<p>I'm all up for Cal, Columbia, or Chicago.</p>
<p>Caltech? Their entire undergrad class is than 900. Its SO TINY.</p>
<p>Ok. Let's throw Columbia out right now. All the grad statistics show that it is not competitive with Berkeley, Caltech, or UChicago, so give it a rest.
Also, can we please throw out Caltech? It is impossibly small and has comparatively few degree options.</p>
<p>Hmm...Did anyone read my post?</p>
<p>Yes, but your post does not defend Caltech's lack of degree options.</p>
<p>who cares? science + math > all ur other n00b degrees</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Smart.cookie in the real world no one honestly considered Berkley or Uchigaco to be a peer school of Columbia for undergrad. Columbia is regarded higher and has better name recognition. Even for grad school I wouldn't say that Berkley is necessarily better, I think it strongly depends on the particular school. </p>
<p>Its HYPSM thats it..</p>
<p>
[quote]
Their entire undergrad class is than 900.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's lonely at the top.</p>
<p>^ahahahahah</p>
<p>Add Penn and Haverford and remove MIT ---> PHYSH is where its at</p>
<p>Add Chicago to spell PSYCH</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's lonely at the top.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ouch. The truth hurts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Smart.cookie in the real world no one honestly considered Berkley or Uchigaco to be a peer school of Columbia for undergrad. Columbia is regarded higher and has better name recognition. Even for grad school I wouldn't say that Berkley is necessarily better, I think it strongly depends on the particular school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So what? We're talking educational quality here, not prestige. Plus, I think that question's debatable. When I was applying to schools, I met many people who were more impressed that I was applying to Chicago than either MIT or Caltech. Then again, these people resided in areas of academia. In terms of academia, I think that Chicago is a respected a little bit more than Columbia. In the "real world" (and by that, I think you're talking business), in many cases, the good local/state school will put a greater impression on employers than a degree from a non-Ivy Top 30 university. So I think the point is moot.</p>
<p>And Berkeley is better than Columbia for grad school. Seriously. It is. Of course there are departments where Columbia (and a lot of other schools) is stronger than Berkeley, but for most cases, Berkeley's regarded as the better school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How is this indicated by information that onlookers can look up? In my state, Stanford substantially leads Duke in appeal to top students, but I have no idea what the typical pattern is in other regions.</p>
<p>^ Same in Michigan</p>
<p>^ same in NJ and NY</p>
<p>The SAT state reports for each state, for example the one for Minnesota, </p>
<p>have a page listing the top colleges to which students from that state send SAT scores. Stanford is very much on the radar screen of Minnesota students. Perhaps Hunt's impression is formed by the pattern observed in Maryland, </p>
<p>where Duke is more popular. </p>
<p>See </p>
<p>College-Bound</a> Seniors 2007 </p>
<p>for links to all the state reports.</p>
<p>phuriku wrote: "And Berkeley is better than Columbia for grad school. Seriously. It is. Of course there are departments where Columbia ... is stronger than Berkeley.."</p>
<p>Really, now you made me look! I have no patience to look up all 41 rank orderings, wherein I assume Columbia will have 15-20% individual depts ranked higher than Berkeley, but here is the summary of the five major areas:</p>
<p>NRC</a> Rankings</p>
<p>Arts & Humanities: Berkeley #1, Columbia #4
Biological Sciences: Berkeley #5, Columbia #8
Engineering: Berkeley #2, Columbia #30
Physical Sci & Math: Berkeley #1, Columbia #14
Soc. & Behav. Sciences: Berkeley #1, Columbia #10</p>
<p>Doesn't look like much of a judgement call here. Berkeley is simply unassailable as the premier institution of graduate research in the world.</p>
<p>Where Columbia does better, equivilently really, is in the three professional graduate schools. Using various sources for ratings (some int'l for MBA), I show:</p>
<p>MBA: Columbia #7, Berkeley #9
Law: Columbia #5, Berkeley #6
Medicine: Berkeley (UCSF - which is Berkeley's de facto med school) #5, Columbia #10</p>
<p>^ Wow. Looks like Berkeley kind of owns.</p>
<p>who cares? C still equals caltech :p</p>
<p>^
Good to see that you're learning, chocolate chip...;)</p>
<p>^ Yeah. I guess I underestimated Berkeley before (probably because I am pretty loyal to the University of Michigan, being in-state and all)</p>