Question, mainly for Sakky, regarding Cal (vs Northwestern vs Penn(waitlist))

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>For the most part, I just lurk the CC boards. But after spending some time at the Berkeley board, I've become a bit worried about what I've seen. I was hoping you'd be able to clarify something.</p>

<p>-What are the problems you have with Cal? Is it just the fact that those that are less motivated or willing to take initiative have a higher chance of falling through the cracks?</p>

<p>-If so, why do you continue to tell those that are considering other schools, such as MIT, Harvard, etc., about this horrible atmosphere at Cal? Your posts have strong negative undertones, and although you do make some concessions, they will for the most part turn those people that are considering Cal with other top schools away. However, those that have been accepted to Cal as their best school will take Cal over UCSD or other comparable schools. This seems to actually result in the opposite of your intention; those with the best chance to succeed at Cal (those that have shown their skills and intelligence by getting into other great, highly selective schools) reject Cal. Those that have Cal as their top choices and probably at the highest risk of "falling through the cracks" go on to choose Cal.</p>

<p>-If my goal is to eventually double major in business and engineering, while participating in undergraduate research, where will I most likely have the best academic opportunities, assuming I am motivated enough to seek them out? Penn has the Jerome Fisher Tech/Management program, which integrates business and engineering. At Cal, there is the risk I won't get into one of the two schools. At Northwestern, the integration is to a lesser degree and an Undergraduate business degree is not available. However, as far as research, it is most available at Northwestern but the caliber, in my opinion from what I have seen, is greater at Berkeley. I do not know of the research at UPenn. If you have the time, please correct the inaccuracies of my statements and fill in the blanks.</p>

<p>-As far as atmopshere, I visted all three of the campuses in the past couple weeks and loved them all. San Francisco is an awesome city, so much to do, great food, great weather. Chicago.. how can you not like Chicago? I hear its cold. Very cold. Never been there when its cold. But at the same time, I've always lived in mild/hot weather and I wouldn't mind a chance to experience something different. (Yes, I realize both UCB and NU are in suburbs, not SF/Chicago. But the culture does carry over, and neither is eccessively far.) I don't know much about Philly, but I loved the UPenn campus and the surrounding area, or what little of it I saw. And the athletic facility is freakin' awesome. </p>

<p>-Yes, I realize the Penn waitlist is hard to get in off of. But I'm still considering it as an option just because if you get in, you basically do have to go (assuming you make the effort to go and they let you in because of your enthusiasm.) I loved the place, but I just don't know where I think i'd fit best. They're all wonderful places. (I visted it because a friend got in, we were both visiting Northwestern, and I did not want to make the effort of getting in off the WL if I hadn't seen the campus.)</p>

<p>-Sakky, please do reply to the paragraph about your intentions of steering those that may fall through the cracks away. I don't want to you drive away a potential future friend, genius, witty, motivated, etc. because of your negative posts even though they may have succeeded at Berkeley. I recognize you are an intelligent person, and I am sure you can see why I have an issue. I also recognize that you are trying to help people, but I think you need to make sure you make it clear that those that have the drive, intelligence, and will to succeed at MIT and make it far in the world could do so at Berkeley as well. Please do not take away the gifted at my potential University :)</p>

<p>-Thank you for any information any of you end up giving me, and sorry for any spelling errors or grammatical mistakes.</p>

<p>Edit..I changed the title a little</p>

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<p>i think you shoula just pm-ed sakky...</p>

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<p>lots more to it than just that.. I just kinda wanted it all to flow in one post..obviously Sakky has had some experience at Cal, but I wanted other opinions as well..</p>

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<p>ok then cal it is! yay go bears! i dont know how the waitlist thing works but go to penn if you get in off waitlist. if not then come to berkeley!</p>

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<p>was kinda hoping for like..some..you know...reasoning? lol.. thanks though..Waitlist at penn is like this: Before May 1, I pay the deposit at NU or UCB. Anywhere from May 15-June 30th, Penn tells me if i got in or not at Penn. If I do, and go to Penn, I lose the deposit.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
What are the problems you have with Cal? Is it just the fact that those that are less motivated or willing to take initiative have a higher chance of falling through the cracks?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Some people have problems with it because it has its share of problems, some of them which can be ascribed to the fact that it's a public school, such as large classes, impersonal feel, difficulty in switching majors, cut-throat competition / weeded classes, little resources per student, etc. I think most negativity you've read on this forum lately are overblown, but it doesn't hurt to consider the bad along with the good.</p>

