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Are you serious, Sakky? Who in the world would rather go to a Cal State than Berkeley????? You are stating the blatantly obvious. Its like saying "i would choose Harvard over University of Nebraska." Stop even comparing schools like the Cal States to Berkeley.....there is no comparison!
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<p>It is obvious of course. But it simply reinforces the point that the vast majority of schools in the world are no-name schools. Hence, while Berkeley undergrad has a long litany of problems, it's still better than the majority of schools. </p>
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Consider this: Berkeley has 8,125 postgraduate students. Harvard: 13,000. Stanford: 8,156. Princeton: 1,975. MIT: 6,184. Everyone thinks Berkeley is suddently amazing because it's impossible to get in. Selectivity is what makes students think a university is good. However, that isn't necessarily true. Selectivity makes the students better, but a good student at a non-selective university can succeed just as a good student could succeed anywhere. There are fewer of them because the university isn't as selective, but they're there.
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<p>We're repeating the discussion we had before. I think that student quality makes a tremendous difference in the quality of education you receive because of the strong social aspects of education, the most obvious aspect of it being that you tend to copy what you see others around you doing. If the people around you are hard-working, then you will tend to want to be hard-working. If people around you are lazy, then you will tend to be lazy. It's the same reasoning that dictates why, if you grow up around smokers, then you will probably pick up smoking, and how it's almost impossible to quit smoking if everybody around you is smoking. </p>
<p>Let's face it. Incoming college freshmen are not fully-formed, confident, mature adults. They are basically kids. Hence, they are going to be strongly influenced by what they see others doing. If you put them in an environment where people are lounging around, partying and drinking and not doing any studying, then they will tend to lounge around, party and drink and not do any studying. Sure, not ALL of them will do that. Some students are strong enough to resist temptation. But others are not. </p>
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And the argument that it is easy to get a better GPA at Yale, for example, than at Berkeley, is nonsense. That doesn't make either school better than the other. I believe the assertion completely false anyway (knowing smart people that have gone to Yale and done much worse than I have at Berkeley). An argument about undergraduate education has to start with faculty quality and class sizes, not with how easy it is to get a good GPA.
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<p>It may make no difference to YOU. But, trust me, it makes a huge difference to some students, especially the prelaws and the premeds. They are incented to get the highest grades they can. So, at least for them, going to Yale would be the far better choice, because it helps them achieve their goals. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I think it stretches to far beyond them. Again, I would point to my old friend who got expelled from Berkeley and now lives in Oakland working as a bank teller (he quit his job at FedEx). I strongly suspect that if he gone to Stanford or to one of the Ivies, he would have graduated. Not with high grades, but at least he would have graduated. That's because it's practically impossible to actually flunk out of Stanford or an Ivy. It's almost impossible to get any grade worse than a 'C' there, and that's good enough to pass. But it is possible to flunk out of Berkeley, and that's what happened to him. In fact, I would say that all of the students at Berkeley who have flunked out would have been better off going to another school, and especially to HYPS. The trick is that, obviously, you have to get in. In the case of my friend, he was a URM (pre-Prop 209 days) and was a Chancellor's Scholar, and he did get into Stanford, and he probably could have gotten into some of the Ivies too (but I don't think he applied). Honestly, he should have gone to Stanford. Graduating from Stanford with straight C's is still better than flunking out of Berkeley. </p>
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From what I understand, Sakky is a former Cal student who is currently specializing in Regurgitation of Data. For new CCers, Sakky's posts appear impressive and numbers always have that "wow" factor. All of this has been said before, across threads several seasons gone. My simplest response to those who dismiss Cal is the best university in the world is something that is, from time to time, forgotten: Berkeley is a public university. You cannot compare a public university to a private university. Their goals, although they are both colleges, are fundamentally different down to its core. Citing rankings that don't discriminate between public and private invariably creates faulty arguments. In defense of Sakky, he/she has done a wonderful job of exploiting the arguments of Berkeley defenders. Sakky loves to quote the weaker elements of each argument, and call those into question. Berkeley Defenders suffer from chronic amnesia: although they make good points occasionally, they are enraptured by whatever Sakky has to say and continue to flow of discussion thenceforth. These threads, then, are heavily dictated by what Sakky wants to say, what Sakky wants to discuss and, inevitably- and not to my surprise- Sakky always wins out. Notice how certain threads are revived and pay particular attention as to whom stirs the pot once more. These are, simply, not rules of engagement I would like argue under.
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<p>Then don't. You and anybody else are free to ignore my posts. But I do have the right to free speech. I have the right to say whatever I want to say. For those people who want to read my posts, they are there for your perusal. If you don't want to read them, or you don't want to discuss anything with me, then simply don't do it. Nobody has a gun to your head. </p>
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ABSOLUTELY. That's what I've been saying for awhile now; if you define a good university in elite, private college terms, then sure enough Berkeley looks bad. If you define a good university in other terms, such as providing a high quality education to many, having democratic principles at its core, etc., Berkeley wins out.
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<p>Hey, you can define a college any way you want. The question is, what do PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS want? If prospective students want to have an experience that is, as you say, an "elite private college"-style experience, then Berkeley loses. Like I said, education is a consumer good, and so you have to give the consumers what they want. To deliberately choose to give students something that they don't want is to fall into the trap of thinking that you know better than your consumers do, a fallacy that has been the downfall of numerous organizations. </p>
<p>Maybe your time would be better spent attempting to convince consumers that they should want what Berkeley provides. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to be convinced, however. </p>
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Yes, they allow themselves to buy into Sakky's frame, his ivy worldview, in which case Sakky will always win, because the frame itself necessitates private universities being superior to Cal.
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<p>How's that? Who said that public schools are necessarily inferior to private schools? I said it before, I'll say it again. Berkeley has graduate programs par excellence, often times better than corresponding private schools, yet the Berkeley graduate programs are 'public'. The Haas School of Business is a darn fine business school, in fact, better than the Ivy private business schools at Yale and Cornell, but Haas is 'public'. </p>
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If we focus on a fair, unbiased backdrop, then people can decide for themselves which they value more, Ivys or Cal for instance. Outlooks that show Berkeley in a positive light should be expressed, as well as the Ivy outlooks; people can decide which fits them best. If a person adopts the Sakky worldview and makes Sakky's assumptions, they are probably best suited for an Ivy or private school. They may not be able to surmount their bias.
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<p>Uh, if you want to characterize my 'worldview', I think it is far more accurate to say that you are better suited for HYPSMC for UNDERGRAD, but then a school like Berkeley for GRADUATE SCHOOL, especially for your doctorate. I have nothing but praise for Berkeley's PhD programs. Those programs are basically everything that I wish the undergrad program could be.</p>