MIT vs Berkeley

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>@Theophilius, I think realistically, all the policies MIT offers to help its undergrads make a lot of sense; there’s no reason why entering a top school for engineering from possibly some random high school, one should have to have near no safety nets. Aids in risk-taking actually tend to produce better prepared candidates, because they help one get over fears during a transition period.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I think when comparing two exceptional engineering schools with very different campus cultures and locations, the decision should be hard. So I will suggest a few ways one can look at the problems at Berkeley, which may help provide perspective.</p>

<p>First, we’re taking of two very hard schools. Eventually at MIT, you will face the music. In fact, while there can be similarly high caliber researchers at Berkeley, there are instances where MIT courses just move faster, sort of because they assume they can. At the end of the day, a course is just a course, and the speed is probably unnecessary – you probably won’t use that material in exact form in industry later, and for grad school, you’ll likely have to learn completely new stuff which may or may not be related. </p>

<p>Regarding frosh/soph risk-taking: my impression is the COE is the main one with the horrible policy of not allowing pass/fail grading options for technical courses. You have an easy safety net for your GPA, else. If you’re in the COE, the best option to sample courses is probably to audit them early on and then take them when you feel like it, if you really feel like it. After all, no matter what, eventually if it’s a course you want on your transcript, you have to buckle up and do your work, whatever school it is. The drop deadline is generally 5 weeks in, and most of the frosh professors have a midterm by then to give you a solid idea of how you’re doing. If you do your homework and verify that such an indicator is a good one, then you can avoid failing. It’s a more delicate exercise, but when you’re comparing two hard schools, it’s probably fair to say they both require caution.</p>

<p>All in all, I don’t think safety nets are actually a reason I would use to pick a school between these two, for aforementioned reasons. Plus, I think it is possibly more likely to be a misfit for MIT’s student culture.</p>

<p>A good reason to pick MIT would be the flexibility of changing majors. At Berkeley, if you decide you’re going to do engineering, and you weren’t admitted to the college, it can be rough to get in once a Berkeley student. If admitted to engineering, you should mostly forget this factor too, because it’s quite easy to switch out with a decent GPA. If you don’t have the capability of getting a decent GPA due to medical issues, you can take time off. If you selected courses that give you an idea how you’re doing early, are a frosh/soph meaning you have the chance to balance technical with non-technical classes to help your GPA anyway (for breadth coursework that’s required), and still managed to fail your classes, then you haven’t done your homework – I have sympathy for that, but I don’t think it’s possible if you plan ahead of time.</p>

<p>I know this is an old thread, but it’s probably good to repeat some things.</p>

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<p>Did you really decide to pimp your school on another school’s board under the mask of wanting to continue discussion on a 3-year-old thread?</p>

<p>Lol.</p>

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<p>sakky, you have not discussed anything about the quality of EECS programs at both schools. All I heard from you is that MIT is more lenient, accommodating, and therefore, a more desirable school than Berkeley.</p>

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<p>Again - are you really bumping a 3-year-old thread to pimp out your own school?</p>

<p>I think sakky’s probably moved on from this debate, maybe the rest of us should too.</p>

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<p>I agree: this is neither the time nor place to discuss such matters. Interested parties are free to relocate this thread to a different folder.</p>

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<p>Yeah, there’s no reason to continue this, except that I will likely continue to clarify if others keep posting contentions/responses. I think Sakky was trying to introduce specifics into what’s usually a generic discussion, which is important, because a simplistic, one-sided discussion often leads to misrepresentation, even if not misinformation.</p>

