<p>Another point I wanted to make... Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google) went to Maryland for college, and then Stanford PhD - so while in terms of grad school admissions it may be better to go to Berkeley undergrad than Columbia... Columbia's still perfectly fine, no?</p>
<p>david: Like I said, it's up to u whether to transfer or not.</p>
<p>1) Assuming if you stay at Berkeley and maintaining your stellar GPA
2) Assuming if you transfer to Columbia and getting good grades @FU</p>
<p>Either will get you to top Business Schools like Harvard, Wharton (Penn), Stanford, Kellogg (NW), Sloan(MIT), Haas(Berkeley), Stern (NYU), Sloan (MIT), Chicago, and Columbia.</p>
<p>Good Luck with your decision ! ! ! ;)</p>
<p>David, your arguments don't make a ton of sense. You say you thought Cal's top students compared with stanford's entire student body before you got here, but after spending a year here you don't think so anymore. Why is that? You haven't gone to Stanford, yet you continue to hold their students up as some kind of shining beacons of light. And as far as SATs being lower at Cal, I'm sure you know that Cal takes best sitting, while Stanford takes best combined, which makes up for the majority of those points. Plus, you say the standard is "very low" for non engineering. Care to share stats to support that claim? A claim which I feel is insulting, considering us non engineers are the one that make this school what it is. Engineers are too busy hundled in corners, studying for endless tests to make Berkeley the lively, fun place that it is.</p>
<p>david, the best 6,000-7,000 student at Cal are on average at least as bright as Stanford students, but are also much more likely to be more interesting. I've met a lot of students at Cal who wouldn't have gone there if they could get in (many do) or could afford it.</p>
<p>Your social life gets better later on at Cal, and your campus experience becomes much richer. I've met MIT and Stanford alums who went to grad school at Berkeley who wish they'd gone to Cal as undergrads.</p>
<p>If you do stay at Cal, check out the International House next year.</p>
<p>GentlemanandScholar:</p>
<p>I've been to the Stanford campus, I've met Stanford students.
I've met hundreds of students at Berkeley and have not been impressed, overall.</p>
<p>It's clear that many people are accepted to Berkeley and not Stanford, but very few are accepted to Stanford and not Berkeley - and I think most people who are accepted to both choose Stanford (I would estimate at least 75%?)</p>
<p>The average SAT at Berkeley is 1335, at Stanford it's 1455. People who argue that the "best sitting" thing makes a difference say that it affects the average 30-50 pts, not 120.
Also, it's pretty well-known that Stanford gets better-rounded students... they require recs, they actually read the essays...etc.</p>
<p>I couldn't find the break-up of engineering vs. L&S at Cal, but I remember the difference being substantial.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was a materials science & engineering major - fall semester she took the usual... math, chem, engineering... Then she decided that instead, she wants to double in poli sci and econ, and she's now taking 20 units of L&S-type classes, but still finds it much easier (and econ & poli sci are the most serious of the hums majors - don't get me started on "Chicano Studies"-type majors).</p>
<p>I'm not saying Berkeley L&S doesn't have wonderful humanities students - it's just that they have the option to slack off much more than tech-majors do, and many of them do.</p>
<p>I don't think it's a valid argument to say "you engineering majors work so hard - you're not cool like us slackers". Tech-majors are involved in research and projects and stuff like that - and probably have a much more impressive record in terms of employment and graduate school admissions.</p>
<p>CalX:
I know that it can only get better if I stay at Cal - I'm going to live in Casa Zimbabwe if I stay here next semester. However, I have met many many people (hundreds)... and at Stanford it doesn't feel like you have to look so hard for interesting people...?</p>
<p>True that ^^^</p>
<p>Yes, Berkely has other wonderful humanities/social science programs. However, it is engineering/hard sciences (aka techie) program that makes Berkeley "World Famous". :)</p>
<p>"I've been to the Stanford campus, I've met Stanford students."</p>
<p>So simply visiting a campus, without ever taking a class, gives you some sort of insight into the talents of Stanford students? If you say so.</p>
<p>"I couldn't find the break-up of engineering vs. L&S at Cal, but I remember the difference being substantial"</p>
