not to be bitter or anything but..

<p>pff. i got into Cal with a 3.7 and no APs. still, i wish i got into cornell so i wouldn't have to move that far. so just take cornell and enjoy life.</p>

<p>At the end, those students who are admitted without sufficient academic preparation will likely suffer in terms of adjusting to Berkeley academic standards.</p>

<p>true, anyway, sure gpa is a good measure, it has its faults, but it does let the admissions ppl know a good deal, good luck with cornell</p>

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[quote]
This is more than I can say for many private schools, even ones that are significantly worse in my field of interest (Computer Science, if you couldn't tell from my username), who almost certainly rejected me for my GPA without caring for anything else. I'll be honest: Cornell, rank 10 in Computer Science, rejected me while Berkeley, rank 3 accepted me. Does that make sense to you?

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Looks like my question was too vague. I meant how can you make sense that a school would accept me but a school with a rank 3 times worse would reject me. If that was indeed what you were answering, then that's kinda my point. Cornell wouldn't have rejected me if they looked past the numbers like Cal did.

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<p>Well, I don't know that I find that particularly surprising. Not to be harsh, but let's be honest - you almost certainly wouldn't have gotten into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton either despite all of them having a CS ranking that is lower than Berkeley's.</p>

<p>Look, the truth of the matter is that Berkeley actually runs a large transfer program, whereas few of the top private schools do. That goes a long way towards explaining why you could get into Berkeley as a transfer, but not those other schools.</p>

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could get into Berkeley as a transfer

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<p>I don't see how that's relevant in my case considering that I applied as a senior in high school.</p>

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you almost certainly wouldn't have gotten into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton

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<p>That's probably true, but when I apply to these schools I apply to the entire university (at least for Harvard), where I'll be competing directly with applicants who want to go into Medicine or Law, subjects where Harvard is very good. For Cornell, I apply to the College of Engineering, which I believe makes it's own admissions decisions.</p>

<p>And another thing. Some schools seem to be overvalued - they get a lot of applicants and therefore must be more selective for subjects that they (relatively speaking) aren't very good at. For example, Harvard and CS. I'm not saying Harvard "sucks" or ever did, but it's simply not at the same level as Berkeley, I don't think anyone denies that. Yet for various reasons Harvard is much more selective (as I mentioned it is top-notch in other fields). Some schools are undervalued - they are very good in certain fields but for other reasons they aren't quite as selective. Again using CS as the subject, I'd say that CMU has been undervalued for a long time - it is absolutely in the top 5 in terms of CS programs, but admission isn't as competitive as other schools.</p>

<p>Personally I think Cornell is a bit overvalued for CS (for engineering in general it's much better), but to the OP: hey, you got into a really good school, and you should be proud of that. I'm not sure what discipline you exactly want to study, but Cornell is good in lots of things (perhaps even more so than Berkeley), so I'm sure you can learn a lot there.</p>

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I don't see how that's relevant in my case considering that I applied as a senior in high school.

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<p>Yeah, I made a mistake and confused you with somebody else. </p>

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That's probably true, but when I apply to these schools I apply to the entire university (at least for Harvard), where I'll be competing directly with applicants who want to go into Medicine or Law, subjects where Harvard is very good. For Cornell, I apply to the College of Engineering, which I believe makes it's own admissions decisions.

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<p>Exactly. But you only applied (and got into) the Berkeley College of L&S, not the CoE. Hence, you're not making a fair comparison. When you applied to L&S, you were competing against plenty of other people who just wanted to study one of the creampuff majors. </p>

<p>
[quote]
And another thing. Some schools seem to be overvalued - they get a lot of applicants and therefore must be more selective for subjects that they (relatively speaking) aren't very good at. For example, Harvard and CS. I'm not saying Harvard "sucks" or ever did, but it's simply not at the same level as Berkeley, I don't think anyone denies that. Yet for various reasons Harvard is much more selective (as I mentioned it is top-notch in other fields). Some schools are undervalued - they are very good in certain fields but for other reasons they aren't quite as selective. Again using CS as the subject, I'd say that CMU has been undervalued for a long time - it is absolutely in the top 5 in terms of CS programs, but admission isn't as competitive as other schools.

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<p>Well, I think there's even more reasons than you think there are. You seem to place a very high premium on the strength of particular individual programs. Yet the fact is, students change majors all the time. Only a fraction of students will major in what they thought they would major in when they started out. I believe I read somewhere that the average student tries out 3-5 majors (at least mentally) before finally settling on one. So, what happens if you choose a particular school because it happens to be very strong in one particular area... and then find out later that you don't want to major in that area anymore? </p>

<p>Hence, a more proper way to model student preferences is to use a * probability distribution * of a range of majors that the student is likely to enter. In the case of Harvard, very few undergrads major in CS anyway, and those that do often times do so via a double, so it doesn't really matter that much if CS there is not as strong as it is at other schools. </p>

