<p>This is so stupid.</p>
<p>Honestly, no one outside California gives a hoot? Tell that to my Japanese friend who recognized Berkeley as a respected University and didn't know what Columbia was.</p>
<p>Also? Yale not being a respected university anymore...seriously?</p>
<p>yale rocks wth r u takin about</p>
<p>Plenty of people live their lives without knowing what caltech is, MIT is, Harvard, is, yale is . . . Gutrade, how do you define a regional school? If about half of Stanford undergrad comes from CA, does that make it regional? How about ALL of these schools are regional, because most of their students come from the region called the US.</p>
<p>Yale was once a good school . . . okay, has it really changed drastically in it's existance, barring the admission of female students? How do you measure that it is no longer what it once was, and how do you measure that the other schools are still at their peak? MIT, Caltech, and Harvard are great . . . in many ways for some people, sure, but others would hate going to these schools. These schools have some of the highest suicide rates of any schools, and some people want to study non science or no science. Some people want less pretention and more hands on instruction.</p>
<p>I have a problem with the "high suicide rate" yarn that people like to trot out, as if perhaps elite undergraduate institutions were offering incentives for students to commit suicide. I don't see why the suicide rate has any relevance for the vast majority of students at these schools without a history or predisposition to mental illness.</p>
<p>And as for "less pretention and more hands on instruction" -- I'm not really sure what that even means. 80% of MIT undergraduates participate in undergraduate research during their time at MIT, and many are published as undergradates in the top journals in their fields -- if that's not hands-on instruction, I'm not sure what is.</p>
<p>I wonder if the people who keep on insisting that Berkeley's name isn't recognized very pretigiously are actually reading this thread...</p>
<p>3 elements of the 100 some are discovered at Berkeley. People worldwide studies the elements at some point in their high school years. If they have not heard of Berkeley by then, it just shows how ignorant they are. I can understand them not associating Berkeley with Californium and Seaborgium but what about Berkelium (element 97)? No excuse there.</p>
<p>Berkeley's prestige becomes more evident in graduate studies. Look at USNews graduate rankings, especially in the sciences:</p>
<p>Computer Science:
1. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9
Stanford University (CA) 4.9
University of CaliforniaBerkeley 4.9
5. University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign 4.6</p>
<p>Chemistry:
1. University of CaliforniaBerkeley 5.0
2. California Institute of Technology 4.9
Harvard University (MA) 4.9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9</p>
<p>Biological Sciences:
1. Stanford University (CA) 4.9
2. Harvard University (MA) 4.8
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.8
University of CaliforniaBerkeley 4.8</p>
<p>Geology:
1. California Institute of Technology 4.9
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.8
3. Stanford University (CA) 4.5
University of California-Berkeley 4.5
5. Columbia University (NY) 4.3</p>
<p>Economics
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0
University of Chicago 5.0
3. Harvard University (MA) 4.9
Princeton University (NJ) 4.9
Stanford University (CA) 4.9
University of CaliforniaBerkeley 4.9</p>
<p>As you can see Berkeley ties with "superior" colleges while it is best in chemistry.</p>
<p>Also the fact that somebody mentioned that someone from Taiwan or China donated $40 million to Berkeley. You're being completely stubborn if you don't call this international prestige.</p>
<p>You people who go to private schools just can't stand the fact that Berkeley, a public school, is just as highly regarded as "superior" colleges.</p>
<p>The suicide rate yarn is true, but I am not implying that the institutions are offering incentives for students to commit suicide. These places are intense and filled with pressure to do well, because, as the boards of CC lovc to toot, these places are filled with the best of the best and must, therefore, produce the best of the best. If one feels like one isnt up to par, one must feel terribly.</p>
<p>Many aspects of many schools dont have ANY relevance for a vast majority of the students, but they are still the case. For example, the fact that 4% of the people that go to Harvard dont graduate ever has nothing to do with most of the students, but it does have something to do with the 4%. </p>
<p>Less pretension means less ego, less pompousness. Im sorry about the typo. More hands on instruction applies to Harvard, I have heard many classes stay quite large until about two years in. The criticism didnt apply to every school. But on the other hand, some students would deteriorate under hands on instruction, so these schools wouldnt be great for them, either.</p>
<p>And if people also look at graduate programs outside of the sciences and some social sciences, one will notice Berkeley also has outstanding grad programs in the humanities. Like Stanford's sports teams, who are not all number one, overall, the sports department is- the same is true for grad programs at Berkeley, although Berkeley tends to have more number one grad programs than Stanford has sports teams every year.</p>
<p>This is our lesson for today class...
A few years ago, the etirre public bought Firestone tires because it WAS the biggest brand-name. What happened...? They blew all out and people were being killed left-and-right. Moral of the story...? Brand-name DOES NOT define quality.
