<p>Berkeley is usually rated higher than Michigan in college rating polls but not sufficiently higher to base a decision on that alone. Both are prestigious institutions. I would consider other factors to tip the balance one way or other. Berkeley’s alumni base is more highly concentrated on the West coast. Michigan has a more dispersed alumni base and would be better represented in northeastern and midwestern business centers.</p>
<p>have you visited both schools? that may give you some idea…</p>
<p>For Business and Premed, I would say Cal and Michigan are roughly equal. In the Business world, Haas and Ross are peers, with Haas having an edge with West Coast firms and Ross having an edge with Midwestern and East Coast firms. </p>
<p>For premed, all top universities are equally respected. GPA, MCATs, essays and interviews are all that will differentiate Cal from Michigan pre-med applicants.</p>
<p>Overall, Cal is indeed sligtly more prestigious than Michigan, particularly if one intends on delving deeply in the physical Sciences (pursue a PhD in Chemistry and Physics). However, in the Business and Pre-Professional domain, or for students who wish to pursue Social Sciences, those two schools are identical peers.</p>
<p>I recommend visiting both schools and going for fit. I found Michigan’s campus more pleasant and spirited than Cal’s campus and prefer Ann Arbor to Berkeley as far as college towns go. This said, the weather is indeed nicer at Cal and San Francisco is much nicer than Detroit.</p>
<p>The name “dynamite” was already taken when I made this account, I think.
:(</p>
<p>As far as Michigan vs Berkeley prestige, any significant difference will be masked by where you are in the country. In the midwest people don’t really know Cal and on the east coast many think it’s too far away to send their kids. </p>
<p>The demographics are also VERY different. Almost all of Cal’s students are from California and half of them are Asian. I’ve heard that people like the town of Ann Arbor much better than Berkeley minus the weather. There are a good amount of reasons to pick one school over the other that don’t involve cost. Though, if you are out of state, you stand a chance at receiving significant merit scholarships from Michigan, which is not the case at Berkeley.</p>
<p>“Your UM peers probably won’t be as smart and hardworking as Berkeley students so you’ll have an easier time getting the high gpa you need for med school.”</p>
<p>Dynamit…how exactly do you know this? Have you attended both schools?Both of the schools attract top students…</p>
<p>Prestige wise, Cal ranks #21 and Michigan ranks #27. That is a “huge” difference…</p>
<p>“Your UM peers probably won’t be as smart and hardworking as Berkeley students so you’ll have an easier time getting the high gpa you need for med school.”</p>
<p>There isn’t much evidence to support this comment. Those two schools have very similar student bodies.</p>
<p>GRADUATING AMONG TOP 10% OF HIGH SCHOOL CLASS:
Cal: 98%
Michigan: 92%</p>
<p>AVERAGE CUMMUNLATIVE HIGH SCHOOL GPA:
Cal: 3.9 (I am not sure whether this is weighed or not)
Michigan: 3.75 (unweighed)</p>
<p>MID 50% SAT RANGE:
Cal: 1230-1470 (average 1350)
Michigan: 1230-1430 (average 1330)</p>
<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;
<p><a href=“http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/DRAFT%20MASTER%20WORD%20DOC%2009-10.pdf[/url]”>http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/DRAFT%20MASTER%20WORD%20DOC%2009-10.pdf</a></p>
<p>“Prestige wise, Cal ranks #21 and Michigan ranks #27. That is a “huge” difference…”</p>
<p>Flipper, those aren’t prestige ranks, those are overall USNWR ranks, which are not equivallent to prestige ranks. You could say that the Peer Assessment rating in the USNWR is a form of prestige ranking, in which case Cal is #6 and Michigan is #13. Still, there isn’t asignificant difference in prestige between those two schools, and where business schools and pre-med programs are concerned, there is absolutely no difference in prestige. </p>
<p>BizInt, if you were pre-admitted into Ross, I would recommend you go there.</p>
<p>cornellche (aka OP) – you say you have a feeling you shouldn’t let Michigan go.</p>
<p>Sometimes people have an intuitive sense of fit. If that’s how you feel about Michigan AND you’ve visited both campuses, you don’t need to “rationalize” your sense of fit, except to say “I felt good about Michigan. I could see myself there.” It’s your decision alone (finances and parents excepted…but let’s face it, even then, it’s still your decision and your life…)</p>
<p>Sometimes the best decisions we make are based on our intuition. That was how my son chose Michigan, and he’s not had a single day of regret. By comparison, on several campuses of schools with slightly more prestige, he just didn’t love it, despite the fact everyone was full of “you should go to xxx, it’s a dream school…”
UMich, as it turns out, is actually HIS dream school ;)</p>
<p>For all of you that say Berkeley is better than the University of Michigan, here’s what the experts say:[World’s</a> Best Universities: Top 400 - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-universities/2010/02/25/worlds-best-universities-top-400.html]World’s”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-universities/2010/02/25/worlds-best-universities-top-400.html)</p>
<p>^^
lol your “experts” put cornell and johns hopkins above stanford.</p>
<p>^^^Agreed, it’s a nonsense rating like so many others!</p>
<p>I guess something you really need to consider is that Michigan has like the 7th largest endowment of any university. Berkeley? They’re ****ed right now. All the UCs are bleeding money at the moment, esp. since the state is cutting education funding.</p>
<p>True, they put them over Stanford by a very slim margin.</p>
<p>I recall several years ago watching Nightline, and they had a black fellow on that kept failing a test that would have allowed him to become a principal at a public high school.
He was a Stanford graduate. And I recall thinking at the time, “Wow, maybe that university isn’t so hot after all if this is the kind of idiots that come out of it.”</p>
<p>In that same vein of thought, I’ll add that I thought it REALLY(!!) said a lot for Berkeley when I learned that the European and British engineers that tried to do the amazing feat of running a “chunnel” from France to Britain botched the job – halfway into it and running way over budget, no less! – called in an American to straighten the mess out. </p>
<p>The man, John something or another, was a Berkeley grad and he did such an amazing job that he was given all kinds of bonuses and offers to be on various corporate boards and bank committees and such. And when I read all those good things about him (on Google years ago) I thought, “Wow, here this dude is some type of brilliant engineering superstar dazzling people of substance with his genius and incredible competence, yet all we ever hear about are the morons doing silly things in the sports world!”</p>
<p>Cornell is better than Stanford for the simple reason that that’s where the one-and-only Willis Haviland Carrier graduated from! (Truth is in the results.;-)</p>
<p>Here’s something that those goof-ball Europeans came out with in '09, as well as the email I just sent them.</p>
<p>Subject box: "You made a mistake…</p>
<p>Content: "The University of Michigan, in your '09 Rankings, is way better than half of those you listed above it.</p>
<p>What a joke that you’d put UCLA and San Diego and Washington even in the top 50!</p>
<p>Also, Michigan is better than Berkeley because, besides other things, it has BILLIONS of dollars in its endowment, whereas Berkeley is as broke as the state that supports it.</p>
<p>Thanks for your time!!</p>
<p>Sincerely, Otis Tuttle"</p>
<p>For a good belly laugh, check-out their list: [ARWU</a> 2009](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp)</p>
<p>Berkeley is the clear favorite of the homeless, the panhandlers, the stray dogs, and the psychos with bullhorns.</p>
<p>
Fixed it for ya. City of Berkeley definitely has its share of problems.</p>