Why should I choose Cal?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
101

<p>Perhaps 40% is not realistic. But I would be surprised if it's any less than 30%. Since you brought up UVA, they had 30% of the class through ED. They could easily increase the number to 40%.

[quote]
According to Blackburn, only one student who qualified for the maximum financial aid package available under AccessUVa applied under the early decision plan last year. In addition, fewer than 20 of the 947 students accepted under the early decision plan last December applied for financial aid.

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<p>U.Va</a>. Ends Early Decision in Admissions</p>

<p>I think it's an efficient and horrible way for Berkeley to enroll above average candidates who are also full paying. Aren't you in favor of blocking out the tail end of Berkeley admits? But obviously the admissions model they'd been employed since 1960s isn't poor-friendly, so they changed. Berkeley is way ahead. What you, sakky, proposed (increase yield, increase admissions standards) is essentially turning the tide in higher academia. </p>

<p>Anyhow, Berkeley yield is not as good as HYPSM, but certainly as good if not better than the mid tier ivies, Caltech, Duke, Northwestern, top 3 LACs, etc... all of which a lot of people consider to be more prestigious. </p>

<p>The second tier public schools from MI, VA aren't exactly on par with UCLA, UCSD.</p>

102

<p>
[quote]
One possible counterargument is that Berkeley has to deal with intense instate competition from the other UC's and perhaps the CalStates. But that's not so much a counterargument as a specific feature of the problem at hand. After all, UM doesn't face much cross-yield competition from Michigan State or UM-Flint. Virginia has to face intense competition from William & Mary, Virginia Tech, VMI, James Madison, George Mason and VCU, yet still boasts a near 50% yield.

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Take out UCLA and Berkeley's yield shoots up well above 50% - that is my guess. UVA's competition in-state is a techical college and essentially a small liberal arts college...put a Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan or UNC into the state of Virginia, and UVA's yield would fall.</p>

103

<p>
[quote]
Perhaps 40% is not realistic. But I would be surprised if it's any less than 30%. Since you brought up UVA, they had 30% of the class through ED. They could easily increase the number to 40%.
Quote:
According to Blackburn, only one student who qualified for the maximum financial aid package available under AccessUVa applied under the early decision plan last year. In addition, fewer than 20 of the 947 students accepted under the early decision plan last December applied for financial aid.
U.Va. Ends Early Decision in Admissions

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<p>Uh, now I'm confused. You first say that Virginia had used ED. But the link you presented says that Virginia has stopped using ED for the 2008 admissions year. Nevertheless, Virginia's yield in 2008, according to the IPEDS, was 48%, which is superior to Berkeley's. </p>

<p>College</a> Navigator - University of Virginia-Main Campus</p>

<p>
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Berkeley is way ahead

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<p>Wrong. Berkeley is behind. Berkeley's yield is significantly worse than Virginia's, even after Virginia dropped ED. </p>

<p>
[quote]
What you, sakky, proposed (increase yield, increase admissions standards) is essentially turning the tide in higher academia.

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</p>

<p>My proposals hardly turn the tide, if anything, they actually strengthen an existing tide. Did you realize that until 1964, Berkeley actually used to be open admissions for anybody in the top 15% of all of California's high school graduates? In other words somebody who was just barely UC-eligible today, and hence might have ended up at UCR would have been perfectly free to go to Berkeley 45 years ago.</p>

<p>*The crown jewel of the University of California system, Berkeley is arguably one of the most selective public universities in the country. In 1999, it denied over 70 percent of its applicants. But the competition to get into the University of California's flagship campus wasn't always so steep. Before 1960, 15 percent of California's high school graduates were eligible to attend the school, and until 1964, the school admitted anyone who met its requirements....Throughout the 1970s, competition for admission at Berkeley gradually increased. By the early 80s, the school was denying nearly half of its applicants, and by the end of that decade, it was denying almost two thirds of those who applied. *</p>

<p>frontline:</a> secrets of the sat: history of admissions at uc berkeley</p>

<p>The problem is that while Berkeley has been tightening its admissions standards monotonically for the last 45 years, it is still not tight enough. There are still too many students who shouldn't have been admitted, who perform poorly, and would have been successful if they had gone to another school. Like I said, anybody who gets less than a 2.5 GPA probably would have been better off if they had gone elsewhere.</p>

104

<p>
[quote]
Take out UCLA and Berkeley's yield shoots up well above 50% - that is my guess. UVA's competition in-state is a techical college and essentially a small liberal arts college...put a Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan or UNC into the state of Virginia, and UVA's yield would fall.

