<p>I’m sorry if I started this silliness, but it’s fun to watch!</p>
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Translation: I have no ability to come up with a rebuttal, so I will ignore those points.</p>
<p>Predictably, I am not the only one to have wondered about this disparity. Here’s an opinion piece complaining about the same phenomenon at Michigan:</p>
<p>[The</a> real reason you didn’t win a Rhodes scholarship | The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/content/real-reason-you-didnt-win-rhodes-scholarship]The”>The real reason you didn't win a Rhodes scholarship)</p>
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I noticed that you picked the ONLY engineers at Berkeley with a similar average salary to those at Mudd.</p>
<p>Interestingly, only 40% of those included in that average salary at Mudd are engineers. The rest are scientists, who typically earn a lot less than engineers!</p>
<p>
Yes, they certainly are. I brought in Mudd because I can directly compare its salary data to that at Berkeley, which unfortunately I cannot do with Pomona.</p>
<p>You would have us believe that a classics major would make more coming out of Berkeley than Pomona. I have severe difficulty accepting this – especially after looking over the career data at Berkeley for its recent classics graduates. Annoyingly, however, I admittedly cannot prove otherwise. </p>
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Or if one plans to attend graduate school.</p>
<p>A supposed lack of research opportunities does not seem to hurt LAC applicants. At Caltech, which has detailed commencement data, Berkeley had exactly twice as many graduates as Pomona, despite being more than 17x its size. Thus we have two possibilities:</p>
<p>1) People at Caltech are stupid and admitting students they shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>2) Students at LACs in general and the Claremont colleges specifically are perfectly good for providing a good science education and research background.</p>
<p>Option #1 would be highly amusing but unfortunately unlikely.</p>
<p>IBClass, I’m cool with you but I think you don’t get it. Only about 50+ slots are awarded for Rhodes. That’s not a good basis. That’s like winning a price in a lottery. Harvard, for example, sends 3 or 4 students to Rhodes a year. If Harvard is that good, then all the 50+ slots for Rhodes would have been filled in by Harvard grads. Now that Harvard doesn’t do that, would we call Harvard so-so? No. </p>
<p>
I said give me a detailed data for Mudd. I checked out the links you provided and the Mudd data were misleading. I want to know how many graduates were asked and the breakdown of the data?</p>
<p>At Berkeley, for example, 52 comsci grads responded and registered an average salary of $75,520. That’s almost twice as many respondents of the whole Caltech grads, which has 37 only. I am not 100% sure about this, but I suspect very strongly that the Mudd respondents were nitpicked as well. That’s why if you want to argue with this vigorously, show me the detailed data for Mudd. Otherwise, I would stick to my belief that the Mudd data have no credibility whatsoever = misleading.</p>
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What are you talking about? Do you seriously think that everyone at Berkeley would pursue master’s or doctorate? And for those that would pursue grad school, is everyone aiming for Caltech? Berkeley grad programs are arguable superior to Caltech’s. Why would Berkeley science and engineering grads all aim for Caltech??? It does not make any sense at all.</p>
<p>RML, I think we must agree to disagree – it really is getting annoying have to argue from the perspective of a LAC, particularly since both my undergrad and grad education have taken place at universities (I have already insulted one of my academic homes, in fact :eek:). </p>
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Oh, it’s all good. At the end of the day, we all know Berkeley and Pomona are both highly respected institutions, and one could hardly go wrong at either. It’s a matter of taste.</p>
<p>I’m just playing a bit of a devil’s advocate. For my field (classics), Berkeley is virtually without peer among any LAC or university. I eagerly recommend the department to any prospective undergrad with the ability to cover the costs of attendance.</p>
<p>^ Fair enough. </p>
<p>Again, I think Pomona is a good school. But to say that OOS must all head for Pomona than Berkeley because Berkeley is just a state university and Pomona is a special LAC is just downright wrong.</p>
<p>IBClass, the Rhodes is not a very good indicator of academic excellence. For certain, any university that produced a lot of Rhodes Scholars is going to be good, but schools like Cal, Cornell, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn have never done well with the Rhodes process, winning between 20 and 27 Rhodes each in the awards 115 year history. Given their size and stature as top 10-15 universities in the nation, that’s a very poor showing indeed. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, no university other than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the USMA and Stanford has won more than 60 Rhodes in 115 years. Once you leave the top 10 winners, the number of Rhodes per institution drops below 40. That’s once every three years. </p>
<p>But the awards are given out randomly and historically, some universities have done unusually well whereas others have done unusually bad. Williams, Reed and Swarthmore have each had more Rhodes than Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn, universities 6-12 times larger. Hell, the University of Montana and the University of West Virginia have each produced more Rhodes winners than Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn. Here’s the exact number for each of those schools in descending order:</p>
<p>Cornell: 27
Columbia: 26
Michigan: 25
Cal: 22
Penn: 19
Northwestern: 15</p>
<p>Some large and excellent private universities, like NYU (5 winners) and USC (8 winners) do even worse. And there are some surprises at top colleges like Tufts (4 winners), Boston College (2 winners) and Claremont McKenna (2 winners). Clearly, the Rhodes is not a very telling statistic. That is to be expected given the fact that only 32 are handed out annually. The Fullbright is a much better indicator of academic excellence, but even then, only one of many pieces of the puzzle.</p>
<p>The man who wrote the article for the Michigan Daily was being a typical American Journalist…in other words, interested in glamour, not in fact. His entire arguement has more holes in it than a huge chunk of Swiss cheese. Then again, as a Michigan alum I can tell you that the Daily is more of a divertisement than anything else. They advertise for Deja Vu, our local Strip Club. For a better sample of journalistic excellence, the Michigan Review provides far better material, albeit conservative in nature. </p>
