What is UC Berkeley like? - Please answer(:

College Search & Selection
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<p>Well, I don’t know if I would say that they’ll always be a notch below those other schools. I suspect that Chicago and Duke may already be better than Cornell, which is an Ivy.</p>

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<p>I am neither defending nor castigating the Cal or Michigan athletic programs. I am simply stating that they are facts of life. Maybe they should be abolished, maybe they shouldn’t. I am agnostic to that question.</p>

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<p>The question is what percentage of these students exist. </p>

<p>As a case in point, Berkeley also has a top ranked economics department, with numerous Nobel Memorial Prize winners. Yet the fact is, the overwhelming majority of the undergrads are headed to the workforce, with only 12% of them report heading to grad school, and even many of them are not headed for economics grad school, but rather to professional grad school such as law school, B-school, med school, dental school, or ed school. Only a tiny fraction of the econ undergrads are actually headed to economics grad school. And that’s just talking about those students who actually managed to complete the econ major at all - many others surely switched to some other major due to lack of interest (or because they couldn’t even declare the major because of impaction). </p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/Econ.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/Econ.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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I never said that it was and that statement is neither here nor there. </p>

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Your American-centric view of the world is extremely insulting to those of us who are more global-minded. An IIT or Peking U degree will be a lot more revered in Asia than a Yale or a Princeton degree. This is a FACT. As far as the top British universities like Oxford and Cambridge, ONLY Harvard would be considered to be even on par with regards to American universities.</p>

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What in the world are you talking about? The vast majority of students at even the very top universities would not have known more than a handful of the top scholars/professors in any discipline before entering college. I myself only knew a handful like Steven Pinker, Toni Morrison, Cornel West, Robert Lucas, etc. etc. So, if most applicants don’t know who the top faculty are in any given discipline are LET ALONE where they teach, how can we expect the scholarly achievement of the faculty to play a serious role in a possible prestige ranking of universities?</p>

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Students go to HYPSM for several distinct reasons:

  1. brand name/bragging rights
  2. careers/opportunities post-graduation
  3. chance to interact with the smartest people in their age group in the world
  4. need to validate their impressive achievements in high school
  5. family pressure</p>

<p>The strength of the faculty wouldn’t even make the top 10 list of reasons of why people attend HYPSM.</p>

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<p>Sakky, a person’s major doesn’t have to lead to a career. It’s just a student’s interest at the time. </p>

<p>If you don’t use your major in your career, it doesn’t mean that major wasn’t useful. An economics major will help a person have some understanding about the economy, and understanding is a good thing.</p>

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<p>No-Duke wants to be a basketball factory. There is a slight difference.</p>

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<p>Yet whether greater understanding at the undergraduate level is correlated with faculty eminence is questionable. Let’s face it: a strong undergraduate education does not require cutting-edge researchers who are actively publishing in A-level journals. </p>

<p>Consider this rather demoralizing story I heard from a guy I know who is now an assistant professor at MIT. He was specifically warned not to get top teaching ratings in any of the classes he teaches, for it he did, then his tenure committee would wonder why he was spending so much effort on his teaching rather than his research. Similarly, I know another guy who is not an assistant professor at Chicago who was told that the ‘wonderful lure’ of the school as a place to work was that he didn’t have to care much about the quality of his teaching, but could instead devote his efforts to research. The Berkeley math department freely admitted that they would have likely granted tenure to the future Unabomber Ted Kaczynski despite abysmal teaching ratings because his research acumen was so promising. One is far more likely to earn tenure at a top research university as a strong researcher but mediocre teacher than vice versa. </p>

<p>It is therefore unclear as to whether a better understanding is actually obtained by the undergrads at the ‘top-ranked’ departments. I can think of quite a few students who chose majors out of general interest only to be stymied by poor teaching. </p>

<p>Perhaps the best example is that of Caltech: a school notorious for low quality teaching. My brother went to Caltech and majored in one of the top-ranked programs and graduated with honors, yet he freely admits that he and many of the other students often times would never even attend class at all, as they were so poorly taught that they were better off sequestering themselves in their rooms and reading the book. Heck, he would sometimes not attend class for weeks at a time (yet, like I said, he graduated with honors and went to a top graduate school). The value-add of top faculty for the typical undergrad is therefore highly elusive.</p>

