How are UCs perceived in terms of prestige?

College Search & Selection
41

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For L&S, one must take 6 units out of his/her major department, but those have to be upper-div units, and I doubt those upper-div classes will have 100+ students.

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That would actually confirm what I said. To get to the level required to be allowed into upper-division classes, you have to take a lot of lower division classes (presumably large) creating the numbers that I mentioned.</p>

<p>Look, I'll approach the Berkeley data another war. There are 226 classes at Berkeley in Fall term with 100+ students (and probably a similar number in the Spring). Let's assume 200 students average in each of these classes (which probably works, as a some of these classes are really huge. Look at the intro-bio sequence, I'm guessing it has a massive number - at UCI, where my mom teaches, it's something like 1000).
That means, in any given term, 45,200 students are in classes with more than 100 students. That works out to 1.89 classes with over 100 students for every single undergrad (there are 23,863 total). That's about 40% of one's classes (if not more). If we assumed 150 students per 100+ class (though I'm almost certain this is too low) it still works out to 33,900 students in 100+ classes, or 1.42 per student. For a student taking 4.5 courses per term (alternating 4 and 5, which sounds like a reasonable number) this works out to 32% of one's classes.</p>

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That would actually confirm what I said. To get to the level required to be allowed into upper-division classes, you have to take a lot of lower division classes (presumably large) creating the numbers that I mentioned.

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<p>No. That's not the requirement, which is:</p>

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of the 36 upper division units, 6 must be taken in courses offered outside your major department

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Simply because it works for Yale doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for Berkeley. It could be coincidental that it matches up. I'm not saying this is the reason, but I can't seem to accept your numbers in the face of the schedules of classes. It simply doesn't match up.

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Look, I doubt you can find very many majors at Yale with more than a couple of 100+ student courses (there are 36 total such courses in the Fall, so maybe 72 total, with 54 majors). Yet, 20% of Yale students' courses have over 100+ students, which works with my anecdotal evidence. So even though it is impossible for a biology major to have more than 2 or 3 courses with over 100 students in his major, he will take 8 total. I am willing to bet it works the same way at Berkeley. There's no reason it shouldn't.</p>

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<p>kyledavid, look at my post #41. It is absolutely impossible that fewer than 30% of Berkeley students' courses have over 100 students unless they are lying on the common data set to make their courses look bigger than they really are. Nothing else matters, it is impossible for it to be otherwise if you want the numbers to add up.</p>

<p>If you think taking 12 courses outside your major is too many, you are sadly misinformed. I don't know the requirements of Berkeley majors, but at Yale, a humanities or social science major requires about 12 courses, out of the 36 minimum you take to graduate. A science major requires more like 15-16, but that includes courses in other departments (which are not cross-listed. Look at Berkeley's course catalog - I bet organic chemistry isn't listed in biology, and if it is, there will be a lot of bio courses with more than 100 students). An engineering major has to do the most, but it's more like 18 courses in his major plus 5 or 6 more that are in other departments (not cross-listed, generally large intro courses). Berkeley's majors may require more courses than Yale's but it's not that many.
Incidentally, let's consider a major like biology at a school like Berkeley. It should require one or two terms of calculus, both with more than 100 students, at least 3-4 chem courses, probably with more than 100 students, at least one stats course, with more than 100 people, and probably at least a 4 of the required bio courses will have more than 100. That's probably 10 courses with over 100 right there (even if only 4 are listed in bio). Add in the fact that one would probably take 5 or 6 large courses not required for the major, and you've got your 15 right there.</p>

<p>edit: re post 42, to take upper division classes outside your major, you presumably first have to take lower division classes in order to be eligible for the upper division classes you want.
Also, UC Berkeley has a seven-course breadth requirement (<a href="http://learning.berkeley.edu/breadth/)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://learning.berkeley.edu/breadth/)&lt;/a>. Presumably most of the courses people take to meet it will be large, intro type classes.</p>

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<p>vicissitudes:</p>

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Guys stop arguing. You're both using questionable numbers, shaky logic, and with little experience of the school in question, to clutter up a perfectly good thread.

