What do you like about Cal?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
21

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Yet this is not the case. You'd think if the Dean of a college loves Berkeley, the adcoms would love Berkeley students.

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<p>Why? You think a student should get the benefit of a doubt just because of the undergraduate institution s/he came from? Maybe you think this, but I'm betting most people are smarter than that, especially with something as important as admissions.</p>

<p>The only conclusion you can possibly deduce from your claims (namely, that Berkeley students of equal GPA to students of less prestigious schools are accepted less often) is that Berkeley students with GPAs equal to those of less prestigious schools are simply worse students overall (on average). You're taking this simple idea and stretching it to support your claim that Deans judge Berkeley solely on its graduate programs (which you have all of no support for).</p>

<p>Further, you don't even begin to investigate mitigating factors, such as the fact that Berkeley's undergraduate size is significantly larger than most "less prestigious" schools (than most schools period, I should say) and has lower standards for admission, resulting in more Berkeley applicants than are qualified for certain positions, lowering acceptance rates. I don't know the extent of any of these effects, but since you're the one making spurious claims, it's up to you to defend them by investigating and reporting on mitigating factors (and if you find none, then you might have a point).</p>

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<p>ShiboingBoing, you demonstrate either ignorance or stupidity once again. You say the philosophy major is inflated, probably based off hearsay and the one class you took in the major. It is, in fact, far from it. You also speak as if philosophy distorts one's view of the world and impedes in understanding. On the contrary, it makes understanding easier, the world more clear. It allows people to see through unsubstantiated dogmatism (ie much of what you say on cc). I'm waiting for the intellectually superior philosophy majors to put you in your place at Columbia Law. I hope each and every lawyer you meet that happens to be a philosophy major is better than you are. Hopefully the English majors also give you a run for your money. : )</p>

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Peer assessment is 25% of the score.

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<p>Yes, for US News specifically. Perhaps you’re talking about other ratings? You are unclear, shiboingboing, often discussing concepts you don’t mention, such as when you repeatedly talked about how Stanford would be cheaper for you than Berkeley without mentioning anything about your financial situation. Be more explicit so as to allow us more ease in understanding you.</p>

<p>You say deans. I’m not sure what you mean by that, but the text says “presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions (or equivalent positions).” If that is what you mean by deans, fine.</p>

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If Berkeley's prestigious programs were really as reknowned as the peer assessment seems to predict, then you would see Berkeley students with similar gpa's get into graduate and professional programs at top schools.

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<p>I don’t think US News and World Report is perfect or close to it, but you’re really off the mark here, about as much as the publication is. Nowhere does it say that they’re asking admissions people at the graduate or professional programs what they think. This is a problem and I think they should, but this does not seem to indicate that they do. The people asked are “the presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions (or equivalent positions) at institutions in the school's category.” Additionally, there are more factors other than just GPA that determine acceptance at graduate and professional schools. Also, the issue is not whether Berkeley’s programs are as “renowned” (not reknowned) as they are said to be. The university is, indeed, one of the most famous in the world. However, we’re talking about quality, even though you mistakenly mention a word about fame. </p>

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In many cases, in proportional terms and in many cases absolute terms, students from lower ranked schools than Berkeley, in terms of prestige, are more likely to get accepted from "less prestigious" schools.

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<p>Could you demonstrate what you’re trying to say, perhaps also rephrasing it in understandable terms?</p>

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Indeed, it is fairly logical to assume an attending student to expect that since Berkeley is an academically prestigious school it would make them more competitive than students from less prestigious schools when moving up the academic food chain to graduate and professional schools.

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<p>It does not do this? Is attending Cal State Bakersfield a more ideal choice? You don’t think that Berkeley has one of the best names (easily in the top 50 schools out of about 3000) and connections if you get to know professors (some of the best in the world) in the nation, and that while there may be schools which help students more in the academic food chain in various ways, Berkeley has tremendous potential here?</p>

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But that is not the case. It is an inflated number soley attributed to the reputataion of Berkeley's graduate programs.

