<p>RML, with your super mega ultra elite degrees from Berkeley and Cambridge, I’m sure you realize that with 14 variables arbitrarily weighted, you can pretty much create any ordering of top schools that you want. If you wanted the ordering to be HYPSM first and then Berkeley soon after, you could easily assign weights to accomplish that (well done on that count). If you wanted Darmouth, Yale, Princeton, Caltech first and michigan last, you could choose different weights and pull that off as well.</p>
<p>When you have such clear biases, pretending your ranking is anything but an opinion, is laughable.</p>
<p>Like I said, selectivity alone is not an indicator of school prestige or academic quality.</p>
<p>
Again, I did not attend Berkeley. I applied there years ago but wasn’t lucky. </p>
<p>If you want to “manipulate” the criteria, do it. Let’s see how far down you can drag Berkeley with that enviousness (or hate) you have to the school. My criteria are acceptable to many. The assigning of weights are debatable but acceptable. If you can’t accept the second table I made, what about the first table? that was only the result of the combination of all 4 major league tables that publish regularly.</p>
<p>^ The four “league tables” you cite, are they even considered somewhat reasonable/reputable and/or relevant to the discussion at hand? </p>
<p>I’ve heard many people say the Forbes ranking is utter idiocy and after a quick glance at their methodology, I can’t say that I disagree. The most influential factor, “student satisfaction”, accounts for 27.5% of the score, and 60% of that factor is based off of Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com. Really? Student Debt accounts for 17.5% of the ranking, and I fail to see its relevance in comparing academic prestige/quality of the schools. Then there’s 10% devoted to “alumni listed in the Who’s Who of America List”, why not also have 5% devoted to “alumni listed on Jersey13’s favorite singers list”? </p>
<p>For the ASU pdf on Top American Research Unis, just from the title, it’s ranking schools based off of research, which happens to be done mainly by profs and grad students. I don’t understand how this ranking is at all relevant if we are discussing prestige/academic strength of a school at the undergraduate level. </p>
<p>Then you have the Washington Monthly College Rankings, which are perhaps the most ridiculous ones I’ve seen yet. The three criteria are recruiting/graduating of low-income students (how does this affect prestige/academic strength?), research (barely applicable to undergraduates), and service/encouraging students to give back to their country (???). This list is even worse than the Forbes one if we are truly attempting to discuss prestige/selectivity/academic strength of the undergraduate portion of the school. I don’t think any of the three criteria in the Washington Monthly College Rankings even pertain to any of the aforementioned aspects that we are attempting to discuss. </p>
<p>So of the 4 “most popular” league tables you use, 3 are essentially irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and the rankings which you have constructed don’t really hold any value in the context of the OP’s question either.</p>
<p>^ I did not favor one particular league table, as you’ve noticed. So, to strike a balance, I assigned equal weight to all the 4 major league tables.</p>
<p>
that is your own personal opinion. For some people, those 3 are relevant criteria for them. For you, they’re not. So, again, to balance out everything, and just so we can remove biases, I assigned equal weight to all the 4 ranking/league tables.</p>
<p>Just to be completely objective here, we ought to take into account the intrinsic superiority of schools whose names start with the letter P and add 20 points to those schools’ overall ratings out of 100 (Penn doesn’t count though; they’ll always be UPenn ;))</p>
<p>“Just to be completely objective here, we ought to take into account the intrinsic superiority of schools whose names start with the letter P and add 20 points to those schools’ overall ratings out of 100 (Penn doesn’t count though; they’ll always be UPenn)”</p>
<p>Well, if that’s the case, the 20 points added to the school’s overall ranking would be the 20 points knocked off of your deflated grade at Princeton.</p>
<p>1_ Berkeley isn’t that prestigious. It’s so common to find so many people who have gotten in. This means its not as exclusive. I’m from a strict Asian family. EVERY cousin/brother/sister that has applied has gotten in so far. Criteria in selection is a joke as well. Unlike Ivies+Top Privates, which select well rounded applicants, Berkeley is number driven. </p>
<p>2_ Berkeley’s a sinking ship. Its budget cuts are taking significant toll. It’s only going to get worse because of California’s increasing debt and poor economy</p>
<p>3_ Berkeley campus is ugly</p>
<p>4_ Student quality is terrible. I can personally attest to this. The grads from its undergrad program I’ve met weren’t as bright. SAT scores are too low. High GPA usually comes from low quality schools.</p>
<p>5_ Berkeley has been living off of its reputation it’s garnered 50 years ago. It’s only positive thing is that its associated with many Nobel Laurettes. Presently it has been doing well at all.</p>
<p>6_ It’s a fact that even people in China are aware of. I can personally attest to this: Berkeley is only good for its GRADUATE schools. Not undergrad. Hence it doesn’t belong in Tier 2 which consists of Caltech, Columbia, Duke, Penn, UChicago, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell and Northwestern. </p>
<p>Schools like JHU, UVA, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Rice I consider a little step below tier 2. They deserve their own tier 3. Berkeley probably belongs here.</p>
<p>Berkeley faculty also currently includes 3 Fields Medal winners and 4 Wolf Prize winners.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Berkeley is still the most selective large public university for undergrad.</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley’s undergrad programs are highly ranked by USNWR: Business #2, Engineering #3.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, Berkeley is having some financial problems like a lot of universities are currently.<br>
No, Berkeley is not riding on its reputation of 50 years ago.</p>
I’m not arguing that you favored any particular table. I’m saying that none of the criteria in any of the last 3 tables are even pertinent to the discussion at hand. </p>
<p>
No it’s not my personal opinion. Please tell me how any of the criteria in the Washington Monthly Rankings are relevant to a discussion about undergraduate prestige/academic strength. The fact that you deem the criteria of the last 3 rankings relevant to the discussion in this thread is putting bias in to your rankings. Washington Monthly/ASU rankings are not even remotely applicable to our discussion. In case you didn’t know, I’m still a high school senior and don’t have any biases or “loyalties” toward any specific college.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t the most “selective” large public university. UCLA is. 22.69% vs 25.6% acceptance rates. It’s very close, obviously. Unless you’re claiming that “selective” means the stats of the admitted students, in which case Berkeley is a little higher.</p>
<p>I’ll preface this commment by stating that there are reasons that community colleges make sense for many students and they are a common pathway to 4-year colleges (including selective 4-year colleges). Make of this what you will: In 2009/10, there were 2,274 transfers from community colleges to Cal Berkeley.</p>