<p>Hey, that's all the proof I need.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who is an English major wanted to break up her schedule so she took some engineering and chem classes. She said it was the easiest thing in the word. No subjectivity involved at all. She didn't have to think about anything except formulas. She said it was like a vacation. See, I've got anecdotes too!</p>
<p>After all of these posts, I have no idea why you are even asking if you should transfer. Yes!!!!! There's no shame in transfering. Go to Columbia and have a great time.</p>
<p>Econ and Politcal science are SOCIAL SCIENCES, and many consider poli sci to be of moderate to easy rigorousness. And phlosophy and English are more serious, to name a few, at least more serious than poli sci . . . and some say philosophy is a social science. </p>
<p>20 units of certain classes might be a lot harder than 20 units of other classes. Think of math- if you're taking 16a and not 1a there is a big difference in difficulty. But anyway. I don't mean this in an insultin sense, but I think you have a poor understanding of the humanities and social sciene majors, at least is some fundamental ways, so you should be more hesitant to judge them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The average SAT at Berkeley is 1335, at Stanford it's 1455. People who argue that the "best sitting" thing makes a difference say that it affects the average 30-50 pts, not 120.
Also, it's pretty well-known that Stanford gets better-rounded students... they require recs, they actually read the essays...etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm insulted. Buddy, Berkeley reads the essays. Don't be a pompous jerk and claim otherwise. They read the entire application, no need to be rude because you think many of the students you've met here aren't smart enough.</p>
<p>In some ways you're right, Rabban, but if Berkeley didn't have the humanities and social science programs, it would be like . . . who knows what. I don't know. Basically, don't be so science/engineering cenetered to think that it is everything, and that all of the famous humanities and social science programs don't highly contribute to Berkeley being world famous. </p>
<p>davidn08, some stanford students, especially the out of state students, are rejected from Berkeley. I'm not sure about what percentage, but it's significant.</p>
<p>Davidn08, your SAT analysis is way off. Here are the common data set figures:</p>
<p>Stanford:
Range SAT Verbal SAT Math
700-800 67 74
600-699 27 23
500-599 5 3
400-499 <1 </p>
<p>Cal
range SAT Verbal SAT Math
700-800 33% 50%
600-699 40% 33%
500-599 20% 13%
400-499 6% 4%</p>
<p>Based on these raw figures, the top third at Cal has better test scores than the average Stanford student (almost all of the top third at Cal have SATs over 1,400, vs about two thirds at Stanford.) If you added an extra 30-50 to the Cal side to filter off best sittings, the top 7,000 Cal students start looking even better.</p>
<p>Looking back at my social life at Cal, freshman year wasn't very good. Part of it was my not being able to get into the dorms and not finding a lot of well-rounded people in pre-engineering classes. It wasn't quite so bad, but I didn't have solid friendships and a full social life. Maybe part of it as well was that my social skills weren't as developed, and my perspective wasn't as open.</p>
<p>In comparison, my last 2-3 years at Cal were the most enjoyable and stimulating in my life, and I have lived and worked in many great cities since (Paris, NY, SF, Montreal, SE Asia.) Some of my Cal friends become chefs (opened a wine bar), independent movie director, multinational VPs, architect partner in Manhattan firm, high-ranking officials/ministers in their countries, published writers, a clothing designer, an astronomer who has made significant advances to the science, but the coolest ones have low-key normal careers. I know that these friends all feel the same about their years at Cal, including the ones that went to Columbia or Stanford afterwards.</p>
<p>I would also add that SAT scores are hardly an accurate measure of how "interesting" students are. That is a pretty subjective opinion. But I just wanted to draw your attention on some of your assumptions. I've met a lot of grads from schools like SF State that were extremely interesting. I dated a girl from SFSU after I graduated who was an artist. She was probably a lot more interesting than most future MBA/lawyer/doctor at Stanford...</p>
<p>Yes, you are right. My best friends from high school all went to city schools.</p>
