MIT or Berkeley?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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However, MIT's social life is a piece of dog feces, so I hear. The people are weird, incredibly weird. At least Berkeley has liberal arts majors and social science majors to balance out the weirdos.

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<p>Oh believe me, Berkeley has PLENTY of weirdos in the liberal arts and social science majors. For example, some of them, I am convinced, are really 'majoring' in smoking weed. </p>

<p>I doubt that too many people for which money is not a factor would choose Berkeley over MIT for undergrad engineering. For grad, sure. But undergrad? It's a hard case to make.</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Berkeley is bad. But MIT offers a tighter undergraduate experience with immense resources devoted to undergrads. UROP is simply a wonder to behold. Practically any MIT undergrad can get highly meaningful research experience through UROP. By meaningful I mean a lot better than simply washing glassware or other such menial tasks, but actually working on real projects with lots of responsibility and opportunities to explore.</p>

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<p>As I pointed out before, the main difference between Berkeley undergrad and MIT undergrad is that MIT cares about its students and Berkeley does not.</p>

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<p>I think there are some reasons to choose Berkeley over MIT undergraduate engineering. perhaps some people care about weather, or being on the West coast to be near family. Academic reasons? I don't know either well enough, but whatever.</p>

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I don't really care what kind of statistics you feel like manipulating. Its true that most students at Berkeley do not care and that for many Berkeley is the very best school they could get into so there will be inherent biases.

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<p>You sure do talk abuot most a lot. Do you know most Berkeley students? Did you read their opinions on surveys? I mean, most completed the survey, so do those care? Maybe you should say "most that I encounter," or "most that I talk to," or "most that I hear about." That would be far more accurate. And as to inherent bias, every human person comes to the table with that. Of course there's inherent bias. But you went to Cal, and sakky did, and CalX, for example, and you all view the place different. What "inherent bias" are you talking about, then? And what about my friends who got into Cornell and attend Berkeley? They are free from this bias? That's ridiculous.</p>

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And as I've pointed out, if you're smart enough to make it at Berkeley, you could've made it elsewhere and in my opinion, many times you could've done better either in terms of experience or placement. If you ask those people how much Berkeley people really contributed to their success, especially in relation to other schools, I would have to say they would mostly agree in saying, "very little."

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<p>You speak for people you don't even know about how you think they feel about schools that they could have but didn't attend. That's pretty far removed.</p>

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<p>Yes, but those aren't weirdos. They're cool people. To be honest, I'd rather hang out with hotter, pot-smoking "weirdos' than people who can barely communicate or joke around with me, not to mention not as hot.</p>

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<p>True, although I knew a guy who did choose Berkeley over MIT. Of course he had a full-ride here. </p>

<p>Again though, academically, choose MIT. Socially, choose Berkeley. Trust me, tech schools are not exactly enjoyable socially.</p>

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So what? The fact of the matter is, France uses a different system, and de Villepin went to IEP. Hence, your claim that he didn't go to IEP is false. </p>

<p>Yes, he also went to ENA. I never said he didn't. But what does that have to do with the subject at hand. The truth is, he went to IEP. As did Chirac. As did many other French political leaders. Case closed.

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<p>Do you realize that many of my high school classmates actually went to the IEP? It's basically a high quality "premier cycle" stepping stone to the HEC or ENA, those are the academic heavyweights in France. There are tons of unemployed IEP grads in France. IEP is decent, but not quite a top French university, the heavyweights are ENA (poli sci/administration), HEC (business), Polytechnique, Centrale, Les Mines (engineering). The fact that you're still arguing about this subject without any knowledge of it is frankly a bit pathetic...</p>

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>About your friend's story, the issue here is HOW PREVALENT </p>

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<p>Did I say that this happened to everyone? No. But it certainly happens to some students. Heck, he isn't even the only story. I can think of 3 or 4 quite similar stories. Look, the fact is, some students come to Berkeley and fall through the cracks.

