The New 2007 US News Top Colleges

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
41

<p>"of course this isn't just a problem with cal, its a problem with every school in the country. just remember, there are no schools in the country trying to decrease in size, they either try to maintain or grow."</p>

<p>Well, I believe it never should have expanded to 4000 students per class in the first place. </p>

<p>One fact in that The Master Plan of Higher Education calls for a maximum population of 27,500 students at each university, and we can see now that the university population is way over that quota.</p>

42

<p>
[quote]
In fact, most of the UCs got hurt pretty badly:</p>

<p>38 UCSD -6
44 UCI -4
21 UCB -1
47 UCSB -2
26 UCLA -1
47 UCD 1</p>

<p>Discuss.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Man am I glad I did not attend UCSB. Hahaha, so much for UCSD people comparing their campus to Berkeley and UCLA!</p>

<p>But it really does suck that Berkeley dropped a ranking spot. Hey, seeing as how UCLA is no longer in the top 25, think they'll remove the school from the CC Top Universities category? Hahahaha.</p>

43

<p>"think they'll remove the school from the CC Top Universities category?"</p>

<p>CC's top universities don't include ivy's, USNews top25 does.</p>

<p>1000 posts!! - officaly a post whore....sad day for us all.</p>

44

<p>Berkeley could significantly make itself comparable to privates by shrinking the class size dramatically. Wouldn't have to change much else.</p>

45

<p>ha, congrats Matt30!</p>

<p>Always remember post-whoreness and coolness are not mutually exclusive...:cool:</p>

<p>Or at least I hope not :(</p>

46

<p>
[quote]
Actually, I don't think US News has an "Ivy bias" or a "private bias." I think its metrics are just set up so that schools that are large and set up the ways public schools are, are hurt more.

[/quote]

When I said "ivy bias" I meant metrics set up so that ivy and private schools benefit at the expense of the public schools; so we agree.</p>

47

<p>berkeley is never going to shrink its class size. thats just one of the most unrealistic things ive ever heard. even if they did reduce their incoming class size, theres still the issue of the 7000 or so transfer student berkeley has at any given time.</p>

48

<p>we should have a transfer genocide.</p>

<p>MmMmm</p>

49

<p>^hahaha, the words "genocide" and "MmMmm" in the same thought gives the image of...er....tasty 21-year-olds?</p>

50

<p>:eek: ...</p>

51

<p>Kidding, kidding.
=D</p>

52

<p>"berkeley is never going to shrink its class size. thats just one of the most unrealistic things ive ever heard. even if they did reduce their incoming class size, theres still the issue of the 7000 or so transfer student berkeley has at any given time."</p>

<p>It did happen 2 years ago when budget cuts were so severe that they had to admit less students. So it's possible.</p>

53

<p>
[quote]
Why stop there? Here's what Cal should do to improve its ranking:</p>

<p>Accept one student per year. Make sure that student is in the top 10% of his HS class and got a 1600 SAT score (or 2400 now). We'd need only 100 applicants total to rank top in selectivity. We'd clearly win the number of classes under 20 students score (100%) and we'd have no classes with more than 50 students. We'd have to make sure that student went through all 4 years and graduated--then we'd have the maximum graduation rate (100%) and retention rate (100%). Out student:faculty ratio would be something awesome, well under 1:100.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I know you made this suggestion facetiously, but it does point to a rather serious topic. Even if we could do what you suggested, the truth is, those students you admitted with the 1600 SAT and top 10% class rank would probably prefer to go somewhere else, like Stanford, if he can get in. Hence, this reveals the real problem, which is that Berkeley undergrad is still not highly desirable to the very best students. I am tired of Berkeley being treated as a safety school, but that means that Berkeley has to make itself more desirable. </p>

<p>
[quote]
the only way it becomes more selective is by having the vast majority of students in california do better overall on the SATs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, that's how the situation is RIGHT NOW. But if Berkeley could improve its desirability, then better students will want to come, and that will allow Berkeley to improve its selectivity. Right now, the best students in the country (and the world) prefer to go to HYPSM. Many of the very top high school students from California will apply to Harvard or MIT, but few of the high school students from Massachusetts will apply to Berkeley. If that could be changed, then Berkeley would be a more selective, and hence better school. </p>

<p>In other words - replace that bottom pool of students who aren't going to graduate anyway with some of the best students in the world.</p>

