<p>Infact, I just reviewed all the people I know personally at Berkeley. And no, they are not impressive. You guys must mean a different kind of Berkeley. Either, I am meeting the wrong people. Also when I talk of the Ivy league, I usually only include Cornell A&S and the engineering school.</p>
<p>I was not suggesting about what people think. I have my own criteria and others have theirs. Each to his or her own. If I meet tons of idiots from a school, no matter what I am going to be less impressed with the school. I like to judge things myself than to use outside information. So, obviously my statement was a personal one.</p>
<p>Then that says more about you rather than what most people think about the Berkeley grads. Most top employers, top academicians and admissions officers at most top grad schools view Berkeley grads as potentially capable as those lower-ranked ivy grads are. And, to be frank with you, that’s what matters, not your opinion.</p>
WHAT??? That’s not how postgrad level operates. admissions to postgrad is on per program basis, example, Cal English vs Stanford English. And, most individual postgrad program at Cal is smaller than those at Stanford. For example, Berkeley postgrad eng’g is smaller than Stanford postgrad engineering. The only reason why Berkeley has a couple of thousand more postgrad students is because Berkeley has many more postgrad programs than Stanford has. Stanford is only more difficult to get into than Berkeley for MBA and law. But for all the rest, they are neck-and-neck.</p>
MBA and law are 2 of the 4 major postgraduate programs! Berkeley doesn’t have a medical school. That’d mean that Stanford basically wins out against Berkeley except in Engineering. -.-</p>
<p>Yes. People outside California generally don’t know anything or have any opinion of any UC school beyond UCLA and Berkeley.</p>
<p>And it’s very California-centric and arrogant to think that they would. Really? Why should they? Do Californians know the differences (and they are quite substantial) between Iowa and Iowa State? UTenn and UKentucky? No; they aren’t relevant to them. So why would the U Cals be relevant elsewhere? </p>
<p>There is this really weird mindset that some Californians have, that the rest of the country somehow looks to them and is really interested in them. Nope.</p>
<p>I’m sure some of the other UC’s are great schools and I hope kids there enjoy their time and have great success. But don’t pretend that they have “reputations” outside California. Life and random cities in California (Davis, Mercer, Riverside, SB - whatever, just names to 99% of people outside the state) are simply not priorities to people elsewhere, and why should they be?</p>
<p>… because UC San Diego is rank #35, both UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara are rank #39, and UC Irvine rank #41 and students usually know at least a bit about schools in that range.</p>
<p>I’d be a liar if I said I weren’t at least somewhat familiar with similarly ranked GeorgiaTech, URochester, Case Western, Rensselaer, UWashington, UTexas- Austin, Penn State U, UWisconsin - Madison, UIllinois Champagne-Urbana, and a slur of even lower ranked universities. </p>
<p>I mean, I took the time to learn about all these mediocre (mostly) East Coast schools! Why shouldn’t they take the time to learn about our mediocre California schools?</p>
<p>EDIT: My point is the view that OOS students should be familiar with the mid-tier UCs is not California-centric in the least. Given that these universities weren’t a part of this homogeneous entity known as the University of California, they would have a degree of national recognition.</p>
<p>Nowhere in these discussions (at least in the past couple of days) do I see any concern about what California’s budget crisis is going to do to the UC schools both practically (i.e. class size and ability to get into the classes you need) and reputation wise. How long will UCLA and Berkeley continue to be “elite” schools when they have to start offering online courses to get students into the classes they need to graduate? And if you are currently deciding on what schools to apply to, shouldn’t what’s going to be happening during the next 4 years at the UC schools be something you consider? My son is a college freshman this year and last year California’s budget cutbacks to UC schools caused us to broaden our search, even though we had always assumed that he would attend a UC school. He’s currently a freshman at the University of Miami, where, with a generous academic scholarship, it costs us less than any UC school. And unlike the UC schools, Miami is climbing in the academic rankings because a strong financial position allows them to continue to work at getting better rather than struggling to keep the doors open. Believe me, I’ve never been one to prefer private schools over public, and as a UCLA alumna I’ve always been a UC supporter. But right now, things don’t look good. There are many great private schools in California and if you target the right ones (for your quals), scholarships are available.</p>
<p>Sorry RML sir, sefago has every right to express his opinion. In fact, I feel he’s completely right. Berkeley students are very chill and I myself have a lot of friends there. But I DO know a lot more intellectual students at Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, UChicago, and Columbia. I don’t know anyone at Brown for some reason…</p>
<p>I do know some people at Berkeley who have rejected Caltech and Yale itself. They are very smart. Right know they’re also regretting their decision.