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<p>One teeny reason to continue is the voice of real experience:
This is such a crock and evidence of overblown arrogance by MIT students. I checked out this MIT site as my daughter has fallen in love with this school. My daughter is hoping to be accepted; she wishes to go for the tauted flexibility, because it is #1 in engineering…and because it is the best of the best, yes sir. My wife and I are not supportive because: we live3000 miles away, and it costs ~$25k more in total compared to UCB, and frankly she and all of the rest of your are smoking some not so good stuff if you think the intsy weentsy differences in rating on these degrees between these schools is going to allow you to earn a significant financial difference over the course of your life-thereby given you an easy way to pay off your large MIT incurred cost-whether loans or whatever. I work for a large software/engineering company , and I can tell you, it won’t. 10 years we had a choice between an MIT EECS undergrad and a San Jose State EECS–the SJST got the job(and boy has he been great!) Similar gpa’s, slightly better test scores by the SJSU guy, and similar letters of recommdation, and better interview. We-and most of our cohorts took him on his gpa, test scores, and the interview! When it comes to getting a job this is the BIG deal; going to the big school is not. Last year he went to UCB for Masters–I’m sure the MIT guy went somewhere also good…but doubt better, and doubt he will make i more money nor have more job satisfaction. Mabye the SJSU guy could have a chip on his shoulder if he didn’t get into MIT orUCB…but BFD. He’ll laugh all the way to the plane for his next vacation instead of staying at home paying back his loan. As for my daughter, yes she has that crazy MIT fever. I’ve told her I will pay the equivalent of a UCB education, and she will need to find loans for the other $25k/year–since I doubt we will be lucky enough to get minimal if any aid as my wife and I have good jobs…but are not rich. Reality–most of what all of you have written are the sweet excuses of rich boys…or truly more exploitive poor boys who are expecting to not have to show a bit of responsibility for your own education by not paying a dime.
PS-for those applying to medschool, my wife is on the admissions committee, and there it was the grades>score>school>interview in level of importance. Doing great at MIT/UCB but getting C’s will hold you back–but sadly, usually the extreme opposite isn’t helpful. Go to a school with little name (UCmerced) or one considered to have low academic excellence like some of the Cal State Univ or Colleges, and your application will often get tossed.
Good luck;everyone will take something different from this-hopefully something of value and guidance.
Feel free to comment, but sadly in a job where I work 60 hours + per week, and have alot of responsibility (and not swimming in the dough, but doing ok!) I may not get a chance to answer back. By the way, I did my engineering at UCLA–chose it over UCB and MIT for the weather and occasional chance to suf! Never regretted it…and it never held me back.
All of you are better off saving that $100K differential and inveseting it over time; compare this to the cost of paying that money with interest over time. Yikes!</p>

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<p>Regarding the latest post, this thread was regarding comparing MIT vs. Berkeley assuming the costs were the same, as the OP stated. Seems to me that that renders the concerns of the entire last post moot. </p>

<p>However, if you want to inject cost into the equation, I can certainly agree that that may be an excellent reason to choose the cheaper school. I don’t think anybody is arguing otherwise, and to those who say that we are, I think they are “smoking the not-so-good-stuff”. And besides, for the 90% of Americans who don’t live in California, the cost difference between Berkeley and MIT is basically nil, and in fact, Berkeley may actually be more expensive once financial aid is factored in, as Berkeley isn’t noted for particularly generous packages. Heck, I can think of some MIT people from California who ended up paying roughly the same as they would have had they attended Berkeley, once their MIT package was factored in. Also see below. </p>

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<p>Yet there lies a logical paradox. You say that Berkeley is cheaper than MIT which is obviously true for a California resident who doesn’t qualify for significant aid from MIT. But, heck, why stop there? After all, you said it yourself regarding your story of the SJSU guy beating the MIT guy for a particular job. That story doesn’t exactly seem to endorse attending Berkeley - if anything, that story seems to endorse attending SJSU or some other lower-tier school and pocketing the corresponding full merit ride. Anybody who is good enough to get into MIT is surely good enough to land a merit-based full-ride at most lower-tier schools across the country. So instead of having to pay for college, you would be getting paid. Why not take that and make money, if money is the prime concern?</p>

<p>But then you say that attending a lower-ranked school might mean his ‘application (for a job) might get tossed’, although the SJSU guy from the above example seems to belie that assertion. Nevertheless, now I think we’re getting to brass tacks. It is certainly true that having a degree from a lower-ranked school might result in having one’s application tossed, or, more accurately, not even being given the chance to apply for a particular job in the first place. For example, if you want to work at a top strategy consulting or investment banking firm, you can’t do it right out of SJSU, because they don’t recruit there. </p>