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<p>Well… those are 3 anecdotes.</p>

<p>Unclear about the benefits? Fine.</p>

<p>I like being taught by those at the top of their fields. But there are many ways to learn.</p>

<p>Edit: is that 4 anecdotes, now? :)</p>

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<p>Actually, an entire body of literature exists that discusses the correlation between teaching quality and research productivity (or, rather, the lack of correlation). </p>

<p>Here’s just a sample:</p>

<p>*…The call for better quality education by the administration and faculty began in September of 1991 with a highly publicized colloquium, “Teaching Within a Research University,” but enthusiasm and support dwindled rapidly.</p>

<p>Many important issues were raised at the colloquium about the relationship at MIT between research and education, but few were seriously acted upon, leaving the impression that only lip service is being paid to the concept of better teaching while the real emphasis remains on research. It is disturbing and foolish that many members of the faculty and administration have decided to relegate such a fundamental aspect of MIT as undergraduate and graduate education to a low priority…</p>

<p>…For junior faculty, however, working at MIT is still very much a “publish or perish” predicament. Untenured professors must spend a great deal of time on research, often at the expense of teaching classes. One notable example of this is Jeremy M. Wolfe PhD '81, a former associate professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Wolfe received the coveted Baker Foundation Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 1989 and was highly regarded by students for his informative and exciting lectures. The next year, however, he was denied tenure by the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology, apparently because his research was not up to the MIT standard.</p>

<p>…Wolfe’s love for teaching prevailed even over MIT’s rude and self-defeating treatment; he now continues to teach his popular Introduction to Psychology (9.00) course, as a visiting professor. The Baker Award, designed to promote undergraduate education, is now seen by many as the “kiss of death” – any professor recognized for his or her excellent teaching is suspected of shirking research responsibilities and might be denied tenure, as Wolfe was. This situation is detrimental both to students and to faculty, and must be rectified.</p>

<p>During the 1991 colloquium, former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis noticed that,** "A great researcher, a mediocre teacher – probably will get tenure. A mediocre researcher, a great teacher – doesn’t get tenure.***</p>

<p>[Undergraduate</a> Teaching at Institute Must Be Emphasized - The Tech](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N54/stevenson.54o.html]Undergraduate”>http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N54/stevenson.54o.html)</p>

<p>*Proven skill in teaching is ignored or even stigmatized during [Harvard] FAS performance reviews, according to the report.</p>

<p>“Every teaching award earns a warning of how I should not wander off research,” the report quotes an anonymous Ph.D. candidate as saying.</p>

<p>Senior professors quoted in the report voiced the same concerns, worrying that a focus on teaching may prove detrimental to their younger colleagues’ careers.</p>

<p>“…winning the Levenson award for teaching as a junior faculty member is considered the kiss of death with respect to promotion,” the report quotes one anonymous senior professor as saying. *</p>

<p>[Report:</a> Faculty Pay Should Be Linked to Teaching | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/1/24/report-faculty-pay-should-be-linked/]Report:”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/1/24/report-faculty-pay-should-be-linked/)</p>

<p>*Winning the “teacher of the year” award at a research university will carry very little weight when time comes to have one’s contract renewed or to be voted on for tenure. In 1987, a Harvard professor whose credentials included such an award was notified that his contract would not be renewed. I personally know three other professors at three different institutions who were notified that their contracts would not be renewed after they had won “teacher of the year” awards. One referred to the award as “travel money.” The issue of teaching versus research has been debated innumerable times and is unlikely to be settled any time soon. What is important to someone seeking good teaching is to find out where it is most likely to be found. **At a top research university, where the professor knows that “publish or perish” are his career choices, it is unrealistic to expect that most will make teaching their top priority. To some, teaching is purely incidental. ***</p>

<p>[Sowell:</a> Choosing a College Chapter 2](<a href=“http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter02.html#TEACHING%20VERSUS%20RESEARCH]Sowell:”>http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter02.html#TEACHING%20VERSUS%20RESEARCH)</p>

