Have you guys heard any bad reputations about Berkeley?

Transfer Students UC Transfers
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<p>A lot of people who go to Ivy’s are believed to just talk down about anything in general, not just schools.</p>

<p>Public universities to them, are for poor people.</p>

<p>Non IVY league schools are lower class education and a waste of money.</p>

<p>People who don’t live in “Wasp” neighborhoods are poor electricians or plumbers.</p>

<p>I watched a video in Sociology interviewing people like this, and trust me, they say some things that really get under your skin. One guy was a “wasp” and basically, he thinks everyone other than wasps are “unsophisticated, uneducated, ugly, bad in style, poor and helpless” and by being “nice to them” he was somehow a better person than them. I find that drastically ironic. </p>

<p>Everywhere you go, people are going to identify the superiority of their choice by contrasting it to the choices of others. Your clothes are nice, because that guy’s clothes over there are ugly. Your school is great, because it’s NOT UC Merced, or Chico State or Devry. Devry is a great education, because it’s more than a GED that some other guy you work with has. Your house is nicer, because your neighbor’s house has dead grass and ugly lawn ornaments. </p>

<p>In that respect, people who go to UCLA think people who go to USC are just “rich people who didn’t get into LA” and people who go to Cal think UCLA students are Cal rejects. People who go to SDSU think people who go to UCSD are nerds with no social life who play DDR all day. People who go to UCSD think people who go to SDSU are party heads with gonorrhea. </p>

<p>It’s unfortunate, but society in general identifies how good something is, by comparing it to something that they consider inferior.</p>

<p>I don’t want to make generalizations, so I’ll say that everything that I’ve said is NOT constant and there are exceptions. Some people, and I’d like to hope some day that this will be most people, will make judgments based on their own experience and try not to generalize areas or schools. </p>

<p>I’ve met people who went to Harvard who were great people, likewise from Cal. A Cal student tutored me on Calculus and told me I was Cal material and that even if I got into UCSD and not Cal, that it’s just as good of a school. I’ve been invited to UCLA parties. So not all students are that judgmental. Just some.</p>

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<p>How could people think Ucla is for cal rejects? Ucla has a lower acceptance rate. And it’s still dropping every year. enough said Lol</p>

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<p>I didn’t say it was true, I said it’s what some of the students there think. </p>

<p>I love when people assume that what someone is reporting is the same as what they themselves think.</p>

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<p>I didn’t say u said anything. I said people, people, people, read again, ur not people ur essnar. People, meaning the stereotypers, not the person reporting on stereotypers. If I was referring to ur ideas, I would have adressed you.</p>

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<p>@vintijthebruin-
San Francisco blocks most of the fog and cold air from the rest of the East Bay. It can be miserable in SF (and believe me, it often is) and absolutely beautiful in Berkeley (as it often is…) at the same exact time.</p>

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<p>So fog and cold air is miserable? That doesn’t seem to be the opposite of something like sunny and breezy, it seems to be slightly different. You made it sound like Berkeley was “nothing like” San Fransisco, but, in fact, they aren’t very different if you consider miserable conditions to be heavy rain and wind, instead of your fog and cold air.</p>

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<p>I go to schools both in SF and Berkeley and I must say the weather is different.
It’s a lot nicer in berkeley, more sunny days. SF = foggy, super windy, and cold. You would think that since Berkeley and SF are near each other, the weather would be similar but NO, not at all !
Live in the bay area and you will understand :)</p>

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<p>At vintij
Not sure where u got it info bro, but its a well known fact that Berkeley has the lowest transfer acceptance percentage. Google it.</p>

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<p>AJ is right, transfers have it worse for UCB.</p>

<p>However, I think vintij was referring to freshmen admissions.</p>

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<p>ucla’s not for cal rejects, stanford’s for cal rejects haha
c a l r e j e c t s .com
though how many people actually get rejected by cal and accepted to stanford is another matter…>_></p>

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<p>RE: UCB “…that it wasn’t even a good school compared to schools there, and how it could actually hurt people who graduated from there and were trying to get hired on the East Coast since apparently many people there have prejudices against Berkeley”.
It is NOT good for undergraduates; it is GREAT for graduates; esp. Chem, ECE, some BioChem disciplines, business.
Why is it lousy for Undergrads? Look at their performance: LOWEST transfer to graduate school than any of the other UC’s… Why? One: it attracts local ‘over achievers’, so peer competition is stiffer; and TWO: It has a MUCH higher ratio of grad-students than other UC’s; hence: you are competing with Grad students in most any class, esp. upper-div, and THEY must make A’s; even if they drop and retake a class eleven times to achieve it… so… yeah, UCB can be harmful to your future unless alls’ you seek is a BA/BS. Note also; it is a semester based system; transfering to most any other UC gets you screwed. On the other hand, towards the end of your Upper Div major classes, you WILL have professors that REALLY know what they are talking about; although that can be said for ANY UC Campus you attend.</p>

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<p>^i heard about that…for the anthro graduate program…ive heard people who went to Cal for undergrad in anthro were less likely to continue their grad work at Cal.
you bring up a good point,“it attracts local ‘over achievers’, so peer competition is stiffer”</p>

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<p>Oakland Berkeley Weather:
If you read the statistics of Means and Extremes of temperature; that area has the BEST weather in north America. That is: it doesn’t get very cold, and it doesn’t get very hot. Runner up is Pensicola FL, which has high humidity.</p>