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<p>The main discussion about the prestige of the UCs, in particular Berkeley, was over, from what I could see. Plus it's relevant -- the supposedly large size of Berkeley's classes hurts its prestige, or so they say. =]</p>

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1. Although something like 4% of classes above 100 versus 6% of classes above 100 seems like only a 2% difference, it effectively means you'll have 50% more classes above 100. Think about it this way: given two schools with the same number of classes and those percentages, one will have 50% more classes with 100+ than the other.

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<p>Um, because 50% of 4% is 2%, right? Again, the small numbers make the percent difference seem large, but it's still not that great a difference.</p>

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3. kyledavid80, I'm not sure what data you're looking at, but I'm looking up the fall 2007 schedule on berkeley.schedule.edu

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<p>Er, that site doesn't exist. =p Do you mean schedule.berkeley.edu? From there, where are you clicking and what are you searching?</p>

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If you think taking 12 courses outside your major is too many, you are sadly misinformed.

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<p>No, I don't think I am. And I said 12 courses on average is too much.</p>

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edit: re post 42, to take upper division classes outside your major, you presumably first have to take lower division classes in order to be eligible for the upper division classes you want.

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<p>No, I don't think that's the case when fulfilling unit requirements for graduation (in this case, the 6 upper-div units in other departments).</p>

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Presumably most of the courses people take to meet it will be large, intro type classes.

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<p>Yes, that's right. Doesn't help your argument much, though.</p>

<p>At any rate, all of this is highly variable in itself, in large part because of major. Chemistry is a larger department, so it will tend to have larger classes -- that sort of thing. And then there's that you don't necessarily need to go out of the department, etc. It's all rather messy.</p>

<p>All in all, I still don't think the class sizes at Berkeley and at Stanford are majorly different. We can agree to disagree.</p>

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<p>One last note: in looking at the schedule of classes, you can see that any large class is supplemented with many small discussions/labs. Sadly, Berkeley doesn't report subsections in its CDS. I surmise the universities would be even more similar, if not the same, in that aspect.</p>

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The main discussion about the prestige of the UCs, in particular Berkeley, was over, from what I could see. Plus it's relevant -- the supposedly large size of Berkeley's classes hurts its prestige, or so they say. =]

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<p>No, you two hijacked the forum and others simply didn't want to participate because it is, as I have said, a rather pointless debate with questionable data (for example, I see at least 5 English classes with 99 students meant to skew the numbers you've been talking about for 3 pages), and faulty logic. If you really want to continue, please take it to PMs or email.</p>

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Um, because 50% of 4% is 2%, right? Again, the small numbers make the percent difference seem large, but it's still not that great a difference.

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<p>Read my post again. Let's say two schools have 100 classes each. School A has 8 100+ classes. School B has 4 100+ classes. Your chances of being in a 100+ class is twice as large in School A than B, even though you could just say 8% - 4% is 4%, but that's misleading. Twice as high is a big deal.</p>

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Er, that site doesn't exist. =p Do you mean schedule.berkeley.edu? From there, where are you clicking and what are you searching?

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<p>Yes it was a typo. You know the website. If you're wondering why you didn't see all those other classes, it's because you didn't click "next page".</p>

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One last note: in looking at the schedule of classes, you can see that any large class is supplemented with many small discussions/labs. Sadly, Berkeley doesn't report subsections in its CDS. I surmise the universities would be even more similar, if not the same, in that aspect.

