<p>
If you are good, you choose MIT. If you are not so good, MIT chooses you.
</p>
<p>Ok, you're right. But there are not very many people good enough that they can choose MIT.</p>
<p>I like SDTB's words on the difference between a public and private school education. The way I see it actually, Sakky, Berkeley's admissions policy + large class size is a godsend to many of us, because face it -- quite a few of the very most talented students in engineering get rejected from Stanford and MIT for instance, and not even because they're not the most talented out there. It's clear that neither MIT nor Stanford is predictable to get into, and at least one or two of my engineering friends is <em>EASILY</em> MIT material, based on those I've seen who go there. </p>
<p>Frankly, the fact that admissions outcomes for Berkeley tend to be a lot more predictable than at many other schools (even if not 100% so, as is impossible for any school) is a wonderful thing. I'd rather not weed everyone out, because most of the best students out there, even at a school like MIT, figure out what they like in college, and then go after it. To have a somewhat predictable shot at a school like Berkeley, which offers precisely the amazing quality academics, is exactly what a lot of us need. </p>
<p>I can guarantee you that I could name EECS majors here who were rejected from both Stanford and MIT, who'd fit in the uppermost section of the actual engineering class at MIT -- i.e. people with 4.0's in insanely rigorous schedules at EECS here, doing great things, meeting the killer faculty, and really making the most of their educations. It is to the benefit of several students that Berkeley not change its admissions process to have a more selective name, because I think a lot of us would rather grab its top quality education and run with it, and could care less about the fact that it wasn't as hard to get into Berkeley as it is to get into some other schools.</p>
<p>You know what, in this sense I think Berkeley is being really smart in its admissions process by agreeing to look like a safety for schools like Stanford and MIT. A lot of bright students get in here and choose to come here just because they had poorer luck with other schools with less predictable admissions processes, and then thrive here like no others.</p>
<p>^ Berkeley would never "agree" to look like a safety for Stanford and MIT.</p>
<p>^^ Maybe not explicitly, but they have kind of adopted that role for undergraduate admissions, at least on the engineering front. I.e. if you're one of those typical engineering candidates with very high stats, i.e. 2300+ SAT, close to or actually perfect SAT II's, and very high GPA, chances are you'll make it to Berkeley engineering. But your chances with the other two top engineering names is quite a toss-up.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Am I missing something? Where do I sign up to "choose to go to MIT"? Last time I checked, MIT chooses you.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Obviously the assumption I was making is that you were admitted to both Berkeley and MIT (or Stanford). Given that assumption, if you were also scared of being stuck in the engineering major, where should you go? </p>
<p>Now, obviously it is true that most people don't have that choice. But that gets to what I was saying before: that Berkeley effectively serves as a safety school for those other places.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The undergraduate program can't do the same because the school is philosophically a public education institution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
For the graduate program, Berkeley is just as selective as the most selective institutions because the size of each department is comparable to the most selective institutions (except Caltech/etc...); they have just as much control over the quality of admits. In the field of advanced academic studies, Berkeley has branded themselves as such and that's probably why they are comparable in reputation to other brand name institutions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Therein lies the paradox that I have discussed on several other threads. How are the grad programs allowed to be so selective? After all, they're 'public' too in the sense that that are supported, at least in part, by taxpayer funding. Yet nobody hassles the English PhD program to admit swarms of less qualified California state residents. </p>
<p>
[quote]
In order to compete with more selective programs, Berkeley will probably also have to become more selective, which is a marketing technique for creating an image of being "hard to get" - "people always want what they can't have". Marketing is key. Establishing a specific brand name is just as important in academics as in business, which is a sad thing, but it's reality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would argue that there is nothing sad about the role of branding in the least, for it is an economically rational method to reduce the search costs. To borrow an example from Sowell, if I don't know anything about cameras, I should probably buy from a trusted brand name such as Nikon or Olympus, simply because I don't have the information to look for a bargain. Now, granted, if I knew a lot about cameras, then I could probably find a vendor that doesn't have a strong brand name but who I nevertheless know provides high qualified products. In fact, if my knowledge level is truly high, I could probably build my own high-end camera by purchasing individual high-quality parts. But learning about cameras takes time, and most people have other things to do, so to conserve on their time, they will just buy the higher-priced brand name. The brand name therefore serves as a mechanism for consumers to trade price for time. </p>
