Stanford vs Berkeley?

<p>Is it just me, or is it kinda sad and funny that oneunkown has to defend his SAT score with the fact that he is an unerrepresented minority.</p>

<p>Even for a URM, that's too low for Stanford because contrary to popular belief, there's a lot of high scoring URMs who get rejected. He must be an athlete or something.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But why? Why not just say, "both schools are difficult to get into and both schools sometimes turn down people that would seem like a shoe in." This is vintage sakky, implying that if you are from California and you got into stanfurd that there is no way you could get turned down from Cal unless something funky was going on, namely that the survey was skewed with a disproportionate amount of out of staters. Its not as if the survey said the 3/4 or even 1/2 of the students got turned down, it says that one in three, which doesn't surprise me one bit. Cal turns town hundreds of people every year with near perfect stats, so why wouldn't those people then go on to stanfurd?

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<p>Because it is not as simple as that. It's not a simple matter of saying that both CAl and Stanford turn down some people. The fact of the matter is, we both know that for instate students, Stanford is more selective than Berkeley. I don't think anybody seriously disputes this. Hence, there will be more instate students who will be turned down at Stanford but get into Berkeley than vice versa. However, the difference in selectivity is far smaller when you are talking about OOS applicants. Here, the numbers would be far more even, and in fact, might actually be in favor of Berkeley being more selective. I don't know if they are more selective, I am saying it is possible. In any case, I think we can all agree that the difference in selectivity for OOS applicants between Berkeley and Stanford is smaller than the difference in selectivity for instate applicants. I would argue that if the Stanford survey is correct, then a large portion of that could be accounted for with OOS students. Who seriously disputes this?</p>

<p>
[quote]
However, the difference in selectivity is far smaller when you are talking about OOS applicants. Here, the numbers would be far more even, and in fact, might actually be in favor of Berkeley being more selective. I don't know if they are more selective, I am saying it is possible.

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<p>Sakky,
It seems like you are trying to establish a theory to explain that "1/3"; but you don't seem to even question the credibility of that "1/3". Do we really know what that survey entailed? How do you know if the writer didn't just make it up. After all, there do exist people at Stanford that are probably sympathetic to Berkeley being looked down by their snobby peers. LOL! To me, "1/3" just sound way too many. Stanford has 12% acceptance rate while Cal's OOS is 21%. Even the pool from OOS is probably slightly stronger than in-state, it's still 21% and a lot higher than 12%. The only way that Berkeley's OOS is harder than Stanford's is that Berkeley's OOS' pool somehow is so self-selected that it's stronger than Stanford's. The strongest pool out there with 21% acceptance rate is Duke's and it is slightly lower than Stanford's. I personally don't believe the pool of Cal's OOS is stronger than Duke's. Anywhere out of California, I'd guess most people, except internationals, would think of Duke more highly than Cal.</p>

<p>I suppose I might be able to provide a unique perspective since I live about a fifteen minute drive from Duke and was accepted to both Duke and Cal OOS. Perhaps you should read previous posts Sam Lee and consider the statistics posted for OOS Cal students so that the distinction is not reduced to assumptions and personal beliefs. Within the state of North Carolina - where Duke should be most highly regarded - most treated the decision between Duke and Cal (along with a few other schools) as a no-brainer. Cal was viewed by everyone I spoke with as a far better school. My particular high school has sent three of its last five valedictorians to Cal. Many of my friends chose the University of North Carolina over Duke even when cost was not a factor. Unless you're interested in a medical field, Duke has little to offer. Relying on percentages to judge the difficulty of a school’s admissions can often be deceiving. I could easily draw statistics from many institutions - USMA or IIT for example - from which ridiculous conclusions could be drawn. Admissions are far more complicated than simply comparing percent admit rates.</p>

<p>Well, if what you said is true, I guess I might have some misunderstanding about Duke's prestige. But I was just using Duke as an example. Even it turns out not a good one, according to you, it doesn't change my point. I don't think you can dispute Stanford's prestige regardless if it's in-state or out of state. So when the prestige is less outside of california and acceptance rate is higher, I just don't see how OOS is harder. I am not talking about admit rate solely; I am just saying since Stanford is more prestigious, it's pool should be stronger; coupled that with significantly lower admit rate, I just don't see how OOS is more difficult to Stanford! Stanford is on par with HYPMS in selectivity and Cal's OOS is just not in the league. If Cal's OOS has like 10% admit rate, then maybe we can start a debate.</p>

<p>
[quote]
It seems like you are trying to establish a theory to explain that "1/3"; but you don't seem to even question the credibility of that "1/3". Do we really know what that survey entailed? How do you know if the writer didn't just make it up.