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<p>Everyone knows there are discussions for large lectures at every major university, sizes are always around 10-30ish. To compile all that data just for something we already know is unnecessary.</p>

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<p>Look, vicissitudes, as I wrote in an earlier post, I'm sorry to have hijacked the thread (though I know based on PMs that others were finding the discussion interesting). I'm simply tired of kyledavid making the claim the class sizes at Berkeley are the same as at Stanford, when they aren't. I don't know why you say that both of us are using "questionable" data as your only example are from kyledavid's posts. I took my numbers from the common data sets, made reasonable assumptions (and often made several different sets of possible assumptions, to provide multiple possible results) and presented what I found, which I believe to be interesting.
Again, I apologize for taking over the thread, and this will be my last post on it (as I answered the OP's question earlier).</p>

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<p>This reminds me of the thread, "Dartmouth vs. Wash U". Sure, the East Coast may not be the end all destination for a lot or even most people once they graduate with their BA/BS. But, I think I would still only consider a UC -- other than Berkeley -- if I knew I wanted to work in California. Just like I would only go to UTexas if I knew I was going to work in Texas or the Southwest. Or, Chapel Hill if I were going to work in North Carolina or somehwere in the Southeast. I don't see why UCs should be viewed any differently.</p>

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<p>
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No, you two hijacked the forum and others simply didn't want to participate because it is, as I have said, a rather pointless debate with questionable data (for example, I see at least 5 English classes with 99 students meant to skew the numbers you've been talking about for 3 pages), and faulty logic. If you really want to continue, please take it to PMs or email.

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<p>Nobody else was answering -- the thread was sinking. The OP got answers. And like it or not, vicissitudes, CC thrives on threads that go off topic. It happens in a large number of threads, so I don't see how this is any different, or why it should be prevented.</p>

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Read my post again. Let's say two schools have 100 classes each. School A has 8 100+ classes. School B has 4 100+ classes. Your chances of being in a 100+ class is twice as large in School A than B, even though you could just say 8% - 4% is 4%, but that's misleading. Twice as high is a big deal.

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<p>I'm well aware, vicissitudes -- I too know math. It doesn't matter that it's twice, because the numbers are small. If School A had .1% classes over 100, and School B had .2%, that's twice the number of large classes. It would be misleading to say so, even though it's true. Why? Because people automatically assume that twice = much bigger, but that isn't always the case. .1% difference is insignificant.</p>

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Everyone knows there are discussions for large lectures at every major university, sizes are always around 10-30ish. To compile all that data just for something we already know is unnecessary.

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<p>Then why is it that Common Data Sets do it? It'd be helpful in comparing schools -- that's why it's in there.</p>

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I don't know why you say that both of us are using "questionable" data as your only example are from kyledavid's posts.

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<p>You assumed the average 100+ class for Berkeley is 200, that Stanford's and Yale's is 150, that in the average of each range (2-9, 10-19, etc.) falls exactly in the middle, that no one student was taking more than one 100+ class in that term (which would distort the percents of class sizes that an undergrad would take in his/her full time at the university), etc.</p>

51

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Er, that's how it's gonna be for most public universities. It's the University of California, so it's going to serve California residents first. And since it's such a huge state, there are few spots for out-of-staters.

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To the OP: Berkeley (and to a lesser extent UCLA) hold unique positions in higher education compared with peer or near-peer institutions. On the one hand, Berkeley is among the creme-de-la-creme of research institutions. Across the board, its faculty and graduate schools rank among the uppermost elite of the world's institutions, from the sciences to engineering to the humanities. Also, though Berkeley has existed for a lot less time than most Ivy League schools, it has an important cultural pre-eminence as the place where campus Civil Rights protests were most active, where Oppenheimer kicked off crucial elements of the the Manhattan Project, where many Nobel Laureates have been spawned, where the "Berkeley Mafia" that guided Indonesia's economy to stability for many years was trained, etc.</p>

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<p>I would point out that the preference of Berkeley for California residents is much less strong for the graduate programs and is basically non-existent for the PhD programs. There are years in which some of the Berkeley PhD programs will not matriculate a single resident of California: every incoming student of that program in that year will be either an OOS student or a foreign national. </p>