<p>Faculty who bring in large grants are more highly valued than faculty who teach well. Teaching excellence is so often undervalued that the late Ernest Boyer, vice president for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, quipped that, “Winning the campus teaching award is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure.”</p>

<p>[Walter</a> E. Williams : Is College Worth It? - Townhall.com](<a href=“http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_worth_it]Walter”>http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_worth_it)</p>

<p>Personally, I’d prefer, far and away, to be taught by a great teacher but mediocre researcher than vice versa. But the tenure process at the top research universities reward precisely the opposite. Heck, as a student, I don’t even really care if my prof is promoted to tenure. The problem is that he cares about tenure.</p>

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<p>No; I guess I can’t. But can you distinguish a Tulane or Tufts student from HYPSM students under the same circumstances or situation? I guess you can’t as well. Can you distinguish UT-Austin or Purdue students from HYPSM students under the situation that you gave? I guess not. But are all these schools of HYPSM caliber? Definitely not. HYPSM are cut above the rest. To say Duke is as superior to HYPSM is wrong. I made my own ranking about this as well using a more extensive and fairer criteria. No matter how I would try to manipulate the criteria it would ALWAYS appear that HYPSM are a cut above the rest. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063263109-post98.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063263109-post98.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>YOU. YOU would consider to be of HYPSM’s level. I have no problems with that, and I think you’re not alone in that belief. But that does not matter. It does not matter what YOU personally believe in. It doesn’t matter if you think HYPSM are just as good as 15 other schools out there, for the vast majority of people don’t agree with you. I’m not saying that Duke isn’t great. Of course, it is. But it is not on par with HYPSM.</p>

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<p>Sakky, </p>

<p>I made that statement in response to the comparison between Berkeley and schools OUTSIDE of HYPSM. Of course, HYPSM will attract the best students regardless of the program, because their reputation has transcend above anything in the academic world. HYPSM has the best faculty, students, facilities, connections and opportunities. But what about schools below HYPSM? I think it’s where the program strength will take place.</p>

<p>And, about Chicago’s econ. I believe I once read about their yield by someone who posted it on CC last year, and I remember the guy from Chicago econ mentioned that about 47% of their class has been admitted to HYPSM. I couldn’t find the post now. But if that was true, that’s surely a pretty strong case that indeed, program strength matters to some top students.</p>

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<p>But sakky, we cannot assume that everyone at Cal would want to go to Yale law school or Harvard med school, so it is not right to base the denominator to the whole population of the school. You have to consider that Cal offers 300 different undergrad programs whilst UVA’s aren’t even 1/3 of that. The right thing to do then is to base it on the number of applicants of those schools. And, we also have the geographic consideration. Cal is in the West Coast whilst UVA is just within the same region as where Harvard med or Yale law are - East Coast. And, the figures you’ve shown is incomplete. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that there were more than 20 Cal students/grads admitted to Yale law only that not all of them have enrolled. </p>

<p>I still think that UVA is a great school. But I just don’t think that it measures up with, more so, superior to Cal.</p>

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<p>We were talking about prestige. What would your Peking degree do to you when you’re seeking employment in Mexico or Brazil? </p>

<p>Again, stop playing games here. Whilst those schools I’ve mentioned are extremely selective, they are NOT as prestigious as HYPSM. </p>

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<p>You have problems connecting what faculty strength can do to the overall rise of school prestige. That’s a really big problem with our conversation. </p>

<p>Now, to cut this short, you’ve known those schools because they have great academics primed by having a great faculty line up. Dartmouth College, for instance, would not hire so-so faculty. Dartmouth hires only the best, and Dartmouth had been doing that forever. If you’ve known Dartmouth now as a great academic institution, that’s because of its great history of being a great school. In short, to understand why they’re great schools now is to know their past great efforts and achievements.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/images/UC%20Berkeley_Campus.jpg[/url]”>http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/images/UC%20Berkeley_Campus.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Sakky, thanks for the links.</p>