<p>Besides, I don't think the Berkeley undergrads should be complaining about the brand name game in the least. Let's face it. Berkeley does have a powerful brand, which is mostly derived from its stellar graduate programs. The truth is, without the grad programs, Berkeley would be a far less prominent school. What that means is that the undergrads are effectively being given a free ride by the grad students. The strength of the grad programs is subsidizing the undergrads through brand name enhancement. Certainly, the undergrads aren't helping the grad students in this respect.</p>
<p>{To be fair, the same happens at other schools, such as HYPSM. Subsidization of the undergrad program through brand name enhancement is a general theme among all of the major research universities.}</p>
<p>About yield rate</p>
<p>For class of 2012,</p>
<p>Cal yield rate is 4449/10364 = 42.93%.</p>
<p>Compare this to Williams RD yield, 312/1053 = 29.63%
<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admission/williamsprofile2012.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.williams.edu/admission/williamsprofile2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>Amherst RD yield, 300/1006 = 29.82%
<a href="https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/%5B/url%5D">https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/</a></p>
<p>Dartmouth overall yield (ED & RD) is 1095/2228 = 49.15%
Class</a> Profile</p>
<p>They're doing a lot better than smaller schools that supposedly mastered the art of picking perfect fit students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can guarantee you that I could name EECS majors here who were rejected from both Stanford and MIT, who'd fit in the uppermost section of the actual engineering class at MIT -- i.e. people with 4.0's in insanely rigorous schedules at EECS here, doing great things, meeting the killer faculty, and really making the most of their educations. It is to the benefit of several students that Berkeley not change its admissions process to have a more selective name, because I think a lot of us would rather grab its top quality education and run with it, and could care less about the fact that it wasn't as hard to get into Berkeley as it is to get into some other schools.</p>
<p>You know what, in this sense I think Berkeley is being really smart in its admissions process by agreeing to look like a safety for schools like Stanford and MIT. A lot of bright students get in here and choose to come here just because they had poorer luck with other schools with less predictable admissions processes, and then thrive here like no others.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The real issue to me is not so much about the predictability of the admissions for the stronger students but the range of admissions for the weaker ones. Mathboy98, let's be perfectly frank here: the bottom X% tail-end of Berkeley undergrads are not that good. Not to be overly harsh, but the fact is, they don't work hard, they don't know much, and in many cases, they don't want to know much. These students were never serious contenders to get into schools like Stanford or MIT or do well in the Berkeley engineering programs, heck, they're lucky to even get into a branded school like Berkeley at all. Mathboy98, you know it's true. We've all seen those guys. </p>
<p>Let me tell you a story. I knew a guy who majored in engineering at Berkeley. In one of his final semesters, he took a single engineering course as well as a bunch of humanities & soc-science courses in order to fulfill some breadth requirements and, frankly, in order to boost his GPA (as he was right on the edge of the honors cutoff, so he needed some boosters). He put in more time in his single engineering class than in all of those humanities/socsci classes combined, yet still ended up with a lower grade in that engineering class than in those other classes. Keep in mind that he wasn't an engineering neophyte - he was nearly done with the entire major. He had never taken classes in those humanities and social science majors before. Despite the lack of experience, he got higher grades in those classes than he did in a class in his own major.</p>
<p>But not only that: he actually got a better grade in those classes than many other people who were actually majoring in those subjects. Think about that. There's something wrong with this picture. Mathboy98, it would be like somebody majoring in humanities who decided to take a the same math course that you're in and who had previously never taken a single math course before...yet outperforming you. That's like having somebody walk into your house and slapping your family around. </p>
<p>Why was my friend able to beat other students in their own major, when he had never taken a single class in that topic before? The issue seemed to be with the work ethic. Sure, he had no background in the topic at hand. But at least he knew how to work hard. He did the assigned reading. He showed up to class. He handed in papers on time. This seems like nothing more than simple common sense...but a lot of other students wouldn't do those things. Many of them would show up to class unprepared, clearly not having done the reading and hence having nothing useful to say during classroom discussion. Or they wouldn't even bother to show up to class at all. {That guy I know said he believed he was the only person who actually showed up every day, and especially at the end of the semester, attendance became truly sparse.} They wouldn't hand in assignments on time. Given that level of competition, frankly, it's not that hard to get a good grade even if you don't have a background in the material. Many of those other students didn't even care about the topic, which begs the obvious question of why they were even majoring in it in the first place. {The obvious answer being that it was an easy major and they don't want to have to put in much effort.}</p>
<p>We can argue about exactly what the x is that comprises that bottom x%. But why not just start with the lowest hanging fruit? Why not just stop admitting those students who are just going to flunk out anyway? I say that for the benefit of not just Berkeley but also for those students: they would be better off at another school at which they can actually succeed. It's far better to graduate from a lower UC, or even a CalState, than to flunk out of Berkeley. {Of course that does leave the question of determining who is going to flunk out, but that can be answered by a retrospective statistical analysis: just analyze data of past students, identify the most salient indicators that determine the likelihood of flunking out, and then admit fewer future students who have those indicators.}</p>