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<p>You didn’t even make an arugment- you just repeated your position. Is this not true of other schools? Are other’s numbers inflated for various reasons other than graduate programs as well?</p>

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If you were to get rid of Berkeley's unrealistically high academic reputation score (given by people who are irrelevant to a berkeley graduate's continuing academic prospects), Berkeley's ranking would plummet commisserate to its much poorer showing in terms of faculty resources, and other factors in USNews' survey.

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<p>But shiboingboing, if people misjudge Berkeley based on its graduate programs, is that not true of other schools? Does the reputation of the graduate programs at UCLA and U Mich and Harvard and Stanford not also influence how people see those schools? Maybe Berkeley’s graduate programs affect how people view it, but not other schools? Well, that seems a bit absurd, wouldn’t you say? How would Berkeley be special in that regard? Perhaps you think that is the case, and that it influences their views of Berkeley more so than others. If that is so, it’s the difference in influence significant? Perhaps you think it’s the case, but that their undergraduate programs are better than Berkeley’s anyways, or that certain programs are just as good as rated even if the reason they’re rated as they are is due to the graduate programs. In that case, it seems that you’re saying the only thing that matters is basically people who view things in the way that you do, and that peer assessment doesn’t matter, but only your opinion of the schools. That it doesn’t really matter if graduate programs interfere how some schools are viewed- that Berkeley is somehow special. </p>

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Berkeley should probably be ranked around 30th or so. I would daresay even UCLA is a better school because its placement rate into post-graduate programs is about the same as Berkeley yet offers an honors program where the academic environment would move it up in ranking (were USNews to consider the honors system alone separate from the overall school).

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<p>Do you even know anything about UCLA’s honors program?</p>

<p>Citan, no need to be envious for whatever reasons that you are. Stop spreading hatred and envy.</p>

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<p>tokenadult, sorry about hijacking this thread. One thing I like about Cal is that ShiboingBoing/CollegeSenior/LiberalCensors/etc is no longer going to be there (as he often seems unwilling to be reasonable and polite). :)</p>

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<p>"Citan, no need to be envious for whatever reasons that you are. Stop spreading hatred and envy."</p>

<p>envious about what? it seems like you have gone over your head on the whole Cal=prestige thing. Why dont you come down to earth?</p>

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<p>Citan if you dislike Berkeley, why did you apply there in the first place? Or it wasn't until after you were rejected from Berkeley that you began to troll here?</p>

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<p>Citan, I'm really not sure what you're envious about, but it seems to be something that bothers you. Anyway, when looking througout the world, it's quite easy to see that people look at Berkeley as one of the best schools in the world. I guess if someone holds the view, that the world thinks Berkeley is one of the best schools, then they have a big head, and they also must share that view about Berkeley?</p>

27

<p>I don't need to be understood and I don't need to expose myself to further pointless ad hominem attacks by should considering the "prestige" of the school. Berkeley students. My lack of politeness is somethign I've learned from my former Berkeley peers both at the school and on this site. I cut to the point; most of you just can't deal with that.</p>

<p>The simplest test of Berkeley's prestige is to see whether Berkeley students with similar stats get in with the same rate to top programs. Using the only information available (since Berkeley likes to withhold information from students), they obviously do not according to career.berkeley.edu or enlistment rolls for top grad programs.</p>

<p>Berkeley does better in comparison to no-name universities, but it certainly fairs no better than schools with lesser academic reputations.</p>

<p>Now the deduction eudean makes is a possible one from the data, but without more specific data, it is almost impossible to deduce that. </p>

<p>In general, Berkeley's "prestige" rating on USNews does seem quite inflated and makes no sense considering the poor placement prospects of most Berkeley students. </p>

<p>Eudean has a point with other factors playing a factor we can't deduce too but since Berkeley itself refuses to release such information, we can only speculate from the data we have available: Berkeley students don't do as well as they</p>

<p>My point that Berkeley's grad program probably inflates its undergrad ranking has been reinforced by anecdotal evidence from friends at top schools and a few adcoms I talked too as well. Though Berkeley might raise a few eyebrows among the general population, it does not do so for top employers and schools, especially witout a technical degree.</p>

<p>The simplest way of proving this is just going out and asking employers and people at top adcoms what they think of Berkeley. In general, the people I've found to admire Berkeley the most are people who have not had experience with Berkeley grads. Not suprising considering Berkeley is only a public school with an inflated brand name.</p>

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<p>It seems like a lot of threads on this forum turn into arguments.</p>

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I don't need to be understood

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<p>You’re right, I know this is just a vent for your feelings, but you could make it more worthwhile if people understand you.</p>

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My lack of politeness is somethign I've learned from my former Berkeley peers both at the school and on this site. I cut to the point; most of you just can't deal with that.

