What do you think are the worlds top 10 universities?

College Search & Selection
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<p>That was a low blow :(</p>

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That honor falls to the Southern Branch. :-)</p>

<p>Correction: The Southern, Southern Branch admits the most transfers:
<a href=“Institutional Research and Academic Planning | UCOP”>http://data.universityofcalifornia.edu/student/admissions/data-tables/Transfer-Applicants-Admits-Enrollees-by-Campus-Fall-1994-2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cambridge</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Oxford</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Imperial College</li>
<li>LSE</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
</ol>

<p>I’m ranking based on international reputation of graduates. Apart from hypms and caltech, no one outside of the us has heard of UChicago/Columbia etc. maybe Berkeley but unlikely.</p>

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<p>Yep, it is nicer to look at all branches (North, South, and others) to evaluate how prestigious the UC system is. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2012/cccsirs_table2.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2012/cccsirs_table2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Out of 29,367 transfer applications, they can only admit 20,841. That 71.0% admission rate is eerily similar to the regular admission rate. As anyone who wants to lift the blinders long enough knows, the admission rate – the percentage of applicants admitted – dropped for the system from 69.7 percent in 2011 to 65.8 percent in 2012.</p>

<p>It is indeed getting rapidly more and more selective. Turning down 1/3 of regular and transfer applicants is the first step to become selective. Double that and the path to become highly selective starts to appear. </p>

<p>/sarcasm</p>

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<p>^ xiggi, the UCs are not all equal. Talking about a full UC admission rate means nothing except to California politicians.</p>

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<p>It is all a matter of perspective. Looking at how many applicants to the entire system are indeed precluded to gain admissions at the system some pretend to still be the very best in the world might represent an objective measure of prestige. </p>

<p>After all, prestige is not only established by the quality of education but by the audience, and both the audience that was admitted and … rejected. Country clubs and fancy organizations remain prestigious not only for whom they admit but also for whom they reject. Fancy cars are prestigious because of the inability for most commoners to acquire one. </p>

<p>Reduced to its bare essence, a system that is democratic enough to turn down fewer than one-third of all applicants is as the antipodes of being prestigious. A system that rounds up its graduating classes with students who did not have the qualifications to enter a selective program in the first place is equally lacking the prestige of its purported peers. Luby’s Cafeterias are not targeting the same crowd than Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. They could put caviar and duck confit on the menu and still be a cafeteria.</p>

<p>Again, it is a matter of individual perspective.</p>

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<p>Again, rankings have criteria, and if the criteria would include (1.) academic strength, (2.) school prestige, (3.) facilities, (4.) research output, (5.) faculty caliber and (6.) student quality, Berkeley would definitely be in the top 9. It always has been ranked in the top 9 until QS changed their criteria since 2 years ago. All the other league tables ranked Berkeley in the top 5 for both overall academic strength and overall school prestige. </p>

<p>Chicago is a great school, I must admit that. But overall, it’s no match to Berkeley. At best, Chicago is just as good as number 10, whilst Berkeley’s overall rank is a solid top 9. Outside of the USA, there is a huge gap that separates Berkeley to Chicago if we’re talking about school prestige.</p>

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<p>RML How to you explain the average VERY LOW SAT scores of the admitted undergrads@ Berkeley as compared to the top schools???</p>

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<p>This is a world ranking not a California ranking. Berkeley may not be as difficult to get into as Stanford for Californians, but it is still a difficult school to get into for most Californians, nonetheless. Furthermore, Berkeley is very difficult to get into for OOS, and is even more so for international students. Remember that this is a world ranking thread, and people in California and outside of America don’t view Berkeley alike. And, even if we say Berkeley is lax for California students, student is just one component that make up a school. Do you think a school can be called a school without faculty and facilities? </p>

<p>And lastly, I am not buying the idea that school selectivity determines school prestige, specially if we’re talking about school prestige in a global scale. Take Amherst and Williams for example. They’re quite selective schools, yet they do not have the brand cache of Berkeley globally.</p>

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<p>What a load of nonsense. The average sat scores of the student body tells you alot about the level of academics at a school. Berkeley is pitifully low as compared to the top schools.</p>

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<p>^ Berkeley also admits a larger cohort of kids than other top privates, so of course the mean average SAT will be lower.</p>

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<p>First of all, Berkeley does not weigh SAT/ACT as much as they do HS GPA. This has been said a lot of times, and I do not understand why you are not understanding it. </p>

<p>For Berkeley, HS GPA is more important than SAT scores, because according to their research, SATs do not prove to be a good indicator of the students’ success in the university. SATs are easily manipulable too. In a small a time as 2 or 3 weeks, your SAT scores can jump over a hundred points, or fall down by as much. On the contrary, it would take 3 years to build an excellent GPA. And, Berkeley also considers the quality of the HS the applicants attended. </p>

