<p>communist smurf..you rock!</p>
<p>Virginia people are just jealous of Cal..honestly. To listen to Virginia people think they even hold a candle to Cal...quite amusing.</p>
<p>"Cal is the #2 most applied to university in this country. Cal is larger and accepts a much lower percentage of students than UVa."</p>
<p>I don't see anything about USWNR Rankings in there. Oh well- anyway</p>
<p>US News Rankings
1. Harvard, Princeton
4. UPenn (lol)
5. Duke (lol)
7. MIT, Cal Tech
11. WUSL (LOL!!)
15. Uchicago</p>
<p>Let's not put all our faith into this system. It's funny how all he can do now is post little things like this.</p>
<p>By the way, jags, UCB's incoming freshmen 25-75th percentile scores are 1220-1450, in case you were wondering. This is for the 4000 incoming freshmen, not including the transfers. UVA had 3000 submit SAT scores. For those, its 1220-1430. This also does not include the transfer applicants- though I wonder what both schools would be like if we added them in. This is also with UVA trying to diversify its campus, and not put in the hundreds of Asians attempting to get in at the expense of URMs. Personally, I don't really care too much about diversity, but I guess the admissions officers would prefer to help what they see as disadvantaged students in exchange for its USWNR ranking</p>
<p>Number of experts of world of warcraft at cal - 19739
number of experts of world of warcraft at uva - 7</p>
<p>i guess cal wins again...i think?</p>
<p>Hahaha…Silly Smurf. Rankings are full of BS. If your school’s ranking is your definition of winning, then poor boy, your victory has been built on quick sand. Rankings change every year but institutions on whole don’t change that quickly. Also, are you saying that ALL the schools ranked higher than Berkeley are better...schools like Emory, Wash U, and Notre Dame?</p>
<p>Now, let’s talk about the nitty-gritty. Show me how Berkeley CURRENTLY provides a better undergraduate education than UVa? Honestly, is the UC System really doing the best it can to provide a superb education for its undergrads? </p>
<p>1) UVa is known for its excellent undergraduate education and environment. Even US News even wrote an article about UVA’s superior undergrad experience:</p>
<p>
[quote]
One of the smallest flagship state schools, with just over 13,000 undergrads--compared with nearly double that at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan--Virginia has always had a bit of a private-school vibe. There's the relatively well-to-do student body, for one thing, but also its impeccably maintained campus, the breadth and depth of academic offerings, easy access to faculty, smaller than average classes for a public institution, and a solid advising system that helps ensure that more than 90 percent of students graduate within six years. "It isn't easy to maintain an intimate student experience in the context of a modern research university, but U.Va. does it," says 1987 alum and associate professor of political science Eric Patashnik, who has also taught at the University of California-Los Angeles and Yale.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>At the University of Virginia, everything is student-run from the University Programming Council which bring speakers and bands to the school to the vaunted Honor and Judiciary committees. Even UVA’s all powerful Board of Visitors has a student member. How much of a say do Berkeley students have in their university’s affairs? </p>
<p>2) Berkeley is known for research and its graduate programs, but do they shine at the expense of the undergraduate programs? Here’s a comment made about Berkeley from an old College Confidential post:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley needs to do a better job of building a sense of community amongst its undergrads. It needs to do a better job of providing services for students. I know it can be done because I've seen it done well within some of the departments like Bioengineering and the College of Natural Resources. Both programs have a dedicated and friendly staff that enjoys working with students. </p>
<p>Really, I think this is the area in which Berkeley should focus its to improve undergraduate education. People that felt like they had someone looking out for them during college are more likely to have a good experience and more likely to give money back. They're also more likely to be motivated to give back in other ways - volunteering time or returning to work at the school, helping future students have similarly good experiences. </p>
<p>Who is responsible for this? I think it's the Chancellor, who sets the tone for how the campus is run - this is especially true for the College of Letters and Science, which doesn't have any head person who can effect that sort of general attitude amongst the staff; we need another Tien!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>3) A little over half of Berkeley’s students are able to graduate in 4 years while 80% of UVa students are able to do so. The overall 6 year graduation rate at UVa is 92% - the highest public school graduation rate in the country…up there with the Ivies. The total number of Berkeley's 23,000 students who never graduate is nearly the size of UVA's freshman class. Is Berkeley offering enough classes and resources for its students to graduate on time if at all? </p>