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<p>The point is your arguments are neither valid nor sound. Your reasoning doesn’t make sense and many of your premises aren’t true. I have a feeling you had little politeness to begin with, but your politeness or lack thereof isn't relevant here- your arguments are, and they are often problematic.</p>

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Using the only information available (since Berkeley likes to withhold information from students), they obviously do not according to career.berkeley.edu or enlistment rolls for top grad programs.

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<p>You pretend as if the relevant information doesn’t have to be released by students. Berkeley isn’t preventing students from accessing information- the students legally have to release it. If they don’t, Berkeley cannot legally show it.</p>

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Berkeley does better in comparison to no-name universities, but it certainly fairs no better than schools with lesser academic reputations.

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<p>Could you define what you’re talking about here? Which universities are no-name universities? UCR and UCSC fair as well as Berkeley? I just don’t believe it.</p>

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My point that Berkeley's grad program probably inflates its undergrad ranking has been reinforced by anecdotal evidence from friends at top schools and a few adcoms I talked too as well.

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<p>Wait, this wasn’t your point. This makes sense. Your point was that the peer assessment rankings on the US News survey and more broadly Berkeley’s good name is essentially entirely based on its graduate programs. That’s a bit of a different point from Berkeley’s graduate programs influence perception of the school for the better. Do you see how the former is far more extreme than the latter?</p>

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Though Berkeley might raise a few eyebrows among the general population, it does not do so for top employers and schools,

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<p>Yeah, those top students at Berkeley sure don’t get into the top programs . . . wait, they do!</p>

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especially witout a technical degree.

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<p>False false false false. How about English?</p>

<p>adamboy87, sadly, they do. Most of those over the past year or so have been from shioboingboing, who is also collegesenior, liberalcensors, and whatever other names he's used, and he has yet to admit who he is! I'm glad few students like him are on campus at Berkeley, or at the very least they don't make their presence known.</p>

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<p>Well to the OP, i enjoy football games, food, environment, and the weather. Berkeley also has many, many groups that you can join. One can find just about everything at Cal.</p>

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Most of those over the past year or so have been from shioboingboing, who is also collegesenior, liberalcensors, and whatever other names he's used, and he has yet to admit who he is!

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<p>He's just a kid with a huge chip on his shoulder, hoping to sow seeds of bitterness at Cal before he goes off to law school, where he will probably be equally disappointed. Unlike some of the real Berkeley critics on this board, he just wants to stir the pot before getting banned by the admin. Then he reenters with a new screen name, stirs the pot, gets banned. Ad nauseum.</p>

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<p>And plus, I have zero connection to Cal, but I do hire recent grads and I can promise you we think Cal grads are great and frequently would prefer them to kids from Ivies and Stanford in Comp Sci. And I even have a daughter at an Ivy so there you go.</p>

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<p>I call blarney on post #20 and post #27. Both posts consist of unsubstantiated personal opinion, which in some key points is contrary to my real-world observation. I have already noted that in east Asia, at least, Berkeley has a GREAT reputation with employers and with people in general. </p>

<p>Thanks to those of you who are keeping your replies on-topic. Remember, the original poster (that would be me :) ) asked "What do you like about Cal?" By the call of the question, anything someone dislikes about Cal is off-topic in this thread. I would expect college-educated young people to have enough reading ability to notice that. </p>

<p>I'll be glad to hear from anyone else what they like about Cal. And I'm still curious about how feasible it is for an out-of-state student to go to Cal.</p>

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<p>I like Berkeley's faculty. They're a pretty accomplished bunch and some, if they like you well enough, might very well become your friends. However, it seems like very few students are driven enough as to "win" that kind of "undergraduate experience" for themselves. But the opportunities are definetly there.</p>

