<p>one of the colleges that i am applying to is uc berkeley as an undergraduate. i want to know what are your thoughts on this public university, particularly in the field of engineering and business/economics. how is uc berkeley compared to its peers (stanford, ivies, etc...)?</p>
<p>any advice is appreciated</p>
<p>It’s a good school from what I hear from one of my teachers (alumni) and many seniors that go there every year (in-state).</p>
<p>Berkeley is top notch in engineering and business</p>
<p>PM Kyledavid for all of Berkeley’s finer points.</p>
<p>I didn’t apply because of the massive budget cut coming down the pike which is using reductions in numbers of courses and profs.</p>
<p>berkeley’s engineering and business programs are top notch and regarded very highly. for those fields though, competition is extremely stiff between students and some students are turned off by that</p>
<p>Berkeley is either the top public university in the nation or the second (sorry, I can’t remember which). I think that it’s pretty much on the same shelf as the Ivies as far as academics except for the fact that it’s public and has a much larger undergrad population. It’s a well-rounded university, so I’m sure that business and engineering are amazing there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, it’d be better to PM a current student at Berkeley; since I’m not one, I wouldn’t know the ‘finer points’ of Berkeley.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ohnoes, Berkeley might have to reduce some of its 7,000 courses! What a horror!</p>
<p>(It would still offer far more than any top school.)</p>
<p>And no, they are not ‘reducing’ professors. In addition, they are able to retain their current professors through the Hewlett donation, the endowment, and various other sources of funds.</p>
<p>Honestly, newyorka, stop trying to mislead people with information you don’t have.</p>
<p>To the OP: Berkeley is generally regarded as the #1 public school–in more or less every ranking, it comes out on top for public schools. I agree with ivycmm.</p>
<p>@Kyledavid lol from some of your other posts I always thought you went to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Anyways yeah like 13 seniors this year went to berkeley and I hear it’s a really good school…don’t know much about it.</p>
<p>Good school, but I’ve heard they have huge classes. Also, I’ve heard that it’s a pretty competitive environment, but I can’t testify to that. </p>
<p>Berkeley for engineering or business from what I hear is pretty great though. The engineering school has a lower acceptance rate than the general college (is it Letters and Sciences?), and the business school is pretty competitive (you are admitted after one year in the university, I believe.) </p>
<p>Great school with easy access to San Francisco. I was going to go there, but then I was accepted to Dartmouth, which was my absolute favorite. :P</p>
<p>Absolutely excellent school.</p>
<p>“@Kyledavid lol from some of your other posts I always thought you went to Berkeley.”</p>
<p>I know, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>haha, no, but it was one of my top choices. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course they do–but so do HYPS. Just for the OP’s consideration:</p>
<p>Berkeley:
61% classes under 20
14% classes over 50</p>
<p>MIT:
61% classes under 20
14% classes over 50</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ll add that Berkeley has top-10 programs in more or less every discipline–the only other school that has this claim to fame is Stanford.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>L&S is just one of the colleges, like the College of Engineering. (If you’re undeclared, you generally go to L&S, though.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>After two, and it is competitive.</p>
<p>(Edit: in looking at this post, I can see why some might think I go to Berkeley, though in my defense, I believe that you should have in-depth knowledge of all of your top choices. :p)</p>
<p>Anyone who goes to Berkeley got my respect.</p>
<p>Well, you’ll certainly find as many smart and brilliant kids there as you would at HYPS, but you’ll also find way more people who have no place at a top educational institution. The thing is, it accepts a lot of kids who had a great GPA because they went to a low-performing public school, not because they’re actually very intelligent.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pros:</p>
<p>*Prominent departments/excellent research, especially in the disciplines you mentioned.</p>
<p>*Extremely interesting and vibrant college town, matched probably only by Cambridge Mass. </p>
<p>Cons:
*Inability to freely choose any major, especially the majors you cited, all of which are ‘impacted’, meaning that you may not be able to get into those majors and hence will be forced to declare another major that you don’t really want.</p>
<p>*Large crush of undergrads means that you have to fight harder for opportunities. The issue of class size is less concerning to me, what is more concerning is the lack of </p>
<p>*As Bartleby mentioned, a long tail end of less-qualified undergrads (relative to top schools). This is important from a sociological standpoint: the less motivated the surrounding students are, the less motivated you tend to become.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was poorly worded. May be forced to declare another major that you don’t want as much; and that’s not even to say that it’ll happen to the OP.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What vague word choice–“opportunities.”</p>