<p>I am just saying, that generally, there will be a noticable trend (after all, the math part tests IQ-like intelligence, the verbal part is a measure of how well you read, so probably how much you read...) - and top schools (like Stanford) try very hard to get the most interesting students, based on many other factors (ECs, essays, recs etc)...</p>
<p>As I've mentioned, if you believe that there is a strong correlation between SATs and the interest worthiness of the student body, you should have no problem finding interesting students at Cal because 5,000 to 10,000 undergrads have very high SATs, as high as those of any other college. There is a whole Stanford-like contingent within Cal's student body in terms of SAT scores, and then some.</p>
<p>This other assumption of yours is also wrong, because Cal turns down a high percentage of applicants with very high SATs. Cal could easily set a cutoff at 680 and fill its classes with only scores above that level, but it doesn't, because its admissions process looks at the whole candidature. Students accepted with lower SATs have compelling profiles.</p>
<p>Do you find that wealthier students tend to be more interesting? If so, Columbia or Stanford would indeed be better choices for you.</p>
<p>Clearly your current comfort level at Cal is low. I think that with the proper attitude and time, that comfort level will rise to the point where you will come to appreciate and treasure all facets of your college experience at Cal. That was my personal experience. You might enjoy a fresh start elsewhere though, but fundamentally your motive for transfer boils down to personal perceptions, more so than personal fit (which would have been the case for someone who finds Cal too liberal, too urban, too serious etc.)</p>
<p>Good luck with your college career.</p>
<p>"For the Class of 2008, the university admitted 2,486 students; 1,665 accepted the offer of admission and arrived at the university last month. Of the 821 students who declined admission and filled out a form that indicated where they were going instead, 28 percent said Harvard, 20 percent said Yale, 13 percent said MIT and 8 percent said Princeton. All other universities that were mentioned did not represent more than 2 percent, and no more than 1 percent indicated that they would attend a Pac-10 school"</p>
<p>So this means that between 5 and 12 (1% of 821 with rounding error) of the 2,486 students admitted to Stanford chose to enroll at Berkeley (a Pac-10 school), which for all intents and purposes means that no one would rather attend Berkeley than Stanford, at least for undergrad. It would appear that ""any1 that's thinking of berkeley but is good enough for stanford goes to stanford - filtering out the best students" is a correct statement.</p>
<p>Of the 821 students who declined admission and filled out a form that indicated where they were going instead, 28 percent said Harvard, 20 percent said Yale, 13 percent said MIT and 8 percent said Princeton. All other universities that were mentioned did not represent more than 2 percent, and no more than 1 percent indicated that they would attend a Pac-10 school"</p>
<p>Notice the lack of the number of respondees.</p>
<p>
[quote]
</p>
<p>So this means that between 5 and 12 (1% of 821 with rounding error) of the 2,486 students admitted to Stanford chose to enroll at Berkeley (a Pac-10 school), which for all intents and purposes means that no one would rather attend Berkeley than Stanford, at least for undergrad. It would appear that ""any1 that's thinking of berkeley but is good enough for stanford goes to stanford - filtering out the best students" is a correct statement.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What about those rejected that would have gone her, possibly? Many out of state stanford students are rejected, and perhaps some of them would have chosen to come here. Who knows, maybe even a few in state students were rejected because the ad coms felt Berkeley was merely a safety and then they had no option to choose.</p>
<p>It's common courtesy to send in the reply forms declining admission and indicating alternate plans, so I would imagine that the report rate is pretty high.</p>
<p>In any case, the form replies are a statistical sampling with a large sample size, so the real numbers should not differ significantly. At best, 1-2% of Stanford admits choose to enroll at Berkeley.</p>
<p>It's true that Berkeley rejects many out-of-state applicants that are admitted to Ivy-caliber institutions, but I don't believe that it's more selective than Stanford on average, except maybe for a handful of uber-competitive programs like EECS, which constitute a small fraction of both school's student populations anyway. For example, Stanford EE only has about 50 students per year. And you're really grasping for straws if you think Berkeley rejects in-state Stanford admits to any statistically significant extent.</p>