Even they tell me the undergrads are not really setting off the intellectual vibe. The graduate schools are impressive however.
<p>Interesting discussion. I have wondered the same too since really diving into colleges. I have come across some amazing universities from other states that I had honestly never heard of - some even rank well. </p>
<p>That being said, I’m a native Californian, born and raised. I had never heard of Merced, Irvine, or Davis until I was out of high school. Davis - because a few friends of mine decided to apply. Irvine? I don’t even remember how I heard about that one. Merced, I just learned about this one fairly recently. Riverside I found out about when watching the Real World as a tween (one of the contestants attended). </p>
<p>More familiar with UCSB, in part because of the party rep. </p>
<p>UCLA and Berkley I have heard about all my life. UCSD of course I am familiar with growing up in San Diego.</p>
<p>So there you have it. It’s definitely no surprise to me that UC schools are not given much thought in other parts of the country.</p>
<p>Did you talk to any Berkeley or UCLA students before jumping onto wild conclusions about the severity of the budget cuts? There’s a lot of hype floating around and let me tell you from a first-person experience that they are not a quarter as drastic as you make them out to be.</p>
<p>
You didn’t research colleges in high school? I think you’re the odd one out. Most students at my old high school had the UCs memorized by junior year.</p>
<p>Way back in the day before 6th grade, I will admit the only UCs I’ve heard of were Berkeley and UCLA and I didn’t know about the existence of the UC system. By 8th grade I’m somewhat confident I was aware of Santa Cruz, Irvine, and Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>@SoCalMusicMom I really don’t think the budget crisis will effect the UC’s much…so far I’m only seeing cuts at the CSU and CC levels. Jerry Brown is a strong supporter of the UC system so I don’t think he’ll cut there…If you look at the UC rankings from the past five years, they’ve only gone up. Six UC’s in the top 50!!</p>
<p>The other schools you mentioned are well known because though they may be similarly ranked as lower ranked UCs they are either private or the state’s flagship universities. Berkeley and UCLA are considered the “main” UCs, just like how UT-Austin, PSU, Wisconsin Madison, UIUC are the campuses of the respective public university systems where most of its best resources and faculty are located. </p>
<p>You’ve also got to realize that the division of states is much more concentrated and fragmented on the East Coast, which means more flagship state university campuses. Just think of how when you memorize the capitals of the 50 states, you’re going to end up knowing many more cities on the East Coast because there are more states on the East Coast and each has to have their own capital. Most people don’t realize how enormous a state California is, and a state of equal size on the East Coast would roughly encompass the area of Pennsylvania down to South Carolina or Georgia. A state like this would probably have a public university system with UVA, UNC, and PSU seen as its main campuses and everything else lumped into another category. </p>
<p>So blame the founding colonists on making the East coast states so darned tiny.</p>
<p>Do not go to the UCs. I am from California and given the option of going to UC Berkeley or UCLA, I would choose USC every time. There are three key reasons why going to the UCs is a bad idea.
Until you get to the upper echelons of study, your classes will be jam packed.
Signing up for classes is a pain in the ass. I was told that getting into prerequisite classes alone was cutthroat. People who signed up for level 1 chem were SOL after 20 or 30 minutes in the system.