<p>4) UVa has graduated double the amount of Rhodes Scholars than Berkeley. Only Harvard, Yale, Princeton, West Point & Stanford have graduated more than UVa. In 2005, UVa had 2 Rhodes Scholars in the same year. Berkeley rarely gets any.</p>
<p>5) Through Access UVA, Virginia gives free rides w/out the hassle of work-study to its low-income students, plus UVa caps the amount of need-based loans for its middle-class students in order to keep student debt in check. Berkeley does not.</p>
<p>6) Virginia’s alumni satisfaction and giving is among the highest among public schools. Over 27% of UVa alumni give back to UVa while only 15% give back to Berkeley.</p>
<p>7) Most (if not all) of Virginia's top professors teach undergrads. I doubt that's the case at Berkeley.</p>
<p>8) UVa offers very unique international opportunities for its undergraduate students…from the fact it now runs Semester at Sea ( <a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2006/12/course_sas.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2006/12/course_sas.html</a> ) to the fact that it’s the only American university to be a part of an international coalition of research universities that collaborates in research, exchange programs and other academic programs. (<a href="http://www.universitas21.com/u21memberlist.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.universitas21.com/u21memberlist.html</a> ).</p>
<p>9) In rankings like US News, much of Berkeley's strength comes from its peer assessment from other schools' presidents, which is often based on research and professorial publications – not excellent undergraduate teaching. How is a college president from Vermont, Oklahoma, and Montana really that familiar w/ what Berkeley or Virginia has to offer? Undergraduate peer assessment is based on perception more than reality. </p>
<p>Plus, if you stand by US News rankings, you have to believe that every college ranked higher than Berkeley is better. I certainly don't believe that's true. Do you?</p>
<p>So, despite the #1 ranking that US News gives UC Berkeley, I really don't see how Berkeley offers a better undergraduate education than UVa.</p>
<p>oh globalist, you're so eloquent. ;-)</p>
<p>...and long winded. I guess losers usually are and winners don't feel the need to defend themselves.</p>
<p>Yeah, it's very heavily based on how they change their own statistics each year. One year Cal Tech was number 1 because of changes they made, the next year it was back to HYP again. I think at one point peer assessments were 25% or more of a school's ranking- that may still be true today, I don't have the current breakdown but it was definitely a heavy criticism of the ranking system. 6 Year graduation rate is pretty important as well though, but this peer assessment stuff was ridiculous.</p>
<p>lol, that's what losers say.</p>
<p>okay.</p>
<p>i think we can just come to the conclussion that - a) smirf is a moron, b) smirf is just egging us on, or c) both.</p>
<p>i'm betting on A.</p>
<p>Well, I haven't been on here in a while.</p>
<p>
[quote]
obviously cal receives more applications than UVa. california is the most populous country in the state with 36.1 million people. Virginia has a population of 7.5 million people. california has nearly 5x as many people as UVa. quick breakdown for ya smirf.</p>
<p>cal received 37000 applications for 4000 spots in its freshman class and admitted 26% (remember, 1/3 of cals student body is composed of transfer students). about 40% of the people who are accepted went. </p>
<p>UVa received 16000 applications for 3000 spots in its freshman class and admitted 36%. about 55% of the people UVa accepted went.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think that's a fair comparison. You're forgetting so many factors. Many students would like to stay in-state. Let's see...what are good public schools in Virginia? UVa, and College of William and Mary. Okay. What are good public schools in California? Well, the NINE UC campuses. That really splits up the applicants. You would think that everyone just applies to Berkeley by checking off the box. Why not? It's so easy! But in reality, this isn't what happens. Many people know they don't have a chance so they don't bother wasting their money. Others think Berkeley is too challenging and would rather go to a different UC. Heck, even after accepted, many people opt for Stanford, CalTech, the Pomona Colleges, and I've seen plenty go for UCLA, UCSD, and UCD over Berkeley (just check the UCD forums).</p>
<p>What does this all mean? It means you can't really draw much conclusion simply from the number of applications. There are too many factors involved which we can't put into simple statistics. It's a bit ridiculous to think one can say a school is better because it receives more applications.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stanford only has a few hundred freshmen CA residents attending that school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, Stanford has about 6,600 undergraduates, 40% of whom come from California. So, it's actually closer to 3,000, not a few hundred. Please look these things up before posting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
regardless, we've...well i've had this conversation before with many people on this website. simply citing sat scores and gpa's of incoming students does not make one school better than the other.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well jags, I think we finally found something we can agree on! :) From how much the SAT averages had risen for UVa from 2005 to 2006, I can only conclude that both schools have very close stats, and since stats change from one year to the next it's hard to compare. A difference of 30 points on the SAT or 0.2 in GPA really means nothing. We can only say that both school have a pool of very strong students.</p>