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<p>The point is, you are basically dishonest in your approach because you go on about a scary story of failure (yours?) without mentioning how rare that story actually is. You also failed to state that only 1 out of every 62.5 of Berkeley students is extremely dissatisfied with his or her college career, according to the most comprehensive on-campus student survey.</p>

<p>If you were a responsible poster without an agenda, you would make an effort to indicate (1) why those students fall through the cracks (laziness, lack of maturity, not smart enough) and (2) what proportion of students fall through the cracks due to academic issues (less than 10%). But of course you make no effort to do this. You clearly have an agenda to smear Berkeley. I think the energy you put into this board would be better spent improving your life and career which through a lack of effort, intellect and/or maturity has suffered from a certain degree of failure at Berkeley, if you did go to school there at all.</p>

<p>I am on this board because my nephew will be applying to college next year, and I will be paying a good part of his tuition. So my time here is well spent, as opposed to it being an outlet for personal frustrations. There are better forms of therapy for that, you know...</p>

<p>Berkeley has helped me achieve financial success. My children grandchildren and nephews won't have to worry about their college finances. I owe my sucess to Berkeley, both in the general rigor and quality of the education (especially the strength of the undergraduate experience), the outlook I've gained from being in such a unique, rich, stimulating, beautiful and culturally diverse environment and the contacts I've made, which have helped me tremendously in my business.</p>

<p>Part of the reason I put forth my list of friends is that the path of many Berkeley grads is not only strewn with success, it is also often quite unique. Not everyone is content with just being a rich banker, lawyer or executive. I didn't make it in business by being a cookie-cutter Wall Street banker or corporate executive. There are many of those, but there are also some very interesting careers on the less traveled path, paths that the Berkeley experience helped open. </p>

<p>For example, my friend who has been a winemaker at Napa (ex-premed) has developed a passion for wine from our trips to Napa and Sonoma while at Cal. My other friend, who was a structural engineer working for GE, quit and followed his bliss to bcome a movie director. His first movie screened at several festivals. His love for movies was stimulated by frequent trips to the great rep theaters on campus and in the area. My astronomer friend turned down a lucrative job in Silicon Valley to become a researcher and has already made discoveries that have significantly altered knowledge about the birth and death of stars. The friend who went to Michigan for his MD spent several years with Doctors Without Borders, sometimes putting his life on the line to put his education to use for those who need it the most. I don't want to make it sound like all my friends at Cal were saints or stars, several are just content making a lot of money, and several have more mundane careers. But there is no denying that the Berkeley experience has been beautifully unique for myself and for most of my friends, at many levels.</p>

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Do bad things happen to everybody? No, I never said that it did. But do bad things happen to some people? Yes.

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<p>That's another example of your dishonest agenda. The point is, for what prportion of Berkeley students does this actully happen?</p>

<p>It's also dishonest to attribute most of the failure of the 15% of Cal students who don't end up graduating within 6 years to purely academic problems, financial issues probably are the #1 reason for dropping out, because Berkeley admits a very high percentage of socio-economically disfavored students (about 30% of the student body, vs 10% for most other top schools.)</p>

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Yes, but those aren't weirdos. They're cool people. To be honest, I'd rather hang out with hotter, pot-smoking "weirdos' than people who can barely communicate or joke around with me, not to mention not as hot.

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<p>One man's "weird" is another man's "hot". I personally don't find potheads to be hot in the least. But hey, to each, his own. </p>

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Again though, academically, choose MIT. Socially, choose Berkeley. Trust me, tech schools are not exactly enjoyable socially.

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<p>I believe that MIT is actually highly enjoyable to the certain subset of people that it caters to. I agree that if you're not into a certain tech-oriented lifestyle, then you might find MIT out of place. But then again, if you're not into that lifestyle, then why are you applying to MIT in the first place? </p>

<p>I would also point out that MIT does have the Sloan School, which is comprised of a highly social group of people. After all, it is a business school, so what do you expect? Business school is really all about networking. Berkeley has the Haas School obviously, but the problem with that is that nobody is guaranteed a spot in the Haas School as a freshman. In contrast, at MIT, any undergrad is free to get a degree at the Sloan School.</p>

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<p>Back to the main subject: Cal vs MIT engineering.</p>

<p>1- Basically, if engineering is all that you cared about and money was no object, MIT might be slightly better in most cases (Cal is better for Civil Engineering for example.)</p>

<p>2- MIT's social environment is extremely stifling and limited. The majority of MIT alumni I've met had no life outside of engineering/sciences. A few were actually interesting, but some had very limited social skills. Every engineer is a bit of a nerd (myself included!), but Berkeley has two huge mitigating factors: a more diverse campus (in terms of majors and humanities), better gender balance, a gorgeous environment with better weather. Not that Boston is bad, but it's definitely less cheerful a place than Berkeley. All those factors give Berkeley a huge edge in terms of the social side and the broader environment outside of engineering.</p>

<p>3- disregard most of the Berkeley-bashing by the pair of compulsive Berkeley bashers on this board, because if you've been accepted to both schools from OOS, you're extremely unlikely to flunk out at either program.</p>

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<p>I would definitely disagree with CalX on the last 2 points.</p>

