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Sakky, I would like to disagree with that. The rankings differ because of the ranking methodology. I believe that the undergrad rankings are biased against public schools because of the methodology.
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<p>Ah, but even if you're right, you do see that this is a different claim than what was alleged previously. What was alleged is that USNews is biased IN GENERAL against Berkeley, and this I cannot countenance. Like I said before, if USNews was just out to screw over Berkeley (or public schools in general), then USNews would be giving Berkeley low marks in both graduate AND undergrad rankings. </p>
<p>It's like if a guy consistently treats all African-Americans badly, that may be evidence of racism. But if he treats some of them nicely and some of them badly, that is not evidence of racism. He may be acting unfair to those particular guys who he doesn't like, but he's not a racist. </p>
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I feel this is totally legit when graduate rankings are concerned. However, when it comes to undergrad rankings:
SAT scores comprise of 7.5% of the total score. The thing is, top private schools accept a mix of a student's best scores in each subject, while Berkeley takes the best combined score. I'm sure plenty of students at the top privates have taken the SATs several times and there could be up to 100 point differences between a student's best score and a student's score in one sitting. This hurts Berkeley's overall score.
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<p>Sure, this has been stated before. But I don't think this is evidence of bias against Berkeley undergrad. This is more of Berkeley just stupidly refusing to follow USNews' reporting conventions. If Berkeley consistently refuses to report its data in the same format that other schools do, then Berkeley will have problems and Berkeley therefore has only itself to blame.</p>
<p>Secondly, in reality, I doubt that this is a serious concern for one major reason - Berkeley does not report the standardized test scores scores of its transfer students, who comprise a significant percentage of its entire undergrad student body. That's because Berkeley transfer applicants don't need to take standardized tests, but transfer applicants to many of the top private schools (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc.) must. If Berkeley were to force its transfer applicants to take standardized tests and then were to report those figures, I believe that this would cancel out any benefit that Berkeley might gain by reporting separate test scores. None of the top private schools admit anywhere near the percentage of transfer students that Berkeley does. In fact, Berkeley might actually be WORSE off under these conditions. </p>
<p>Consider the transfer policies of the following schools</p>
<p>Stanford:</p>
<p>"Does a transfer applicant have to submit test scores?
Yes. All transfer applicants, including international students, must submit official scores from either the SAT Reasoning Test or the ACT to be considered for admission. The SAT Subject Tests are strongly recommended but not required. Also, we strongly recommend that non-native English speakers submit results of either the TOEFL or APIEL to further assist us in gauging your ability to write and understand English."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/applying/1_3j_faqs.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/applying/1_3j_faqs.html</a></p>
<p>Harvard:</p>
<p>"All transfer applicants are required to submit the results of the SAT I: Reasoning Test reported directly from the College Board (our institutional code is #3434). "</p>
<p><a href="http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/prospective/transfer/requirements/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/prospective/transfer/requirements/index.html</a></p>
<p>MIT (for native English speakers):</p>
<p>"You must take the new SAT I with the writing component and two SAT II subject tests, one in math (Level 1 or Level 2) and one in science (Physics, Chemistry, or Biology E/M). "</p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.mit.edu/AdmissionsWeb/appmanager/AdmissionsWeb/Main?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageAboutTransfer#q6%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.mit.edu/AdmissionsWeb/appmanager/AdmissionsWeb/Main?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageAboutTransfer#q6</a></p>
<p>Now, to be fair, some other private schools such as Caltech do not require standardized tests. But it still holds that none of these schools have the percentage of transfer students that Berkeley does. </p>
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On the other hand, undergrad measures things such as faculty compensation and class sizes, which hurt Berkeley's undergrad ranking. Larger student body=large class sizes.
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<p>But why are you objecting to this? The question is not whether something hurts a school, it's rather it should be LEGITIMATELY hurting the school. The truth is, large class sizes hurt the quality of education, and if public schools tend to have class sizes, then public schools are rightfully dinged for that fact.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. I freely admit that I suck at playing basketball. One big reason for that is that I'm not tall. Now, if I was tall, I'd probably be a better basketball player. But I'm not tall. So when it comes to picking a good basketball team, I am probably not going to be picked. I can point out that the game of basketball is inherently "biased" against people who aren't tall, and it probably is. But so what? That's neither here nor there. If you want to have a winning basketball team, then you are going to want to pick the best players, and if they all happen to be tall, then so be it. I think we all understand that height is an advantage in basketball. </p>
<p>So I don't see why USNews looking at class sizes is somehow evidence of 'bias' against Berkeley or against public schools in general. Every test, every metric, every measuring standard is obviously "biased" against people who don't do well on that test. A test for basketball skills is obviously going to be "biased" against people who are short and unathletic. An English language test is going to be "biased" against people who don't speak English. A math test is going to be "biased" against people who aren't good at math. After all, why even have a test at all if everybody does well on it? The whole point of any test is to distinguish between those who do well and those who don't. </p>
<p>The question is not about "bias", but about LEGITIMATE bias. Are small class sizes a good thing to have? I and many others believe that they are. So if the public schools don't provide small class sizes, then the public schools ought to be dinged for that. That's just like how because height is an important attribute in basketball, short people get dinged. </p>
<p>The same thing is true for faculty compensation. First off, I see no evidence to indicate that Berkeley profs are paid significantly less than that of many of the top private schools. {Keep in mind that many of the private school profs get paid very little money.}. But even if it was true, that would be evidence that Berkeley is refusing to pay for top talent, and Berkeley should be dinged for that as well. The same is true of public universities in general. If the public universities are not paying as well as the private universities, then that would incent the best profs to want to work for the private universities, leaving the publics with a lower quality of prof, and the public schools should then be rightfully dinged for that. </p>
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And then there's the Graduation and Retention rate, which is worth 20%. Since it's a state public school that accepts a LOT of students, the average quality of the student body inevitably drops. If a student couldn't graduate from Berkeley, I doubt he/she could've graduated from any top private school. These factors are all because of the large student body and they comprise of 60% of the average score.
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<p>Once again, I would say that these are legitimate factors. I have alway been the proponent of Berkeley simply not admitting students who aren't going to graduate anyway. After all, if a student isn't going to graduate, why admit him? You're just wasting everybody's time. Berkeley would be better off in admitting fewer students, and in particular, not admitting those students who won't graduate. </p>
<p>Secondly, I would dispute your initial assumption. Why is it true that a state school necessarily has to admit a lower quality level of student? Let me give you some examples. Oxford and Cambridge are 2 of the largest universities in the entire UK. You rarely find any individual British university that has more undergrads. Oxbridge are public. Yet the student quality is there is probably the highest in the entire country. I'll give you another example regarding business schools. What school has the largest full-time MBA program in the world? Some public school? No, it's Harvard Business School. HBS is a behemoth in terms of population -easily dwarfing the sizes of many of its rivals, and in fact, having something like TRIPLE the number of full-time MBA students that the Haas School does. Yet the student quality at HBS is higher than that of Haas. Let's face it. Unless you can't afford it, you're probably not going to turn down Harvard Business School for Haas, despite HBS's huge size. </p>
<p>Or take MIT, specifically the graduate engineering program. MIT actually runs one of the largest graduate eng programs in the world, with about 60% more grad students than Berkeley does. Yet MIT has been ranked #1 in the USnews grad engineering rankings in every single year that the rankings have existed (18 years and counting now). </p>
<p>The point is, you can have a large student body that is also of very high quality. Many schools have managed to do this.</p>