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<p>Where are the numbers for graduate school transfers? I would bet any high ranked university has similarly low transfer rates, simply due to the fact that a Cal undergrad degree fairs well by itself in the job market. For instance, if I don’t get into Cal, and instead go to Davis, I’ll be more likely to attend graduate school simply because my job prospects coming from Davis are less than if I were coming from Cal as an undergrad.</p>

<p>I’m not sure it’s all that common to have grad students in undergrad courses. Why would they be in undergrad courses?</p>

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<p>I’m not sure about other majors, but in philosophy I imagine that it is common for grad students to be in undergrad courses. I get this from: [UC</a> Berkeley - Department of Philosophy](<a href=“http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/graduate/phd]UC”>UC Berkeley - Department of Philosophy)</p>

<p>In particular, “Before passing the Qualifying Exam the student must pass eight courses at the 100 [upper division undergrad] -or 200 [grad] -level completed with a grade of A- or better. At least four of the eight courses must be graduate seminars.” Really, grad students would just take classes that are relevant to their area of specialization, and some of those are bound to be undergrad classes. </p>

<p>Also, a lot of philosophy grad students did not take philosophy as an undergrad, So they might have some catching up to do.</p>

<p>they have a language requirement and logic requirement which undergrad classes would fulfill.</p>

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<p>There’s a reason Cloyne’s motto is “Cloyne is Suck.” I’m not joking. </p>

<p>I’m sorry you guys hated Cloyne, but the rest aren’t that bad! Cloyne has 151 people living in it so it’s really hard for all of those people to act like one functional unit- although the people there mostly love it, they are much more reckless in their home than the other houses. The smaller houses are much cleaner and aren’t painted obnoxiously. Also, the coops have done a very good job of keeping that Berkeley spirit alive because that type of behavior isn’t tolerated in many other places. The tree-hugging stereotype is almost exclusive to the coops, and only to some of the houses, and only some of the people in them. Just think about what percentage of the student body is premed, pre-law, haas, etc, and what percentage lives in Cloyne. </p>

<p>I would really encourage you all to still apply for the coops and only list the smaller houses on your preference list. They’re a wonderful place to live and there IS a house for everybody. As a new Berkeley student and resident, an instant weekend social life, friends to eat your meals with, and study partners will be invaluable. </p>

<p>I would also encourage you to apply for summer housing in any of the houses, and if you absolutely hate it then you have the option of transferring to a smaller house (if you got stuck with Cloyne or CZ) or moving out for the fall. I really hate to think that one visit to Cloyne would make anyone completely against the idea of living in a coop. Did I mention that Cloyne IS Suck?? haha </p>

<p>Also, we know that the houses are intimidating. There’s a thing that CZ and Cloyne like to do, which is see how many “scream and runs” we can get- essentially, on a day like Cal Day or move in day many of the residents like to make the place actually dirtier than it is or act more vulgar than they are just to see how many people will be scared away. So Cal Day or a big party probably wasn’t a true representative of what it is like to live in a coop, even one like Cloyne or CZ. </p>

<p>In case you were wondering, I live in CZ and I’m definitely staying. Of course it was a complete culture shock moving in, but it just took a little getting used to all of the *****es on the wall. Only some of the people are crazier than your average dorm buddy, there are plenty that don’t use drugs at all or get drunk. Many are hard science majors and doing well in those classes- don’t think that a coop will be a GPA killer. </p>

<p>My apologies to any Clones that might be reading this, but what did you expect? :)</p>

<p>Check out bsc.coop for more info, PM me, or go dig up that one thread where I talked a bunch on the coops.</p>

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<p>Re: weather discussion- I live in Berkeley and the weather is the same as SF. It is sunny one moment and grey and awful the next. Right now (it’s almost noon) I can’t see the sun, its extremely windy and it looks like it might rain any second. Berkeley is not SD lol.</p>

<p>@janethedoe- most people don’t go to grad school at the same place they did there undergrad. Most advisors actually discourage pursuing all of your education at the same place because it doesn’t allow you to study with as many people, and consequently, as many points of view. Plus, every department has its strong subfields/specialties, and its very likely that once you complete your undergrad you will discover that there are many other places that will be better for what you want to study.</p>

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<p>Okay, thanks AbsurdMike. That makes sense that when someone is branching out of their specialty, or delving deeper into it, they would take a few undergrad courses. It just seems like it’s playing “catch-up” which is kind of lame.</p>

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<p>CantabilenApathy- so then i should go to Cal if i get accepted because UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology is the graduate school i want to go to…?
<a href=“http://www.ioa.ucla.edu/[/url]”>UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology |;
damn it has an awesome program.</p>

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<p>Berkeley’s weather is a lot like San Francisco, actually. I’ve lived right outside San Francisco all my life and I think it’s the unpredictable nature that really attracts people to this area. Generally, the weather is mild (especially by east coast standards).</p>

<p>I read recently that Berkeley has a growing conservative trend- I’m not sure I entirely agree with this (I took a class there last semester), but I do think that the locals continue the ultra-liberal, hippie stereotype more than the students. That’s not to say that there aren’t a group of “hippies” but it’s really more of a mix… like any other school.</p>