<p>2) Just go take classes at Harvard or party at one of the many close-by liberal arts colleges. Boston has a lot more options than Berkeley does. For Berkeley, there's basically on-campus stuff with only a few supergroups and a bunch of small clubs nobody attends but the officers. There's stuff like band, orchestra, and rally committee, etc at Berkeley but I'm not into that whole scene so I would value that lowly (you might not however). If you want to party Berkeley may be a little better (if you don't want to leave MIT) but I doubt you will develop the kind of relationships you make in a 4 year dorm situation versus Berkeley's impersonal and expensive housing.</p>

<p>3) You can be accepted OOS as L&S undeclared on a much easier metric than those that attempt to apply to the engineering program at Berkeley.</p>

<p>Indeed, MIT will not fail you or cripple your GPA with B's or C"s if you do badly in engineer which many people find to be the case.</p>

<p>Berkeley, however, will screw you over with its uneven academics. Many of the "weeder" classes in other majors as well can be badly taught and force you to make worst grades than normal. I don't know what the situation at MIT is like but at least the MIT brand name is better and you will get guaranteed professor and faculty access versus Berkeley's mass-produced generic students. I would have to say the academics greatly favor MIT. I don't know why anyone would want a "real" experience in college. College should be a great all around experience. If you want to spend many hours trying and failing at a lot of things at Cal because the networking is so poor its hard to figure out what you're doing than be my guest. </p>

<p>I would advise heavily in favor of MIT.</p>

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1- Basically, if engineering is all that you cared about and money was no object, MIT might be slightly better in most cases (Cal is better for Civil Engineering for example.)

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<p>Nah, I would say that MIT holds one tremendously important distinction - in that you have complete freedom to switch majors. This is an especially important distinction to make when compared to Berkeley engineering. In Berkeley engineering, you are basically locked into one engineering discipline with only limited capacity to switch around later. For example, if you come in as CivilE and find out that you prefer EECS, you can't just switch over just "like that". You have to go through the transfer process, which is far from automatic. You can easily find out that you're stuck in your original major. But at MIT, anybody can switch majors anytime they want. You come in as an Economics major but found out that you'd rather do EECS or ME or Sloan or whatever, nobody is going to stop you. </p>

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MIT's social environment is extremely stifling and limited. The majority of MIT alumni I've met had no life outside of engineering/sciences. A few were actually interesting, but some had very limited social skills. Every engineer is a bit of a nerd (myself included!), but Berkeley has two huge mitigating factors: a more diverse campus (in terms of majors and humanities),

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<p>Again, see above. The increased majors matters little if you can't switch into the major that you want. L&S has a policy in which GPA is a factor in determining whether they will take you from another college, such that if you're not doing well in engineering, you can easily find that you can't get into L&S. </p>

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better gender balance

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<p>I find this to be a strong misleading. Look, the truth is, if you're an engineer, you're going to have to put up with a strong gender disbalance at either MIT or Berkeley. Engineering is predominantly male at both places. Your classes are going to be mostly male. Your teams are going to be mostly male. Your study groups are going to be mostly male. That's just the way engineering is. </p>

<p>What you really mean to say is that the life away from the classroom will be more gender balanced. However, when it comes to MIT, I find that logic dubious. The fact is, Harvard and MIT are in many ways a single unified school. Students are allowed to cross-reg. Plenty of parties are dual-school parties. The 2 schools are physically very close to each other, especially with the mass transit systems that tie these 2 schools extremely tightly. In fact, one guy calculated that, by use of the subway, it takes him less time to get from his dorm at MIT to Widener Library in Harvard Yard than it does for him to get to his classes located in the middle of the MIT campus. Go ahead, make jokes about Harvard girls, but the point is, there is plenty of opportunity for gender-mixed socializing. </p>

<p>Nor is Harvard the only one. It takes a 10 minute bus ride to get from MIT to BU or Tufts. Take a 20 minute bus ride and you're at BC. Take a 30 minute bus ride, and you're at Brandeis. And then of course there's Wellesley bus that comes around. </p>

<p>The point is, nobody says that you have to stay within the confines of MIT. Harvard is basically "right there". I know plenty of MIT students who arguably know more about Harvard than they do about MIT. </p>

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The majority of MIT alumni I've met had no life outside of engineering/sciences. A few were actually interesting, but some had very limited social skills.

