<p>Wow. It must be rewarding being an i-banker. Yay, I get to underwrite for a company’s initial public offering! I get to help greedy wall street bastards steal from people’s retirement accounts and college endowments whenever an IPO goes down under (and it often does). I don’t care when that happens because I get paid either way. I love being a blood-sucker.</p>
<p>How rewarding!</p>
<p>ubermensch - what do you do? if your that cynical and pessimistic about everything, why do anything at all. You should just go and beg for money if you’re going to see things like that. I dont go to UCB, but i go to the H.S several blocks away. Berkeley is an amazing school and dont forget, college is what you make out of it. It seems like you think that any kid who gets into an Ivy league will be guaranteed more success than a kid that gets into Berkeley. Berkeley has produced a great amount of amazing people from its undergrad.</p>
<p>ubermensch- you realize that all UCs have a contract with the state…</p>
<p>“Berkeley has produced a great amount of amazing people from its undergrad.”</p>
<p>Yeah, only cause it graduates almost as many people as Stanford and all the ivy leagues combined! And yet it still doesn’t have as many famous alumni as a Stanford, Harvard, or Yale.</p>
<p>I think if nothing else, we can all agree that while the Berkeley undergraduate program is pretty good, it is not as good as its graduate programs, especially the PhD programs, which are indisputably great. Simply put,the Berkeley undergraduate program is basically trading off the prestige of the graduate programs. </p>
<p>So if Berkeley is satisfied with just having a pretty good undergraduate program, then so be it. But if it wants to have a great undergraduate program, that is to say, one that is as great as its graduate programs, then Berkeley should make its undergraduate program behave more like its graduate programs. That ultimately means things like raising selectivity to the level of Stanford or Harvard. </p>
<p>Some of you might object that that would violate the contract that Berkeley (and all the UC’s) have with the state. And to that I would then question what exactly is the value of the contract. For example, I’m sure some of you would remark that Berkeley is a public school and is therefore supposedly obligated to provide what is euphemistically called “wide access” to people of California and that’s why Berkeley cannot be as selective with its undergrads as can Stanford. The simple rejoinder to that is then, what about the graduate programs? The Berkeley electrical engineering PhD program is also state funded, yet it doesn’t go around running a policy of “wide access”. Heck, the Berkeley EECS PhD program is arguably just as selective as Stanford’s. That program certainly doesn’t go around preferentially admitting lots of lower-quality (not low, just lower) California state residents. You can’t just say “well, I’m a California state resident, so I deserve preferential admission into the Berkeley EECS PhD program”. The same could be said for almost all of Berkeley’s PhD programs. So if the Berkeley PhD programs can do that, why can’t the undergraduate program. </p>
<p>Again, if Berkeley just wants to have a pretty good undergraduate program, it can simply continue doing what it’s doing. But if it wants to have a truly great undergrad program, well, it will have to start doing to its undergraduate program what its graduate programs already do. So the question is, are you satisfied with just ‘pretty good’, or do you want ‘great’?</p>
<p>Seriously, if Berkeley announced that it was removing in-state preferences and costs then there would be a flood of applications from all over the country. The selectivity would go down to 10 percent and rival that of Stanford’s. It would no longer be a safety school, and people would consider it to be just as good as Stanford.</p>
<p>For all you Berkeley people who got in before this policy was enacted, you got a sweet deal. Cause now your degree is worth just as much as an HYPS degree even though it was easier for you to get in.</p>
<p>But then again that would suck because I’m relying on Berkeley’s lax admissions policies to let my brother in!</p>
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<p>How are Berkeley’s admission policies lax if I know hundreds of Asian Americans at Berkeley my year with better stats than yours?</p>
<p>Berkeley does have easy admissions.</p>
<p>You don’t even know me. Besides, I find it funny you think there are hundreds of Asian Americans at Berkeley who are more qualified than me just cause I got a 1580 SAT score. Oh my god I missed one question in math!!! I must be HORRIBLE!</p>
<p>Berkeley does have lax admissions policies. Seriously now, my classmates with 1100’s who are lazy bums with no personal integrity got in. I even saw them cheating on tests during class just to get that B+. </p>
<p>My brother is smart but he just doesn’t apply himself as much as he could. But I still want him to go to a decent school which is why I thank Berkeley for having lax admissions policies. Otherwise he’d end up at San Francisco State and that would suck big time.</p>
