<p>hmom, somehow Cal’s placement rate into elite graduate schools is as high as Cornell’s and Penn’s. Are you saying that despite having weaker students, somehow, those students are getting into “elite” graduate programs with similar success? IF that’s the case, Cal obviously does a better job educating undergrads and/or carries greater weight with graduate school admissions committees.</p>
<p>More likely than not, the fact is, students at Cal are as able as Cornell and Penn students. The problem I see here is that you are comparing apples to oranges. The vast majority of students at Cornell and Penn beat the ACT/SAT to death. They take it three times on average, study for it obsessively and many even take prep courses. Private elites value the SAT a great deal and applicants who really wish to enroll at those universities know that. Cal does not place nearly as much important on standardized testing. Students who really wish to attend Cal know that. They will prepare for the SAT (but not nearly as much as applicants to private schools) and will take it once, maybe twice. Most students who apply to Cal do not take prep courses for the SAT. Finally, when it comes time to record student SAT scores in their system, private universities keep the highest score per section. Cal and most public elites keep the highest score in a single sitting. When all is said and done, the difference in the mean SAT score at Cal and most Ivies is insignificant…if at all existant.</p>
<p>I would argue that you should not look to undergrad admissions for state schools because state schools inherently are taking from a smaller slice of the national applicant pool. So to truly compare UC-Berkeley to the Ivies you have to look to grad school, and point blank berkeley hot shines almost all the ivies when it comes to grad school in beadth and depth. Which other schools have top law, engineering, businesss, and natural sciences? Few. Even Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Penn can not boast that. In fact Cornell is about the only Ivy that really comes close, despite the fact that it is “less elite” in some opinions.</p>
<p>That is where the whole idea of “crapshoot” admissions is derived from… Some of the most random ppl in the world who lack the credentials to even be considered competitive get into some great schools… The number of ‘Crapshoot cases’ becomes more prevalent as # of qualified and unqualified ppl applying increase, throwing in applications left and right… LOL. </p>
<p>I’ve read “A is for Admissions” written by a former Dartmouth admissions officer. He says that 40-50% of all applicants applying to Dartmouth barely get a 2 minute read since they are essentially are auto rejects since they don’t meet cutoffs or something doesn’t add up right, aka they are not qualified… So I guess ppl shouldn’t put that much weight into selectivity in terms of % accepted. It’s not that important in the larger scheme of things… nonetheless, ppl should know that the Ivy league benefit from it’s iconic brand name status… you apply to Brown and Dartmouth because they are cool schools where all the popular smart ppl apply to. Ppl like to copy what their peers are doing lol. So there are many unqualified ppl who just apply for the sake of applying…increasing “selectivity” of the school lol.</p>
<p>Harvard: 3 for 4 (missing top engineering)
Yale: 3 for 4 (missing top engineering)
Princeton: 1 for 4 (puck frinceton)
Brown: 0 for 4 (if we’re really going by “top” here)
Penn: 2 for 4</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call Cornell’s law school “top” and its business school even less so.</p>
<p>Dbate and RML’s responses have not addressed any of my actual criticisms or points, and in fact, DBate specifically ignore where I talked about the difference between asking about American Colleges and some other notion or model that RML is attempting to identify (but does so with a narrow scope).</p>
<p>DBate-- it’s not a cop out to say that someone who doesn’t have knowledge of the natural sciences cannot make the argument that equipment does not exist when they a) Don’t go to that school to see what’s there b) Wouldn’t know what equipment exists c) Cannot evaluate my argument that quality scholarship is produced but at a slower rate due to other draws on faculty time and a smaller graduate school focus. But I really need to stop harping on this point-- it’s a straw man and you know it. It’s just funny when the straw man is fundamentally wrong in addition to distracting from the real issue.</p>
<p>It’s also not a cop out to say that for COLLEGES what matters is not the graduate or professional schools at all. All of the things you’re arguing for making a school elite does not trickle down to undergraduates (except in some majors at UPenn).</p>