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<p>If you want to meet some MIT alumni who have star social skills, go find some Sloan graduates. From a networking and socialization standpoint, I would put the Sloan grads up against anyone. Sloan has one of the most tight-knit alumni communities of any I have ever seen. </p>

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disregard most of the Berkeley-bashing by the pair of compulsive Berkeley bashers on this board, because if you've been accepted to both schools from OOS, you're extremely unlikely to flunk out at either program

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<p>To keep the perspective in mind, the guy who I talked about that flunked out of Berkeley EECS? He was a Chancellor's Scholar. So he clearly wasn't a scrub in high school. He went to Berkeley EECS whereupon he proceeded to flunk out. Don't believe me? Would you like to meet him?</p>

<p>I furthermore don't think of what I am doing as bashing. But even if it is, so what? People have the right to state their opinions. That's what free speech is all about. You have the right to post your opinion, and I have the right to post mine. If you say that people should dismiss my posts, then I could just as easily tell people to dismiss your posts as being far too glib about the problems of Berkeley.</p>

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<p>Let's be honest. The liberal arts students here are much better looking and "hotter" than the engineering students, generally. You can't argue with that.</p>

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<p>Fair enough, but most of MIT is full of antisocial people. I mean most there are, after all, science and engineering majors, not business.</p>

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<p>The main point about gender balance at Cal vs MIT is that while the engineering dept is more male, the rest of campus is 53% female. Most of the women I've dated at Cal were not engineering majors. You will have classes outside of the engineering dept, live, eat and sleep in a relatively small area with 16,000 women. You don't have to take the subway to go to another school's campus to meet women, they're everywhere at <em>your</em> school if you're at Cal, and they're wearing shorts eight months a year.</p>

<p>As well, Sloan is known to be one of the nerdiest business schools in the US, it's quant-oriented. And frankly saying that the coolest students on campus are the business major is a bit of an indictment of that campus scene IMHO... As is saying "I know plenty of MIT students who arguably know more about Harvard than they do about MIT".</p>

<p>I really wonder if I went to the same school at polite antagonis and sakky. Arguing that the social life at MIT is better than at Berkeley is like arguing that the surface of the moon is warmer than the sun's.</p>

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Let's be honest. The liberal arts students here are much better looking and "hotter" than the engineering students, generally. You can't argue with that.

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<p>Nobody is disputing that. But I think we can also agree that Berkeley engineering students are no 'hotter' than MIT engineering students. Engineering students everywhere are "unhot". </p>

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Fair enough, but most of MIT is full of antisocial people. I mean most there are, after all, science and engineering majors, not business.

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<p>I think it's more accurate to say that science/engineering students in general are antisocial. This is not specific to MIT. It's just that MIT has a lot of these science/engineering students. Which is why I pointed out that MIT is within a transportation nexus of lots of other colleges and universities. </p>

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The main point about gender balance at Cal vs MIT is that while the engineering dept is more male, the rest of campus is 53% female. Most of the women I've dated at Cal were not engineering majors. You will have classes outside of the engineering dept, live, eat and sleep in a relatively small area with 16,000 women. You don't have to take the subway to go to another school's campus to meet women, they're everywhere at <em>your</em> school if you're at Cal, and they're wearing shorts eight months a year.

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<p>First off, I highly doubt that taking the subway matters very much. This is not like BART. BART is very useful when getting from the East Bay to San Francisco, but far less useful if you just want to get around various parts of town, chiefly because there aren't very many stops. For example, if you want to get from the Embarcadero to the Marina District, you are basically stuck taking a bus or a cab. The Boston T system can be used to get to just about anywhere that has anything interesting happening. Furthermore, plenty of MIT students take the T on a daily basis just to get to campus. So if they are riding the T anyway, what's the big deal of riding it for 2 more stops to get to Harvard? </p>

<p>Besides, think of it this way. The Berkeley departments are segregated by geography. How long does it take you to get from Soda (where CS is taught) to, say, Dwinelle (where a lot of humanities are taught)? I would say that it's roughly the same time that it takes to get from, say, the Eastgate dorm at MIT to Harvard Yard (by the T). Maybe a few minutes less. But it's not a serious difference. </p>

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they're everywhere at <em>your</em> school if you're at Cal, and they're wearing shorts eight months a year.

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<p>Huh? 8 months a year? What are we, at UCLA, or UCSD? This is Berkeley we're talking about. This is the SF Bay Area. The Bay Area is not exactly the warmest place in the world, certainly not warm enough to be wearing shorts 8 months a year, unless you happen to have ice water in your veins. </p>

<p>Come on Calx, you know full well that it gets pretty darn cold in Berkeley. Not as cold as Boston, but still cold enough that you can't seriously be wearing shorts for most of the year. I would say maybe 4 months of the year is reasonable. 6 is stretching it. But 8? Come on. Not to mention extremely rainy in the Bay Area. It is not much fun to be wearing shorts when it is both cold and raining. </p>

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As well, Sloan is known to be one of the nerdiest business schools in the US, it's quant-oriented. And frankly saying that the coolest students on campus are the business major is a bit of an indictment of that campus scene IMHO... As is saying "I know plenty of MIT students who arguably know more about Harvard than they do about MIT".

