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<p>Well, at least in China, this isn’t true in the eyes of many of the top students. My cousin, who made the IPhO camp for China, only really has five colleges in mind: Tsinghua (MIT of China), Beijing (Harvard of China), MIT, