<p>No one is saying that the students at Publics are not bright. There are bright students in every University in the world IMO.</p>
<p>Good. It just seems that I’ve read throughout this thread that those that go to top publics are incapable of getting into the Ivy’s. I took that to mean that people were thinking they weren’t as bright. I agree with you. There are bright students everywhere. To me, it’s not the college you get into that is most important. It’s what you do at the college your in that is.</p>
<p>Momfirst3…I agree that many on this thread have Apparently made the supposition that any kid who CHOOSES to go to a top public only did so because they couldn’t get into anything else:</p>
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<p>My D (and I’m sure your S too) also worked her “***” off but opted for a prestigious public like UVA because of the social and athletic fit. They’re not these weird anomalies. My D has met several kids already who, like her, chose UVA over schools like Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Brown, Amherst, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, etc. </p>
<p>Ledia…I did not mean to imply ivy students are not well-rounded because they certainly are. I would argue, however, that ON THE WHOLE they tend to participate more in academic-based ECs as opposed to athletic & social ones.</p>
<p>jc40, well said. I agree completely Couldn’t have said it better myself. And yes my son worked extremely hard in high school. With his athletics and his academics, I don’t think he slept more than 4 hours a night for years!</p>
<p>momfirst, excellent comments and congratulations on having a son attending that great university, UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>The only problem that I have with your post is the following:</p>
<p>"All who attend any of these universities are academically qualified well rounded individuals. "</p>
<p>this is simply not true.</p>
<p>For instance, UC Berkeley does have students with perfect grades and SAT’s that are pure geniuses in the areas of Chemistry, Math, Physics and Engineering, but are not well-rounded. You can also find this at other great institutions like MIT, Caltech and Harvey Mudd. A long time ago, I had classmates that were not well rounded at my alma mater, Princeton - but they were of the “very scary” genius level, like having their names attached to certain chemical reactions for paths that they discovered while studying for the Organic Chemistry exam, or attaining almost all A+'s while majoring in Chemical Engineering (the toughest major at the time) while actually skipping a whole year of college.</p>
<p>Otherwise I agree with most of your post.</p>
<p>Yeah, I see what you mean. There are definitely exceptions to the rule with regards to being well rounded. I was thinking all were academically qualified and most were involved in something else (volunteerism, athletics, music, etc.) I wasn’t thinking about the pure geniuses! Did you actually know any of those while you were in school? What were they like??? Could you tell that they were totally different or were they unassuming and normal?? I’ve always wondered what it would be like to talk to someone like that. Oh and thanks for the congratulations. He is really excited and can’t wait to get up there.</p>
<p>"Find your own title and earn your place. (Not to sound like a douc**, but honestly, I worked my ass off to get into Penn and when I hear things like “Public Ivy” or “Jesuit Ivy,” I’m annoyed by the often unjustified presumption of academic parity.) "</p>
<p>The problem is, you probably worked much harder than kids had to to get into ivies in the not so distant past. I attended one of the higher ranked Ivies in the late 1970s. My DD has similar SATs, attended a nationally known magnet as I did (Stuyvesant in my case, TJ in hers). I had a higher GPA, but she has better EC’s, I would say. She missed all her reach schools (one Ivy) and will be attending RPI. I am convinced from what I have seen that I could not get into an Ivy today. Our population in the USA has grown (and there are more international students), the proportion going to college has grown, and the proportion of those seeking the top schools has grown. So it is not surprising that the Ivies have become more competitive. The result is that very bright, motivated, talented students, the kind who went to the Ivies in 1978, say, now have to look further afield. The various lists of New Ivies, Public Ivies, etc are really attempts to discern which of those schools further down the lists have the kinds of intensity, the kinds of academic rigour, etc that the ivies have had - NOT to list colleges with the same difficulty of acceptance as the Ivies today. </p>
<p>The lists reflect the fact that SOME state flagships stand out from the pack of state flagships, in ways I mention above. And that some up and coming privates do so as well (in fact i think someone once discussed here that there are really a couple of generations of “new” ivies)</p>
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<p>sefago, </p>
<p>So, you’re saying that Berkeley doctored their data? lol</p>
<p>
McKinsey, Goldman, Citi, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Google, Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Accenture, GE, etc, ect… these companies hire Berkeley grads annually. Some of these companies don’t even hire grads from Emory, Vanderbilt, Rice or Brown, for example, as frequent as they do Berkeley grads. And some of these companies are owned/founded by Berkeley grads.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
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Agreed. </p>