<p>For colleges, check out lists like which undergraduate programs are successful feeders and you’ll notice Berkeley is not exactly shipping it’s 25,000 students into top programs the way these other "super elite"and non-elite schools are.</p>
<p>Berkeley is a fantastic school for undergraduates, but it’s not on the echelon you guys are discussing until you decide that research production and professional schools takes precedence over all else. It’s funny, I know of at least four people who taught at Berkeley for a good portion of their career who are now at Brown, including our current Dean of the College and a previous Provost. They’d have some pretty hilarious things to say about this thread.</p>
<p>modestmelody, your post does not make a lot of sense.For one thing, I have med profesors at Michigan who had taught at Brown and they thought Michigan was better than Brown. What do you expect? There is a reason why a professor leaves one school for another. It is called better fit!</p>
<p>And I am not sure I agree with your placement comment. Cal’s placement rates into elite law schools is identical to Cornell’s and Penn’s.</p>
<p>Brown’s physical science programs are excellent especially at the undergrad level. I am not arguing with that and I think no one here is. But Cal’s physical science programs are better. That’s a fact. You’d be fooling yourself if you think Brown’s physical science programs are better than Cal’s. </p>
<p>Brown’s facilities for physical science programs are also great. But Cal’s facilities are --again-- just much better. In fact, some huge private companies tap Cal for their expertise and better facilities. There are research activities that can only be done at Cal. Most if not all activities/researches done at Brown can also be done at Cal and Cal doesn’t need to upgrade its present set of facilities. Brown would need to invest a huge fortune to match up with Cal’s physical facilities. If Brown is as good as Cal on science programs, Brown would have been famous and world renowned like Cal, Stanford, MIT, Caltech and Harvard are. But it isn’t.</p>
<p>Stanford = 4 - eng’g, biz, law, med
Harvard = 3 - med, law, biz
Yale = 2 - law, med
MIT = 2 - eng’g, biz
Princeton = 1 - eng’g</p>
<p>Cal = 3 - eng’g, law, biz
Caltech = 1 - eng’g (but it does really, really well on med program)
Columbia = 3 - law, biz, med
UPenn = 4 - law, med, biz, eng’g
NU = 4 - biz, med, law, eng’g
JHU = 1 - med (but it does really, really well on med program)
UMich = 4 - med, law, biz, eng’g
Cornell = 3 - eng’g, law, biz</p>
<p>All you did in response to that is re-frame the discussion back to research and not really address that the OP is talking about colleges or that you ignore undergraduate education as an important piece to this puzzle.</p>
<p>More than that, I’m nowhere near saying we’re the same powerhouse for graduate education-- I’m saying that when asking about colleges (and really in my opinion the whole package, but I’m not even going there), the undergraduate education quality and measures of being a powerhouse should be considered. Those graduate programs respect our undergraduate preparation as much as any in the super elite, and in some ways, more in my own experience.</p>
<p>Alexandre-- I wouldn’t compare our medical school, which was only re-started in 1979 to the capacity at more top programs. Our med students are extremely competitive at top residencies, but the program is still very much in the initial growth phase. The 100 million it got two years ago is going to help propel it quite a bit. More than that, of course they leave for reasons of better fit, but some of the specific arguments in this thread are ones I’ve heard them rail against.</p>
<p>modestmelody, you’re the one who keeps bringing in grad education here. When I said Cal’s physical science programs are better than Brown’s, I was referring to undergrad level. I don’t know where you got the idea that I was talking about grad and postgrad levels. Maybe it’s because you’re very much aware that Cal is truly an academic powerhouse.</p>
<p>That’s not the case RML-- I’d argue our physical science programs are just as strong for undergraduates as Cal and severely underrated by you. There’s a reason why all of my friends who have “quality” grades (half As half Bs, give or take) have their choice of multiple top 10 graduate programs in chemistry or physics right now coming out of Brown or have been hired at the most competitive pharmaceutical consulting firms, etc.</p>
<p>Didn’t someone show a grade distribution from Brown a while back where
50% As
48% Bs
2% Cs
No fail, no D, no F. Of course, all of your friends will have As and Bs. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a C friend at Brown.</p>