<p>
[quote]
If so, why do you continue to tell those that are considering other schools, such as MIT, Harvard, etc., about this horrible atmosphere at Cal?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Because, believe it or not, some people actually seem to care about you, and want to give you the best advice possible on which school is the best for you.</p>

<p>
[quote]
This seems to actually result in the opposite of your intention; those with the best chance to succeed at Cal (those that have shown their skills and intelligence by getting into other great, highly selective schools) reject Cal.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Which is why some of us are trying point out problems which could be improved, and trying to improve Cal in general, so that some of those with the best chance to succeed at Cal will actually pick Cal over other top schools.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yes, I realize the Penn waitlist is hard to get in off of. But I'm still considering it as an option just because if you get in, you basically do have to go (assuming you make the effort to go and they let you in because of your enthusiasm.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, you don't have to go. In fact, considering the difficulty of getting off the waitlist, I'd say focus on the other two schools and don't think too much about U Penn.</p>

<p>I'm glad that you liked Berkeley and I hope you will consider your decision carefully. Berkeley is a great school, which has its share of problems, but so does Northwestern. Ultimately, try to decide which school is the best fit for you, not for other people on this board.</p>

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<p>fisd,</p>

<p>The following are links to courses/programs you may want to check out for Northwestern. Other than MMSS, all of the following are pretty wide-open for you to pursue.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cas.northwestern.edu/econ/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cas.northwestern.edu/econ/&lt;/a> NU econ is cosistently ranked in the top 10 and ranked higher than Duke/NYU's. The undergrad team won the College Fed Challenge two years in a row--a strong sign that the undergrad program lives up to the reputation of the grad program. <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/observer/issues/2006/01/11/challenge.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.northwestern.edu/observer/issues/2006/01/11/challenge.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.iems.northwestern.edu/content/bsiecurriculum.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.iems.northwestern.edu/content/bsiecurriculum.asp&lt;/a> Industrial engineering & management sciences is another popular major for business oriented students and also a top-10 program. It offers courses like organizational behavior and financial engineering. I knew quite a few doubled that with econ when I was there.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/ugrad/conc/loc/curriculum/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/ugrad/conc/loc/curriculum/&lt;/a> Learning and Organizational Change (LOC) is another program you may find interesting. One of my friends double-majored in that and econ and now works as a venture captalist for HSBC</p>

<p><a href="http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/mmss/current_students/program.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/mmss/current_students/program.html&lt;/a> shows a list of recruiters of Mathematical Method for Social Science (MMSS) students for internships. The program is highly regarded and a nice complement to especially the econ program. You can apply for admission to the program for sophomore year if you haven't applied or got accepted as a freshman. Admission, however, is pretty competitive.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/bip/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/bip/&lt;/a> a minor program in business institutions </p>

<p><a href="http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/medill/imc/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/medill/imc/&lt;/a> The intergrated marking communications is a graduate program and probably the best of its kind in the world. Two courses in that department are open to undergrads: IMC 303-0 Advertising and IMC 304-0 Direct Marketing. <a href="http://www.registrar.northwestern.e...jourcat0507.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.registrar.northwestern.e...jourcat0507.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If you double-major in econ/management sciences, take few finance courses in the econ department (the econ dept does have quite a few of them) and the two marketing/advertisting at medill, it's probably pretty close to a full-blown business major while getting an education in econ and industrial engineering/mgmt sciences.</p>

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<p>Awesome, thanks a ton for the links Sam</p>

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<p>By the way, switching majors and schools (among Weinberg, McCormick, and SESP) is pretty easy at NU. Double-majoring is pretty common there and it's no big deal. The real overachievers are the ones that do double+minor, double+co-op cert, or triple. The quarter-system helps in that sense. I didn't go to Berkeley but from what I read, it doesn't seem to provide as much freedom and flexibility. I also think Chicago provides more opportunities than SF. I don't know how many more but Chicago's downtown is a giant compared to SF's.</p>

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<p>No offense Sam, but SF is far superior to Chicago in just about every sense: beauty, scenery, diversity, weather, natural surroundings/site, beaches, food, access to Asia (the economic engine of the 21st century), economic dynamism (venture capital, global technology center), more open perspective, more outdoorsy, more sophisticated and more mellow. It's very, very rare to find someone living in SF that wants to move to Chicago, but SF is full of transplants from the midwest.</p>