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<p>Well, likewise. Many students at the lower Ivies (not HYPMS) and other top privates don’t apply to Berkeley as OOS because they knew they couldn’t get in anyway. And, for those who could secure a place, many of them couldn’t afford it anyway.</p>
<p>
Here’s a list of the firms recruiting at UCB’s EECS Career Fair (Sept’09):
<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/fairs/FairDir.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/fairs/FairDir.stm</a></p>
<p>You can check it against similar lists at the Ivies and Chicago.</p>
<p>Michigan also is recruited by many top companies as well.</p>
<p>JohnAdams12</p>
<p>
And that’s not even superscored like Emory’s, so the figures would potentially go up by a few points. Furthermore, Berkeley does not weigh SAT scores as much as they do HS GPAs. Imagine what Berkeley’s SAT scores would become if the school admissions would change its rules to favour SATs instead? It would probably devastate hawlette’s heart. </p>
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</p>
<p>It could very well be because I couldn’t think of any better reason other than that. I think that Berkeley’s OOS applicants have always been quite strong, or students who are potentially able to get into top privates like HYPSM and the lower Ivies.</p>
<p>The student body is going to be richer now. There is a correlation between wealth and SAT scores. </p>
<p>On the plus side…now with all the breadth and depth of programs…and top professors…the SAT scores will be higher…grad rates will probably be better…because richer students don’t have to work…and UC Berkeley will probably rise in USNWR rankings when the new numbers are reflected in the magazine…which will bum people out…lol</p>
<p>And I don’t buy the top students in Cal choose HYPM over Berkeley. Some do. Some want to stay in Cal…and choose Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, the Claremont colleges…and a very few choose Caltech…Some even choose schools like UC Davis…or UCSB…</p>
<p>since it typically adds about 30 points to each SAT test if the SAT’s are superscored by the college, UC Berkeley’s would look something like this if superscored:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley For Fall 2010 <a href=“assuming%20superscored”>/U</a>:
Reading: 650-770
Math: 680-800
Writing: 670-780</p>
<p>and the comparison to Emory like this:</p>
<p>SAT Scores Math
680-800 Berkeley
660-750 Emory</p>
<p>SAT Scores Critical Reading
650-770 Berkeley
640-730 Emory</p>
<p>SAT Scores Writing
670-780 Berkeley
650–740 Emory</p>
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<p>I’m about 90% sure I read somewhere that the UC schools don’t actually have figures on how many of their students are in the top 10% of their class, so they give “estimates” on those numbers. I’m pretty sure many of the other UC schools claim that they also have student bodies where 99% of the students were top 10% of their class.</p>
<p>MSauce, the UC schools give priority to class rank, then GPA then SAT’s, so it wouldn’t be surprising that the % in the top ten is high, but the figure is for the students that submitted top ten rankings - many don’t.</p>
<p>If you really want to see a university that doctors their data, SAT data, just take a look at Notre Dame’s.</p>
<p>let me know what you find, it is pretty obvious.</p>
<p>First one that gets the correct answer gets a “no-attack” pass from JohnAdams for future postings.</p>
<p>Notre Dame only counts the higher of SAT/ACT for incoming students, right? That’s doctoring the data.</p>
<p>I’m saying, UC actually might be completely making up their numbers. Is it plausible that UC-Berkeley might have 99% of their students in the top 10% of their class? Maybe.</p>
<p>But UC-San Diego claims the same. That raises a red flag. I know they weight Class Rank highly, but really 99% at both schools? I call BS and I believe I’ve previously read that those numbers are only estimates, and they don’t have actual numbers (AKA, there are X students on campus, and 99X/100 students are in the top 10% of their class) to back up their estimates.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m wrong, and someone can post that data. But until then, I’ll stand by what I’m saying.</p>
<p>Well…the UCs are supposed to take students from the top 12% of California students…at least that is how it was…maybe the UCs changed this for the students matriculating this fall…and if they did ?.the standards were tightened…I’ll leave it up to you…if that makes it more likely that Berkeley takes 99% top 10% students…</p>
<p>By the way…did you see the grades incoming freshman Berkeley students achieved in high
school?</p>
<p>MSauce, oh my…you win the award…I can’t attack you for the next month or so…ha!</p>
<p>yes, Notre Dame specifically tells its prospective students to send in both the SAT and ACT scores. They highly recommend this. Yet, Notre Dame only reports a number of SAT and ACT scores that add up to 100% of the students, implying that NONE of the students turned in both scores. Yet, a quick check that I did in the CC Notre Dame message board showed several that turned in both. Several colleges do this, but not as agressively as ND:</p>
<p>ND percent of incoming freshmen who submitted scores:
SAT - 48%
ACT - 52%</p>
<p>now, on the UC Berkeley/UCSD reporting 99% of students in top 10% of class, remember that some universties only have something like 35% of their students report their class rank.</p>
<p>by the way, I understand the the ACT is a Midwestern thingy, so here are the figures for Northwestern University:</p>
<p>Northwestern percent of incoming freshmen who submitted scores:
SAT - 80%
ACT - 54%</p>
<p>so my guess is that Notre Dame is failing to report the lowest 20-30% of its entering class SAT scores. You would be amazed at how good your university would look on paper if you didn’t report the lowest 30% of the incoming class’ SAT scores.</p>