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<p>Yeah, it is a quant-oriented B-school. But the fact is, it's still a B-school. All B-schools are full of 'cool' people. They have to be - that's how business works. Sloan is a consulting powerhouse. You don't get picked up by a consulting firm without serious personal skills. </p>

<p>Besides, I don't see that as a contradiction in the least to say that the business students are the coolest students on campus. The coolest students at Berkeley are probably the Haas kids. The coolest students at Stanford are probably the GSB students. The coolest students at Harvard are the HBS students. So what's the difference? </p>

<p>The major difference is, again, anybody can go to Sloan. It's not like Haas where you have to undergo a second admissions process. </p>

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And frankly saying that the coolest students on campus are the business major is a bit of an indictment of that campus scene IMHO... As is saying "I know plenty of MIT students who arguably know more about Harvard than they do about MIT".

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<p>I happen to think that MIT caters very strongly to people who happen to like that type of lifestyle. There are plenty of people at MIT who, quite frankly, would never fit into any other sort of milieu. Hence, it becomes a matter of fit. </p>

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Arguing that the social life at MIT is better than at Berkeley is like arguing that the surface of the moon is warmer than the sun's

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<p>Did I ever say that it was better? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that it was better. Can't do it, can you?</p>

<p>I am saying that it is DIFFERENT. It caters to a different kind of personality. MIT may not cater to you. Fine. But you can't deny that it caters to some people. Furthermore, I am saying that even if the environment doesn't cater to you, there is no reason that you have to stay on campus. MIT is connected to a greater metropolis. There's no rule that says that you HAVE to date only MIT women. </p>

<p>Let's be honest, CalX. I think that for many engineers, what we are talking about is completely irrelevant. Just go down to Soda Hall on a Friday at midnight and take a look at the students there. There will be a lot of students there. And you just know that none of them are going to be able to get dates. Seriously, some of them haven't even showered since the semester started. You know what I'm talking about. So to say that Berkeley offers a better social environment and women and whatnot - well, it clearly hasn't done a whole lot of good for guys like that. </p>

<p>The point is, if you want to find a strong social environment, you can basically find it at both places. The issue is that many students at both schools, particularly the engineering students, just don't WANT to be social. But this is really an indictment of all engineering students.</p>

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<p>The amount of backpedalling and compulsive spin in your post is breathless.</p>

<p>You're basically arguning about </p>

<p>-Berkeley's weather being cold in the context of a comparison with MIT?
COME ON, are you really that thick, compulsively nitpicky or intellectually dishonest?!?!</p>

<p>You can argue about whether one can wear shorts in Berkeley in mid-March, but you can't argue about the fact that you'll need a heavy coat at MIT most of the school year. Let's be honest here...</p>

<p>-"The Berkeley departments are segregated by geography?"
Oh, ridiculous. Cal's campus is a very compact and totally pedestrian environment. As an engineer, you will have classes in Wheeler, Dwinelle, Evans, Barrows and other parts of campus in YOUR SCHOOL. You will have lots of women in your dorm, non-engineering/science majors. You will eat, sleep and party with them in YOUR dorm, your school environment, not some subway stops on ANOTHER campus. You will go to football games, pac-10 hoop games, join clubs, play coed intramural sports, go to mixed music practice rooms, coffee houses across from campus, study in mixed libraries like Moffit, eat in mixed food courts, go to the movies all with the rest of the student body that is decisively more female and all of this is within walking distance of YOUR campu. And you can get a campus job and be able to interact with women from your school close to your classes. </p>

<p>Let's just admit the obvious here, shall we?</p>

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The point is, if you want to find a strong social environment, you can basically find it at both places. The issue is that many students at both schools, particularly the engineering students, just don't WANT to be social. But this is really an indictment of all engineering students.

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<p>Truly pathetic. We are arguing whether Berkeley offers a better social environemnt, and instead of conceding that Cal is a more social place, you counter by saying "engineering students don't want to be social"... Why not just admit that Cal is much more social that a tech school like MIT, and lay it out for students, wouldn't that be more intellectually honest? Those who indeed never socialize will discount it.</p>

<p>Also, you keep driving about the fact that Cal offers less flexibility, while brushing off the fact that the range of majors within MIT is much narrower, and the fact that only a handful of impacted majors at Cal are very difficult to switch into (even then, there always are "backup majors", like PEIS instead of PoliSci.)</p>

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-Berkeley's weather being cold in the context of a comparison with MIT?
COME ON, are you really that thick, compulsively nitpicky or intellectually dishonest?!?!</p>

<p>You can argue about whether one can wear shorts in Berkeley in mid-March, but you can't argue about the fact that you'll need a heavy coat at MIT most of the school year. Let's be honest here...

