Why is UC Berkeley the best university in the world?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>There ARE a lot of good schools. That being said I’d throw my low with Berkeley if I had to choose just one.</p>

<p>1) great campus: from the Campanile to Doe library, everything is awesome. Pastoral but academic and classical at the same time. The town of Berkeley itself is probably the best I’ve ever been to, and everything is in walking distance from the school.</p>

<p>2) great people: Not just the world class faculty that are there, but the students as well. It’s very integrated, with all races represented pretty well, and most of the students are just bright middle-class people looking for a good education. At some of the high class private institutions you get a lot of legacy people who just want to go there 'cause their daddy did. </p>

<p>3) great research: being a Berkeley student I can assure you there’s a lot of good research going on. Private institutions rarely, if ever, involve undergraduates in their major research, but at Berkeley it’s encouraged. As an undergraduate I got to work in a lab started by a Nobel laureate, and even got to meet and discuss my findings with him (mega awesome!).</p>

<p>4) Not as expensive as a private school: don’t get me wrong, it does cost a bit of money, but if you apply for financial aid or the waivers the school offers, you can always make it affordable. Stanfurd’s 50,000/year is way over priced for a WORSE experience that at Cal. </p>

<p>5) great selection of classes: as a hard science major (physics) I can’t believe all the great classes they offer. I wish I could stay at Berkeley for another four years just to take them all. </p>

<p>Also, as long as we are talking about the hard sciences, the statement made before is correct that</p>

<p>Berkeley (in physics, chem, bio, etc) >> Harvard, Princeton > Yale, Stanfurd.</p>

<p>and Berkeley (hard sciences) = MIT, Caltech, </p>

<p>but Berkeley (classics and social sciences) >> MIT, Caltech. </p>

<p>So overall it is better than all of these (as is shown in the rankings of individual programs–Berkeley has more in the top 10 than ANY other school).</p>

<p>The people here disparaging it are either (1) Cal rejects who are venting themselves (I’m looking at you, UCLA guy), or (2) envious private school legacies who don’t want to admit their money can’t automatically buy them a better education than those going to Cal on their own brilliance. </p>

<p>And for the people who said the OP is letting Cal define him: Cal students know they define the school, not vice-versa. </p>

<p>Peace Out,
AlphaDog137</p>

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<p>First of all, this is a 2 year old thread!</p>

<p>Berkeley is one of the tip-top best Universities of the entire world, but for undergraduates it is often better to attend schools which rank higher on USNews, because of the more filtered student body and along with that, the more intimate environment. There are exceptions: I believe a top Berkeley student (by motivation and by ability) has all the same opportunities as a HYPSM student (faculty, research, etc), especially because of the graduate departments, most of which rank above the Ivy league schools! However, while on an individual undergraduate basis it is often justifiable to attend smaller and higher-ranked usnews private schools, it is clear to me that as an entire institution Berkeley is a peer of HYPSM, especially when considering the differences in funding, and also when considering the factors listed in Yudof’s letter on page 1.</p>

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<p>Berkeley costs less than Stanford for many California residents (though not for the lowest family income bracket where Stanford gives full rides while UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity covers only UC systemwide fees/tuition). But it is likely that Stanford will cost less for a non-California resident – “list price” is similar between Stanford and UC for OOS students, but Stanford is much more generous with need-based financial aid than UC is for OOS students.</p>

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<p>But…it’s a safety school…at least for like the majority of the top students in my class.</p>

<p>Oh and a neighboring school called Lynbrook High School gets around 80+ people accepted there every year…
It doesn’t look too big of a deal to get in for us I guess so we don’t see that it’s as special as you guys make Berkeley out to be…</p>

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<li>For the vast majority of students at Cal, Stanford would be cheaper. That’s because Stanford has a no-loan financial aid policy that gives free tuition for families making up to $100k and significantly reduced tuition for those making up to $200k, whereas Berkeley’s aid stops completely at about $90k and nearly always includes loans - even if you’re a low-income student, you will likely graduate at least $20k in debt (while at Stanford, those making under $60k get full scholarships and still no loans). So think about it: for the “bright middle class student” which you say populates Berkeley, a $100k income would mean Stanford costs about $15k (room/board), whereas Berkeley will cost $28k (full price). This is true even for California residents. OOS residents not only have a huge sticker price to pay (costing as much as a private), but they get virtually no aid.</li>
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<p>Recap: Stanford is cheaper for low-income students (no loans), for the vast majority of middle income students (better rates, no loans), and for some with higher incomes (at incomes of about $140-150k, Stanford costs the same as Berkeley). But when you make over $200k, it doesn’t matter as much that Stanford costs more, so even for upper-income students (the only group for which Berkeley is cheaper), the difference in cost usually doesn’t matter given the quality of the Stanford undergraduate experience. That’s also why in cross-admit battles, 99% of the cross-admits between Stanford and Berkeley ultimately go to Stanford.</p>

