<p>The reason is I've seen so many posts about Berkeley vs. every other schools and regardless of majors, most cc'ers pick the other schools over Berkeley.</p>
<p>Here's the top 50 feeders school from the WSJ that's been floating around the forum forever to show how superiod private & LAC are compare to public schools. </p>
<p>Anyway, the ranking isn't fair to bigger school at all.</p>
<p>Williams has class size 519 students, 47 got into great grad/professional programs.
Now let's say you pick the top 519 students from UC Berkeley, 118 of them would have gotten into great grad/professional programs. </p>
<p>Does that mean top students at Berkeley are smarter than Williams students? </p>
<p>Again, most ivy have about 1000 student class size, if you cut off the top 1000 students at Berkeley, it's easily seen that these 1000 students aren't any weaker than ivy students if not stronger. </p>
<p>So, why do people keep saying that the student body is weak? If anyone feel confident that they can come in and challenge the top students at Berkeley, they're in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>A lot of posters suggested that if you got into HYPS, you're probably the top students at Berkeley. What do you say?</p>
<p>The general consensus among those in academia is that Berkeley, in the USNWR ratings, is under-rated. Berkeley certainly belongs in the top ten schools. The president of Stanford even wrote a letter to USNWR to this effect.</p>
<p>Under the US News criteria, Berkeley is under rated. Their criteria weighs heavily upon endowment, peer rating and alumni giving. Public schools automatically fall lower in those ratings areas, because as publicly funded state schools they do not need to raise the huge endowments. Further more, many of the Ivy League schools in the northeast tend to rate each other higher under peer rating, because they are closer and more familiar with each other than with public schools clear across the country.</p>
<p>If you look at ratings that are not so heavily based upon how much money is raised for endowment, etc, Berkeley is near the top, and Harvard falls to #16.</p>
<p>I suspect the only reason Hennessy (?) wrote the letter to USNWR is because of his close tie to Dave Patterson of Berkeley. Besides, Stanford would look better when its rival ranks in the top 10 rather than at 21.</p>
<p>Berkeley is a great school, but I don't think it is underrated. A lot of people hold it in high esteem as it is. It is rated just right in my opinion. Berkeley is great but it is an exagerration to try to say it is on par with the Ivies, especially when it comes to non engineering stuff. As far as US news goes, I would place Berkeley probably at around 15 instead of 21 though. Even the top 1000 students at Berkeley are not as qualified the 1000 lowest in the Ivies. Notice I said qualified, not capable or some other adjective.</p>
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Anyway, the ranking isn't fair to bigger school at all.</p>
<p>Williams has class size 519 students, 47 got into great grad/professional programs.
Now let's say you pick the top 519 students from UC Berkeley, 118 of them would have gotten into great grad/professional programs.
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You're comparing the top 8 or 9 % from Berkeley with the whole of Williams. This isn't a fair fight. A student body's strength isn't determined by how many smart kids there are, but by how much of the entire school they make up. There's going to be groups of top kids at every state school in the country that Ivy Leaguers would be afraid of.</p>
<p>The best 20 kids from Ohio State are probably better than the only 20 kids at Deep Springs. Does this mean Ohio State offers a stronger student body?</p>
<p>I specifically try to compare the entire ivy student body (1000 students approx) to the top 1000 students at Berkeley. I'm not comparing the top 20 Berkeley students to the average ivy students because that, imo, is a clear win.<br>
So, the point is, why do these students think that going to ivy would make them any better. If they are so smart, they can go to Berkeley, be at the top, and have more opportunities than the ivy they actually go to.</p>
<p>Most people on CC tend to overrate selectivity and student quality. Way too much elitism and not enough focus on the caliber of actual programs. People would rather dissect the 40 point difference in SAT score b/w Cornell and Northwestern than talk about how Berkeley would absolutely pwn Columbia in engineering.</p>
<p>The notion that the top 1,000 students at Berkeley aren't as "qualified" as the bottom 1.000 Ivy students (See post #7) is, in my opinion, hogwash, no matter how you define qualifications. If you look at the statistics that the schools themselves publish, comparing students above the top 25% at Berkeley to those in the bottom 25% at Ivys, clearly the top Berkeley students have better GPA's and better SAT's. And where do you suppose the top 1,000 Berkeley grads go to graduate school as compared to the bottom 1,000 Ivy grads? While the bottom 1,000 students at Ivys might be a good deal wealthier than the top 1,000 at Berkeley (development admit, anyone?) contending that even the worst Ivy students are somehow better than the top Berkeley students is exactly the sort of factually unsupportable elitist attutide that results is excellent public flagships, with graduate department after graduate department ranking higher than equivalent Ivy departments, coming out so underrated in the USNWR undergraduate evaluations. </p>
<p>Berkeley is an especially good alternative for middle and lower middle-class top in-State students since it is so well-priced, a factor which figures heavily in many students' decisions. Does being a middle class teenager with financial concerns make a student less qualified? And while one could certainly argue that Berekeley's size, social scene, and any number of other factors, make it a poor fit for some students, how can you possibly argue that students who thrive and rise to the top there are less qualified/talented/intelligent than the student who is struggling to get by at the bottom of his class at Brown?</p>
<p>Also the ivies + other privates are known to inflate the grades of it's students while at Berkeley there is serious grade deflation and a lot lot of competition. I don't see why it hasn't been brought up that the top students at Berkeley could very likely be more qualified/talented/intelligent/whatever than someone with the same rank/gpa at some Ivy league school.</p>
<p>For Berkeley undergrad, the vast majority of students are from California, whereas the Ivies get to recruit the best students from all 50 states. The Ivies obviously have the advantage. Berkeley is undoubtedly a top 5 graduate school, but I don't think it's a top 10 undergraduate institution. Closer to top 15-20.</p>
<p>If a CA student gets accepted to both Berkeley and let's say MIT, he or she will go to MIT over Berkeley most likely. So its hogwash to say the qualifications at both schools are of similar caliber. They are clearly not.