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<p>Give me a break. I am afraid that it is YOU that are being pathetic. Did I say that Berkeley was colder than MIT? Again, point to the quote where I said that. Oops, can't do it, can you? What is it about you and your incessant refusal to carefully read what I actually write? </p>

<p>You ask for honesty, and that's what I'm asking of you. You and I both know that you can't reasonably wear shorts 8 months of the year in Berkeley, unless you're insane. </p>

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-"The Berkeley departments are segregated by geography?"
Oh, ridiculous. Cal's campus is a very compact and totally pedestrian environment. As an engineer, you will have classes in Wheeler, Dwinelle, Evans, Barrows and other parts of campus in YOUR SCHOOL. You will have lots of women in your dorm, non-engineering/science majors. You will eat, sleep and party with them in YOUR dorm, your school environment, not some subway stops on ANOTHER campus. You will go to football games, pac-10 hoop games, join clubs, play coed intramural sports, go to mixed music practice rooms, coffee houses across from campus, study in mixed libraries like Moffit, eat in mixed food courts, go to the movies all with the rest of the student body that is decisively more female and all of this is within walking distance of YOUR campu. And you can get a campus job and be able to interact with women from your school close to your classes. </p>

<p>Let's just admit the obvious here, shall we?

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<p>I am pointing out how does it really matter? So you have to go on a subway to Harvard. It takes 10 minutes. Is that really THAT BAD? </p>

<p>I am simiply pointing out that MIT exists within an urban environment. You don't have stay within the confines of MIT. Boston is RIGHT THERE. Harvard is RIGHT THERE. Everything is also within walking distance or very short public transportation distances. What exactly does it matter if people are taking classes with you or even in your same school, if everybody is all bunched up together in the same urban environment anyway? </p>

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Truly pathetic. We are arguing whether Berkeley offers a better social environemnt, and instead of conceding that Cal is a more social place, you counter by saying "engineering students don't want to be social"... Why not just admit that Cal is much more social that a tech school like MIT, and lay it out for students, wouldn't that be more intellectually honest? Those who indeed never socialize will discount it.

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<p>I don't think that it's a fair characterization to say that MIT is less social. Again, I would say that it's a matter of what kind of socialness you want. If you like the tech engineering kind of socialness, then you would probably prefer MIT. After all, that's why the MIT alumni network is so strong (certainly stronger than Berkeley's). If you don't like that style, then you would probably prefer Berkeley. </p>

<p>I would say this. You must agree with me that there are quite a few engineering students at Berkeley who would probably feel far more comfortable socially at MIT than at Berkeley. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. I also agree that there are some students at MIT who would be more comfortable socially at Berkeley. But it's hard to say that one is truly more 'social' than another. It's really more about personal fit. </p>

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Also, you keep driving about the fact that Cal offers less flexibility, while brushing off the fact that the range of majors within MIT is much narrower, and the fact that only a handful of impacted majors at Cal are very difficult to switch into (even then, there always are "backup majors", like PEIS instead of PoliSci.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, like I said, I highly doubt that too many non-tech-oriented people are going to apply to MIT in the first place. Hence, the fact that Berkeley offers a lot of humanities isn't going to matter very much to these people. Just like if you are a humanities-oriented person, then you would be better off at Harvard or Stanford, not MIT. </p>

<p>Secondly, you (and many others) continually dismiss the nearly incestuous relationship that MIT has with Harvard. Harvard is literally just a 10 minute subway ride away. 10 minutes is nothing. Furthermore, the cross-reg policies allow MIT students to complete much of their course requirements at Harvard, and to basically get a "quasi-Harvard degree". If you come to MIT and want to study humanities, that's usually what you do. Your degree will say that it comes from MIT, but it's basically a Harvard degree. Heck, I know a whole bunch of MIT students who LIVE in Harvard Square. This would be akin to those Berkeley students who live in Oakland or San Francisco and commute in via BART every day. However, in the case of those MIT students at Harvard Square, they don't even really have to commute every day. Many of their days will actually be spent at Harvard.</p>