It’s difficult to anticipate how the UCs will figure into the economic landscape. Will California salvage the UCs, will there be a new tuition fee, will the state contract the colleges like Cameron is doing in the UK? Who knows. </p>
<p>Apply to lots of places to try and hedge your bet. Obviously if money is a big issue to you and you are a Cal citizen, the UCs are solid (I guess…). </p>
<p>Also, maybe this is just my school, but a lot of people tend to think of Davis and Irvine as the bad safeties that people end up at when they don’t get into Berkeley/LA.</p>
<p>Statements like this bother me. It’s either Berkeley is worth it or not. There shouldn’t be a shade of gray. It’s either block or white. Price is immaterial when it comes to education. if the school offers quality education, its worth the bucks. if not, it’s not worth a single penny; don’t go to Berkeley even if it’s cheap. </p>
<p>Having said that, this is USC’s figures according to Forbes’ payscale.</p>
<p>University of Southern California (USC)
$50,300 - STARTING MEDIAN
$99,400 - MID-CAREER MEDIAN PAY</p>
<p>If you’re really the type of person who values what you’ve paid for, you should value the return of your investment. In such case, Berkeley would be a better investment that is USC.</p>
<p>^ i think you’re paying too much attention to the sticker price. i finished at USC paying less than $5,000 a year and only have around 12k loans. on the other hand if i would have gone to UCLA or Berkeley (from out of state) i would have had to pay 40k+ annually with zero finaid (outside of maybe gigantic loans).</p>
<p>^ Good for you. But not all USC students pay 5k for their undergraduate education. So, your case was a case-to-case basis. If USC charges that low, I would probably rally for a USC education, but the truth is, it’s not 5k for everyone. Only to a select few. But that was not my issue here. My issue in this argument was, whether USC is a better deal than Berkeley for OOS. I’d say, generally, NO.</p>
<p>Generally, your three points have more truth at the top, descending downward to lesser truth (hopefully) because if the state “scrap heaps” UC, the state will be in deep trouble.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So because of UC’s importance, I’ll address point 3:</p>
<p>‘Will California salvage the UCs’?</p>
<p>If California doesn’t want to fall into fourth-world status, a barren wasteland, then it has do something.</p>
<p>If CA doesn’t ‘salvage’ CSU and UC, then there will effectively no teachers to teach, or general business people, accountants, etc…CSU; and there will be effectively no doctors, dentists, pharmaicsts, nurses; attys, judges, public advocates; commerce people, executives, financiers; civic and state political leaders; nobelists, professors…UC. </p>
<p>The private universities in CA wouldnt be able to go it alone as a group. If the state becomes a wasteland, then theyll be severely affected too. One doesnt see a lot of great private schools in economically depressed regions of the US.</p>
<p>The answer may be privatizing Cal and UCLA, reducing both their enrollment, and rolling back tuition for the rest of Ucs, to effectively reduce the state burden on undergrad education in CA. I dont know what can be done to the CSUs because the $6,000/year is already too high for a sytstem that produces the bulk of teachers in CA and for a system that is so large, with most of the grads only essentially wanting a four-year degree.</p>
<p>I think Cal and UCLA are doing pretty well, esp Cal, in increasing non-resident enrollment to keep their undergrad programs pretty strong. In the present system, its up the the rest of the UCs to pull their weight wrt non-residents to help their programs.</p>
<p>And the state is in a quandary wrt UC. Should it open up non-resident enrollment forsaking state residents because state funding for undergrads is not as strong, maybe even lowering the cost of non-resident fees somewhere between cost and present markup, leaving each UC to fend for itself, including having more oos alumni groups to give scholarships, say, the UCLA Club of NY…, or should it go all out in funding UC regardless of costs as an long-term investment to get the state back on track? </p>
<p>These are difficult things… and I guess Im glad Im not a state politician. I dont see anyone with great foresight who would be good state leaders either.</p>