<p>IMO, rankings are merely a guideline. Choosing a school based on rankings is like choosing a spouse based on People’s most beautiful ranking. Sure, Angelina Jolie may be rated top 10, but when it comes down to it, is she the right person for you? And I’m sure if you were to rate the candidates, you would rate them differently. </p>
<p>For example, I absolutely refuse to spend my academic year trekking through snow and/or scraping ice off of my windshield (been there, done that). Plus have you visited some of the top schools? UPenn (Wharton) is in such a bad neighborhood that there are 3-4 security guards on every corner of the campus. I also dislike living in big cities and commuting to class (read Chicago, Columbia, Stern). For me, I’d take a top 15 Southern school over H/W any day of the week.</p>
<p>Yale has a good brand. However, it’s MBA program is relatively new and hasn’t caught up with Yale’s general reputation yet. It’s definitely behind Duke, Michigan, Haas cluster now but it’s catching up.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with this picture? Should we rename HYPSM to H-“UofC-B”-PSM? There is no way that Cal has a better academic brand name than Yale. It’s not even the strongest brand name in the Bay Area.</p>
<p>the_prestige, in the real world outside of America, there is no such a thing as HYPSM. For example, you put Oxford behind Harvard because you know that HYPSM is only for undergrad thing.</p>
<p>We’re talking about branding here - school brand in particular. Your bias against Berkeley is for undergrad. But outside of California, Berkeley is actually an extremely hard school to get into. Its professional schools are great. Its postgrad schools are some of the very best in the world, or much better than Yale’s for the most part.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think is the list of the top universities in the world:</p>
<p>Elite list:
9. Columbia, Chicago, Cornell, Penn and the like</p>
<p>next group: Michigan, Duke, UCLA, LSE and the like</p>
<p>and so on.</p>
<p>For people who are into physical and biological sciences, engineering, computer science and technology in general, they view Berkeley as a much superior school to Yale, or even Princeton, Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge. In fact, for those people, Yale isn’t a even a target school. Yale is strong for undergrad, law and a few specialties in social sciences and humanities. But that’s just it.</p>
<p>Sorry, but those are five of the best universities in the world (no matter which country we are talking about) which all happen to reside in a country which is home to the most prestigious collection of universities in the world.</p>
<p>OK let’s take personal bias out of the equation for a moment. Let’s talk numbers, and take USNWR as the benchmark. For professional grad schools, its the Big 3 (Medicine, Law and Business) that matter. You can’t cherry pick some obscure astrophysics graduate program that Berkeley ranks highly vs. Yale and then claim that Cal is patently better – that’s totally ridiculous. Let’s stick to the “big boy” programs: undergrad, law, medicine and business.</p>
<p>So let’s compare rankings:</p>
<p>- Undergrad Rank: Yale: 3
Berkeley: 21</p>
<p>- Law School Yale: 1
Berkeley: 6</p>
<p>- Medical School Yale: 6
Berkeley: no medical school</p>
<p>- Business School Berkeley: 7
Yale: 10</p>
<p>So let’s recap. Haas is the only big 3 professional grad program that ranks ahead of Yale its no. 7 vs. no. 10 –> 3 measly spots.</p>
<p>Conversely, Yale is a top 3 ranked undergrad program and absolutely destroys Cal (I mean its outside the Top 20), Yale has the no. 1 law school in the nation and its medical school is ranked no. 6.</p>
<p>I mean who are we kidding here? Yale wipes the floor with Cal.</p>
<p>HYPSM is only for undergrad. There is no such thing as HYPSM for medicine, law, business, engineering, physical sciences and social sciences. Princeton does not have a business school. MIT does not have a medical school as well as a law school. Yale and Harvard both suck in engineering. and so on. In the global arena, Oxford and Cambridge are as strong a brand as Yale. Berkeley and Caltech are also up there at the very top of the heap in the global scene for the most part too. </p>
<p>You chose to pick subjects where Yale is strong. Let me give you subjects where Berkeley would outrank and outperform Yale:</p>
<p>I can go on and on and on to tell you that there are way more programs that Berkeley is superior to Yale but I would just bore you to death.</p>
<p>What you don’t understand the_prestige is that HYPSM is a hype thing only in the US. But when you go outside of the US, there isn’t such a thing anymore. HYPSM is also only for undergrad. When you enter grad, postgrad and professional education, there isn’t HYPSM anymore. That’s a plain and simple fact. Even a 3rd grader student would easily understand that. Why can’t you? Are you telling me that we should all aim for Yale computer science than Berkeley comsci because Yale is HYPSM and Berkeley is not? Are you telling me to go for Yale engineering than Berkeley or Caltech engineering because Yale is HYPSM and neither Berkeley or Caltech is not? That’s crap! </p>
<p>Yale is excellent for law, undergrad and a few humanities programs. But that’s just it. Yale isn’t as strong for business as it is for law. That’s a plain and simple fact. And I wonder why even up to now you cannot understand that. Yale business =/= Yale undergrad or Yale Law. Yale business is just as good as top 15, and so are its other programs. Yale engineering is not even top 20. I cannot understand why you keep telling people that we should all aim for Yale even on programs that it’s not really that strong.</p>
<p>We were discussing academic brand names on a global basis. Just because Princeton doesn’t have a law school doesn’t change the fact that it enjoys a much stronger academic brand name than Cal.</p>
<p>Even a 2nd grader can understand that. Why can’t you?</p>
<p>LoL… that was your argument for Cal not having a medical school. </p>
<p>Now, let me substitute the schools: Just because Berkeley doesn’t have a medical school doesn’t change the fact that it enjoys a much stronger academic brand name than Yale.</p>
<p>Anyway, </p>
<p>are you telling me that Yale’s business is as great as its law school?</p>
<p>this was absolutely not my claim. when did i ever make that case? i simply stated that Cal did not have one, so a proper comparison could not be made.</p>
<p>don’t start lying now. that’s low even for you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>again, when did i ever claim that? </p>
<p>basically, you are claiming that Cal > Yale. I am simply pointing out that where you can make a head-to-head comparison in the major programs, Yale basically beats the living snot out of Cal.</p>
<p>Having lived in both Europe and Asia I can say that Yale carries a stronger brand name than Cal in terms of general population. By that I mean if you ask a random person on the street, they will more likely have heard of Yale.</p>
<p>However, it is a fact that most of Berkeley’s graduate programs are superior to Yale’s and employers in the respective fields will know that. Of course there are also programs where Yale is superior, but on average, Berkeley beats Yale.</p>
<p>The question though is, how is this related to MBA rankings? If you are looking for jobs, employers will most likely look at graduate rankings, thus Berkeley beats Yale.