I am lower middle class and Berkeley is way, way more expensive than Princeton for me and I am instate.<br>
I didn't say better, I merely said more qualified, which goes beyond numbers to things like EC's.
The top Ivies simply offer more than Berkeley, as a public institution, can. Now, I think if Berkeley became a private school, amped the selectivity ante up a little bit, charged more money, and such it could very possibly work its way up to top 10 eventually.</p>
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those in the bottom 25% at Ivys, clearly the top Berkeley students have better GPA's and better SAT's. And where do you suppose the top 1,000 Berkeley grads go to graduate school as compared to the bottom 1,000 Ivy grads? While the bottom 1,000 students at Ivys might be a good deal wealthier than the top 1,000 at Berkeley (development admit, anyone?) contending that even the worst Ivy students are somehow better than the top Berkeley students is exactly the sort of factually unsupportable elitist attutide that results is excellent public flagships, with graduate department after graduate department ranking higher than equivalent Ivy departments, coming out so underrated in the USNWR undergraduate evaluations.
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<p>this comparison between top Berkeley students and bottom Ivy students is very misleading. These stats for lower end of the Ivies include atheletes, URMs, and others who tend to perform lower than other groups of students while these top Berkeley students would be hard-core students. That being said, Berkeley for undergrad imo is top 20 and not top 10. If you count all the ivies+stanford+duke+mit+northwestern+uchicago, it is already more than 10 easily.</p>
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For Berkeley undergrad, the vast majority of students are from California, whereas the Ivies get to recruit the best students from all 50 states. The Ivies obviously have the advantage. Berkeley is undoubtedly a top 5 graduate school, but I don't think it's a top 10 undergraduate institution. Closer to top 15-20.
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<p>Just because Berkeley has more students from California as opposed to all 50 states doesn't mean that the Ivies have better students. Consider the fact that the National Merit program has different qualifying scores for each individual state. California historically has one of the higher qualifying scores, meaning that there is stiffer competition within the state.</p>
<p>^^ not to mention that Berkeley does still draw from all 50 states, DC, and over 100 countries.</p>
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I suspect the only reason Hennessy (?) wrote the letter to USNWR is because of his close tie to Dave Patterson of Berkeley.
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<p>I don't think so. Remember that he not only advocated Berkeley, but Michigan, too, at the same time.</p>
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I am lower middle class and Berkeley is way, way more expensive than Princeton for me and I am instate.
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<p>Comparing Berkeley to lavishly-funded Princeton isn't fair. Everyone knows that Princeton has amazing financial aid, so that statement doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. For the majority of students (who are middle income), Berkeley will be cheaper, though the changing financial aid policies at top privates may make them about the same.</p>
<p>Not to mention Berkeley has many more low-income students--28% are Pell grantees, versus the ~10% at tippy-top privates.</p>
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[quote]
Just because Berkeley has more students from California as opposed to all 50 states doesn't mean that the Ivies have better students. Consider the fact that the National Merit program has different qualifying scores for each individual state. California historically has one of the higher qualifying scores, meaning that there is stiffer competition within the state.
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<p>No one would debate the fact that the Ivies are more selective than Berkeley, though. Looking at median SATs, this is obvious. I was speaking of the very best students, though. The best of the best are scattered throughout the nation, not just in California. And I don't see any reason why the best of the best would choose to spend lots of money for OOS tuition at Berkeley in comparison to the great financial aid for which the Ivies are known. In addition, as sprtn pointed out, even Cali residents would most likely choose MIT over Berkeley.</p>