<p>[“Berkeley has produced a great amount of amazing people from its undergrad.”]</p>
<p>“Yeah, only cause it graduates almost as many people as Stanford and all the ivy leagues combined! And yet it still doesn’t have as many famous alumni as a Stanford, Harvard, or Yale.”</p>
<p>DEAR UBERMENSCH,</p>
<p>UPenn graduation upon 4 years: 79%
Stanford graduation upon 4 years: 80%
Harvard graduation upon 4 years: 83%
Columbia graduation upon 4 years: 84%
Cornell graduation upon 4 years: 85%
Duke graduation upon 4 years: 86%
Yale graduation upon 4 years: 90%
Princeton graduation 4 years: 91%
Brown graduation 4 years: 91%</p>
<p>UC-Berkeley graduation upon 4 years: 52%</p>
<p>stats from <a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.princetonreview.com</a></p>
<p>Rooster. I wasn’t talking about today. I was speaking about my class in 1995 when I entered Berkeley. If you convert your score to 1995, you would have gotten a 1470. </p>
<p>A 1600 scorer in 1995 would have scored 110 points over a 1600 SAT scorer today. Also, most likely you missed 2 or 3 math questions. Today, its possible to miss one and still get 800 on SAT Math. Which is rather strange. Berkeley may have easier admissions for California resident’s, but why does the common man not deserve a break once in a while? Just because you are accepted at Stanfurd doesn’t mean you are smart. Remember that as well. But if you graduated from Berkeley, it does mean you are smart and academically able to survive in the most competitive school in the United States taught by the best faculty in every discipline imaginable. Along with a great ability to talk with and relate to all people from every walk of life…</p>
<p>That isn’t a very flattering statistic for Berkeley if only half the people graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>Berk doesn’t practice grade inflation…</p>
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<p>Some people take time off to work, volunteer, find themselves, or just plain take a breather. Or sometimes, just to enjoy Berkeley. I find nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>Remember, this is about engineering rankings by THES. Berkeley and Stanfurd represent different things. If I had to choose between finding myself, and getting my hand held like a baby, I would choose the former.</p>
<p>Having tons of support and resources available to me is not “hand-holding.” It’s an academic luxury I am grateful for. Berkeley would be doing the same thing if it could afford it and if the kids cared enough about their academic goals. But alas, Berkeley does not have very many resources to go around. Don’t make fun of the grass on the other side of the fence just cause it’s greener. </p>
<p>Grade inflation at places like Stanford and Harvard are highly exaggerated. But even if it were true, it means we don’t don’t have to work as hard to get even more benefits than you. If I can just sit on my ass and get a 3.95 while you have to slave to get a 3.0, and then I get into a better graduate school, then it makes me even MORE glad I came here. In fact, grad schools give more GPA weight to schools like Stanford and Harvard than to schools like Berkeley. Even Berkeley’s own Boalt law does it. </p>
<p>Of course grade inflation doesn’t exist here, because I had to work my ass off for that 3.95 GPA. I didn’t sleep for 6 days during the quarter (3 of them during finals week). In fact I find it kinda annoying that other people try to belittle my hard work by saying there is so much grade inflation here.</p>
<p>California1600 you need to come to the Stanford board sometimes and attack us for once. I’m sick of winning all the time :)</p>
<p>Please. My friend for his intro MCB course spent 3 days straight without sleep just to study for it. And thats ONE CLASS. And he got a B+ in that class, which makes you almost “God Like” in the eyes of fellow MCB’ers. </p>
<p>My friend got a 2.9 GPA in MCB from Berkeley. He was accepted in most PhD Biology programs he applied to. I doubt a 3.3 GPA in Biology from Stanfurd will do the same. </p>
<p>Everyone pulls all nighters here. Some even take midterms and finals drunk and hung over, and still do remarkably well. However, trust me, the average Berkeley grad pulls many more all nighters than the average Stanfurd. Thats why Berkeley investment bankers are preferred over Stanfurd investment bankers.</p>
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<p>Stop trying to copy my lines! You infidel! LOL! </p>
<p>My next attack that I am thinking of right now would be crippling for your University. Very very crippling. I am not sure if Stanfurd has angered me that much yet.</p>
<p>a 3.95GPA?! I don’t that’s even heard of among UCB students…</p>
<p>you guys are stupid. yeah its easy to get into berkeley. but its damn near impossible to get into its engineering school. eecs at berkeley is as hard as geting into stanford, penn, columbia, mit, cal-tech etc… and as this article was about the engineering school, i think that means i win the argument</p>