<p>This is what I prefer, but to each his own. (From the Sowell link…)</p>

<p>“While rankings of graduate departments may in many cases have very limited relevance to undergraduate education, they do indicate something about the presence of world-class professors on campus. Further investigation can determine how many actually teach undergraduate courses and how effectively. For those students who are able to thrive in a large university setting, it can be a special opportunity to study under one of the leading scholars in a field, either in an undergraduate course or perhaps in a graduate course by the senior year. Similar opportunities may be even more available in some of the smaller universities, where teaching may receive more attention.”</p>

<p>Sakky wrote…</p>

<p>“Personally, I’d prefer, far and away, to be taught by a great teacher but mediocre researcher than vice versa. But the tenure process at the top research universities reward precisely the opposite. Heck, as a student, I don’t even really care if my prof is promoted to tenure. The problem is that he cares about tenure.”</p>

<p>That’s fine. I prefer both a top researcher and a top teacher. I’m sure you do too. I don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive. We don’t always get this, but this is what I prefer.</p>

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<p>But sakky. I’m a computer science grad from a prestigious university in England and I chose it over some ivies because it’s one of the best for computer science institutions in the world, yet I don’t work in the computer/IT industry. But back when I was choosing schools where to take up my course, I was looking at those schools that have a pretty strong comsci program, that’s why I applied to MIT, Berkeley and CMU. I didn’t apply to Stanford because I prefer Berkeley’s comsci and I thought I’m going to get an acceptance from either MIT or Berkeley, which did not happen. So, in short, whilst I am not connected to the industry that I have been trained for, it doesn’t erase the fact that many prospective students or people, myself included, would look at the program strength aside from the overall university strength regardless of which career path they would end up doing after college.</p>

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Since when have I been concerned with what the “vast majority” of people think? Good grief, if that were true, then evolution is clearly false – after all, a recent Gallup Poll indicated that only 39% of Americans believe in evolution. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Quite frankly, I care even less about the opinions of people who haven’t attended any of the universities in question. I have, and I FIRMLY believe that there is no difference whatsoever in the quality of education provided by HYPSM and other elite schools. </p>

<p>Your ranking impresses me about as much as the rubbish that Princeton Review puts out. Trying to develop a definitive ranking of universities is like trying to build a castle in quicksand. Take your factor of prestige (30%), for instance. You may say that prestige is related to academic strength, but really, who believes that the two are anything but loosely connected? One need only look at Cornell and UT Austin for examples of academic powerhouses lacking the prestige they deserve. Why not measure, say, the number of volumes in the library? Surely that would be more pertinent to the academic experience of many students. Or perhaps one could measure the number of courses offered, or the relative size of those courses. Playing with rankings is a very tricky business – we all know that any ranking can be manipulated so that pretty much any university lands on top.</p>

<p>There comes a point when drawing lines is pointless. Sure, someone with $60 billion dollars is much wealthier than someone with $50 billion dollars. There is a much greater difference between those people and someone with $2 billion, however, than between themselves. As evidence, one need only look at rankings for each field. HYPSM are not the top schools in each field, as one would expect if they were truly a cut above. Taking the schools you mention as examples, why choose HYPSM over Duke for BME, marine biology, anthropology, public policy, or environmental science? Differences in ranking at this level are meaningless – seemingly significant differences on paper translate to insignificance in reality.</p>

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<p>Berkeley’s students are destroying their school’s reputation each and every day. They (and other non-students) tried to torch their chancellor’s house today, while he was inside. Also arrested for assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon-</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-berkeley13-2009dec13,0,7427385.story[/url]”>http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-berkeley13-2009dec13,0,7427385.story&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>IBClass,</p>

<p>all I was saying is that, there are data that would tell us that HYPSM are a cut above Duke, so neither your opinion nor mine matters here. just look at the data and see for yourself if Duke is really on HYPSM level now. Heck, I would personally rank Berkeley above Yale, but that wouldn’t really matter at all. because at the end of the day, I would still go back facing the truth that Yale undergrad is superior to Berkeley undergrad, despite my strong belief that Berkeley is superior to yale.</p>

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<p>RML, I realize where you’ve coming from – but I still disagree very strongly. It’s interesting that you mention Berkeley and Yale, because I compared precisely those two universities several months ago.</p>

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<p>bclintonk agreed with me.

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