I know, it's a pretty sadistic lesson, but just because Jethro and Bubba down at Jiffy Lube and Walmart or Hymie in some third-world country hasn't ever heard of Penn or other top schools that are listed in above posts, it doesn't make it a bad school.</p>
<p>International Prestige and Quality of education together:</p>
<ol>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> UC Berkeley</li>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Yale</li>
<li> MIT</li>
<li> Columbia</li>
<li> U of Chicago</li>
<li> U of Penn</li>
<li>CIT</li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
The suicide rate yarn is true
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In a statistical sense, it's not true.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology#MIT.27s_suicide_rate:%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology#MIT.27s_suicide_rate:</a>
"Because of small number statistics, the 'true' suicide rate -- i.e., that that would be measured by an very large MIT in the limit of an infinite number of students -- is, to 95% confidence, approximately equal to 100,000<em>((11 +/- 2</em>sqrt(11))/48,000)). (Sorry, the actual equation is at the site, but it doesn't copy.) At this level, MIT's suicide rate is consistent with the national average." (emphasis mine)</p>
<p>So, the suicide rate yarn is, so far as can be discerned, not true.</p>
<p>Are most people who post on this thread from california? The only school in california I ever heard of was Stanford. I am surprised people around the world know of the others.....unless all of the posters here are biased.</p>
<p>IB6, Caltech is also a highly recognized school in California. I assure you there is no California bias when people refer to Caltech as one of the most prestigious schools in the world. </p>
<p>As for people touting the UC school, I am sure you are right that there is some regional bias going on. However, schools like Berkeley are widely known for their graduate programs. Even though their undergraduate programs aren't up to par, they get most of their fame from their PhD programs. Hope that clarifies things a little.</p>
<p>I'm from California, about an hour aways from Caltech, and I don't think people see it nearly as highly as many people here do. They respect it, but less than MIT, which they hardly know anyway.</p>
<p>Most schools have most of their fame from their graduate programs, even your beloved Junior University.</p>
<p>Oh, and if you read the suicide rate article more closely, it takes a few large assumptions. Even if it is higher, it is not incredibly higher, but still, it is, and it should be acknowledged. Not that this should affect most people's thoughts about going- the fact that it is incredibly intense should.</p>
<p>The disparity between undergraduate quality and graduate school quality is the biggest at the UCs. First of all, the selectivity of the UC undergraduate programs is very low. People with less than 1100 SATs are routinely admitted. This is certainly not the case at the top selective universities. Second of all, the Califronia's master plan for education outlines that the UCs are primarily designed for graduate work. Their very founding basis is to excel at the graduate level. That just goes to show how inadequte the undergraduate education not only is, but was desgined to be.</p>
<p>It might be very low by cc standards, but in reality, it is quite high. About 3/4 of the applicants to both Berkeley and UCLA are rejected, and not that many low scoring applicants are admitted, although the sat score indicates nothing, seeing that many with low scores are validictorians or have huge job and family responsibilities and couldn't afford or take the time for a prep class that many middle class and upper class students frequent. And your beloved private selectives don't always shy away from the low scoring applicants, although it's more common that they do than the UC's.</p>
<p>Read the whole master plan. Then, realize that many people who go to the UC's are getting educations in many ways equal to the best privates. Not all ways, of course, but many. </p>
<p>The UC inadequate education results in many students excelling in life in grad and professional schools and beyond.</p>
<p>I love how people talk about the master plan as if they've ever seen a page of it.</p>
<p>I love how UC students are deluded about the prestige of their schools. If those guys really wanted prestige, they should have worked their butts off in high school to get into schools like Yale. Instead they chose to slack off and be rather unremarkable and got into a UC school. Well, sorry to break it to you guys but you can't be a slacker and have a brand-name degree at the same time. You might think your UC name will impress people in Japan or Nairobi or wherever, but when you try looking for a job you'll see that you wont have any more leverage than a dude from Oklahoma State. The only people who will have doors opened for them by the very virtue of their schools' names are the Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Princeton graduates. Every other school is SOL.</p>
<p>Interesting... This coming from the poster who said that UPenn is an "obscure school"... :rolleyes:
And which Old Boys' Club do you belong to, Gutrade?</p>
<p>I believe he is a Yalie.</p>
<p>"I believe he is a Yalie."</p>
<p>yeah, which explains this:</p>
<p>"If those guys really wanted prestige, they should have worked their butts off in high school to get into schools like Yale."</p>
<p>and this:</p>
<p>"Obviously Yale kicks Harvard's ass in cross-admit battles for the coolest students. Harvard takes all the stuck-up snobs." (posted in the Harvard University sub-forum)</p>
<p>lol, Gutrade i recommend you stop posting. forever. what about those who want prestige but can't afford it (and are not given adequate finaid!)? would you say they are slackers? would you say they are SOL as well? crawl back to Yale you elitist a$$-0... Yale will not make you a better person than any graduate from the UC system, nor endow you with the prestige that will carry you anywhere extraordinary BEYOND THAT OF YOUR FIRST JOB/ GRADUATE PROGRAM.</p>