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<p><em>yawn</em> Everyone keeps trying to refute the only evidence we have available for the success of Berkeley students. The simplest way to disprove my claims would be to provide counterfactual evidence yet little seems to be presented. Since everyone opposed to me seems far more "social" than I am, I'm sure you've had friends who've made it to big places since Berkeley is such a great school.</p>

<p>Please tell me about them and their characteristics. I'm willing to bet in 99% of all cases they all had near perfect stats and were probably well above the 50th percentile, stats-wise, for the things they applied for. </p>

<p>For some reason, all the responses I get are mostly ad-hominem attacks and attacks that my claims are completely full-proof. You're right, they aren't fullproof but until you have something better, that's the best information we have.</p>

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<p>
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Eudean has a point with other factors playing a factor we can't deduce too but since Berkeley itself refuses to release such information, we can only speculate from the data we have available: Berkeley students don't do as well as they

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<p>You can't argue from ignorance. Simply because the data isn't public doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. If you want to say your ideas are speculation, that's fine, but don't try to construe it as anything more.</p>

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Everyone keeps trying to refute the only evidence we have available for the success of Berkeley students. The simplest way to disprove my claims would be to provide counterfactual evidence yet little seems to be presented.

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<p>Since you've admitted that you're simply speculating (see above), there's no point in us proving anything. You haven't proven anything yourself. I can speculate you're completely wrong and be just as credible as you, because speculation isn't worth anything without proof.</p>

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The simplest test of Berkeley's prestige is to see whether Berkeley students with similar stats get in with the same rate to top programs.

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<p>You see, the problem is the simplest test isn't always the correct test. You'd need an asterisk the size of the moon at the end of your conclusion because it analyzes one factor without correcting for any mitigating circumstances. You're right, for us couch debaters it's the best data we have and perhaps as thorough a study as we'd care to do, but that doesn't mean it is correct.</p>

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In general, the people I've found to admire Berkeley the most are people who have not had experience with Berkeley grads.

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<p>See, I'm in the EECS department where we regularly have representatives from, for example, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, AMD, Marvell, KLA Tencor, Apple, etc. come to recruit from campus (I'd be remiss to omit Cisco, since I'm interning there now, but only recently). They all have experience with Berkeley grads. They all choose to recruit from Berkeley (and HYPSM, among other colleges). I don't know if there is a better indicator that Cal has a solid educational reputation.</p>

<p>Look, if you can come up with a solid argument, we can talk. Do some actual research if you have a point to prove, otherwise don't bother trying. And don't come in asking us to prove you wrong when you aren't going to bother establishing a credible argument first.</p>

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The simplest way to disprove my claims would be to provide counterfactual evidence yet little seems to be presented.

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<p>How about the fact that Berkeley sends more students to graduate and professional programs than any other school?</p>

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Since everyone opposed to me seems far more "social" than I am, I'm sure you've had friends who've made it to big places since Berkeley is such a great school.

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<p>Well, what's a "big place"? It seems like for you, a "big place" would be working at Goldman Sachs or something. I think you should look beyond that and realize that there are quite a large number of Cal graduates who have gone onto "big places" outside of the political or financial fields. </p>

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For some reason, all the responses I get are mostly ad-hominem attacks

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<p>Well, people tend to respond with ad-himinems because they were attacked in the same manner. You are the one that started it when you said to DRab:: </p>

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Perhaps your grade-inflated philosophy major has made you unable to understand basic statistics and statistical analysis.

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yawn* Everyone keeps trying to refute the only evidence we have available for the success of Berkeley students. The simplest way to disprove my claims would be to provide counterfactual evidence yet little seems to be presented.