<p>The SF Bay Area is about the same size as Chicago, population wise, but it feels smaller, which is a good thing. It's more spread out and is far more physically beautiful. Chicago does have better museums than SF, but it's more culturally stagnant in other ways and more homogeneous. Midwest vs Northern California...</p>

<p>About your post fisd:</p>

<p>I came to Berkeley from Europe, into the college of engineering. Started out as CivE, then briefly MechE, then went IndE/OperationsResearch as I started feeling less attracted to a purely technical engineering career and graduated with an econ minor. After working for a few years, I got my MBA from Haas, which I chose over Wharton. The IEOR major on campus sends a lot of its graduates to top MBAs. Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, MIT, Columbia and Haas in my class of 50 or the one before it. A lot of them ended up at the local big tech (Cisco, Google, Yahoo, top Sand Hill Road VCs etc).</p>

<p>The stats about Berkeley, the big pictures and the experiences of just about every Cal student/grad do not confirm a lot of the negatives written here by two posters, sakky and polite antagonis (now called "can'tsilenceetruth".) </p>

<p>-the graduation rate at Cal is now 86.6%. A lot of the people who don't end up finishing drop out due to financial difficulties, because Cal has a lot more lower middle-class and middle class students than other top schools.</p>

<p>-the average class size at Cal is very similar to those at smaller private schools like Stanford:
<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;&lt;/p>

<p>-the competition is strong but not brutal. The average GPA on campus is 3.25, which is not that low. EECS and premed are most competitive, the other several dozen majors on campus are OK.</p>

<p>-the atmosphere is not cutthroat, that aspect has been quite overblown. It's a great balance of academic rigor, campus activities/parties and outdoors/surrounding area attractions, urban or country. You can definitely manage to do both and find great balance in your academic career; that certainly was true in my case.</p>

<p>-Cal is really unique in that it's quite compact for a school of its size, which lessens the big school feel. Most of the students live near campus. It's got a great campus town/urban/rural blend, with SF 22 minutes away by subway and the whole eastern edge of campus a big network of regional parks 30 miles long.</p>

<p>By my second year, I always got the feel that I could stop at Cafe Strada and see someone I know, whether it was walking to class, to the tennis courts, the Cal basketball games or a late night bite.</p>

<p>If i were to make a case for Berkeley over NW:</p>

<p>-Cal is located in one of the most physically beautiful areas in America, with a plethora of great daytrips and activities including sailing/windsurfing/kiteboarding (great campus sailing club), wine country trips (Napa and Sonoma are one hour away), countless beautiful trails for hiking all over (some actually start on campus), big clean ocean beaches, scenic small beach towns for hundreds of miles on highway 1 (Carmel, Sta Cruz, Capitola, Princeton, Bodega Bay, Mendocino,...), redwood forests, great campgrounds, fantastic national parks (Yosemite, Big Basin, Redwood,...), great skiing within 3 hrs in tahoe, etc. This is one area where Cal clearly blows away NWU. It's a fantastic way to stay refreshed, meet people and share great experiences, and avoid getting burned out from school.</p>

<p>-The winter in Chicago will eat up about 5 months out of your 9 months in school.</p>

<p>-Academics: Cal engineering, Haas undergrad, rate higher than NW, Berkeley is more prestigious across the board (except for journalism, MBA, and?) Faculty is tops. The atmosphere on and around campus is very stimulating.</p>

<p>Cal also offers a major similar to the ones at NW, listed above, like the ORMS program, management science programs with four different submajors:<a href="http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/AcademicPrograms/Ugrad/ORMS.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/AcademicPrograms/Ugrad/ORMS.pdf&lt;/a>
Entry into that program and the IEOR major is not very difficult, about a 3.0 GPA. An ORMS + Econ minor is a great option, and one that's not hard at all to get.</p>

<p>-Cal engineering is plugged into a more dynamic professional environment as one of the main educational pole of a global center for technology. A lot of emerging technologies and cutting edge research are developed on campus with cross-departmental polinators/incubators such as the Berkeley Entrepreneurship Laboratory and the The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, where teams of engineering students, business students, law students and scientists team up and make forrays into the startup world under the watchful eyes of the VC community. There is no better testing ground for research than this...</p>

<p>I would pick Cal over either Penn or NWU, both in terms of academics and the broader environments. Not to mention costs...</p>

11

<p>Thank you again Sam, and thanks CalX... as for costs.. i'm OOS with no aid, its all the same..</p>