But if, for example, you are planning to start your own business (or do any other activities that rely heavily on networking), then the stronger Yale brand name and alumni network might carry you further than Cal. You can’t expect other people to have the rankings in their head (If they are not members of this forum that is).</p>
<p>the prestige, I didn’t lie. I have no reason to do that.</p>
<p>
Wait a minute. I won’t say you’re lying now but I don’t think I ever made such a claim. I only refuted to what you’ve said that - as a whole - Yale University is more prestigious than UC Berkeley. I said that one is neither more prestigious than the other. Only Harvard, and to some extent, Oxford, are more prestigious than Berkeley. So that means, Yale is just as prestigious as Berkeley as a whole. People respect Yale for its great undergrad and excellent Law school. But people are more impressed with Berkeley when it comes to computer science, engineering, chemistry and each of every postgrad program it has. So in my opinion, none of your argument - when you use to rely on the “parent” university - can be used to boost either university because both of them are equally prestigious universities. That’s why I have been telling you to keep the comparison between Haas and SOM. In the same way Wharton or Kellogg or Sloan is judged against other business schools. MIT is HYPSM. Penn is not. How come Wharton is a stronger brand than is Sloan? So you see, your argument does not hold true and you’re not accepting that.</p>
<p>Thank you for your post, Thomas. I think your statement is acceptable. In fact, I already assumed that that exact claim would be an excellent marketing campaign when promoting a business school. Actually, that was what I was also told when I got my interview at Oxford-Said. 4 years ago, Oxford said that I must choose it over LBS as it is a stronger university when it comes branding. Oxford seems to rely heavily on the strength of its brand as Oxford is famous. That was 4 years ago, and I almost was sold by it. Four years have passed yet the world - the business world in particular - still view LBS as a stronger business school and its MBA is still a stronger, better MBA program than Oxford’s. </p>
<p>About 10 years ago, Yale invested over half a billion dollars to improve its engineering department. It was said to be Yale’s biggest investment thus far. Yale was confident that it can shoot up its engineering program to Berkeley’s level because it is Yale. (The same argument that the_prestige is using now.) Yet almost 10 years have already past and Yale engineering has not improved an inch. It’s still is what it was before they infused a lot of money into it. In other words, it has already been proven that although you can rely to your famous university name when you’re promoting your department, you CANNOT rely HEAVILY on its name alone. If Wharton did just that, it would not have been Wharton now since UPenn is not as famous as Wharton is. Of course, SOM can tap the parent university resources, but that far as it can go. Haas is also coming up programs that are joint undertaking amongst other colleges. The entre programs at Haas are joint programs amongst engineering, law school and sciences. I’m not sure SOME can maximize its parent university other than its famous name.</p>
<p>**Is Yale University more famous than UC Berkeley? **</p>
<p>Let’s see. </p>
<p>It has been known that Berkeley has more solid academic departments than Yale has. In fact, Berkeley’s graduate education - as a whole - is number one in the world. Yale’s postgrad education - as a whole - does not even make it in the top 5 in America. </p>
<p>When the Saudi government founded a world-class university (now known as KAUST) and invested US10 billion dollars in it, it did not tap Yale, but they did tap Berkeley and paid Berkeley US$28 million dollars for it. [03.05.2008</a> - Berkeley to partner with new Saudi university](<a href=“http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2008/03/05_kaust.shtml]03.05.2008”>03.05.2008 - Berkeley to partner with new Saudi university) Now, if Yale is more famous than Berkeley, why didn’t the multi-billion dollar university tap Yale instead? </p>
<p>There are a multitude of educational partnerships entered into by UC Berkeley and leading universities around that world, or more so than Yale has. </p>
<p>I can go on and on and on to prove it that Berkeley is as much respected as Yale is. I can cite a multitude of resources including league tables and ranking games. I can cite articles and write-ups and even media to prove it that Berkeley is a highly respectable school and is perceived by many people around the world as one of the top schools globally. </p>
<p>Yale is world famous. But to say it is more famous than UC Berkeley is highly debatable. For law education and undergrad, I agree that it carries more name. But other than that, it’s not even in most people’s list.</p>