<p>I'm an out of state applicant and recently got accepted to Berkeley EECS. I personally think it's an accomplishment to get accepted from OOS. But when I look at the instate people who get accepted...i see a huge difference...it looks considerably easier. I dont know..i might be wrong.</p>
<p>How are the other students at Berkeley? Are the classes filled with extremely intelligent students...or are there alot of average joes who fill up the classes?
Is it really competitive?</p>
<p>I know when compared with other public schools, Berkeley has far more intelligent people. But how about compared to private schools like Stanford, Rice, CMU, Princeton, MIT?</p>
<p>Just wondering about how my peers will be like if i go there.....</p>
<p>Well, EECS students are the top tier of Berkeley students. I'd certainly think they are on par with anyone at Rice or CMU. Overall, the average student at Princeton, MIT or Stanford is probably "smarter" than the average Berkeley student. </p>
<p>The vast majority of Berkeley students are from California; Berkeley has the top students from California, not the top students in the nation. It is bigger, and has a smaller pool to pick from, so of course it is not going to be as elite.</p>
<p>If you take the standard introductory math/physics sequence (Physics 7A/7B/7C, Math 53/54, etc.), you will have very large classes with a variety of students. Some are very smart, some are much less so. However, there are "honors" flavors of those classes that are smaller and filled with only top students; however, they are also very difficult.</p>
<p>Let's say you live in a dorm. Will every kid on your floor be brilliant? No, they won't. Will your EECS classmates be top-notch? Yes, they will.</p>
<p>As a graduate student... I would not insinuate at all that the undergrads here are super smart. I'd say the grad population is top-notch, but the undergrad is another story.</p>
<p>You act like you would just own Berkeley. So foolish... </p>
<p>Berkeley takes some of the top students in California, so yes they do accept from a smaller pool, but whoever they accept, they are not just so average joe. These students worked tail to get into Berkeley. You shouldn't judge someone's intelligence soley based on their SAT score.</p>
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You shouldn't judge someone's intelligence soley based on their SAT score.
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<p>He's not, he's asking for some honest evaluation. And we are offering it, based on personal first-hand experience.</p>
<p>If, from day one, you want to be in classes where every single kid is a genius, Berkeley is probably not the place for you. If you want a freshman dorm filled with super-intellectual students, Berkeley is not the place for you. </p>
<p>However, no place can best Berkeley for the breadth and depth available. Whatever you want to study, at whatever level, you can do it. It's also located in one of the greatest places you'll find.</p>
<p>From my own experience at Berkeley as an undergrad student, I can say that most people have around the same level of intellegence so there is no DUMB people...not as much variety as there was in high school. Most of the people WERE The top of their high school so many people were valedictorians or had GPA well over 4.0. You can think of Berkeley like as an AP class...like AP chem or something. Everyone is basically on the same level. However, I have noticed that there are some really really intelligent students at Berkeley.... :) But the competition depends on your major... But the grad students here ARE brilliant as mentioned above. THey are from top notch like Harvard, Princeton, and etc etc. But undergrads themselves are smart too!</p>
<p>I have had the opposite experience. Everyone was top tier in high school but when they come to Berkeley, I find there to be a lot of differentiation.</p>
<p>It's pretty varied. You have the complete nerds whom you never see because they're in the library, the laid back types, etc.. Nearly everyone is intelligent here, it's just that most of them aren't obsessive.</p>
<p>Not everyone here is smart. There are outstanding students and the complete opposite. The valedictorians from low performing high schools generally do not fare well here. This is true -- even in engineering.</p>
<p>In any case, there is an abundance of smart kids here. If you're one of them, you won't feel lonely.</p>
<p>I'd echo the sentiments expressed above...you'll definitely find incredibly smart people at Berkeley. Plenty of people turn down acceptances from HYPSM to go to Cal, for example, and I'd say a majority of the people who go to Berkeley are very, very smart. I'd say there's definitely a smaller percentage of "geniuses" at Cal than at HYPSM, but you definitely won't view Cal as "easy" or "stupid," especially if you're EECS.</p>
<p>I also agree with the statements about graduate students...Berkeley grad students are, without a doubt, among the top students in the nation. Granted, this doesn't affect you all that much (unless they're incredible at teaching and get you involved, somehow...), but you should know that there's PLENTY of brilliance around you at Berkeley.</p>
<p>If you want intellectual virility, you'll find it, albeit you'll have to look. There are several students who "don't belong" at Berkeley, but that's what you're going to get at a public school. If you're looking to find peers from whom you'd learn something valuable, it's really luck of the draw because of the massive campus. Your EECS peers will be brilliant however, as will the grad students you'll mingle with. </p>
<p>Look, this is of course subjective, but in my experience at Berkeley you'll find a few types of people; most notable are the gunners (mostly Asians, incredibly competitive, and engage in mostly shallow discussion; of course this does not describe all the Asians, but most of the gunners at Berkeley, from my experience and anecdotal, are Asian), the pseudo-intellectuals (for some reason I encounter these more often in NorCal; charlatans citing abstract concepts non sequitur), and finally just plain dumb people. You're much more likely to find "brilliance" in bulk at HYPS.</p>