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<p>But that only speaks to part of the problem: Berkeley should not have let UCLA successfully compete the way it has. After all, Berkeley had a huge head start, both in terms of funding and in terms of name recognition. Berkeley was winning Nobel Prizes left and right before UCLA had even become a respectable research university. In fact, Berkeley was so strong during a period in the 1950's and 60's that some pundits were saying that Berkeley might actually make a serious run at overtaking Harvard in terms of worldwide prestige.</p>

<p>Nobody says that anymore. Like I said, there was a period when Berkeley lost its momentum, and has yet to get it back. It was just a few decades ago when Berkeley was far and away the premier school in the West Coast, and a certain school in Palo Alto was considered to be a regional backwater school of little repute, little money, and little consequence, to the point that that school's administrators shuddered at the thought of having to compete in the long shadow of Berkeley. What happened? </p>

<p>
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but certainly as good if not better than the mid tier ivies, Caltech, Duke, Northwestern, top 3 LACs, etc... all of which a lot of people consider to be more prestigious.

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<p>Well, I don't know about that. Berkeley is, if nothing else, highly prestigious, as the brand name is strong, even if somewhat undeserved as far as the undergrad program is concerned. Let's face it - nobody has heard of the LAC's. Relatively few people have heard of Northwestern, Caltech, or even Duke (except for basketball). Berkeley is more prestigious than those schools. </p>

<p>It's an entirely different question as to whether Berkeley offers a better undergraduate experience than those schools. That is indeed debatable. But in terms of simple prestige, Berkeley beats those schools.</p>

105

<p>How are you confused? You said it's hard to believe that Cal can enroll 40% of the ED class because it's a large school. I said UVA had no problem enrolling 30% a while back. This has nothing to do with UVA yield in 2008 (class of 2012)</p>

<p>UVA yield is what? 5% higher? They don't have UCLA, UCSD nipping at their heels.</p>

<p>Maybe you should lobby Cal to go with ED. You can enroll 30-40% full paying 2100+, 4.3+ students early and easily.</p>

106

<p>I understand Sakky's point, I guess -- I know people who considered Berkeley a safety, and barely made it to "lower" Ivies and went to those. The funny thing is, internationally basically many overlook that these Ivies even exist, and chant Berkeley's name more prevalently, given international reputation tends to be more about how world class the departments are. I guess the point is, Berkeley easily has the attractive offerings to be exactly the same as HYPS, because its academics are at that level in quite an overwhelming number of departments. </p>

<p>What was brought up, though, is that Berkeley admits students in the spirit of a "public school" -- now I agree it could be even more selective than it is, though I pray that it doesn't resort to less predictable admissions criteria, given that's one of the things I like best about it. But sure, choosing not to admit fluffy students is a good idea. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Duke, Northwestern, top 3 LACs, etc... all of which a lot of people consider to be more prestigious.

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<p>See, here's the deal -- this is part of Sakky's point, I think, and it's well taken. These are the kinds of schools people I know turned Berkeley down for in favor of, while considering Berkeley a safety. It's funny how on one end people go * holy crap it's BERKELEY*, referring to the departments + the world class people working here, and on another, people think of it as just the local public university that's a backup to the more selective schools! </p>

<p>Now, how far one should change the current state of affairs is up for debate, and I don't have a clear opinion yet.</p>

107

<p>Berkeley isn't a safety for NU. Not at all.</p>

108

<p>
[quote]
Nobody is saying that 40% isn't quite good on an absolute basis. Considering the fact that there are thousands and thousands of colleges out there, obviously getting 40% of your admittees is better than the average school.</p>

<p>But I don't think that Berkeley should be satisfied with just being better than the average school. Berkeley should want to be one of the very best schools in the entire country. But that claim can hold water only if you can present a strong yield.

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<p>Well, Berkeley has to kill UCLA's enrollment yield if Berkeley wants to raise its yield rate.</p>

109

<p>"But that only speaks to part of the problem: Berkeley should not have let UCLA successfully compete the way it has. After all, Berkeley had a huge head start, both in terms of funding and in terms of name recognition."</p>

<p>This is a very good argument. After all, Berkeley is the flagship campus of UC, not LA. And as a flagship campus, it rightly deserves the recognition and prestige that it has gained over a long period of time.</p>

110

<p>
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Well, Berkeley has to kill UCLA's enrollment yield if Berkeley wants to raise its yield rate.

