<p>Besides the fact that MIT has a smaller, more amazing student body and more resources, how else is MIT better than Berkeley?</p>
<p>But most importantly, is the math and science faculty at MIT better than the faculty at Berkeley?</p>
<p>The simple uniqueness of MIT culture.</p>
<p>MIT trumps Berkeley any day, in terms of humility of applicants.</p>
<p>But kiplinger has rated Berkeley the 12th best public university in the US on the strength of its 60% 4-year graduation rate; the fact that 82% of its students scored 600 or more on the math portion of the SAT and its 15-1 student to faculty ratio (although as an undergrad you may never actually see a professor; lrumor has it that they may be nocturnal).</p>
<p>MIT is smaller, more selective, and it devotes more resources to its undergraduates than does Berkeley. MIT's freshman retention rate is around 98%, and its 4-year graduation rate is more than 20 percentage points higher than Berkeley's. At MIT it's easy to find paid employment on campus, even if you are not receiving financial aid, and it's easy to find undergraduate research opportunities and obtain internships. At Berkeley you will compete with thousands of your peers for a smaller pool of resources. The science and engineering programs at both schools are rigorous (can I say brutal?), but MIT's collaborative culture and close-knit community provide students with the opportunity for more peer support.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong; I love Berkeley. I have two graduate degrees from there! If you're a California resident, Berkeley is absolutely the best value for grad school. But if you're applying to an undergraduate program and gain admission to both schools -- and if you can afford to attend MIT -- then you'd be a fool to choose Berkeley over Boston.</p>
<p>ic, so berkeley is like, you're on your own. but MIT actually takes care of you.</p>
<p>what about graduate school? is berkeley's resources limited there as well (as well as the faculty). and are the departments there overwhelmingly large too?</p>
<p>I had this exact dilemma last year and even asked College Confidential about it: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/474419-uc-berkeley-mit.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/474419-uc-berkeley-mit.html</a></p>
<p>It's kinda long though.</p>
<p>berkeley degrees are a dime a dozen compared to mit.</p>
<p>@Curious,
Since you've posted on the MIT board, I'm assuming you eventually chose MIT. How did you decide?</p>
<p>Sarcasm: A form of irony in which apparent praise conceals another, scornful meaning.</p>
<p>
[quote]
what about graduate school? is berkeley's resources limited there as well (as well as the faculty). and are the departments there overwhelmingly large too?
[/quote]
When I visited for graduate school interviews, I felt that was the case in the department in which I was interviewing -- the labs had many more graduate students than labs at other schools at which I interviewed (e.g. Stanford, Harvard, MIT), and there was more competition to get into labs than at other schools.</p>
<p>It's not necessarily that Berkeley's resources were limited, they just had a higher graduate student:faculty ratio than other schools of their caliber.</p>
<p>Interestingly, when I did some data analysis on the school choices of the admitted class of 2010, I found that only three MIT admits that year chose Berkeley over MIT. That has to represent a huge number of cross-admits that MIT wins -- after all, California sends the largest number of students to MIT each year, and I have to assume that most or all of them applied to Berkeley. Many more students chose schools like Georgia Tech or Michigan over MIT that year than chose Berkeley over MIT.</p>
<p>MIT is better than any school for me</p>
<p>
[quote]
@Curious,
Since you've posted on the MIT board, I'm assuming you eventually chose MIT. How did you decide?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>(I forgot that I replied on this thread until now. Hence the half-month-late reply.)</p>
<p>My situation is a little different than most people's because I went to school in Berkeley (the city) and lived within 30 minutes of the university for my entire life. My sister went to UC Berkeley for engineering and she told me about every minute of it, and I've also gone through the campus many many times and have taken a class there, so I already knew the school like the back of my hand. I tried to imagine myself going there for four years but realized that I would have been really bored. I had never been to the east coast before (let alone the MIT campus), so the mystery of MIT drew me in. Even though I could have had a much easier life if I chose to stay home, I decided that it was time to grow up by moving out of my comfort zone.</p>
<p>I also just really love the culture and quirkiness of MIT. Berkeley used to have that rebellious streak back in the 1960's, but not so much nowadays. The city is full of life and insane people (Code Pink anyone?), but it doesn't quite compare to MIT. The dorms here each have their own personalities, and that is a big factor in choosing where you want to live. The only things that Berkeley students look at when determining where they want to live are the quality/price of the facilities and how much the residents like to party, drink, and do drugs. At MIT, your dorm is a big chunk of your social circle and friends; at Cal, your dorm is just where you sleep. Don't get me wrong, Cal does have a lot of traditions (it's big on football and constantly bashes Stanford, and there's the Carillon, for example), but I love MIT's ultra-geekiness.</p>
<p>However, I must admit that I never intended to come here, and when I received my acceptance, I was scared out of my mind and did not want to attend. I knew that my intelligence level was waaaaaaaaay below that of everyone else at this school, so I thought that I couldn't handle the pressure and difficulty. BUT, everyone I knew shook me hard and reminded me that people go to college to learn, not to flaunt what they already know, and that getting into MIT is the chance of a lifetime and that I should run with it.</p>
<p>The financial aspect of the decision was also a big influence. Berkeley is a large public school in a state that is already running a huge deficit, and it has to support excellent research labs, top Division I sport teams, and a broad range of majors on top of holding ~35000 students and running all the normal college services. MIT on the other hand is a small-ish private school that only supports ~10000 students (both numbers include undergrads and grad students), a mediocre Division III sports program, and mostly focuses on science and finance, but has a humongous endowment to do that. Thus, MIT can afford to have an aggressive financial aid policy, but Cal can't. Basically, MIT met 100% of my demonstrated financial need, but Berkeley didn't. It's nice having the potential to get a higher paying job when/if I graduate but also having less loans to pay off.</p>
<p>I could go on all day with more reasons, but then this would be a very long post.</p>