<p>Note that the reason you should come to Berkeley lies not in the student-body, but the incredible resources, which outclass most privates save HYP. That and since you're in EECS, you are part of a program that rivals MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and any other engineering program. However, if you got into any of the aforementioned schools, I'd only consider EECS if you received some cash. You're going to suffer from the grade deflation; expect a 3.0 GPA and feel lucky if you crack a 3.5. </p>
<p>Anyway, the EECS students I know are having a great time, and since they're for the most part brilliant they get things done in time to have "fun".</p>
<p>I would say they're roughly on par. Places like Ivies have the reputation and prestige, but the admissions process is different at those places as well. Places like Ivies or Stanford make a lot of huge exceptions for legacy students who may be very subpar, for instance. Also, since the Ivies have the reputation and are so popular, they get all the top-scoring applicants, so their admissions must rely more heavily on ECs when deciding between super-intelligent students. Basically what I'm saying is that for the most part, every student who even applies to places like Ivies to begin with is probably tops in the intelligence department, so the only difference between the denied and accepted group at places like Ivies is going to be the ECs they have, not a significant intelligence gap. And being the #1 public school in the U.S., Berkeley is a haven for Ivy League rejects.</p>
<p>So I would say in terms of straight intelligence, Berkeley's students are probably about the same as the average Ivy Leaguer, they just may not have as impressive an application.</p>
<p>It also depends a lot on the area of study. For things like sciences, pre-med, or engineering, which probably describes most Berkeley students, Berkeley is probably better than most of the Ivies, except for Cornell (the science Ivy), but nowhere near as good as Stanford. For things like social sciences, the Ivies probably have the advantage. So it depends on what you're going to study.</p>
<p>Berkeley accepts a lot of students and hence, not all of the students are very smart.</p>
<p>However, there are definitely extremely smart students here, especially in EECS. A lot of students applied to Cal as EECS major but many of them dropped out gradually because it is one of the hardest major here and those who manage to stay are quite smart. </p>
<p>Some people I have meet at Cal:</p>
<p>Student A was on the USAMO team in high school. He scored top 200 as a college freshmen in Putnam. He didn't get into HYPSM as a high school senior because he only had math-related activities as his EC and probably didn't seem very ideal to all these schools. He's a EECS at Cal and is quite successful here. </p>
<p>Student B got into all HYPSM but choose to come to Berkeley because she wanted to be closer to home. She had a lot of EC's in high school including 500 hr community volunteering hours. She was #1 in her high school and got incredible recommendations from her high school teachers. However, her high school was not a competitive one at all and she is doing poorly here at Cal. She hardly manage to get B's here for her first semester.</p>
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the only difference between the denied and accepted group at places like Ivies is going to be the ECs they have, not a significant intelligence gap.
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<p>You write as though this deciding factor between an Ivy student and a Berkeley student is insignificant. What is your definition of intelligence? High scores are for the most part prerequisite, but just because two students have a 2300 on the SAT does not make them equally intelligent. These ECs that get students into Ivies are what make them stand out as "more intelligent" than merely high scoring applicants; they (for the most part) create experience, insight, and maturity. </p>
<p>It takes intelligence to build homes and live with limited resources in a third world country; it takes intelligence to win a national violin competition or an international science competition; it takes intelligence to publish a scholarly work or host an international political debate. </p>
<p>The difference between the average Berkeley student and the average Ivy student is stark, and often it goes well beyond what's on paper.</p>
<p>i heard berkeley's really hard! >.< i think all the SMART kids in cali who can't afford private school go there since it is the best public school in the nation.. i hear alot of them who WERE really smart in their high school become super depressed cuz they're not used to getting bad grades hahaa..</p>
<p>The whole thing about being on top in a public/noncompetitive high school & not doing so well at Cal makes sense.
Haha, I wish there was a way to tell how much harder it is from any other UC.
I got into Berkeley (surprisingly), but I'm still debating whether or not I'm going. One factor is that I don't know if I'll be able to handle it. I come from a fairly competitive private school, and I'm maybe at the top 7-10%. I'd excel in classes, but the only AP/honors I took were Sciences/Maths. (& I'm in L&S)</p>
<p>The average unweighted HS GPA was a 3.93/4.0...so yeah, I'd say that's pretty smart :)</p>
<p>if you go to Cal, you won't be the smartest one (I mean, unless you are like in the honors program at Harvard, if it even exists), so don't worry there will be plenty of geniuses to keep you busy. Especially in engineering, after majoring in that dept. I doubt you will ever doubt "low-score, in-state" intelligence again ;)</p>