<p><a href=“Office of the American Secretary | The Rhodes Scholarships”>http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/PDF/2009/Institutions_for_Website_7_30_09.pdf</a></p>
<p>
With the exception of a few specific programs, academics at UCs exceed most offerings at a lot of the colleges you mention.</p>
<p>^^Academic offerings at Cal exceed those of nearly every other US college, including some at Harvard, but I still don’t believe UC is worth $50k OOS for most disciplines. Just not a good value again, IMO. (And neither is Oxy, for that matter, at full pay. But then that level of private college also offers merit money, discounting the costs…)</p>
<p>With the exception of internationals, practically every other student on cc has an instate public at less than half – if not a lot more less – of the cost for UC OOS. Indeed, with the numbers to get into Cal, the instate publics can approach ‘free’. For example, free at ASU/UA vs. $50k at Cal, or heavily discounted at Wisconsin/THE Ohio State vs. $50k (and climbing) at Cal…</p>
<p>A degree from Cal’s top-ranked English department (or number two or number three if you count H&Y), will still leave most graduates unemployed at 22. Why shell out that kinda money to have a “prestigious” piece of parchment paper and to be unemployed? The same student could attend 'Zona, graduate with zero debt and $200k in the bank.</p>
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Neither are Harvard, Yale, Oxy, Pomona, Santa Clara, Pepperdine or Timbuktu worth $50k for most disciplines.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale > UC</p>
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</p>
<p>I am not usually one to defend huge state conglomerates, but has it ever occurred to you that USC attracts much richer students to begin with? It didn’t earn the nickname “University of Spoiled Children” for nothing.</p>
<p>Among the “public ivies,” Berkeley and UCLA are arguably the two most socio-economically diverse. So basically, you’re trying to use one of their best attributes against them.</p>
<p>Not really IBClass, Cal, USC and UCLA all have 33,000-38,000 students and roughly equally large alumni bases. As of right now, Cal and USC have 12 billionaires each while UCLA has 11. They are all roughly equal on that count.</p>
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</p>
<p>And don’t forget that the Rhodes competition is regional (US = 16 districts). A Californian attending Harvard (or Yale or Princeton) will most likely compete against the California residents attending Cal and UCLA (and Stanford). Ditto Michigan residents attending HYP. Obviously, the well-endowed college will have the resources to strengthen its applications. Bill Clinton used to joke that his Arkansas residency gave him a big boost.</p>
<p>
Then I suggest doing an update. My source was one of your threads. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/471140-billionaires-according-alma-matter.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/471140-billionaires-according-alma-matter.html</a></p>
<p>My D turned down Berkeley as an instate student and attended Pomona as a full pay student. Absolutely no regrets, the academics, student life, peer networking have been priceless. We would do it again.
RML knows nothing about Pomona’s prestige. It is more well-known outside of CA, especially in the NE where people are more familiar with LACs. My D was employed by a DC firm when she graduated and all the higher ups knew of Pomona’s excellence. In DC, most college grads she encountered knew Pomona as an excellent school. </p>
<p>There were several Pomona students she knew who turned down Stanford as OOS students. Among them is the son of a Nobel Laureate in economics who subsequently sent his younger daughter there as well.</p>
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</p>
<p>In 2007 a record 24 Pomona seniors plus several alums were awarded research grants or English Teaching Assistantships through the Fulbright process. </p>
<p>RML has made his focus here in CC lauding Berkeley over everything else, but admits he hasn’t even attended that school.</p>
<p>Yes, familiar with Pomona, it tends to make me think of the consortium like Amherst/Smithe, etc. on east coast. Some of the schools are on small size. Tend to like mid sized…high school is around 4,000. thus, thinking more along the lines of Stanford and USC.</p>
<p>^ USC is more than twice the size (student pop.) of Stanford.</p>
<p>Thanks…I know it is larger. Just probably prefer that to schools that are small 1000-2000…some schools are too large, and you don’t get to know a professor can be a problem. Don’t know all the UCs, but they are probably large (like some in Florida)…when they hit 40,000+ Only was looking at a few larger, non-public, schools out in CA.</p>
<p>“Then I suggest doing an update. My source was one of your threads.”</p>
<p>IBClass, my figures in post #72 are consistant with my previous thread on Billionaires. This said, I definitely should take a look at the figures again. I am sure some of those people are no longer billionaires! hehe!</p>
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</p>
<p>Of course you will defend Pomona because your daughter went there. But reality check. Pomona is not as prestigious as Berkeley, more so, Stanford. So no matter how hard you will defend it, you will never win in this argument even if you will destroy me on CC (which is a cheap move, tbh). This is true even for High School Counselors across America: </p>
<p>Berkeley - 4.7
Pomona - 4.6
[Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-counselor-rank]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-counselor-rank)
[Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/libarts-counselor-rank]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/libarts-counselor-rank)</p>
<p>And, more importantly, Berkeley grads make more money than Pomona grads do. If Pomona is that good as what you said it is, then it would have been a target school amongst the top employers. But reality check. Their grads’ salary fail in comparison to Berkeley grads. [Best</a> Schools in California By Salary Potential](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/best-schools-in-california.asp]Best”>Best Colleges in California | Payscale)</p>
<p>Having said that, I don’t think Pomona isn’t a good school. I think it is a very good school. But I don’t think it is as prestigious as Berkeley, as a whole. So if you think prestige isn’t all that important for you, then Pomona would be a good alternative for Berkeley. But I don’t see why people must put Pomona above Berkeley in their list of top schools unless they love Pomona, they have an association with Pomona and they prefer a small-size student body.</p>