<p>This is something that people miss again and again. Due to the highly liberal cross-reg policies, Harvard and MIT are basically one unified school. I know Harvard science and math students who spend a great deal of their time at MIT. In many ways, these 2 schools act as one. To just look at MIT without also looking at Harvard (or vice versa) is to dismiss much of the educational experience available at either school. </p>

<p>Berkeley doesn't have an arrangement like this with another top school. You can't, as a Berkeley student, choose to basically spend all your time at Stanford, for both geographic and institutional reasons.</p>

<p>But all of this is really neither here nor there. It seems to me that you're just not really interested in admitting that certain schools might actually be better than Berkeley. Am I right? I have freely admitted that Berkeley is better than all of the other UC's, and is better than many of the other private schools like Emory or Cornell. But it seems to me that you don't ever want to admit that Berkeley has any problems at all. Am I right?</p>

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<p>(Let me make it easier on you, since you seem a bit confused. Which school has better weather:
a) MIT
b) Cal</p>

<p>Take your time if you need. Thank you.)</p>

<p>You're right, I do think that Berkeley is the best school in the United States, all things considered. And you know what? The London Times doesn't think I'm far off. I wouldn't touch schools like Emory or Cornell, I came out of one of the top 10 high schools in France and wanted a WORLD-CLASS university, and that's what I found at Cal. NO ONE has ever heard of MOST of the schools that are ahead of Berkeley in the USNWR poll in the rest of the world. </p>

<p>I think Berkeley does have some minor problems, but those haven't factored AT ALL into my college experience. The advantages of Berkeley are overwhelming in comparison to the disadvantages, disadvantages which are blown way out of proportion by the same tow posters on this board. I had great interactions with the profs I liked. I didn't feel the need to be in a small class for Calculus or Physics, nor was i compelled to spend a lot of time in office hours because I did get the subjects almost all of the time and i was too busy having the time of my life outside of school, doing things I couldn't do as easily (or at all!) if I were at Stanford, MIT or Harvard. Besides, as shown here (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=165910&page=2&pp=15%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=165910&page=2&pp=15&lt;/a&gt;) the perception of Berkeley classes being super huge and impersonal is largely a false one. As well, the times I've neede to go to the faculty, I've found them accessible, as did 78% of cal students according to the main student survey.</p>

<p>You know what? most Cal graduates are quite happy they went to Cal. More so than Stanford grads, if you compare the respective pie charts on this site. Why is it that your opinion and that of the other grouch are very much in the minority, while 86.7% of respondants were satisfied?</p>

<p>
[quote]
I highly doubt that too many non-tech-oriented people are going to apply to MIT in the first place.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's PRECISELY the problem! It is not the same at Berkeley, which has a BALANCED student body, gender-wise and in terms of majors. This explains in good part why the social life is much better at Cal. Get it?</p>

<p>Just like arguing about the weather, you are actually trying to tell us that at Cal the tech majors are geographically isolated on one quadrant of a compact campus (with Evans Hall being about one hundred feet from Doe Library!), while at MIT you can travel by subway to get to Harvard and take classes and hang out on another campus in an attempt to compensate for the inadequacies of the social imbalance on your own campus?</p>

<p>Berkeley doesn't have an arrangement with another top school because it doesn't NEED it, dozens of top-ranked departments are located within its small campus!</p>

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<p><a href="Let%20me%20make%20it%20easier%20on%20you,%20since%20you%20seem%20a%20bit%20confused.%20Which%20school%20has%20better%20weather:%0Aa">quote</a> MIT
b) Cal</p>

<p>Take your time if you need. Thank you.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Look, we all agree that Cal has better weather than MIT. </p>

<p>But so what? Is somebody really going to turn down a school for bad weather? Seems to me that Harvard and MIT are not hurting for students, despite Boston weather. MIT has a yield rate of around 60%, compared to Caltech's 35%. Caltech has better weather than MIT, but that doesn't seem to have affected the yields.</p>

<p>Personally, if all you care about is good weather, then forget MIT, and also forget Berkeley. Go to UCSD. If there is any place in the US that truly has perfect weather, it has to be San Diego. But I wouldn't recommend turning down Cal for UCSD, certainly not just for the weather. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You're right, I do think that Berkeley is the best school in the United States

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I never said that I thought Berkeley was the best school in the US. I said arguably the best *PUBLIC * school. That's a major caveat there. </p>

<p>
[quote]
And you know what? The London Times doesn't think I'm far off.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The London Times ranking is mostly centered around graduate schools. I have always agreed that Berkeley is a great place to go for graduate school. But we're not talking about graduate school here, are we?</p>

