Your opinion on UC Berkeley

College Search & Selection
21

<p>“Coming from a CA resident, yes, it’s a good school. But who they accept is very random. If you’re thinking of applying, don’t get your hopes up. Every Asian I know (I’m also Asian) has the dream of going the Berkeley as their number one choice. I don’t know if they’re ivy caliber for an undergrad. Graduate school more likely.”</p>

<p>Actually I already got into Berkeley, but I just wanted the general consensus on it.</p>

22

<p>

By resources many people have in mind not the physical plant or academic collections, which are magnificent at Cal, but the attention paid to students. An article a few years back in a Bay area newspaper hilighted differences between Cal and its neighbor Stanford.

</p>

23

<p>i’m sorry, but Cal is NOT Ivy caliber. not for undergrad, anyways. </p>

<p>what Ivy League school is Cal equal to?</p>

<p>it’s a great school, but calling it Ivy caliber is a reach at best.</p>

24

<p>

<em>cracks knuckles</em></p>

<p>

Such is life…</p>

25

<p>

</p>

<p>Undergrad Engineering:
Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.7927
**2 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.6615 **
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA 4.651
4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.5134
4 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 4.5155
4 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 4.4503
7 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.4032
8 Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.2766
9 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 4.1905
9 Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN 4.1875</p>

<p>Undergrad Business:
Best Undergraduate Business Programs
1 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 4.8156
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.6192
3 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.4475
3 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.4366
5 New York University New York, NY 4.3038
6 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 4.1725
6 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 4.1704
6 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX 4.1836
6 University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 4.1776
10 University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 4.0672 </p>

<p>Cal does better than most Ivies in specific undergrad disciplines.</p>

26

<p>^ owned lol</p>

27

<p>

…hardly. I don’t see how the undergraduate business ranking helps Berkeley’s case. Only one Ivy really has an undergraduate business program, and it is #1 in that ranking.</p>

<p>Besides, Haas is hardly a representative sample of Berkeley students. You’re only allowed to apply after two years, less than half that apply get in, and nearly all have a 3.5+ GPA.</p>

28

<p>^ well that’s the point. Berkeley has diverse studies which it ranks highly in, as opposed to some of the Ivies which don’t even have these programs. If the Ivies are so “prestigious” why don’t they all have strong Engineering programs that top Berkeley’s? Why is Penn the only one with the strong Business program among all the Ivies that tops Berkeley?</p>

29

<p>

Business isn’t a good example for that. A better example would be, say, Chicano Studies. </p>

<p>The Ivies could have perfectly respectable undergraduate business programs. Harvard, Penn, and Dartmouth business are all ranked equal to or higher than Haas at the graduate level, and Columbia is directly behind Haas. Most of the Ivies intentionally choose not to be pre-professional and offer a major in business. That hardly makes them inferior institutions.</p>

30

<p>I’m not saying those colleges are inferior at all, I would have to be crazy to call them inferior. I’m just tired of people referring to Berkeley in an inferior manner, when it has so much potential.</p>

31

<p>Science is a very broad academic realm. How does Berkeley faculty compare to some Ivies? Let’s look at faculty members in the National Academy of Sciences:</p>

<p>Harvard: 151
Berkeley: 129
Princeton: 74
Yale: 60
Columbia: 46
Cornell: 38
Penn: 33
Brown: 11
Dartmouth: 1</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch[/url]”>http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Seems Berkeley handily beats most Ivies in science and it doesn’t even have a medical school.</p>

32

<p>I won’t at all disagree with that list. It pretty much lines up with how I would rank them for science, except Yale slightly lower (biology aside).</p>

<p>

What about UCSF, Berkeley’s oft-proclaimed de facto medical school? ;)</p>

33

<p>

Hehe!</p>

<p>Well, in that case:</p>

<p>Berkeley + UCSF: 160
Harvard: 151
Princeton: 74
Yale: 60
Columbia: 46
Cornell: 38
Penn: 33
Brown: 11
Dartmouth: 1</p>