<p>-If the main problems at Cal are the possibility falling through the cracks and the fact that each person is one in 20000+, does this result in those students that are driven having an easier time standing out? Will these students typically have it easier getting into the grad schools?</p>

12

<p>Those students get research opportunities, internships, excellent recommendations from renoun professors... if they are proactive enough in getting it.</p>

<p>The resources are there to be tapped, but they won't be handed to you, or even really pointed out to you, as they would private schools.</p>

<p>It depends on you. Berkeley offers arguably the best opportunities of any school to the proactive (because so many resources are there but not utilized by most students).</p>

13

<p>Same cost? I think, if you don't get aid at the other schools, Berkeley is at least a few thousand cheaper, but sure, the difference is fairly small. And you should apply for the alumni scholarship, although it may be too late this year.</p>

14

<p>Those other schools will give you more aid than Berkeley in many circumstances, if you are in that section of the population Sakky pointed out where you make too much for financial aid but not enough to not care about money.</p>

<p>Cal X is overgeneralizing.
"No offense Sam, but SF is far superior to Chicago in just about every sense: beauty, scenery, diversity, weather, natural surroundings/site, beaches, food, access to Asia (the economic engine of the 21st century), economic dynamism (venture capital, global technology center), more open perspective, more outdoorsy, more sophisticated and more mellow."</p>

<p>Very subjective. Chicago is more of a midwest urban environment and has its own kind of beauty about it. Chicago also holds a very important financial center as well and faired better then San Fran did during the tech bubble burst, for obvious reasons. You can also subjectively say that San Fran's more mellow attitude is more of an indifference and amoral subculture which has its own negative sides as well.</p>

<p>"The stats about Berkeley, the big pictures and the experiences of just about every Cal student/grad do not confirm a lot of the negatives written here by two posters, sakky and polite antagonis (now called "can'tsilenceetruth".)"</p>

<p>Since there are only a few posters on this site here anyways, why does this matter?</p>

<p>"the average class size at Cal is very similar to those at smaller private schools like Stanford:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com...10&page=2&pp=15"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com...10&page=2&pp=15&lt;/a&gt;"&lt;/p>

<p>The statistics that the link refers to is very vague. Who decided 30 and 100 were proper cutoffs? What percentage of students actually take the bigger classes at Berkeley versus Stanford? I think if you were to answer these questions, the balance swings in Stanford's favor.</p>

<p>"the competition is strong but not brutal. The average GPA on campus is 3.25, which is not that low. EECS and premed are most competitive, the other several dozen majors on campus are OK."</p>

<p>There is a dichotomy. The competition in most engineering is brutal. The competition in hard sciences is tough. The competition in humanities is light. There is a dichotomy at Cal where the hard majors are graded more rigorously and on a lower curve than the soft majors.</p>

<p>"the atmosphere is not cutthroat, that aspect has been quite overblown. It's a great balance of academic rigor, campus activities/parties and outdoors/surrounding area attractions, urban or country. You can definitely manage to do both and find great balance in your academic career; that certainly was true in my case."</p>

<p>Its cut-throat depending on your major. Cal is a big school and if you don't consider carefully what you want to do you may end up in a bad situation. </p>

<p>"By my second year, I always got the feel that I could stop at Cafe Strada and see someone I know, whether it was walking to class, to the tennis courts, the Cal basketball games or a late night bite."</p>

<p>I doubt this will be true for many if not most people. There are 20k students on campus and since in general most people only are close friends with a couple of dozen people its rare to see someone you really know on campus every day.</p>

<p>"Cal is located in one of the most physically beautiful areas in America, with a plethora of great daytrips and activities including sailing/windsurfing/kiteboarding (great campus sailing club), wine country trips (Napa and Sonoma are one hour away), countless beautiful trails for hiking all over (some actually start on campus), big clean ocean beaches, scenic small beach towns for hundreds of miles on highway 1 (Carmel, Sta Cruz, Capitola, Princeton, Bodega Bay, Mendocino,...), redwood forests, great campgrounds, fantastic national parks (Yosemite, Big Basin, Redwood,...), great skiing within 3 hrs in tahoe, etc. This is one area where Cal clearly blows away NWU. It's a fantastic way to stay refreshed, meet people and share great experiences, and avoid getting burned out from school."</p>

<p>It really depends if you care about this kind of stuff. You'll need a car and even more money to do these things.</p>

