<p>^ Sorry, Blah. But in no way are schools like NU and JHU “>>>>> Cal”. </p>
<p>You may turn your nose up at it from your JHU/Stanford/McKinsey roost, but academics and many others see it very differently.</p>
<p>Also, I can’t believe you’ve attended 'furd for your PhD but still call California, “Cali”…</p>
<p>You’re going to get a good education at either. I’d be hard pressed to rank top tier institutions at all. At that point it depends more on the student than the school. I ranked in terms of output, and I don’t know what field you’re in, but they’re equal in all the ones I’m familiar with. There are just as much Cal grads doing great things as there are Stanford grads, and it would be idiotic if an employer or graduate school preferred Stanford grads over Berkeley ones.</p>
<p>I could care less how selective they are. That’s such a superficial measurement. In fact I applaud Cal for “not being that hard to get into,” because frankly there are many individuals with promise that simply don’t have it all together by high school. Cal provides access to a world-class education. That’s a good thing.</p>
<p>To be fair though, friends at Cal tell me the environment is more cut-throat there. So I guess that’s a disadvantage.</p>
<p>i would say uc berkeley is really good, considering it’s best public university in the country. and it does matchup well against a lot of top tier private colleges too. i only wish berkeley will give its worth considering the high cost of attending it.</p>
<p>UCB, maybe at the graduate level. Undergrad is a different story. You can try to ride Berkeley’s graduate program coat tails for its undergrad program, but there’s a clear disparity in quality. Interesting you bring up academia as many of my friends are professors (some well established). It was an idea I toyed with as well.</p>
<p>Rather say I’m from Cali instead of from Cal anyday.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for your concern, Blah - flattering a McKinsey associate would be looking out for me. :-)</p>
<p>I’m not purposely riding the coattails of graduate program prestige. All research university prestige is derived from faculty and grad programs in some ways…it’s the nature of the beast.</p>
<p>In fact, undergraduate rankings of my major have it in a great position…something I can be proud of, and not fooling.
[Chemical</a> | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-chemical]Chemical”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-chemical)</p>
<p>No native ever calls California Cali or Cal.</p>
<p>I’m not a Cali native. And chances are if I was one, I wouldn’t have gone to cal anyways…=).</p>
<p>^ Good for you…</p>
<p>USC has far fewer accomplishments under its belt than Berkeley. Indeed, it used to be seen as the #2 school in the world, but Stanford was able to fundraise better and it was conveniently located in the spectacular economic engine that is Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>Overall, RML is mostly right. </p>
<p>Harvard is in its own league.
Then comes Stanford, MIT, Yale, Berkeley.</p>
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<p>Do many of the other ivies/top privates do better than Berkeley in this regard? I thought I remember a post by phantasmagoric saying that outside HYPM, no university won more than 2% of cross admits against Stanford.</p>
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<p>Yes, in informal settings, it’s generally So.Cal or Nor.Cal, and occasionally Mid.Cal</p>