<p>Second, Berkeley’s average SAT scores is not “VERY LOW” compared to the top privates. There is a difference, yes, but I would not say the difference is significant as you tried to imply. Here’s Berkeley’s median SATs: <a href=“http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile[/url]”>http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Math - 710
Reading - 690
Writing - 695</p>

<p>Those figures were comparable to Cornell’s: <a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000001.pdf[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000001.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Then you have OOS and International students which generally have about 100 more SAT points - I just don’t know how those points were distributed in those 3 subjects. But Berkeley’s OOS and International students have always had higher stats than in-state students. </p>

<p>And, lastly, Berkeley’s admissions are gradually becoming more and more holistic. Berkeley does not use an algorithm that would automatically admit students based on the highest stats. If that’s so, Berkeley would not have turned down thousands of students who applied with SATs over 2250, yet Berkeley did (and I won’t be surprised if you’re one of them), and I would surmise that many of those students have probably ended up at the top privates, as they basically are SAT-conscious schools.</p>

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And an individual is not getting a degree from the entire UC system, but one campus. Different campuses have different selectivity and prestige. </p>

<p>Since you want to talk restaurants, Daniel Boulud’s flagship Daniel restaurant in NYC and his DBGB Kitchen & Bar report up to the same owner, but are completely different. Just like UC Berkeley is the flagship and completely different from UC Merced.</p>

<p>And some fancy car brands have entry level models…</p>

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<p>For the record I’m a dad of a ED admit to class of 2017 @ UPenn, an actual top school.Your not even close on Berkeley average SAT scores. Berkeley site says avg. score is 2031. High School GPA?? Are you joking. That’s almost worthless. You might get a 4.0 @ school A and @ school B the same student might get a 2.8. Thats why your AP grade is verified against your AP Exam score, and why they have the SAT test.</p>

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<p>^For a father of a very smart child, you speak and construct arguments like an infant.</p>

<p>Berkeley is a massive research university, definitely one of the best in the world. It is more suited to graduate studies than undergraduate studies though. It has 25,000 undergraduates, of course its average SATs are lower than Harvard’s who can cherrypick the top 5000 students it wants. That does not diminish it’s research output or productivity in any way. However it is very different than HYPSM, so I cannot argue the validity one way or another of putting it in one of these top 10 lists. Regardless, Berkeley is well respected internationally.</p>

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<p>It’s obvious:</p>

<p>1) Cobra Kai Dojo
2) Burger King University (BKU)</p>

<p>Small step down</p>

<p>3) Plato’s Academy
4) Cambridge/Oxford
5) Shaolin Temple</p>

<p>Huge step down</p>

<p>6) Starfleet academy
7) Nacho Mama’s Elvis Impersonator School
8) Harvard
9) Hogwart Prep
10) North Korea State</p>

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<p>rebel11, you don’t think Cornell is an actual top school? You’re quite a funny guy. </p>

<p>Yet in spite of your adoration for UPenn, it’s sad that outside of the USA, no one would seriously think that UPenn is a top school and Berkeley is not, or that UPenn is superior to Berkeley. In fact, outside of the US most people think it’s the reverse. </p>

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Berkeley’s site says this: [Student</a> Profile | UC Berkeley Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile]Student”>Student Profile - Office of Undergraduate Admissions)</p>

<p>SAT Math: 650-770
SAT Reading: 620-760
SAT Writing: 640-750</p>

<p>In contrast, here’s UPenn’s: [University</a> of Pennsylvania Admissions: SAT Scores, Financial Aid & More](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegeprofiles/p/penn_profile.htm]University”>University of Pennsylvania: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT, GPA)</p>

<p>SAT Math: 690 / 780
SAT Critical Reading: 660 / 750
SAT Writing: 670 / 770</p>

<p>Yes, there’s a difference and I am not denying that given the comparison of their size, but I don’t think it’s as big as put it out to be. </p>

<p>Now, let me inform you that Berkeley does not superscore SATs like what most privates do, including UPenn and Chicago. And, it was learned that by superscoring SATs, 20 to 40 points are added on each SAT subject. Imagine if Berkeley would do that. It would make the gap even more smaller.</p>

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“Fear does not exist in this dojo, does it?!”</p>

<p>Haha!</p>

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<p>Hey RML, Not sure where u got your stats but Berkeley 25th% CR=600,M=630,WR=610,Total 1840. 75th% CR=730,M=760,WR=740 total =2230 I’m not saying Berkeley isn’t a good school.I am saying that it’s undergrad admissions standards have been watered down. It no longer belongs in the top tier for undergrad. The facts are there for any objective observer to see.</p>

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<p>rebel11, </p>

<p>I’m not sure where you got your stats either, but Berkeley’s stats are easily accessible on the link I’ve provided. It came straight from the horse’s mouth. Here. It’s for everyone to see: [Student</a> Profile | UC Berkeley Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile]Student”>Student Profile - Office of Undergraduate Admissions)</p>