<p>But even that, although more accurate, I would still say is off the mark. That's because, as I've always said, even after you complete a degree in a particular subject, that doesn't mean that you're actually going to pursue a career in that subject. Most history students have not intention of becoming historians. Most poli-sci students have no intention of becoming political scientists. Most math students do not intend to become mathematicians. An undergraduate major is just something you choose out of intellectual interest and as a mechanism to get a degree (because you have to major in * something *). You're not obligated to pursue a career in the same field, and most people won't. And even if you do pursue such a career, you may only do so for a few years before switching careers (i.e. getting your MBA and then becoming a manager).</p>

<p>Hence, what does it matter if Harvard CS is not as highly ranked as Berkeley CS, if you don't really intend to work professionally as a computer engineer/programmer anyway? I happen to know a few Harvard CS graduates, and none of them took jobs in the field. Instead, they took jobs in investment banking or management consulting or went to med school or pursued some other field. </p>

<p>CNN has estimated that the average American changes careers about 4 times in his lifetime. Not just jobs or employers, but * entire careers *. Hence, it is highly likely that, some time in your life, you will end up in a career that has little to do with whatever it is that you studied in college. As a case in point, I know a Berkeley EECS grad who used to work as a software engineer but has lately been working as a real-estate agent, and, frankly, has been making far more money than most software people make. </p>

<p>The truth of the matter is, many (probably most) students at any school don't really care that much about their particular subject. They just want to set themselves up with a decent career. Either that or they want to set themselves up to get into a decent graduate school so that they can later set themselves up with a decent career. After all, what does it matter if you get the finest education in the world in a particular subject... and then can't get the job that you want? </p>

<p>Hence, I would say that the REAL value of any particular school is in the recruiting and the networking, and this is, frankly, where Harvard holds a decisive advantage over Berkeley. The power of the Harvard alumni network is unbeatable. And the most rarefield and desirable employers are there - which these days includes the highly exclusive private equity firms and hedge funds, in addition to the always-popular investment banks and consulting firms. Like I said, from what I gather, a lot of Harvard CS grads will end up in banking or consulting. I think a lot of Berkeley CS/EECS grads would also like to end up in banking or consulting, but just couldn't get an offer. {I say that because it has become something of a running joke at MIT that many of the best MIT engineering students will not work as engineers, but will instead head off to banking or consulting. The same is true at Stanford. If even MIT and Stanford engineers have this attitude, I don't see why Berkeley engineers would be any different.} </p>

<p>Hence, I would argue that the best way to model student preferences is, again, through a probability distribution, but that heavily weighs the value of the network and the recruiting - in fact, weighs them more than the academics. After all, for most students, that's frankly where the real value is. Like I said, what does it matter if you get a fantastic education if you can't get the job offer that you want? Better to get a mediocre education, but get the job offer that you want.</p>

<p>hence..............</p>

<p>
[quote]
Hence, I would argue that the best way to model student preferences is, again, through a probability distribution, but that heavily weighs the value of the network and the recruiting - in fact, weighs them more than the academics. After all, for most students, that's frankly where the real value is. Like I said, what does it matter if you get a fantastic education if you can't get the job offer that you want? Better to get a mediocre education, but get the job offer that you want.

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<p>If we're comparing Harvard and Berkeley, Harvard might get you the job offer you want AND give you a better education. Hard to beat that.</p>

<p>Buttom line is a lot of public schools (UC's, Michigan) are very structured in the way they do their admissions. Even though Berkeley and Michigan say they use wholistic measures they still basically use gpa as the greatest determining factor. They simply don't have enough time to look at individuals and seee that this student went to a extremeley competitive magnet vs. easy public school, taking a lot of AP's vs. an easier schedule. If you have a 3.7 GPA vs a kid who has a 3.9, they automatically distinguish the two kids ( with the 3.9 obviously being on top) even if the 3.7 kid might be brighter/more qualified. I'm not saying they don't look at the factors mentioned above, but I do believe GPA still plays much too big a role considering that some students hae grade inflation in their school or take easy schedules as a back door way into top public schools like michigan/berkeley. Furthermore, the way UC's cap AP classes at 4 also really hurts top applicants.</p>

<p>Admissions are placing more weight on gpa? How's a 4.25 UC?</p>

<p>BTW, I know a guy who got like 6 Bs and 2 Cs and a 1940 SAT who got admitted to EECS! He took a ton of APs and college courses and sort of crashed and burned, but it seemed like Berkeley decided to reward his initiative in the end. Admissions are pretty random like that.</p>

<p>One of kids this year got into UC-B but not Cornell. I figured Cornell was the problem - most of the people I know who went there are hard workers with mediocre minds. But I'm old enough to suspect that my sample of people is hopelessly small so instead I've decided to withhold judgment...</p>

<p>I was admitted to the College of Engineering at Umich OOS (which apparently is tough), but denied by it's west coast cousin in my home state (Berkeley.) I work in a research lab at NYU, had a rec from an NYU prof and was denied by NYU, yet accepted by more prestigous Columbia (granted in a program for adult students.) I was denied by "lower tier" UC Santa Cruz, but accepted at "higher tier" UC Santa Barbara.</p>

<p>It's totally random!</p>

<p>Wow..... UCSC has a strict scoring system for admitting students too.</p>