<p>Is UC Berkeley underrated? If it were a private school, would it have the same caliber and selectivity as HYSP?</p>
<p>I think its underrated out here (midwest). Probably for a few reasons: its large, its far away, its public, and it only has 10% OOS students. And a lot of people out here don’t know the strength of UCB engineering and business (lack of UCB marketing, possibly?). I was shocked when I found out that it was so strong in so many fields.</p>
<p>I don’t think so, but it’s mostly a matter of opinion</p>
<p>Berkley doesn’t do marketing because it is a state university for California students sponsored by the government of California. California is its intended “clientele,” if you would, and it hardly needs marketing there.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/731034-stereotypical-cc-posts.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/731034-stereotypical-cc-posts.html</a></p>
<p>I think UCB is underrated for the delusional folks on this website, however in the real world, which really counts, everyone knows that it is among the handful of top notch schools and competes toe-to-toe with the best private schools.</p>
<p>UCB is regarded as one of the better public universities. In this sense, it is not underrated. CC’ers like to pretend that UCB is on par with the Ivy League however. This is fallacy. It’s not even #1 in its own state.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s underrated, maybe a tad overrated though. On a sidenote (and this is a personal opinion), I don’t think it’s worth paying 50k for a public school, and that’s in an out-of-state point of view. If an applicant is an in-state student, then I believe UCB is definately top-notch.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley undergrad: probably Top 30</p>
<p>UC Berkeley Ph.D.: #1, #2, or #3 (in the world) depending on how you average all the Ph.D. fields. Of course at the Ph.D. level, averaging is meaningless, in fact the ranking of a Program is of limited value. At the Ph.D. level, its all about the Professor who oversees your research and chairs your Dissertation defense.</p>
<p>I’m biased, so of course I think it’s a bit underrated using USNWR methodology.</p>
<p>Berkeley is a unique case. It probably has the most renowned faculty outside of Harvard and Stanford. However, since it is larger, it does not shower the same amount of resources on its undergrads like the top privates…to some this is important. </p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question about IF Berkeley were a private school (keeping same faculty and resources) but limiting itself to 20% of its current undergrad size, selectivity and caliber of undergrads would probably be on par with HYPS. </p>
<p>USNWR currently ranks undergrad engineering and business majors for which Berkeley ranks #2 and #3, respectively.</p>
<p>osucowboys. Berkeley is certainly a peer of the so called lesser Ivies. That’s every school that isn’t H, Y, or Princeton. Just because your neck of the woods doesn’t have a top notch public university, don’t assume the rest of the country is void of them as well.</p>
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By that reasoning, MIT isn’t Ivy quality because it isn’t #1 in Massachusetts. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>mikecerang- No, Berkeley is not underrated. It gets the recognition it deserves. It’s the best public university and one of the best and most diverse universities in the country. That said, it’s also large, draws relatively few OOS students, and can be expensive.</p>
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<p>Just because my neck of the woods doesn’t have a top-notch public university? You know what, you just got on the Lone Star State’s unwelcome list. For idiocy, ignorance, and pointlessness. I’d take schools in Texas over schools in Cali any day. lol</p>
<p>^^^^^ The five best public universities in this country are in states other than Texas and Oklahoma. I wasn’t the one who made the comment about Berkeley not being on par with any schools in the Ivy League. That idiotic, ignorant, and pointless statement was made by you.</p>
<p>Because it’s true…UCB is not an Ivy League school. People make it out to be. And contrary to what you think, UT is one of the 5 best publics in the nation, AND the rest are all pretty good. That includes A&M…Tech…OSU…OU, and especially the privates, Rice…SMU…TCU…Tulsa…Trinity…and Southwestern. I’m not sitting here pretending that UT is as good as Ivy League schools. Even Rice…Top 20, but not Ivy League. MIT and Stanford are the only non-Ivies that are on the level of the Ivies…and maybe WUSTL and Northwestern.</p>
<p>I’ll agree with you that UCB is one of the 5 best publics in the country. But it goes like this. Ivies + Stanford & Chicago & MIT, then the “Secondary Ivies” (WUSTL & Vandy & Northwestern & Rice & Emory & JHU & Notre Dame), then your powerhouse state schools (CalTech & UT & UCB & Michigan & Wisconsin & UCLA & Washington & UVA & UNC).</p>
<p>^That post kind of shows your bias against state schools. </p>
<p>In fact, Caltech is not a state school. far from it. And not many people (besides yourself) would rate it below your first and second tier. But, since you think it is a state school, it goes automatically lower for you.</p>
<p>My bias against state schools? What bias against state schools? Next thing you’ll be telling everyone what my favorite color is and what brand of cereal I like to eat.</p>
<p>I have no clue what you’re talking about. Were you not loved enough as a child?</p>
<p>CalTech is a private university nearly on par (some would say better than) with MIT. And I think Berkeley is overrated for undergrad education.</p>
<p>A few of its graduate programs, in particular, are stellar. It’s certainly in my top two or three for graduate school (sociology).</p>
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<p>Didn’t know that. I knew it was good, I just didn’t know it was Cali’s version of MIT. My familiarity of it just comes from watching a few episodes of Numbers and seeing it occasionally in crackpot rankings…</p>