<p>You can speculate as to how high the report rate is, but we have no idea. As to the sample size mitigating the amount it off-puts accuracy, I don't know. More speculation. It probably isn't more than 5%, but I have no idea. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>
[quote]
It's true that Berkeley rejects many out-of-state applicants that are admitted to Ivy-caliber institutions, but I don't believe that it's more selective than Stanford on average, except maybe for a handful of uber-competitive programs like EECS, which constitute a small fraction of both school's student populations anyway. For example, Stanford EE only has about 50 students per year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree, it's not as selective on average, but out of state, it's hard to say. What fraction of each school's population does EECS and EE make up? How about how many applicants constitute the total pool? Not that we know that, I'd say a very large number. </p>
<p>I didn't say that number was statistically significant- I don't think it is. I'm just saying it probalby exists- is that so wrong?</p>
<p>I do think that a significant number of Stanford students, primarily, perhaps almost all out of state, were rejected from Berkeley. I've seen the number 1/3 before. perhaps you know which document it comes from, as I've forgotten.</p>
<p>it's funny - i actually was choosing last year between columbia engineering and berkeley's engineering. i'm from new york so I was either going to be very close to home or very far from home. there were several reasons why I chose Cal over columbia. one that struck me the most was the different type of student that went to columbia and that went to berkeley. at berkeley i felt like there was this broad range of people - you had the nerdy types who would study all the time and then you have these brilliant people that you would never expect to do well in school kicking your ass in chemistry. when i was at columbia, besides just checking out the engineering kids, i just got this stuck-up vibe from the population that you sometimes get in new york. it was very prevalent in my high school and i wanted to stray from that in college. of course not everyone is like this and you shouldn't generalize yada yada, but seeing the people that i knew that were going to be students at that school just seemed to confirm this.
regarding the issue of l&s and coe, I think that there are just so many people in l&s that you are going to find a lot of kids who are nowhere the near the level of columbia college (not engineering school) or stanford). but then again, i know many bright people in humanities who like math and the sciences, but they chose a different major, not because they couldn't handle sciences, but just because they preferred that other major. basically my point is that as a result of the large amounts of people here, you really meet many different types of people, which might not happen at another smaller school. if you can't find anyone that seems interesting to you here, then good luck finding it elsewhere - because I didn't see it when I was checking out FU.</p>
<p>
[quote]
All other universities that were mentioned did not represent more than 2 percent
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, imblue, the "other" segment is not 2%, it is 31%. I think you've made a slight error in comprehending the graph, you're off by about 1,500% (hmm, legacy at the Farm?) I would suspect that Cal represents a big chunk of that biggest slice of your pie.
<a href="http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/october6/gifs/graph_schools.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/october6/gifs/graph_schools.jpg</a></p>
<p>What those figures don't show as well is that a lot of middle class or lower middle class kids that go to Cal don't even apply to Stanford. We have about 7,000 lower to lower middle class students at Cal (about three times the rate of Stanford, 6-7 times as many overall.)</p>
<p>Berkeley's acceptance rate for out of state u.r. minorities is lower than Stanford's. Its acceptance for OOS EECS, premed, business is also lower than Stanford's. For the avg OOS student, probably about the same. Cal's overall accept rate is twice Stanford; I would think it is about twice as easy to get in as a CA resident.</p>
<p>"the form replies are a statistical sampling with a large sample size, so the real numbers should not differ significantly"
Are you familiar with the concept of systematic bias?</p>
<p>in hs i was international (and oos)- berkeley engineering accepted me, stanford did not.</p>
<p>"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." </p>
<p>Woody Allen</p>