<p>8-)</p>
<p>yeah. but that has no bearing on the quality of the undergrad programs.</p>
<p>Never should a person judge an undergrad program based on the phd program. NEVAR!</p>
<p>berkeley undergrad programs are still average, with overloaded classes and too many GSI's. undergrad teaching quality is average at best. The only reason berkeley isn't a crappy undergrad institution is that the students work very hard and are above average in intelligence.</p>
<p>Great! Sakky part two. Kev, did anyone say anything about undergrad, or does your brain just automatically shift to the crappy time you had at Cal? While I agree that having high quality grad programs doesn't always mean a high quality undergrad program, it doesn't hurt. And to say that Cal undergrad is "still average" makes you look silly. If Cal UG is only average, what does that make schools like Wisconsin, University of Washington, Tufts, USC, Wake Forrest, NYU, UNC, and the CUNY's? Are they below average? Besides, a couple of days ago you were talking about the usnews rankings and said, "their ratings are based on research money and alumni donations, etc. The only reason why Cal isn't in the top 10 is that the classes are too damn large! and grad students teach too many classes!!" So which is it, is Cal only a few smaller, prof. taught classes away from being a top ten school, or is it "still average"?</p>
<p>Dude calm down already. The point is rankings look wonderful and all but take them with a grain of salt, you wont get to the part thats being ranked until youve gotten thru the undergrad program. I personally think Cal is far above average, and one can look to hiring practices of corporations looking at people with only a B.S. out of college. They wouldnt hire them if they didnt think that they were qualified. I personally think rankings are stupid. I mean when you have one ranking that puts it at #2 (London Times) and #22 (USN) then clearly theyre not working all that well. You could be ranked all over the place based on what criteria are used and what is stressed. and by the way Kev what would happen if at all the Ivies suddenly all the students stopped working hard and became dumber. You can be sure the alumni funds would stop flowing... Part of what makes an undergraduate institution great is its students, its not an independent factor.</p>
<p>Don't tell me to calm down. Who cares if these rankings don't deal with us. The poster didn't try to make that connection, he was simply showing a link, not editorializing about Cal's unfairly low rankings.</p>
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8-)
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<p>Given that the original poster is a newly admitted UG student, I saw this happyface as a connection the poster was trying to make between the PHD school, and the UG school.</p>
<p>I was not trying to make a connection between the PHD school and UG school in any way.</p>
<p>I think it is indisputable that the Berkeley PhD programs are top-notch.</p>
<p>These rankings show graduate programs, yes, but Cal students would like to think, for their own pride, that they mean a better undergrad system. the smart and observant take them with a grain of salt and realize that they dont directly correlate to undergrad scores, but give another reason for undergrads to snub off Stanford and whoever else, its just pride. And you still need to calm down. No ones trying to insult you bud.</p>
<p>Thanks for not insulting me, fella. And Bud, you're the only one bringing up undergrad here. Did the original poster bring up undergrad? Maybe you and kev are alike in your almost telepathic knowlege of what the poster was "really" talking about when he put up that link.</p>
<p>maybe he wasnt ever going to bring up undergrad programs but see if i were going to post a ranking like that i would be doing it out of pride, "hey thats where im going look how good it is" all the while realizing that those rankings do not directly correlate to the next 4 years of my life, though i am able with some degree of legitimacy to tout my own school's excellence. kev and his belief that Cal is average is wrong, and im not disagreeing with you, but you still need to be less hasty to jump down peoples throats, despite the fact that Kev immediately jumps to "hey those rankings dont mean...!" The rankings are all crap, and more often than not are trying to quantitatively evaluate a very subjective aspect of campuses. When people try to dispute or support these rankings theyre taking them far too seriously.</p>
<p>Yeah, having the best grad students in the world couldn't possibly make Berkeley a better school than if it didn't have them.</p>
<p>Cause you know those GSI... i mean grad students arent like teaching undergrad classes or anything. cause if they were, that would mean if theyre smarter, that MIGHT translate into better undergraduate classes. but were speaking in hypotheticals right? Right...</p>
<p>my GSI's have almost always been better teachers than my professors. that's just personal experience though.</p>