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<li>Worse experience? When choosing classes, Berkeley students have to fight for weeks in several phases to get their schedule; Stanford students can go online and add/drop at will for about 6 weeks - from the end of the term to three weeks into the next term. Add/drop major or switch schools? No problem. Study abroad? Easy. Finding small classes? They’re everywhere. Doing research or an internship? Plenty to be had. And working with world-renowned professors? Far better than at Berkeley, where the student:faculty ratio is 17:1 while at Stanford it’s 6:1 - and Stanford has a more accomplished faculty with more major awards. (You mention Nobel Laureates - Berkeley has 8 at the moment, but Stanford has 16 currently on faculty.)</li>
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<p>I would have taken your post to be just another Berzerkeley post, but then you said:</p>

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<p>Stanford’s not only far, far ahead of Yale (in fact, there was a Yale news article describing how Yale is striving to emulate Stanford in STEM fields), but it’s easily as strong as H and P in the hard sciences, and makes a strong case for beating them. Look up the NRC rankings, US News rankings, etc. and you’ll usually see Stanford tied with or ahead of Berkeley in the hard sciences.</p>

<p>I understand that you may hate on Stanford because it’s Berkeley’s rival, but what you say is just plain misinformation.</p>

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<p>Seeing as Oxford and Cambridge are public universities too, the keyword here should be ‘arguably.’</p>

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Unfortunately, most people do not agree. Berkeley is not nearly a competitor for Stanford at the undergraduate level – including most California residents. </p>

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<p>^Like I said, Berkeley is used as a safety/last resort option by a lot of students…at the undergraduate level of course.</p>

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<p>The only schools that are clearly superior to Berkeley for undergraduate are HYPSM+CW. The rest of the Ivies and elite privates are just as good as, or only very slightly better than, Berkeley. For postgrad education, Berkeley is a peer school of HYPSMC.</p>

<p>For professional education, it’s generally just as good as Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, Michigan, Penn, UVa and Cornell.</p>

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<p>^So…how do you know?</p>

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<p>“But…it’s a safety school…at least for like the majority of the top students in my class.”
I am sorry but I have to agree with cptnJack.</p>

<p>“For postgrad education, Berkeley is a peer school of HYPSMC.”
I agree with this one too.</p>

<p>Question: What is that “W” from HYPSM+CW?</p>

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<p>Wharton ten chars.</p>

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<p>Actually, the quality of undergraduate education at all of these schools (and many other schools) is what the student makes of it. A student at any of these schools can learn a lot in a top quality, rigorous curriculum of courses in and out of his/her major. But a student at most of these schools can take a relatively lightweight schedule with much less learning (MIT is an exception – the absence of lightweight science courses and the large number of general requirements in both math / science and humanities / arts / social studies sets the lower bar of rigorousness of schedule significantly higher than at most other schools).</p>

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<p>16 on current faculty that also includes Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who also happens to be on the Cal/LBNL faculty…</p>

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<p>Want to hear a joke? California.</p>

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<p>Excellent question!<br>
(That’s why IB programs have that weird little “Theory of Knowledge” course).</p>

<p>College rankings have Berkeley all over the map, from Washington Monthly at #2 (based on factors that include the number of S&E PhDs awarded, unadjusted for size) and USNWR at #22 (based on a mix of statistics and subjective peer assessments) … to stateuniversity.com at #140 (based on statistics only, such as undergraduate student retention, ACT/SAT scores, faculty salary, and student / faculty ratio.)</p>

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<p>“The only schools that are clearly superior to Berkeley for undergraduate are HYPSM+CW.”</p>

<p>In what respect? Reputation?</p>

<p>Please don’t say “education”–</p>

<p>For the most part, HYPS undergraduates are pursuing degrees in the liberal arts. M and C do not offer their undergraduates breadth and depth in the humanities, and Wharton offers a strictly pre-professional education to its undergraduates, so one therefore should not mention these schools in the same breath as HYPS. </p>

<p>Unless, of course, one were talking about prestige. In which case, Berkeley is not a prestigious destination for undergraduates-to-be on account of its lack of selectivity and its identity as a public school (and the way in which public schools are negatively perceived by a significant proportion of the elite in the States, Berkeley’s home nation). I’ve read too that at one time approximately 80 percent of undergraduates came from the 200,000+ income bracket, so one has to remember the significant class disparity that may continue to exist between undergraduates. Etc., etc. </p>

<p>Berkeley UG is an exceedingly reputable institution, in the same way that NYU UG is an exceedingly reputable institution–in fact, I am ready to argue that these two schools are peers–but neither of these schools are prestigious at the undergraduate level.</p>

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<p>However, M does more to ensure that its graduates have taken a rigorous well rounded liberal arts curriculum than HYPS and many other schools. “Liberal arts” includes math and science. (C might be similar, depending on which C you are referring to.)</p>

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<p>kwu, only quite a few schools are clearly more selective than Berkeley for undergrad level. </p>

<p>If you agree that Cornell, Emory, JHU, Wellesley College to name a few, are selective schools for undergraduate level then you should agree that Berkeley is very selective too because the current stats of Berkeley admissions are comparable to those schools’.</p>

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<p>^Heh. Only if CCs scapegoat of a Duke (12% admit rate) is considered as selective as Harvard (6% admit rate). :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Oh wait the difference is…6%. And Cornell’s (18%) and Berkeley’s (25%) is…7%??</p>