<p>
[quote]
Compare this to Williams RD yield, 312/1053 = 29.63%
<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admission/wi...rofile2012.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.williams.edu/admission/wi...rofile2012.pdf</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, where exactly did you get the numbers 312 and 1053 from? </p>
<p>From the link you provided, I get the relevant numbers to be 535/1276 = 42%.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Amherst RD yield, 300/1006 = 29.82%
<a href="https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/%5B/url%5D">https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/79194/</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Similarly, it seems to me that the relevant figures are 438/1114 = 38%.</p>
<p>^ lol 10char.</p>
<p>For Amherst,</p>
<p>Overall is 438/1144</p>
<p>But out of 438 admits, 138 were from the ED pool.</p>
<p>So (438-138)/(1144-138) is the 29% RD yield.</p>
<p>ED yield (138/138) 100%
RD yield 29%
Aggregated yield is 38%.</p>
<p>For all comparison purposes, I'm not including people getting off the waiting list which has 80-100% yield. You can figure out the same thing at Williams.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They're doing a lot better than smaller schools that supposedly mastered the art of picking perfect fit students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, I don't think the issue is about 'the art of picking perfect fit students'. Yield has nothing to do with that. Yield has to do with how desirable you are relative to your competitors, not necessarily fit. You can try to pick a group of students who may indeed be perfect for your school, yet yield none of them because they were all tempted away by Harvard, which may not have been the perfect fit, but the students may not know that. </p>
<p>Similarly, a girl might turn down a date with a regular guy in favor of a date with the smooth-talking guy who dresses well and looks like Brad Pitt. That regular guy might be perfect for her, but she'll never even give him the time of day. Like it or not, that's the way the dating game is played. The answer of course is, if you want a date, you have to appear more desirable yourself. You have to go to the gym and get in shape. You have to wear nice clothes. You have to groom yourself well. You have to learn how to talk to girls. That's how you play the game. Dating success is about self-marketing. Before you can find your perfect spouse, you have to get them to want to date you in the first place. </p>
<p>Similarly, university yield is also about marketing. Students usually don't know what their perfect math will be. That's why you have to get them to want you.</p>
<p>What I meant about perfect fit is a two way relationship. A school like Amherst isn't going to take someone who's clearly not going to pick Amherst in the end. So they've filtered out quite a few candidates in the preliminary round. If they picked students like Berkeley does, their yield would be a lot lower.</p>
<p>Dartmouth takes about 40% of their class through ED round, so their RD yield is also in the 30's %. How's that for yield?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But out of 438 admits, 138 were from the ED pool.</p>
<p>So (438-138)/(1144-138) is the 29% final yield.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So what you really mean to say is the 'final yield of the non-ED pool'. But that's not the same thing as the final yield. After all, early decision students are students too. In fact, I would argue that they comprise the group of students who are the most likely to be perfect matches in the sense that ED applicants are obligated to attend if admitted, which means that they would rationally apply ED only if they knew that Amherst truly was a strong match.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What I meant about perfect fit is a two way relationship. A school like Amherst isn't going to take someone who's clearly not going to pick Amherst in the end. So they've filtered out quite a few candidates in the preliminary round.If they picked students like Berkeley does, their yield will be a lot lower
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I'm not sure that Amherst won't pick such students. What you're talking about is Tufts Syndrome, but note how that phenomenon is called Tufts Syndrome, not Amherst Syndrome. It's not entirely clear how much even Tufts engages in Tufts Syndrome, setting aside Amherst. </p>
<p>It's also not entirely clear that Berkeley doesn't engage in a bit of Tufts Syndrome itself. After all, Berkeley doesn't run a purely numerical admissions process either. They have significant discretion to admit or reject students as they see fit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Depends what you mean by this statement. I'd argue that the majority of people who get into MIT get into other great institutions; therefore, they "choose" MIT, but I think you are saying something different. When a school chooses you, it implies that you have no other comparable choice. These are borderline students that are lucky, and they are a minority.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One of the lovely benefits of public education. It may be more difficult to get the same level of academic education, but it's more available to high school kids because the school has a looser admission rate. For people looking for a career in research, this is a great scenario because Berkeley has big-league researchers. This has downsides, of course (competition/cut throat/ etc..).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I'm going to extend this argument further and say that you can find top undergrads in their major at a wide variety of schools that could be a top undergrad in a brand name institution, which is why you see a variety of undergrad backgrounds in the grad program at many science schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I really enjoy your point of view because you bring a fresh perspective for other people to see and because I get to think a little bit.</p>