<p>About transfers, on one hand I think you are giving them too little credit, because you are basically talking about them as if they were freshmen. Their SATs and high school GPA don't really matter as much since they have since proven themselves in community colleges. Besides, many students were admitted into similar universities such as UCSD or UCI, but decided to opt for CC for two years to save money, and because they really wanted to go to Berkeley.</p>
<p>On the other hand, from what I have been hearing transfers do seem to be somewhat weaker on the whole than freshman admits. There have been discussions in the Berkeley forum about what to do with transfers. sakky, a long-time poster, proposes to make transfer admission much tougher, and while I agree with this idea, I'm not sure I agree with his method. But as of right now, yes there are transfers, they are in the minority but they do form a noticible portion of the student body, they are still very accomplished but probably not as strong as freshman admits, so I guess take it for what it's worth.</p>
<p>The thing about transfer students is that, while they are deserving now to be in Berkeley based on performance in college, according to the admissions officers, the high number of them drives down the number of freshmen Berkeley would accept if they weren't there. That in turn drives down the acceptance rate, which would be higher if UCB was only, say, 10% transfers like UVA and expanded its freshmen class size by another 1500 or more. Acceptance rate is also a major factor in the USWNR rankings.</p>
<p>I did look up the stats, particularly from the Common Data Set. I just didn't give the specific number.</p>
<p>Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who applied: 10,236
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) women who applied: 9,959
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who were admitted: 1,249
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) women who were admitted: 1,177</p>
<p>Total full-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) men who enrolled: 845
Total full-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) women who enrolled: 788</p>
<p>30% of that, which I believe is the number of CA students who enrolled in stanford this year, is about 500-600. So it may be more than a 'few' hundred but I just didn't write that totally out. That's 500 top students that may have gone to Berkeley, though it's hard to say they wouldn't have gone to another comparably high ranked private school if they didn't want to attend Stanford.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, Stanford has about 6,600 undergraduates, 40% of whom come from California. So, it's actually closer to 3,000, not a few hundred. Please look these things up before posting.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>He did say freshmen. Forty percent of 6,600 is 2640. Divide that by 4 (for each year), and you get 660 freshmen. Last time I checked, 660 is a lot closer to a few hundred than to 3,000.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) UVa is known for its excellent undergraduate education and environment. Even US News even wrote an article about UVAs superior undergrad experience
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh come on. It's easy to find an article online praising one school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Berkeley is in a strange position," he says. "We are one of the few US public universities to have an international reputation on a par with the private ones of the Ivy League. But it's a tough financial balancing act. Princeton has endowments of $1m per undergraduate student, while Harvard has almost double that. It's hard to compete, especially when the private universities can charge the full cost of $33,000 tuition fees per year. We charge $7,500, and have to make up the difference through state funding and private donations."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Nothing about Berkeley is quite as straightforward as it seems. To most Brits, the university is famous as the epicentre of west coast liberalism, the campus where the anti-Vietnam protests of the late 60s were born. "We're actually a fairly broad church here," Birgeneau says. "We've got the law professor John Yoo, who has been a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy, and the biggest student club on campus is the Republican."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What does this mean? Nothing really. Just that both schools have areas worthy of praise. Just citing articles gets us nothing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
2) Berkeley is known for research and its graduate programs, but do they shine at the expense of the undergraduate programs? Heres a comment made about Berkeley from an old College Confidential post:
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, trying to discredit Berkeley hmm? Interesting how you only like to point out the negative. Here's a post of a very positive experience at Berkeley:</p>
<p>
[quote]