[/quote]
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<p>If you go back through the thread, you will see that I have said several times that I don't know if the survey is correct. I presumed that the survey was correct and then attempted to explain why it might be correct, if it is in fact correct. I made no attempt to verify whether the survey was in fact correct.</p>

<p>Gutrade is right! Yale and pretigious private professional schools (as opposed to graduate programs that actually concentrate on advancing knowledge) are IT! I wanna be like George W. Bush.........with a degree from the all-mighty Yale University and an MBA from Harvard. Cause the lord himself said that "thy getting-eth into a prestigious MBA program requireth serious brain-power" (Corinthians 9:24). That makes George W. Bush an F'in genius!!!! Like Gutrade!!! I wish I wasn't paying state tuition, living in vibrant Berkeley in sunny California, getting a Chemistry degree from the #1 ranked Chemistry department in the country...........but instead was at Yale with Gutrade, impressing naive people who believe that going to Yale makes ME smart and highly accomplished BY ASSOCIATION. And when i'm 38 years old, having accomplished nothing to benefit humanity or advance knowledge, and working for a smarter (or at least more accomplished) person who went to a state school or (god-forbid) a "lesser Ivy" or "Ivy-reject" school, at least I could look at my YALE degree framed in gold on the wall and touch myself. And when a dog barks at me on the streets I can say "HOW DARE YOU....I WENT TO YALE FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!" And when I'm IN Yale, being taught by profs and TAs, the MAJORITY of whom have at least one degree from a public instituion, I can scorn them if they disagree with my brilliant ideas because MY B.A. is gonna be from YALE. And when i'm in professional school, being taught by PhDs who have contributed to knowledge in my field, i'm gonna scorn them too....cause I'm a "professional-school" student. Big man on campus. And all the while i'm gonna post bitter remarks regarding public schools on public school forums such as this one because public school kids don't give me the respect I DESERVE. I mean i'm paying private school tuition....I BOUGHT the prestige remember?!?!?! So give me my money's worth and respect me. Pleeease? Will you do it if I put on a Yale-mascot-bulldog puppy face?</p>

<p>Come on, abcdefgclass2006, I think I managed to successfully parry Gutrade's arguments fairly well. There's no need to beat a dead horse. I think we can all agree that Berkeley's academic graduate programs are stellar and even Berkeley's professional graduate programs, while not as good as the academic graduate programs, are still very strong. I think that even Gutrade would have to concede this point.</p>

<p>this is for baba: </p>

<p>you said that stanford competes with berkeley for a majority of the cross admits. here's data from Stanford's Class of 2008</p>

<p><a href="http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/october6/decline-106.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/october6/decline-106.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>From the above link:

[quote]
For the Class of 2008, the university admitted 2,486 students; 1,665 accepted the offer of admission and arrived at the university last month. Of the 821 students who declined admission and filled out a form that indicated where they were going instead, 28 percent said Harvard, 20 percent said Yale, 13 percent said MIT and 8 percent said Princeton. All other universities that were mentioned did not represent more than 2 percent, and no more than 1 percent indicated that they would attend a Pac-10 school, according to the figures provided by the admission office.

