what the ideal undergraduate experience is.</p>
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Faculty caliber, research quality and facilities matter a LOT, LOT more at the graduate level.
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<p>That doesn't mean that they don't matter at the undergrad level. They can matter a lot at the undergrad level and still matter a lot, lot more at the graduate level.</p>
<p>Brown Man if your going to assess Penn and Harvard as a total university (20k students)...then its only fair if you do that with Berkeley as well. Its not really fair or relevant for either, since the schools are fairly segregated and have independent resources.</p>
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Brown Man if your going to assess Penn and Harvard as a total university (20k students)...then its only fair if you do that with Berkeley as well. Its not really fair or relevant for either, since the schools are fairly segregated and have independent resources.
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<p>I was just trying to refute Proconsul's point that Penn and Harvard can do a lot of "hand-holding" with their undergrads. They really can't because they're big. After you get past a certain size, it doesn't matter whether you have 20,000 students or 40,000 students- your university is big regardless and there won't be "hand-holding" as Proconsul claims.</p>
<p>"Faculty caliber, research quality and facilities matter a LOT, LOT more at the graduate level."</p>
<p>It matters at the undergraduate levels too. At certain universities, and especially among the top 15, undergrads conduct a lot of research, and a significant portion have research experience. Most of the time, say if you are a premed, and you are associated with a respectable med school, its much easier for undergrads to get research positions at their medical school and get access to their top notch equipment and facult and staff than at their respective home campuses (which is no where near the quality of the graduate school facilities and etc, ie. equipement no where as new and cutting edge, equipment sometimes outdated, lab space not world class, etc..)</p>
<p>Therefore the link between graduate and undegraduate research quality and facilities cannot be cut. They are in fact very highly linked and intertwined.</p>
<p>You don't have to be a graduate student to take advantages of research jobs and research facilities, labs, and faculty researchers.</p>
<p>You have tons of chances to do that an undergrad as well. In fact, having a graduate program is definitely a plus since undergrads depending on the field they are in have an opportunity to connect and get exclusive research jobs that only undergrads at their respective school can only get.</p>
<p>Conclusion, Faculty Caliber, resaerch quality and facilities matter a lot at both the graduate and undergraudate levels.</p>
<p>butch,
You do realize that the Payscale data does not adjust for the Cost of Living in various regions of the country, right? Obviously, this has large implications for the reported salary levels and unquestionably understates the "real earnings level" of colleges in the South and the Midwest. </p>
<p>I think any reasonable observer would agree that students from both Duke and UC Berkeley will have a wide variety of job options after graduation and that large numbers graduates of each go on to highly successful careers. </p>
<p>Carry on...:)</p>
<p>butch,
My impression is that the schools with a large engineering component have an outsized benefit in the numbers for starting salaries and several schools that you wouldn't normally associate with the top ranks score very well (Worcester, Stevens Institute, etc). This effect moderates over time.</p>
<p>As for Duke, they do well at the beginning even with about a third of their students coming from the South. I think it is commonly accepted that Duke grads place well in high income areas like NYC, but it's not like the whole class is going to NYC. LOL. I would expect a meaningful percentage to stay in the lower wage South (25%?) or return to the Midwest (10%?), not to mention the mid-Atlantic area (20%?) and even the West (10%?). Statistically, this would likely lower their average starting salaries and their mid-career numbers. </p>
<p>And Dartmouth's wages are easy to understand. Virtually none of their grads stay in low-salary New Hampshire after graduation. I would expect a large majority (60%+?) to stay in the Northeast, mostly in NYC and Boston.</p>
<p>Finally, Notre Dame. Hey, I have long claimed that the school is hugely underappreciated on CC and much appreciated by employers. Despite having nearly 65% of their students coming from lower wage areas like the Midwest, South and Southwest, ND competes very well in this national comparison. Sort of makes that 3.9 PA score look pretty irrelevant and pretty out of touch with reality.</p>
<p>Hawkette -- I disagreee with your take on Notre Dame. High salaries are not evidence of a great undergraduate education.</p>
<p>I view these salaries as being correlated to the degree of "pre-professional" focus of the institution, combine with the % of engineering graduates.</p>
<p>Now, a person who <em>is</em> more interested in choosing a college more as a feeder to the interview room for business/engineering jobs right out of college would probably find a lot of value in that salary survey.</p>
<p>It seems in reading this board that a majority of the posters view the college experience to be primarily focused on acquiring skills and connections appropriate to getting interviewing slots for high paying jobs (a means to an end), and less as a time to shape critical thinking that prepares a person to make a difference in various life pursuits (academic, public service, business, etc.).</p>
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<p>For the first question, yes without a doubt.
For the second question if you factor out engineering Penn is probably a better place for you, but since you really can't MIT would probably be superior. It is hard to tell, since MIT is a very focused school.</p>
<p>Also to answer your question, I do think these schools undeniably make up the top top schools in the nation.</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton University (NJ)</li>
<li>Harvard University (MA)</li>
<li>Yale University(CT)</li>
<li>Stanford University(CA)</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Duke University(NC)</li>
<li>Columbia University(NY)</li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
<li>Dartmouth College(NH)</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis</li>
<li>Cornell University(NY)</li>
<li>Brown University(RI)</li>
<li>Northwestern University(IL)</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University(MD)</li>
</ol>