<p>;)</p>

34

<p>The issue is do Berkeley undergrads ever see, much less get taught by, these impressive faculty? My DH who was an undergrad there 30 years ago and my nephew who is an undergrad there today, both report the vast majority of their classes being taught by junior faculty and TA’s.</p>

<p>At Dartmouth there are no TAs and all students get to know and are taught by real profs. At Penn this is the case most of the time.</p>

<p>So let’s compare apples to apples. Cal is hiring profs to write and research. Most are funded by outside grants they are controlled by. Dartmouth is hiring profs to teach undergrads.</p>

<p>I’d head to Cal over Dartmouth in a flash for a grad program. But it doesn’t come close undergrad.</p>

35

<p>^ For science and engineering, Cal is better than Dartmouth. Dartmouth is great for social sciences, humanities, etc.</p>

<p>

This is a myth.</p>

<p>Yes, these esteemed profs teach undergrads. A Wolf prize winner (mathematics) taught Math 1B in spring 2008. Physics Nobel Prize winner George Smoot was teaching Physics 7B to undergrads the day after he won the Nobel Prize:
[url=<a href=“http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/smoot-photo.html]George”>http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/smoot-photo.html]George</a> F. Smoot - Photo Gallery<a href=“See%20last%20photo%20in%20link%20above”>/url</a>.</p>

<p>These are just two examples…there are many more.</p>

<p>hmom, give your husband’s alma mater more credit. ;)</p>

36

<p>hmom5, I was an undergrad at Cal. Looking at the current list of NAS members with a Cal work affiliation, I see 11 listed members who taught courses that I took over those four years. Some of them were for courses I took my very first freshman quarter at Cal. Some of them were junior faculty at the time I had them as professors. I’d say that means that the seeds of their future impressiveness was there at the time :slight_smile: I know of at least one who regularly hired undergrads to work in his research group. Not on the list (because he has since died) was the Nobel laureate who taught a course I had that first year. He was actually a lousy teacher, but he was teaching a freshmen course. </p>

<p>Now it might be different if you’re taking science courses as a non-major. Then there’s Rich Muller’s “Physics for Future Presidents” and Alex Fillipenko’s survey astronomy course for non-majors, to name a couple of outstanding courses for the non-major. Muller and Fillipenko aren’t in the NAS membership database, but I’d still consider them impressive faculty (I can vouch for Muller as a teacher based on having had him when he was a young 'un, and I was an even younger 'un). </p>

<p>Some impressive faculty are also impressive teachers. Some are painfully awful. Similarly, I had some TAs who were really wonderful at teaching. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.</p>

<p>Dartmouth does have more of an undergrad focus, but professors there still apply for and receive outside research grants. I think that makes for great opportunities for undergrads to get involved in research early on, which is of course an important part of undergrad education. Whenever I see professors who give seminar talks in which they highlight the contributions made by their undergrad team members, I always make a mental note that that’s a great institution for a future undergrad science major, regardless of the selectivity rating of the school.</p>

37

<p>

You can even watch these courses for free on Berkeley’s Youtube channel. What private universities do that?</p>

38

<p>^So that makes the decision easy: go to the private school, and watch the Cal lectures on YouTube! :D</p>

39

<p>I’ve never sat in on an undergrad class at Berkeley. When my kid’s at Dartmouth and Amherst talk about the dinner they just had at the profs house and the war stories they were told, DH always breaks into his ‘when I was at Cal there were 500 kids in the lecture and if I got there early I actually knew what the prof looked like’ speech.</p>

<p>Mt nephew, surrently there and a science major, talks about being taught by TA’s who barely speak English, classes being cut and crowds everywhere.</p>

<p>Honestly, when I listen to this I feel like it’s more of a battle than a college experience. There just doesn’t seem to be the carefree joy I’ve seen at smaller, more undergrad focused colleges.</p>

40

<p>Pshaw, that’s nothing. I had a lecture course at Cal with 800 students! It was a good class, too. Of course, I also had some undergrad classes with about 5 other students. </p>

<p>Never had dinner at any professor’s house, but we did go out for coffee a few times. But that’s a different subject, isn’t it?</p>