<p>Berkeley and Stanford are both excellent schools, but it depends on whether we are discussing purely undergrad education or inclusion of grad programs. </p>
<p>Stanford does not particularly place a lot of emphasis on their undergrad program, whereas Berkeley does. The classes are obviously smaller at Stanford and the profs are more accessible. Berkeley still has too large of classes and there are a ton of TA's on campus that teach classes. I would say Stanford is barely ahead of Berkeley for undergrad, but not by very much at all. </p>
<p>This is to say that Stanford was my 2nd choice, whereas Berkeley was my 5th. I am a California resident and think that Stanford is a better school then Berkeley (for all of those who have said that Californian's believe Berk to be better).</p>
<p>I am still confused as to why Penn gets rated higher than Columbia, Yale and Caltech in some of the people's polls on here. Obviously, everything is subjective, but I am just curious as to why.</p>
<p>Oh, and TheCity, take a look at the USNews Rankings for overall best undergrad engineering...#1 MIT, #2 Stanford, #3 Berkeley. Although USNews is extremely biased and not a great indicatior, it does show that Stanford is on-par or above Berkeley engineering.</p>
<p>Hmm, I think Carnegie Mellon needs some trolling action:) Honestly, we're ranked about as well as Cornell in just about every aspect. We're top ten engineering, business, drama, computer science, economics. We're top thirty chemistry, physics and biology and architecture. And we're also small so you get a very personal experience. Also let's not forget we're the only official top 25 college under 100 years old!! Therefore:</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>University of Michigan</li>
<li>John Hopkins</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Wash U</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Vandy (my brother went there so don't hate me!)</li>
<li>UC-Berk</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>New York University</li>
<li>Olin University (their curriculum is innovative and amazing)</li>
<li>Amherst (not very familiar, perhaps should be bumped higher)</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd</li>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>William and Mary</li>
</ol>
<p>undergrad, by prestige:
1- harvard (bleh)
2- yale
3- Stanford
4- MIT/CIT
5- Princeton
6- UPenn
7- UC Berkeley
8- other ivy's etc...
and man. U of M is definitely not top 10.</p>
<p>undergrad toughness by scores/gpa:
1- caltech
2- MIT
3- Princeton</p>
<p>undergrad toughness by wellroundedness:
1- harvard
2- yale
3- stanford</p>
<p>there are too many bases to judge colleges with. i mean, harvard is almost always ranked 1 on every list.. but people dont realize Yale is a much better school. heck, a lot of schools are "better". why dont we rank schools by how good the girls are =)</p>
<p>Berkeley places more emphasis on undergrads than Stanford does??? Wow that's the first time I've heard that. I agree that Berkeley will probably make you a more independent and rugged person, but that's because it places LESS emphasis on undergrads (among other things).</p>
<p>Anyways, they're both excellent schools but have different personalities. The better one is the one that suits you better.</p>
<p>Collegeperson, you seem to think that a school that the best universities are those that are excellent in Engineering, the Sciences, the Humanities and in Sports. So why aren't Cal and Michigan in your list?</p>
<p>i agree with paul, its the school that suits you better. For all interested, the state of california has a thingy called The Master Plan... which outlined how higher education would be in the state. CSU's are the undergrad teaching-focused schools, they are student-oriented and not research based. UCs primary focus is on research and graduate students. This isn't a stereotype or generalization, its actually outlined in the schools mission statements.
With Stanford, things are a little murkier, but with things are they are, one would have to argue that Stanford is a much more nurturing, helpful environment for undergrads. </p>
<p>With that said, I dont think that makes it a better college. I read an interesting editorial in stanford's student newspaper online the week of the Big Game, about why cal is a better school because students there Have to be rugged, and learn to fight for attention, which is much more like what post-college life is like. Obviously the student who wrote the article was just being inflammatory, but I like the perspective no less.</p>
<p>Collegeperson, Cal and Michigan are as undergrad focused as any of your top 12 schools. All your top 12 schools save Princeton, Brown and Dartmouth are BIG time research schools with hard to reach faculties and the bulk of resources allocated to graduate programs.</p>
<p>Here's Top 30 universities in alphabetical order:</p>
<p>Boston College
Brown
Cal Berkeley
Cal Tech
Carnegie Mellon
Chicago
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Emory
Georgetown
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Michigan
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Penn
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Texas
Tufts
UCLA
UNC
Virginia
WUSTL
Wisconsin
Yale</p>
<p>By and large, I think people at LACs have better undergrad experiences. They're forced to take more charge of their education, and grow more as individuals because of it. The only large school which has a rep for doing this is UChicago.
Im not hating on big schools, Im even considering going to NU, im just saying that from what Ive seen, what peple gain from a big school education is a marketable diploma, connections and so on. My XC coach went to MIT, when I was thinking about where to apply to colleges, I said my top choices were oberlin and reed. He asked "Why?.. because when you're trying to get hired, which employer is going to be floored when you drop the name of one of those two schools?"... apparently, the only reason he went to MIT was to impress people and fall into a strong alumni connections ring. Not that thats a bad thing, he's a filthy rich businessman now.
I guess what Im saying is, if you want to spend four years making connections with other smart people, go to an ivy or other big university. If you want to go to school with people who everyday are striving to be more educated and knowledgable, go to an LAC. Therefore, I think if we're judging based on education quality, the top 15(at least) schools would have to all be LACs, with U. Chicago being the only possible exception.</p>
<p>Top Schools:
1. Harvard FAS
2. Harvard Med
3. Harvard Law
4. Harvard Business
5. Harvard Government
...
29. Harvard Employee Daycare Service
30. Duke (no I'm not biased :))</p>
<p>Let's face it, any of Harvard's schools would kick most universities' asses. Duh.</p>