<p>Isn't it spelled leland stanfurd junior college?</p>
<p>is that supposed to be funny? becuase it isnt.</p>
<p>I never understood the point of saying "Stanfurd". It's like saying "Burkeley". It only makes the person who writes it look stupid, not the university.</p>
<p>To quote my man Justin Timberlake: Cry me a river! You dorks don't even go to the school so what do you care?</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, but to say that Pomona (and to some extent Caltech) is better than Berkeley is crazy talk."</p>
<p>It is actually ignorant to rank Berkeley above Caltech. The student body at Caltech is CONSIDERABLY smarter than the student body at Berkeley. If you took the dumbest student of Caltech and transferred him to Berkeley, there is an outside chance that he could become the top 10 percent or even the valedictorian. From the top to the bottom, Caltech has a much stronger student body than Berkeley. They don't just accept any old kid at Caltech you know.</p>
<p>"Yea, I see you're from Stanford, so I shouldn't take these rankings seriously."</p>
<p>What's not to take seriously? Obviously, I am not turning any heads when I rank Stanford as #1 or Caltech as #2. That's certianly the mainstream opinion.</p>
<p>As for ranking Pomona and Harvey Mudd 3rd and 4th respectively, that's not too much of a stretch. Pomona is a top LAC that provides a much better undergraduate experience than Berkeley or UCLA. Harvey Mudd is a unique techie LAC. It's like Amherst and MIT combined. Not a bad mix.</p>
<p>So why can't you take my rankings seriously? Because I go to Stanford?</p>
<p>Collegeperson, what if you want to study History or English or Poli sci or Art or Music or Film or business or Spanish or philosophy or theater or engineering? Caltech is better for all of those, right? I suppose because the average sat is 50 points higher at Caltech that that makes up for all of those programs. Man, you're brilliant! I'm sure your parents are proud. And Rooster, the mainstream opinion? Go out on the street and ask the next ten people if they've ever even heard of Caltech. Not if they think its the second best school in California, but just if they know that it exists. Maybe you'll get two. For you tech nerds maybe Caltech is the place to be. Well, go for it. I'll take Cal over a trade school any day. But maybe you guys are right that a bottom of the group Caltech kid would come and be a top ten percent Cal student. But if that's true, then a bottom level Caltech student could go to stanfurd and sleep all day and graduate #1 in his class. I give Caltech alot more credit than I give cream-puff stanfurd. Anybody, even a bottom level Arizona State student could tranfer to stanfurd and still get As. You two have the pleasure of going to one of the easiest schools in the country.</p>
<p>get over yourself. stanford is amazing and is one of the hardest schools to get into. and since you havent spent a day in the school than your statements carry no validity. i dont understand how people like you can have such hate for a school that has done nothing to you. be confident in your own school but dont attack others.</p>
<p>"What's not to take seriously? Obviously, I am not turning any heads when I rank Stanford as #1 or Caltech as #2. That's certianly the mainstream opinion.</p>
<p>As for ranking Pomona and Harvey Mudd 3rd and 4th respectively, that's not too much of a stretch. Pomona is a top LAC that provides a much better undergraduate experience than Berkeley or UCLA. Harvey Mudd is a unique techie LAC. It's like Amherst and MIT combined. Not a bad mix.</p>
<p>So why can't you take my rankings seriously? Because I go to Stanford?"</p>
<p>I have nothing against Caltech. I'm attending Berkeley next year, so I mean I kinda go along with the rivalry against Stanf"O"rd, but I respect how Stanford improved so much in the past 50 years and has surpassed Berkeley in academics. I mean I'm attending a great university, one of the best in the world, right there with Stanford, but I can't take anything away from our rival university. But the fact that you put Harvey Mudd and Pomona over Berkeley is a bit absurd. You know it and I don't need to explain anything.</p>
<p>Ummm...Cal? Only people in California think its up there with the Ivies, Stanford, etc. I would not even remotely hold it in the same category.</p>
<p>slipper,
"Ummm....Cal?"
(etc.)</p>
<p>Only people not familiar with the various offerings & reputation of the University of California would make such a broad & uninformed statement as you made. As to programs, profs, offerings, opportunities, it is undeniably "up there with the Ivies" in certain fields. Whether the difficulty of freshman admission to <em>all</em> of its majors is on the level of difficulty of Ivy admission to the same majors, is something else entirely.</p>
<p>I'm quite familiar with both Stanford & Berkeley; each has strengths & weaknesses. Stanford is in no way uniformly "better" than Berkeley. Would I recommend one over the other for certain fields? Yes. Would I do so for certain students with certain styles, needs, preferences? Yes. In some areas of study Berkeley has an internat'l reputation -- & for which many Internat'l students travel to, & in those particular areas, Stanford cannot come close to that. In other areas of study, if a student had dual acceptances, that student might be foolish not to grab the Stanford opportunity.</p>
<p>Stanmaster says this without any irony: "since you havent spent a day in the school than your statements carry no validity. i dont understand how people like you can have such hate for a school that has done nothing to you. be confident in your own school but dont attack others." Tell me stan, is it the Berekely kids that spend all day on the stanfurd boards bashing that school, or is it the other way around? And why don't you take your own advice. You didn't even get into Cal, so you have no right to say anything about its quality either.</p>
<p>UCB on these boards is so overrated. Californians overrate all their schools. UCLA, UCB, UCSB, UCSD, UCI, UCD are all vastly overrated. The bottom 25% of the UC kids is pretty darn low. For each their own I suppose. They get their rep from being impossible to get into out of state, thats why CH is overrated. I wouldn't want to go there anyway...</p>
<p>ww,
Anyone who would lump all the UC's together merely demonstrates how vast his/her ignorance truly is. Ditto for lumping together admissions criteria to each of its majors/programs (e.g., UCLA's film school or UCB's engineering school). Even all the Ivies are more similar to each other than all the UC campuses, btw.</p>
<p>The OP did not ask about the quality of the applicants & accepted students, either, btw. Reputations of universities, including Cambridge, Oxford, the Ivies, the great publics (which would include Berkeley) often far exceeds the demonstrated achievement of their least accomplished students. The excellence of an institution is based on the quality of its profs, classes, requirements for matriculation, standards for degrees, honors, scholarships & other recognitions, etc.</p>
<p>I do agree that in some cases (less at Berkeley than at other UC's), the "bottom 25%" can be considerably lower than the same segment at particular Ivies. But again, one has to look at individual programs. We have a close friend, an engineering student, who was accepted to MIT but not to Berkeley. Berkeley's engineering students are among the most capable on the planet.</p>
<p>GentlemanandScholar as you can see i never attacked Cal. I have a huge respect for the school because I know how great it is. I dont care that they rejected me and i have no bitterness toward them. I never degraded the school and I never will because I have no right to and furthermore I know very little about it</p>
<p>the two best overall colleges/unis in california are clearly stanford and UC Berk in that order... cal tech,pomona,harvey mudd are good in specific disiplines but when looking at the big picture its clear stanford and berkely are a head above the rest.</p>
<p>Grad is different. The UC's may not have the best UG environment and a school like Stanford or an LAC might be better for UG.
I admit what i said was a bit ignorant, because the UC's have excellent grad programs, but i don't think for UG you can compare.</p>