<p>The answer, I think, is money. First, it is ~50% more expensive for Berkeley to pay the tuition of an international student. US students, regardless of state, cost the same. International PhD candidates are rare in UC schools - the ones that are in a UC PhD program tend to be very good. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about post-doctoral researchers. You'll probably see many international post-docs at UCs; they cost the same. </p>
<p>The reason why grad programs cannot be so big and less selective is more of a resource issue than a philosophical issue, but there are still some philosophical choices made. Faculty are expensive. They have labs, salaries, machines, students, offices, etc... that are paid by the school. Graduate students are expensive - they are each $200k-$400k investments. Although schools sometimes get money from different resources (state vs. endowment), the amount of money per faculty member is comparable between the elite institutions.</p>
<p>In order to stay remotely competitive on the research front, they have to invest the same amount of resources per faculty member. There's no other way around it. Undergraduate, for the most part, is about teaching what is already known. That can be done easily and cheaply. Graduate school is about probing what is not known, which can only be done expensively (unless you are a philosopher/etc). Money-wise, teaching is easier than researching - many schools can teach at an elite level. You just can't compare undergraduate work with graduate work; they are fundamentally different things.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with what you say about brand name in general. In that case, I don't think it's a bad thing. However, your example isn't applicable to education. Cameras cost hundreds-thousands of dollars and they don't need to take up a lot of your time. For cheaper cameras, it's definitely not worth most people's time doing the necessary research. That's why I buy Colgate toothpaste instead of some toothpaste made in Bangladesh.</p>
<p>We're talking about education here, which is on the order of a hundred thousand dollar investment + 4+ years of your life. These things don't scale linearly; most things don't in life or in nature. It would be a terrible thing if you don't do a lot of research into a school because you are going to commit a lot of resources (time being the most important). Losing a couple hundred bucks for a bad camera is nothing compared to losing 4+ years + $100k+ for an education. I think it's a sad thing for branding an undergraduate education because it can be dangerous. Like you said, many kids fail because they didn't understand how hard it is and they overestimated their abilities.</p>
<p>In private elite institutions, undergrad and grad work together in making that brand name; it is a symbiotic relationship.</p>
<p>Do the right thing.</p>
<p>Ceteris paribus, Berkeley would have .4 + .6*.4293 = 65.76% yield had they set aside 40% of the avail slots for ED. ED students are students, too.<br>
One blatant example is this thing called legacy status at these schools. That's how they filter out candidates who are more likely to come. I'm sure there are other reasons to believe LACs pick students who will pick LACs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sakky, this point is very well taken. If, by increasing the selectivity of Berkeley, you mean to say that we try to get rid of the students who probably aren't going to make it at all, that's not a bad idea.</p>
<p>I think the main point I had was that students who're otherwise top notch and didn't make it into schools like Yale or Harvard because these schools have anything but straightforward admissions processes should continue to have Berkeley as a safety. I mean, what a safety Berkeley is -- a motivated students can do the same kind of academics here as in any other world class institution, and the offerings at many other well-regarded schools don't compare to Berkeley's. I'm being the strongest students' advocate, just like you, Sakky, are being the weakest student's advocate. I think our propositions are not in any way exclusive. </p>
<p>Your point about the engineering major is well taken, because I daresay I did exactly the same thing in a course I took last year in the humanities, getting A's on papers while putting hardly any work in, and I know people who got B's :) yes, I understand all too well.</p>
<p>Do you think, though, that this bottom x% shouldn't be admitted even to a college like L&S, where there are probably majors + courses easy enough for these to do? I guess they're getting the Berkeley brand name at the very least. I mean, I totally agree that they definitely don't need to go to Berkeley to do the miserably poor amounts + quality of work they do, but I guess I don't have a problem as long as they're not flunking...though I do rather feel naturally uncomfortable saying that I'm okay with admitting such students. </p>
<p>My own point was simple -- several top private schools look to assemble very specific sorts of incoming classes, with students who have diverse talents, specifically tailored to complement each other, or something wild like that. I mean, a guy like me could care less about such things. I'd go to Stanford or MIT for the faculty and academics...so if Berkeley has the same level of stuff available to those motivated, I'm thankful I have such an option -- very, very thankful indeed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I've observed precisely the same -- for instance, while I've met the share of Berkeley, MIT, Princeton alumni who became graduate students at Berkeley, in fact a good number from MIT, there are people from several different schools who're really sharp.</p>