<p>
Just as strong? I thought the whole time you think it’s way more elite?</p>
<p>If someone at Brown is afraid that they won’t get a good grade, the will take the course pass/no record. And even if they do take it for a grade, it’s ABC/no record.</p>
<p>Elite is defined by prestigious academic programs.</p>
<p>hmom5, are you saying Penn/Wharton is elite because it is selective and students have high SAT scores? The reason Penn/Wharton attracts the student talent it does is because Wharton is an elite business program. Top professors, opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>Regarding Berkeley, yes, it is true that Cal is not as selective. However, it is the most selective public university. Cal also has one of the top faculties in the world, probably only second to Harvard or Stanford in achievement.</p>
<p>At the undergraduate level… the physical science courses among the top 50 universities are so standardized and so often replicated, recopied, and reproduced that its differs little as you go across from institution to institution.</p>
<p>Berkeley is more “elite” than Brown for physicial science graduate studies and ground breaking research.** BUT** at the undergraduate level, Brown can obviously compete with the best physicial science schools out there because it’s a LAC type school and more importantly, undergraduate physical sciences is very basic and fundamental right across the board…</p>
<p>You can’t expect much as an undergraduate if you are majoring in chemistry or biology lol. Just that the # of research opportunites may be less available at less research intensive universities. I’d argue Brown LAC physical sciences can provide an equally enriching curriculum for undergrads pursuing a physical science course load.</p>
<p>All mostly correct. Then factor in that LAC-styled schools have better teaching faculty and couple that with the fact that all Brown degrees in the physical and life sciences (except some engineering degrees… not sure which it’s set by ABET) require 2 semester of research for credit to receive a bachelor of science, minimum, and you start to see a clear picture as to why I feel our environment not only competes, but exceeds many others in this area.</p>
<p>
Still accounts more for all of the production and other issues I’ve discussed in this thread and given my reasons for discarding straight along. I’d like to know the argument for why NAS members are better for undergraduate instruction.</p>
<p>I wonder what the average age of professors in our physical sciences are relative to Cal. Not sure it would show anything, but in chemistry around half the faculty have been professors for less than 15 years, we’ve had a lot of new hires as of late. It’d be interesting to see if that’s true across our departments (we did just expand the faculty by 100) and if that has some effect on depressing our numbers. We wouldn’t go near Cal even if you account for these things, but the situation my look better. Hard to say.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The question in this thread asks for America’s Elite Colleges and I’ve maintained throughout this thread that my position is about undergraduate offerings. So if you’re being contrary purely on factors which are not a part of the strength or “elite” nature of the undergraduate college, you’re not actually arguing with anything I’m saying. Even in the line you grabbed from my post, I specified undergraduate.</p></li>
<li><p>The attitude that undergraduate education is not an integral part of what makes a university “elite”, or more importantly, an excellent institution is exactly what I am against and why I post on this site. This pervasive line of thinking is nonsense. Undergraduate education is not a visible component because it’s not a visible component. Many top institutions choose to make this a very visible and forward. The only reason there is not greater visibility and transparency about undergraduate ed is because it’s been historically easy to avoid having to present undergraduate quality and as such many institutions have moved away from making undergraduates a focus and integral part of their greater mission for fear it would not show up in the prestige column. The current situation involves self-fulfilling prophecy on this issue-- top institutions are often poor in this area because in the past it wasn’t used to measure whether they were top institutions so they continue to promote other aspects to maintain their standing so no one notices other areas they’re slipping or not on top of so that no one can suddenly decide that what you do for half the students in your school matters because they’ll have to settle with the idea that it’s not visible or measurable.</p></li>
</ol>