<p>
[quote]
What's your point in all of this, anyway? The only thing I keep seeing is that Berkeley isn't as selective as the top privates, which we all know and accept. I haven't seen how that affects anything, really, except costing us money by having more students to support.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Absolutely false, and this is actually one of my biggest pet peeves. What many people fail to see is that education is by its nature a highly social process and therefore the quality of your peers directly impacts the quality of the education you receive. This is true for 3 reasons.</p>
<h1>1 - Many classes, particularly in the humanities, business, social-sciences, are discussion oriented. Hence, you will tend to learn more when your classmates are of higher quality, as they will tend to provide more insightful discussions. But when you are forced to take discussion-oriented classes with people who don't show up, or haven't done the reading and don't * want * to do the reading, the quality of the discussion declines, and that negatively impacts the education you receive.</h1>
<h1>2) Most of the 'education' you receive in a college setting is not done in the classroom. That's because the vast majority of your time in college will not be spent in a classroom. Rather, it will be spent just living life, and socializing with other students. I will tell you that some of the best 'education' I have ever had was as a grad student, at dinners with other students, where we were firing ideas at each other as if we had machineguns. Science, mathematics, philosophy, politics, economics, sociology - you name it, we talked about it. I will tell you that I learned far far more from these dinners than I learned from almost any classroom lecture I have ever attended. These dinners were some of the most intellectually fruitful hours I have ever experienced in my life. Other highly academically productive times were spent just commuting to and from class with other students, or just living life. One of the best discussions of political economy I ever had in my life was a 20 minute discussion I had when I was sitting around in the laundry room with a brilliant PhD economics student, waiting for our clothes to dry.</h1>
<p>But sadly, at least for me, it was in grad school when I experienced these events. In undergrad, not so much. You can't have a cracklingly simulative intellectual discussion with people who not only don't know that much about various advanced topics, but frankly, don't WANT to know much about those advanced topics. </p>
<h1>3) The inspirational factor. This is arguably the most important factor of all. Simply put, human beings are social creatures and tend to copy what they see around them. When everybody around is studious and intellectually curious, then you will tend to want to be studious and intellectually curious. But when people around you are lazy and are not particularly interested in studying, then you will tend to become lazy also. You can always make the choice to work hard when others around you don't want hard, but it's a hard choice to make. It's like trying to quit smoking when you see everybody around you smoking. Put another way, it's hard to make the choice to spend a night studying when you know that much of your dorm is out clubbing and partying and drinking. Simply put, these students serve as bad examples for others.</h1>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I am certainly not saying that all Berkeley undergrads are bad students. Like I've said, I have always agreed that the top undergrads are quite strong. The problem, again, is with the tail end. The tail end is more conspicuous at Berkeley than at the top private schools, and to use econ-speaking, that tail end creates a STRONG negative externality. They distract from the quality of class discussions, they do not contribute to the informal aspects of education, and they create negative social pressures. The process of a college education cannot be hermetically sealed within the classroom itself.</p>