<p>"The winter in Chicago will eat up about 5 months out of your 9 months in school."</p>

<p>And the winter in Cal is hardly idyllic either. Very high windchill and mostly rainy during the winter season. If you want year-round great weather, move to LA.</p>

<p>"Academics: Cal engineering, Haas undergrad, rate higher than NW, Berkeley is more prestigious across the board (except for journalism, MBA, and?) Faculty is tops. The atmosphere on and around campus is very stimulating.</p>

<p>"Cal also offers a major similar to the ones at NW, listed above, like the ORMS program, management science programs with four different submajors:<a href="http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/Academ.../Ugrad/ORMS.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/Academ.../Ugrad/ORMS.pdf&lt;/a>
Entry into that program and the IEOR major is not very difficult, about a 3.0 GPA. An ORMS + Econ minor is a great option, and one that's not hard at all to get."</p>

<p>"I would pick Cal over either Penn or NWU, both in terms of academics and the broader environments. Not to mention costs..."</p>

<p>Out of State is just as expensive now and likeley to become MORE expensive because California's bad public government.</p>

<p>I think something that's underplayed is how poor the social environment is. And I would disagree that Cal offers more opportunities. Even though a lot of students don't take advantage of the opportunities, there are still less of them relative to those motivated in finding them compared to any of the other top privates and top lacs. Considering how much you're paying, I would advise you to seriously consider Northwestern.</p>

<p>And Sakky doesn't try to deter people, he/she tries to enlighten people as to what needs to be changed. I, however, am trying to deter people because as an out-of-stater, Berkeley has seriously not been worth it. This is comparing it to my nearest opportunity cost, University of texas (top 5 engineering and business undergrad as well), and Duke. Berkeley makes you work for EVERYTHING and imo, its just not worth the headache, especially when you're paying 40k a year to basically make your own opportunities; something you can do just as easily at other top schools.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
There is a dichotomy. The competition in most engineering is brutal. The competition in hard sciences is tough. The competition in humanities is light. There is a dichotomy at Cal where the hard majors are graded more rigorously and on a lower curve than the soft majors.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>A dichotomy would be two- you mention three. Also, while you're correct on average, you don't point out the more accurate depiction that sakky does- what matters most is the low end, not so much the high end. Those that do all of there work and write ok papers will probably at least pass the humanities and social science classes, wihle in many of the science classes, this isn't so. You also don't mention the different idealogies people have. I don't feel like I'm trying to beat my fellow humanities majors, or at least not get beaten by the curve.</p>

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<p>Yeah, well you're here to keep it honest Drab. To be fair if you major in a smaller department at Berkeley, you will avoid many of Berkeley's pitfalls; the competitiveness, lack of professor and student interaction, and a lot of the bureacratic red tape. If you do get into Haas, you will also get much smaller class sizes than the norm. It just depends.</p>

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<p>I am trying to keep it honest. I would speculate that you're right, but it would be only speculation. For instance, I think certain engineering departments are small, but I don't know. You're also right that Haas has smaller classes than the norm for Berkeley classes, at least I'm pretty sure. Do you think I was being dishonest?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Out of State is just as expensive now and likeley to become MORE expensive because California's bad public government.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Without aid, there is still at least a few thousand dollar difference per year. Aid and scholarships change things.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I think something that's underplayed is how poor the social environment is. And I would disagree that Cal offers more opportunities. Even though a lot of students don't take advantage of the opportunities, there are still less of them relative to those motivated in finding them compared to any of the other top privates and top lacs. Considering how much you're paying, I would advise you to seriously consider Northwestern.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is a pretty big generalization, but maybe you're right, maybe there are 20 schools with more opportunities. I would advise the poster to consider the other schools as well, certainly, but not because I think the social environment here is poor or that there are fewer opportunities, even for the motivated at those 20 other top places.</p>

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<p>Northwestern is only giving me loans, Berkeley is only giving me loans.. though I'm on the waitlist for the leadership alumni scholarship thing.. so that may swing it a bit.. otherwise, they're really very similar in cost since i'm out of state...having a tough time deciding between NU and Berkeley though.. Berkeley is higher rated in both majors I want to major in, but the programs at NU seem much easier to deal with and offer some nice opportunities..</p>

19

<p>And the eternal war between CantSilenceTruth and DRab continues...</p>

20

<p>The war is hardly eternal. His postings will likely end soon, and who knows how much longer I will continue.</p>