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<p>"And so, to put The Washington Monthly College Rankings together, we started with a different assumption about what constitutes the "best" schools. We asked ourselves: What are reasonable indicators of how much a school is benefiting the country? We came up with three: how well it performs as an engine of social mobility (ideally helping the poor to get rich rather than the very rich to get very, very rich), how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research, and how well it promotes an ethic of service to country."</p>

<p>They ranked Berkeley 2nd in the nation, after MIT. </p>

<p>rankings: <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.national.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.national.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>full article: <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegechart.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegechart.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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Hi, everyone, </p>

<p>What do you like about UC Berkeley? I keep seeing Cal mentioned as a good college for subjects some of the guys on my math team are interested in, but we aren't in California so I don't know a lot about the UC system. (I have been to the UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine campuses on business trips over the years.) In particular, what is especially good about Cal compared to other colleges that someone could get into if that applicant is able to get into Cal? </p>

<p>Feel free to tell me (us) about anything that you find appealing about the UC Berkeley experience, inside or outside of class. I'm expecting to hear especially from actual Cal students or recent Cal alumni, not from curious onlookers like myself. What first got you interested in UCB? What was a pleasant surprise after you got there? How many of you are out-of-state students at Cal?

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<p>There are some things that I think are quite good about Cal, and I will be happy to enumerate a few.</p>

<h1>1) Dynamic environment, especially for tech entrepreneurship. The software entrepreneur and essayist Paul Graham once said that Berkeley was one of the few places in the world that was truly conducive to startup tech entrepreneurship, such that if he were to start another tech company, one of the places he would start it would be in the city of Berkeley, just North or South of campus (in addition to various places on the Red Line in Cambridge, Mass, as well as on California or University Avenues in Palo Alto). I would tend to agree with that assessment, although I would add certain places in Boston as well, notably Beacon Hill and perhaps the Allston area west of BU, as well as the Marina District of San Francisco). However, the Berkeley city environment is definitely highly dynamic and entrepreneurial.</h1>

<h1>2) Tremendous grad-program quality. I have yet to meet a single stupid or lazy Berkeley PhD student/alumni, or, for that matter, a single bad Berkeley graduate program. If you can surround yourself primarily with Berkeley graduate students, as certain posters here (notably CalX) seem to have, then you will have a top-notch social experience and network that you can leverage.</h1>

<h1>3) The city and the surrounding area have a lot of things to do. While it's no New York or Los Angeles, it's hard to get bored in Berkeley. San Francisco is easily the most interesting part of the Bay Area, but the East Bay, and specifically the city of Berkeley, is probably #2.</h1>

<p>Now of course UCBerkeley has a number of problems too, which I have discussed in great detail in other threads such that I don't feel that I need to repeat them here. The real question to me is what's your alternative? If you have to pay out-of-state tuition, and you happen to get into one of the top private schools such as HYPSMC, then you may be better off going there instead. A strong case can also be made for preferring one of the top LAC's, especially if you do better in small environments. But I would say that Berkeley is better than most of the alternatives available out there.</p>

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<p>
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"And so, to put The Washington Monthly College Rankings together, we started with a different assumption about what constitutes the "best" schools. We asked ourselves: What are reasonable indicators of how much a school is benefiting the country? We came up with three: how well it performs as an engine of social mobility (ideally helping the poor to get rich rather than the very rich to get very, very rich), how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research, and how well it promotes an ethic of service to country."</p>

<p>They ranked Berkeley 2nd in the nation, after MIT.

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<p>Well, I don't know that this ranking means a whole lot, if I may be frank. I'm sure the ranking is correct in measuring whatever it is designed to measure, but that doesn't mean that people are going to use it as a guide to selecting colleges. I mean, when you rank Harvard #28 and Princeton #43, that's pretty egregious in the sense that I don't think anybody seriously believes that people would prefer UCRiverside (ranked #22) over Harvard or Princeton. </p>

<p>I personally believe that revealed preferences are a far stronger indication of college quality. After all, I think it's safe to say that most students at UCRiverside would prefer to go to Harvard but didn't get in, but very very few students at Harvard would rather be going to UCRiverside but didn't get in. Hence, few if any students seriously believe that Riverside is a 'better' school than Harvard from a preference standpoint. </p>

<p>The Washington Monthly purports to measure colleges based on a larger 'social good' public policy standpoint. But as an individual student, you are not choosing a school based on 'social good' or on public policy, rather you are choosing a school that will help you as an individual. For example, I believe that the greater social good would be served if the country were to greatly expand the community college system, including making one or more years of CC education free of charge (echoing Thomas Friedman). But that doesn't mean that I as an individual would want to go to a community college myself, and I certainly wouldn't turn down Harvard to go to a community college.</p>