<p>Don't believe me? Pop quiz. Where, on the LT rankings, are the elite LAC's like Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Wellesley? Can't find them, can you? So does that mean that they are bad schools? No, it just means that they have very few graduate research programs.</p>

<p>You can't judge an undergraduate program by the quality of its graduate programs. This is why lots of undergrads prefer to go to the elite LAC's. I highly doubt that people would turn down,say, Amherst College for, say, UMass, unless money was the problem. Yet I see that the Times ranking places UMass at #45. All that tells me is that UMass has some pretty good graduate research programs, whereas Amherst does not (in fact, doesn't really have any graduate programs at all).</p>

<p>If we were talking about getting your PhD, then I would agree that Berkeley is a great place to go. But we're not talking about PhD programs here. </p>

<p>
[quote]
That's PRECISELY the problem! It is not the same at Berkeley, which has a BALANCED student body, gender-wise and in terms of majors. This explains in good part why the social life is much better at Cal. Get it?</p>

<p>Just like arguing about the weather, you are actually trying to tell us that at Cal the tech majors are geographically isolated on one quadrant of a compact campus (with Evans Hall being about one hundred feet from Doe Library!), while at MIT you can travel by subway to get to Harvard and take classes and hang out on another campus in an attempt to compensate for the inadequacies of the social imbalance on your own campus?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh come on. My point is that, as I'm sure that you've seen, a lot of tech students, whether at Berkeley or MIT or anywhere else, simply don't WANT social interaction, especially with non-engineers. Come on, man, you know what I'm talking about. You and I both know that a lot of technical students have severe problems with shyness and self-confidence, not to mention certain anti-socialness (like not showering or shaving for weeks on end). Furthermore, a lot of them are immigrants, especially from Asia, who don't have a strong command of English, which further compounds their self-confidence in social settings.</p>

<p>That is why I am quite convinced that MIT is actually a BETTER setting for these kinds of students, for the simple reason that you are going to find lots of other students who are like you. The Berkeley social setting is still quite dismissive of nerds. At MIT, nerds are actually celebrated - where it is actually considered to be cool to have or be able to calculate huge math algorithms in your head, where it is cool to spend all night building your own supercomputer.</p>

<p>You talk about how Berkeley has all of these social activities and a great mixture of students and so forth. But come on, CalX. Take a walk down to Soda Hall at midnight on a weekday and take a look at the students there. You KNOW that those students aren't going to be taking advantage of Berkeley's social activities. You KNOW that they aren't going to be mixing with those other students. Simply put, they don't have the personality for it. Come on, you know it's true. They are only comfortable with people who are just like them. You know what I'm talking about. </p>

<p>Hence, the question is not really about geographic isolation. The question is about SOCIAL isolation. Many tech students at Berkeley are isolated because they WANT to be isolated, and the fact that they are stuck in another section of campus only serves to reinforce that fact. </p>

<p>But fine, have it your way. If you really think that Berkeley is so much better than MIT, then why is it that Berkeley's yield rate is only 40%, meaning that 60% of students who are admitted to Berkeley will turn it down to go elsewhere? Compare that to the 67% yield rate of MIT and Stanford (and the near 80% yield rate of Harvard). Why is it that Berkeley has a greater percentage of admitted students turning it down than those other schools do? </p>

<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/IPEDS/cool/index.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://nces.ed.gov/IPEDS/cool/index.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

57

<p>"Personally, if all you care about is good weather, then forget MIT, and also forget Berkeley. Go to UCSD. If there is any place in the US that truly has perfect weather, it has to be San Diego. But I wouldn't recommend turning down Cal for UCSD, certainly not just for the weather"</p>

<p>My son got his EECS from UCSD. For his grad work , he picks CAL over MIT (full ride on both).Yes!! Weather is a major factor in his decision to go to CAL.</p>

58

<p>I have always agreed that Cal is an extremely strong graduate school. But undergrad, not quite as good.</p>

<p>Still, I stand by what I said. I would take Cal over UCSD for undergrad unless there are countervailing factors (like a scholarship at UCSD).</p>

59

<p>sakky... get a life. You're already a Cal graduate... so just stop hating on Berkeley and stop wasting your life on CC, posting pointless posts which nobody cares about.</p>

60

<p>Dude, if you don't like my posts, then just don't read them. Why do you care so much about how I choose to spend my time? If I feel like posting, then I am going to post. If you don't like those posts, then feel free not to read them. Nobody has a gun to your head. </p>

<p>Besides, I am ultimately trying to come up with ways to IMPROVE Berkeley. Yet it seems to me that there are quite a few people here who are not really interested in having Berkeley improve. If you're not interested, just say so.</p>