There are College Insider posters who seem to believe that if you are a great researcher you must not be a good teacher. There is no basis for this and it makes no logical sense. If anything the opposite is often true. Top professors can infuse their lectures with the excitement and possibilities of new science and scholarship and this can be contagious. Berkeley is filled with such professors, many of whom actually seek out undergraduates. Consider Alex Filippenko, one of the top astrophysicists in the world. Filippenko regularly teaches a lower division introductory astronomy class that fulfills a breadth requirement and is therefore taken by many non-majors. He is a wildly popular lecturer.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not believe my son could have received a better education and better preparation for grad school at any other institution, public, private, Ivy, big or small. He went on to do exceptionally well as a grad student at Harvard, receiving several fellowships on the way to his June, 2004 Ph.D. One of these was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. His receipt of the NSF award led me to look at these fellowships more closely in the years 2000-2002. There are many measures of the excellence of Berkeleys facultyincluding the number of McArthur Fellows, Nobel Prize, National Medal of Science, Guggenheim Fellowship and National Science Foundation Young Investigators Award winners, and National Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering members.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, what does this mean? Just that most students have generally good experiences, while some students have bad ones, which I think can be said of any college. So where does quoting people on CC get us? Nowhere. What students should really draw out of this is that college is really what you make it. A great University like Berkeley or UVa will get you the resources and the opportunities but you have to do the work to get the most out of the school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3) A little over half of Berkeleys students are able to graduate in 4 years while 80% of UVa students are able to do so. The overall 6 year graduation rate at UVa is 92% - the highest public school graduation rate in the country
up there with the Ivies. The total number of Berkeley's 23,000 students who never graduate is nearly the size of UVA's freshman class. Is Berkeley offering enough classes and resources for its students to graduate on time if at all?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree with you on this one. This is something I think Berkeley needs to work on. From what I have heard most of this is because Berkeley students sometimes go abroad to study, take multiple majors, or for whatever reason chooses to not finish in four years. Not getting your classes is rare but it does happen. Still, I think Berkeley's graduation rate could be better.</p>
<p>
[quote]
4) UVa has graduated double the amount of Rhodes Scholars than Berkeley. Only Harvard, Yale, Princeton, West Point & Stanford have graduated more than UVa. In 2005, UVa had 2 Rhodes Scholars in the same year. Berkeley rarely gets any.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I have never heard of this one before. This is actually pretty interesting and I would like to see a link that supports this if you have it. I am curious, however, as to why you decided to fucos on the Rhodes Scholars. Why not post all the academic awards received? I suspect what will happen is UVa graduates will win more awards in some areas while Berkeley graduates will win more awards in other areas.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Through Access UVA, Virginia gives free rides w/out the hassle of work-study to its low-income students, plus UVa caps the amount of need-based loans for its middle-class students in order to keep student debt in check. Berkeley does not.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, Berkeley also gives out free rides, depending on what the student's situation is. The question is: how many does UVa give out? UVa caps the amount of need-based loans. So basically UVa makes the decision for the student as to how much loan is given out. If the student needed more, too bad. Berkeley gives the STUDENT the choice as how much to take out. If the student is afraid of landing too deep into dept, then he can choose to take out less loans. So explain to me now how choice is a bad thing?</p>
<p>
[quote]
6) Virginia’s alumni satisfaction and giving is among the highest among public schools. Over 27% of UVa alumni give back to UVa while only 15% give back to Berkeley.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, I would like to see a link to this statistic if you have it. I think this is because of the more intimate environment and networking that UVa fosters. In Berkeley's defense, I believe a recent poll was taken of Berkeley graduates, and around 85% (don't remember the exact number) said they were very satisfied or satisfied, so students are generally pretty happy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
7) Most (if not all) of Virginia's top professors teach undergrads. I doubt that's the case at Berkeley.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But how good are UVa's top professors in comparison to Berkeley's top professors? If UVa's top professors are only as good as Berkeley's very good professors, then I don't see how that is a problem. I think it's commonly accepted that Berkeley has a stronger faculty than UVa. By the way, many of Berkeley's top professors, including Nobel Laureates, do teach undergrad classes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