<p>Of course, I assume this is relative to top privates.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is there any data to back this up? I’ve never bought that crap. I’m not less motivated if my peers aren’t, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I prefer my wording. Let’s say that you want to major in engineering, but are not allowed. Then you’re forced to major in something that you don’t really want, because what you really want is engineering. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Um, no more vague than the words that you or others have used to describe Berkeley’s strengths.</p>
<p>I also find it quite telling that I used similarly vague language to describe what I believe are Berkeley’s strengths. For example, what exactly do I mean when I say that the city of Berkeley is interesting and vibrant? Yet you didn’t seem to have a problem with that vague language. Only when I describe Berkeley’s problems do you want more precise language. That’s very interesting. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, the OP was asking for a comparison to schools like Stanford and the Ivies. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know, how about an entire body of literature regarding sociological motivation? Motivation is, like most other human traits, affected by social forces. Few people actually have ‘inborn’ motivation (if there is such a thing). People are taught to be motivated. I think that’s a quite basic point that I am frankly surprised you are disputing. </p>
<p>Look, I’ll put it to you this way. Why are most parents so concerned about living in good neighborhoods with good schools, and especially in keeping their kids away from the ‘bad element’? I think it’s fairly clear that they don’t want their kids learning bad habits from others, because kids are influenced by what they see around them. Surely we’ve all heard the phrase: ‘Monkey see, monkey do.’</p>
<p>I’ll make the example even more stark. I freely admit that the biggest reason I am intellectually driven is because I was born in a family that is intellectually driven, and I grew up in a neighborhood full of driven people who valued education. If I had instead grown up in an environment where most people didn’t care about education, I would be quite naive if I didn’t admit that I probably wouldn’t care either.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The focus was on the switch of modals–from “may” to “will” (presumptuous).</p>
<p>In addition, you say “don’t really want,” which is also presumptuous. Say CS were impacted right now (it used to be, and I’m just using this as an example because I know it). I’m a CS major. If I didn’t get into the CS major, I’d be doing linguistics. True, I don’t want to do that as much as CS. However, I still really like linguistics and am not unhappy majoring in it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Rather than strike out like that, why not first explain what you mean by “opportunities”?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Er, that’s because I know what you meant by “interesting and vibrant”; in addition, that’s the city of Berkeley, and the OP is clearly looking more into the school right now, not the city (as you tend to do in a college search). However, “opportunities” is much more vague; I remember going through my college search and heard it used quite often very vaguely–no one ever truly elaborated on it, and I really disliked that about my college search. Thus, by questioning your use of it, I invite you to elaborate so that the OP’s search is better informed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t ask you to describe a sociological phenomenon; I asked for data supporting your viewpoint that it holds up in college in the way you say it does.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m well aware of the effects of one’s environment. However, your bold claim that “less motivated peers makes you less motivated” is complete nonsense in my viewpoint. Why do I think that? Because the students who would be going to Berkeley are, on the whole, very driven; they got to Berkeley through motivation. Thus, they will be motivated if they want to; they aren’t going to just let their supposedly “underachieving” peers really affect them. In addition, they’re adults; your examples illustrate the ‘absorbent’ part of a person’s development to adulthood, which is not the focus here.</p>
<p>And in fact, I think an even stronger case could be made that this would actually rarely happen, since those who have high levels of motivation will, more likely than not, surround themselves with similar students; those with lower levels of motivation will surround themselves with similar students also. So there’s no “tainting” going on (or if there is, it isn’t enough to really “drag you down”).</p>
<p>Of course, I have no data to back this up–but neither do you, apparently, since I only asked for data.</p>
<p>
I can assure you if your kids emulate most of the monkeys at Berkeley, they will turn out super. Heck, even the squirrels are driven.</p>
<p>the only thing about berkeley’s business that kind of turns me off is what i call the haas factor. its really competitive to get in and if you dont get in, you wait another year to apply.</p>