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<p>Not necessarily. Berkeley could also go for the high-end strategy which would be to compete harder for the best students. Let's face it. Right now, the very best high school students in California don't usually really want to go to Berkeley or UCLA. They'd rather go to HYPSM. Berkeley could steal yield from those schools and leave the UCLA yield alone.</p>

111

<p>
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How are you confused? You said it's hard to believe that Cal can enroll 40% of the ED class because it's a large school. I said UVA had no problem enrolling 30% a while back

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<p>Wrong. Dead wrong. What matters is not the percentage yield of students that Virginia obtained through ED but rather the percentage change of yield when Virginia eliminated ED. After all, those students who would have applied ED in past years and then matriculated had they been admitted would now just be part of the regular admissions pool and presumably would still matriculate if they are admitted.</p>

<p>Virginia's 2007 yield (while ED was still in effect) was 51.3%. Hence, Virginia's overall delta yield change from ED was only about 3%. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.web.virginia.edu/IAAS/data_catalog/institutional/historical/admission/first_total.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.web.virginia.edu/IAAS/data_catalog/institutional/historical/admission/first_total.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In other words, let's say that Berkeley used ED and hence got a boost of 3% of yield. *Berkeley would still be trailing Virginia.</p>

<p>
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UVA yield is what? 5% higher? They don't have UCLA, UCSD nipping at their heels.

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<p>It's actually about 7-8% difference. But you hit upon the real problem, which I had also discussed previously. The real problem is that Berkeley let the other UC's - especially UCLA - shrink the gap. It wasn't that long ago when Berkeley was the dominant public school in California by far. No serious debate was even possible. Now, although Berkeley still wins, one could actually reasonably debate the point.</p>

112

<p>Compare class of 2012</p>

<p>Cal is 42.9%
UVA is 48%</p>

<p>Is this not 5% difference?</p>

<p>another thing to consider is UVA took 100+ students off of the waiting list, something Cal doesn't do. waiting list yield is very high. aggregating waiting list yield + RD yield so the final yield at UVA isn't a whole lot "better" than Cal.</p>

113

<p>I'm going off IPEDS data, where Berkeley's yield is 41%. Hence, delta is 7%</p>

<p>College</a> Navigator - University of California-Berkeley</p>

<p>
[quote]
another thing to consider is UVA took 100+ students off of the waiting list, something Cal doesn't do. waiting list yield is very high. aggregating waiting list yield + RD yield so the final yield at UVA isn't a whole lot "better" than Cal.

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<p>Berkeley uses spring admissions, which is effectively a 'wait-list' and is something that Virginia does not do. If Virginia did use spring admissions, then its yield would correspondingly rise.</p>

114

<p>Now you're being ridiculous. Spring admits aren't "wait list" admits.<br>
I bet that the yield for spring admits is a lot lower than fall admits. Spring admits hurt Cal overall yield, actually.</p>

115

<p>don't people have better things to do than to argue at CC?</p>

<p>If I were some of the posters here,
I'd rather crack the books or join some EC or go to a party...</p>

116

<p>
[quote]
Now you're being ridiculous. Spring admits aren't "wait list" admits.

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<p>Uh, no, now you're being ridiculous. Spring admits are a wait-list, or maybe more accurately, are a way for Berkeley to go beyond the regular admissions list to bring in even more students than they would under regular admissions. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I bet that the yield for spring admits is a lot lower than fall admits. Spring admits hurt Cal overall yield, actually.

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<p>Hardly. Let's face it: spring admits are almost certainly the weaker of the admitted student pool - for if they were stronger, then they would have been admitted under the regular fall sequence- and weaker students are obvious,ly the least likely to have other strong options, and hence are the most likely to be yielded by Berkeley. Let's face it. Given the choice between going to Berkeley as a spring admit, or ending up at a lesser school as a regular admit, I'm quite certainly that most people would choose Berkeley. However, given the choice between a spring admit at Berkeley and going to Stanford, and I think that's not a close call. {Heck, even given the choice of fall admit to Berkeley and Stanford is apparently not a close call according to the cross-admit data.}</p>

117

<p>
[quote]
don't people have better things to do than to argue at CC?</p>

<p>If I were some of the posters here,
I'd rather crack the books or join some EC or go to a party...

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</p>

<p>Well, to give an example -- parties sound not so fun, I'm hard pressed to find an EC I'd like to do over sitting around, hanging out with people I know, or most importantly, doing some work.</p>

<p>If you're in a major like mine though, you have not so much WORK you can be working on incessantly. A lot of the time, you're stuck, plain and simple, and if you don't give it a frequent rest, it'll get to you, and you'll make zero progress. If I were a poli-sci major or something, with mounds of reading, or a CS major with lots of code to write, different story. The solutions to math problems can be complex, but they're not usually terribly long, and working 100% of the time actually seems to be not so good. Working <em>consistently</em> is more important than working long bursts of time.</p>

<p>I think this is a common thing to many college majors actually.</p>