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<p>I saw a huge discussion on the interpretation of last two sentences but I didn't read the article myself. I didn't know the article had a PIE CHART already on it. So those who were saying how 28+20+13+8+2 didn't add up to 100% need to reread the article itself. The pie chart already gives you 31% as "others" and all the numbers do add up to 100%! The author didn't miss anything and didn't mean the rest comprise of 2 percent in the last sentence. It means no single school within the "others" category (such as Duke, Northwestern, Cornell....any ONE of them) took more than 2% of the cross admits from Stanford. Assuming Duke is the top competitor within the "others" category, Duke took no more than 16 cross admits from Stanford. Similarly, no single Pac-10 (including Berkeley) school took away more than 1 percent; therefore, no more than 8 cross admits turned down Stanford for Berkeley.</p>

<p>yup...argue that baba</p>

<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>Not sure if you'd agree with my previous post above. But if no more than 8 out of 5000+ enrolled for the Berkeley class of 2008 can say they got offer from Stanford, that means if you do a similar random survey on Berkeley's campus, the % of Stanford rejects would be huge--easily over 95%. So if you look at it from this angle, you probably wouldn't think even OOS's admission would be comparable to Stanford's admission??</p>

<p>"Of the 821 students who declined admission and filled out a form that indicated where they were going instead"</p>

<p>You guys immediately assume that this is a representative portion of the Stanford cross-admits. How many people returned the survey? It does not say. This important piece of information causes this survey to have far less weight. Some people probably did or did not return this survey for various reasons. Perhaps a parent forced an admit to go to XYZ U instead of Stanford because of money, location, or other, and therefore, the admit did not return the survey because of shame or anger. Perhaps someone wanted to show off the admissions to Harvard, MIT, or Princeton, and did return the survey for this reason. I’m sure many people returned the survey to help the school, regardless of where they were going, but the survey was self-selecting. I haven’t returned a few surveys to various schools out of laziness, for example. These factors affect the survey an unknown amount.</p>

<p>From Berkeley’s website, <a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp&lt;/a> .</p>

<p>The chart doesn't really display well, so go to the web address, please.</p>

<p>Fall 2004 Freshman Admissions Data</p>

<pre><code> Residents Non-Residents International
</code></pre>

<p>Applicants 30,341 4,653 1,777
Admitted 7,788 984 214
(% Admitted) (26%) (21%) (12%)
Enrolled 3,428 279 114</p>

<p>According to this, 3821 students enrolled for undergraduate study, not more than 5,000.</p>

<p>I don’t understand what you’re saying, Sam Lee. Could you rephrase it, please?</p>

<p>Sorry, DRab...I found the undergrad population to be 22,800 on yahoo education and just divided it by four. I forgot about those transfers.</p>

<p>You are correct that not all of the 821 students filled out the survey; I actually missed thinking about that. Thanks! But my guess is many did fill that out that it's probably a good representative.</p>

<p>Gamma57722,</p>

<p>Earlier I said that outside Cal, except internationals, most people thought of Duke more highly than Cal and you countered that by saying how in your school, Cal was viewed far better than Duke.</p>

<p>But DRab's data seem to support what I speculated. The yields are 44%, 28%, and 51% for Res, Non-Res, and Int'ls, respectively. If Cal is viewed far better than Duke outside Cal but within the US, the yield shouldn't be that low. Perhaps when people in your school or NC are familiar with Duke, it just loses its appeal? Note how the yield is a whooping 51% for internationals!</p>

<p>I'm somewhat confused as to what you're concluding. You assume that these students are choosing schools like Duke over Berkeley, no? I'm fairly confident that many OOS students apply to Berkeley as a safetesque school while also applying to Ivies and the like. These numbers don't seem to speak to that specific comparison whatsoever. Again, I could be completely misinterpreting your statements, as I'm in some sort of heat-induced stupor (I absolutely abhor the South). My initial conclusions are not particularly firm either, just sort of anecdotal opinions. I do surround myself with quite liberal people, so I’m sure that could play a role in my polling. I would like to note that people I spoke to on the Duke campus agreed with my decision - including two professors - which I found quite odd.</p>

<p>No I didn't assume the students were choosing between Cal and Duke..I was just using Duke as an example to talk about Cal's OOS yield in general. I thought Duke was a good example cos there are only few that are viewed better (I wouldn't even called "far" better)--namely the HYPSM and maybe Wharton/Columbia. But all these schools have pretty good yield. So it's kinda odd that if Berkeley is viewed so much better than Duke OOS, why is the yield only 28% for OOS? That's what I was talking about.</p>

<p>On the other hand, internationals view Berkeley very highly and the high yield for that group doesn't surprise me.</p>

<p>As I said, I think it is because Berkeley is considered the universal Ivy back-up.</p>