8) UVa offers very unique international opportunities for its undergraduate students…from the fact it now runs Semester at Sea ( <a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/20...ourse_sas.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/20...ourse_sas.html</a> ) to the fact that it’s the only American university to be a part of an international coalition of research universities that collaborates in research, exchange programs and other academic programs. (<a href="http://www.universitas21.com/u21memberlist.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.universitas21.com/u21memberlist.html</a> ).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, pulling out some obscure reference that supports UVa. So what? So what does being part of an international research coalition do for the undergraduate education? I could easily pull out something similar for Berkeley:</p>
<p>Look! Berkeley has a quantitative methods research team! Does that really matter to undergrads? Is bringing up obscure research information really going to get us anywhere?</p>
<p>
[quote]
9) In rankings like US News, much of Berkeley's strength comes from its peer assessment from other schools' presidents, which is often based on research and professorial publications – not excellent undergraduate teaching. How is a college president from Vermont, Oklahoma, and Montana really that familiar w/ what Berkeley or Virginia has to offer? Undergraduate peer assessment is based on perception more than reality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But wait, didn't you just talk about how great the research at UVa is? Now you are discrediting it? Besides, I could easily say that alumni giving is skewed towards private-style universities like UVa because there are fewer students so it's easier to build a better network and track them all down and get them to donate.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, despite the #1 ranking that US News gives UC Berkeley, I really don't see how Berkeley offers a better undergraduate education than UVa.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So, despite your very long post, I don't see why you feel like praising UVa and belittling Berkeley at every turn. Did you mention even one positive of Berkeley? How about one negative of UVa? This is the beef I have with most people on this forum. I don't believe the OP came here asking for a summary of everything that's good about UVa and everything that's bad about Berkeley. Can we not agree that both are very good schools, in very different ways? Can we not agree that both schools have different areas of strengths and weaknesses? So, how about giving some positives and negatives of each, and encourage the student to visit/research to see which one is the best fit? If the student were to post in the Berkeley forum, I wouldn't hesitate to mention that Virginia has a more intimiate environment for undergrads, probably better networking/advising, more attention for undergrads, and a private-school feel which many students like (in fact I think I already mentioned this in my post). So why don't we be helpful and share both sides of the issue with the OP?</p>
<p>
[quote]
30% of that, which I believe is the number of CA students who enrolled in stanford this year, is about 500-600. So it may be more than a 'few' hundred but I just didn't write that totally out.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're right. I admit that I misread your post. I was quickly trying to catch up after about a week of not coming on here. I have heard that 40% of Stanford students are Californians, but that's really bickering over minute differences. Let's agree on the figure of roughly 600.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone in this thread said that UVA provided a superior education to Berkeley- in fact most I can see said they were fairly similar. There was some other discussion about non-academic factors, which are really just personal preference, so I don't know why people would make such a big deal out of those. The international research thing came about because people kept talking about how UVA is a regional school (despite being 1/3 OOS and UCB being less than 10% OOS), so he was just trying to provide information on that. The real problem came when someone walked in making BS claims about how UCB is better because of its number of applications and various other factors that have all been discredited now.</p>
<p>vissicitudes,</p>
<p>I admire your passionate defense of our school. Kudos :D</p>
<p>I don't see why there's any argument here. Cal is one of the finest universities in the entire world, and certainly among the top 6-8 schools in the US. It is underranked. UVa, however, is an excellent institution and, in my opinion, provides a better overall experience to its undergraduates than Cal does.</p>
<p>I would pick UVa over Berkeley anyday, and I'm instate for Berkeley.</p>
<p>^^^but you want to go to NYU...obviously you prefer the east coast.</p>
<p>Without any doubts, UVA and Berkeley are excellent universities in the nation. Although they both have strengths and weaknesses, they still provide their students an excellent education.</p>