<p>Coincidentally (actually, probably not coincidentally), the Berkeley PhD programs are held in much higher regard than is the undergrad program. I've never heard of anybody complain that the Berkeley PhD programs are admitting students who are of relatively lower quality just because they are California residents.</p>

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<p>Heh, interesting. I didn't know that, though I should've known that they'd be less strict on state residency for grad.</p>

<p>Now, one thing I myself have wondered: is it true that Berkeley is harder on its own undergrads if they apply for its grad school?</p>

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<p>Johnwesley, you might also want to consider one of the "other" UC's if you were thinking you might have a job with international contacts, as well. 3 UC's ranked in the top 15 Universities globally, six in the top 45. Beyond our nation's border the UC name counts for a lot. <a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm&lt;/a> When you see UC Santa Barbara ranked above Brown, Vanderbilt, Rice and the like, and many well known US colleges not listed at all, it helps to understand what the value of a "brand name" like "University of California" brings to the table.</p>

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<p>How many students applied from each school? I know a number of California UC graduates who have no interest in going to a place where it snows, unless they have lift tickets. </p>

<p>There could be a number of reasons private school graduates might be applying to private school graduate schools at greater rates; they could have more family financial support.</p>

<p>One of my favorite professors at Cornell had graduated from UC Davis, and another had gone to Cal, a third had graduated from Harvard...their accents were different but their skill levels were not. </p>

<p>Go where you will fit the best, be aware that many public Universities have impacted majors that create enrollment problems. One of the reasons some students don't graduate in four years is that they couldn't start their track in a timely manner. This appears to be a bigger problem in the UCs than in the IVYs. I would worry less about prestige, and more about how I extract information and learn best and which school will help me accomplish that.</p>

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<p>Well, few of the majors are impacted. Berkeley, for example, offers some 100 majors, and only about 6 or so are impacted, some by necessity and some by design (whatever that means).</p>

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<p>I graduated from Berkeley without taking any classes with <250 people. Then again, it was mostly by choice. There were certainly smaller upper level courses available, but I wasn't going to take a 15-person seminar where they might actually care about attendance.</p>

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<p>What was your major? I know chemistry is one that has many large upper-div classes.</p>

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<p>kyledavid80, this is my point...if you have your heart set on a major and it is not impacted you might have different opportunities than if it was..Once again the word fit comes to mind.</p>

<p>Exagerated example, Harvard is an excellent university but if you want to compete in college rodeo, I don't think they have a team....</p>

<p>If you wanted to study astronomy ,a University with less public prestige could provide you with an opportunity that you might not get at a more competitive school.</p>

<p>A lot of people in these posts mistake prestige and brand name recognition. It would surprise them that as you move about this country and world, a lot of people never heard of a good portion of the private top ranked liberal arts colleges. </p>

<p>I noticed that there was a graduate of Sacramento State at Harvard Law and I am sure that the year that student was accepted someone graduating from Harvard undergrad was rejected. I also know that a lot of undergraduates were from Harvard were accepted but the bottom line is what happens to you the individual, not what the statistics look like.</p>

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<p>As always, law school admissions, whether to Yale or Harvard, is a terrible way of measuring the utility of the credential. You have the same chances from Sacramento State or Berkeley as from Harvard, as long as your numbers are the same - school prestige is not a factor. Why do schools with 1/5th the students of Berkeley have the same number at Yale Law? Because those schools have much higher average SAT scores, which translate to higher LSAT scores (and those with the highest at Berkeley tend to be engineers, who aren't likely to apply). For any individual, going to Berkeley, or SS, will not hurt your chances for law school. That does NOT mean you have the same chances interviewing at an IBank or many other things, though</p>

60

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Well, few of the majors are impacted. Berkeley, for example, offers some 100 majors, and only about 6 or so are impacted, some by necessity and some by design (whatever that means).

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<p>Uh, no, it's far more than 6. I believe you have neglected every single major in the College of Engineering. Every one of them is impacted.</p>