54

<p>
[quote]
When I said "ivy bias" I meant metrics set up so that ivy and private schools benefit at the expense of the public schools; so we agree.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think what he is getting at is that the metrics may be 'biased', but legitimately so. Just like when you want to pick a winning basketball team, you tend to pick tall and athletic people, but that's because tall and athletic people tend to play better basketball. Hence, the bias is justified. The truth is, categories like faculty-student ratio may be 'biased' against public schools, but if low faculty-student ratios are conducive to better education (which I think it is), then that bias is justified.</p>

55

<p>
[quote]
Even if we could do what you suggested, the truth is, those students you admitted with the 1600 SAT and top 10% class rank would probably prefer to go somewhere else, like Stanford, if he can get in.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You doubt that I could find one student in the US with a 1600 and in the top 10% that would take a free Berkeley education? I mean c'mon, that'd be the easy part. Telling the 22,000 people here they have to leave would be the challenge.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The truth is, categories like faculty-student ratio may be 'biased' against public schools, but if low faculty-student ratios are conducive to better education (which I think it is), then that bias is justified.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree, but the problem is that there are many factors these statistics don't include which also affect the quality of a school IMO. For example, take my imaginary 1-student school, which only takes a single 1600 SAT / top 10% student each year, has 1 full-time faculty and guarantees that student will stay four years and graduate. I've hit the top in every category on US News's list except the money-related ones (of which there are I think two) and the peer evaluation score.</p>

<p>My school would be ranked high statistically (though I doubt I could get accreditation), but it would probably be an abysmal school. The problem with the rankings isn't necessarily that there is an Ivy League or private school bias, but that there is a "what we think is best" bias. It's very hard to rank schools and I respect those that try, but those that blindly trust rankings are going to be misled. The US News list is not a list of the best colleges in America. It is a list of what US News thinks are the best colleges in America. Those two things are very different.</p>

56

<p>
[quote]
You doubt that I could find one student in the US with a 1600 and in the top 10% that would take a free Berkeley education? I mean c'mon, that'd be the easy part. Telling the 22,000 people here they have to leave would be the challenge.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What I am saying is that all of these factors are intertwined. The very very best students often times don't want to go to Berkeley PRECISELY because the quality of the 22,000 other undergrads is not as high as it could be. That's true for a number of reasons - for example, the fact that education tends to be a social phenomenom (i.e. you learn more when surrounded by smarter people), and also for market signalling effects (if you're highly talented, you don't want the brand-value of your degree diluted by some people who aren't that good). </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I don't dispute that you could find some people who would be willing to take a properly structured deal. In fact, it's not terribly different from one of my former proposals, which is for Berkeley to run an honors college, the way that UCLA does not (but something better than UCLA's current structure). In other words, instead of trying to get those 22,000 to leave, create a 'school-within-a-school' that would attract students who would otherwise be heading to HYPSM. </p>

<p>
[quote]
My school would be ranked high statistically (though I doubt I could get accreditation), but it would probably be an abysmal school. The problem with the rankings isn't necessarily that there is an Ivy League or private school bias, but that there is a "what we think is best" bias. It's very hard to rank schools and I respect those that try, but those that blindly trust rankings are going to be misled. The US News list is not a list of the best colleges in America. It is a list of what US News thinks are the best colleges in America. Those two things are very different.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Look, nobody is saying that USNews is perfect. No college ranking is perfect. </p>

<p>What USNews does is highly some problems that Berkeley could improve upon. Faculty-student ratio is a problem at Berkeley. I don't agree with those people who think that it is absolutely terrible, but I still think it's a problem - that there really are undergrads who really do feel like a number. Something should be done about that. For example, why not hire more untenured lecturers out of the large pool of Berkeley's postdocs? They're dirt-cheap, and they would allow more classes to be taught (hence reducing problems with wait-lists and impaction) and a more personal education.</p>

<p>Besides, I give credit where credit is due. Berkeley has fixed some of its problems from time to time, and sometimes in response to things that USNews points out. For example, I remember when Berkeley dropped out of the top 25 in the 90's. Berkeley responded to that by securing more funding from Sacramento to put the school on firmer budgetary footing, and Berkeley returned to the top 25. I even remember Berkeley administrators saying that they felt spurred by the loss of ranking to do something. The sad truth is, if USNews didn't exist, I strongly suspect that those administrators would have done nothing at all. </p>