<p>Whether Ibanking or consulting really ought to be such desirable career paths is a discussion best left for other threads - and indeed, I have written about these topics at length on other threads. Nevertheless, the undeniable fact is, for whatever reason, many top college students want them. When the economy was healthier, nearly half of all MIT students who entered the workforce chose jobs in consulting or banking, and even now during the teeth of the economic downturn, around 30% still do. Only around 5-10% of their Berkeley counterparts do so, even though many more would surely like to, as the recruiting booths for consulting and banking firms during the Berkeley career functions are always packed. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I certainly agree that if you don’t really care about having those sorts of career opportunities and you’re satisfied with a regular job, then don’t pay extra to go to MIT. And don’t pay extra to go to Berkeley either. Go to a lower-tier school that will not only provide you with a full merit ride, but also allow you to cruise through with top grades with relatively little effort due to the lower level of competition.</p>

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<p>Interestingly, the year I analyzed data for the admissions office, only two students who were admitted to MIT chose Berkeley over MIT. Many more students chose UMich or Georgia Tech over MIT than chose Berkeley, although there must have been many Berkeley cross-admits simply because so many MIT students are from California.</p>

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<p>Maybe CA kids just have an extra helping of ego :wink: </p>

<p>A common reason not to go to Berkeley as a Californian, which I’ve heard is “everyone in CA gets in, did I work to be ranked in the top 5 in my school just to go there?”… and it’s not uncommon for some of them with foreign background to resent the fact that their foreign folks have their own elitism which glorifies Berkeley above most to all Ivy Leagues.</p>

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<p>@sakky your SN is almost homophonic with ‘snarky’: a pretty apt description of your posting/writing style, though i’m partial to ‘pretentious,’ personally. ‘Pompous’ isn’t bad either.</p>

<p>btw, yes, i joined this forum for the sole purpose of reviving – yet again – a plucking old asp thread… dunno what the rules are concerning profanity)
all i REALLY want to say is this:</p>

<p>it does not matter which of these schools you choose if choosing based on academic and/or professional criteria. at. all. what matters is (besides intended major obvi) your personal/subjective learning environment preferences (i.e. what class size you prefer, location, housing, student body demographic, so on, so forth, etcetera)</p>

<p>ultimately you’re gonna hafta go with the gut: make a holistic judgement call. both schools will provide you with the resources you need to succeed if you are intelligent, diligent, what have you. some rhyming and stuff going on here. cool.</p>

<p>this will be ironic to say (since i’m chiming in a year after thread’s death), but this is such a superficial, dumb discussion. whatever. check em both out, and pick one. people can be such ninnies.</p>

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<p>Are you instate? MIT gave me way more money than Berkeley :(.</p>

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<p>Also late in joining but I’d like to say a couple points:

  1. Berkeley is cheaper if in-state. The chance of an MIT financial aid matching Berkeley in-state?
  2. Berkeley DOES NOT ask where your parents went for college at all. Is there any place on the UC application AT ALL where one can list where one’s parents went? The admit rate for legacy applicants at Harvard jumps from under 10% to 40%. That, my friends, is NOT an indication of an equitable country or chance for everyone. Second gen/first gen immigrants? Good luck. Asian? Oh dear.
  3. Berkeley’s location. Though in the summertime students go wherever (IBM New York, etc.) for opportunities, Berkeley’s location next to San Francisco (it’s literally over the bridge, and we can see the Golden Gate from my laundry room) i.e. Twitter, as well as in the area just makes it such a great place to study EECS. Google case competition? Facebook Hackathon <a href=“https://www.facebook.com/events/389128324518744/[/url]”>https://www.facebook.com/events/389128324518744/&lt;/a&gt; of Cal v. Stanford? There’s a reason why Steve Jobs and the Woz met at Berkeley.
    Frankly, the SF Bay Area is just a better location to be a student. </p>

<p>Yes, it’s a lot easier to get in to Berkeley as a transfer student from a community college, but I for one actually appreciate that Berkeley as a public university gets to do this. It’s a lot more realistic as to the people you’ll encounter in life, and most Berkeley students don’t develop a Berkeley bubble if you will. Yes, Berkeley is “lower” in U.S. News&World Report rankings, but that doesn’t stop it from making top 5 in 90% of its departments. Whether you study English (#1), Sociology (#1), any form of engineering (Top 5),</p>