<p>Come on, eudean. You, I, and I think even CalX would agree that the Berkeley administration ain't exactly the most responsive in the world, especially to the undergrads. Basically, they will do something for the undergrads only when they HAVE to do something for the undergrads. USNews may not be perfect, but I believe it places useful pressure on the administration to do things for the undergrads. Pragmatically speaking, the alternative to USNews is probably nothing at all, and in such a case, the administration really would have no incentive to ever improve the undergrad program.</p>

57

<p>the public school bias arrives mainly in 2 stats. Student:faculty ratio and SATs. Reasons being that Public schools (at least the 3 ive checked, berkeley, uva and michigan) use a uniform CDS form which is very specific on what it constitutes as instructional faculty. If you look at either 1 of the 3 schools CDS, and go to the instructional faculty section, there is a laundry list of things which disqualify an employee as a member of the instructional faculty. Other schools, like Penn, do not use a CDS form (at least not one they make public) and simply list a number of "standing faculty and associate faculty (read part time/fellowships etc.)" and include them in their faculty number.</p>

<p>You can tell this because both Penn and UVa, which have an almost identical sized total student body (about 19500) also have an almost identical amount of employees or staff inclusive of the instructional faculty - 12000. However, how does Penn manage to have a 6:1 ratio while UVa has a 15:1. I'm sure if UVa or Berkeley or Michigan calculated what constitues "faculty" the same way a school like Penn did, they would also have student faculty ratios of 6:1 - or at least close to it.</p>

<p>Also, the sat scores for public schools are single sitting as we all know. We know that it takes about 40 points off hte average SAT scores.</p>

58

<p>I agree that certain measurement methodologies may favor private schools over publics.</p>

<p>On the other hand, certain other methodologies seem to favor public schools over privates. For example, the rather large transfer student population that the publics have compared to that of the top private schools. While I don't know about Virginia or Michigan, I know that at UC, transfer student SAT scores are not reported (because transfer students aren't even required to take the SAT). </p>

<p>Hence, I would argue that the 'effective' average SAT score of public schools may actually be LOWER than what is reported, even if we include the entire single-sitting issue. That is, if all transfer students were forced to take the SAT and those scores were included in the mix, then the overall average SAT score may actually be lower than what USNews reports it to be. Most of the top private schools have tiny transfer student populations (rarely more than 10%), as compared to Berkeley where they comprise 1/3 of all incoming students. </p>

<p>Now look, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that transfer students are necessarily bad. I am simply saying that Berkeley has a lot of students who never had to take the SAT at all, and who, on average, probably would have scored lower than the freshman-admits if they had to take it.</p>

59

<p>I agree with you on the SATs with transfers with regards to berkeley. I have made that argument myself against people who think berkeley is underranked - which also would affect its top 10% greatly. But UVas student body is composed of about 1000 transfers or 250 per class - about 7% of the total. This more than likely would affect UVa about as much as it would affect any private school.</p>

60

<p>
[quote]
Hence, I would argue that the 'effective' average SAT score of public schools may actually be LOWER than what is reported, even if we include the entire single-sitting issue. That is, if all transfer students were forced to take the SAT and those scores were included in the mix, then the overall average SAT score may actually be lower than what USNews reports it to be.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Of course you're assuming right off the bat that transfers will be weaker. The reported SAT scores may, in fact, be higher than what USNews reported. Without that data you need to look at other performance metrics.</p>

<p>"According to the Office of Student Research, the latest six-year graduation rate of freshmen was 82 percent, identical to the four-year graduation rate of community-college transfers. At the end of the fall 2000 semester, the average GPA of transfer students was 3.37, compared with 3.28 for all students."</p>

<p><a href="https://osr2.berkeley.edu/menu_control/Topics/student_data/institutional_data.phtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://osr2.berkeley.edu/menu_control/Topics/student_data/institutional_data.phtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't think transfers bring the school down or make it weaker, most transfers are coming in with higher GPAs than the general population and their 4-year graduation rates are greater than freshmen 6-year graduation rates. And absolutely none of this has any effect on school desirability. Look at UCLA, they have almost double the number of transfers coming in per year and still have the most freshman applications out of all the UCs.</p>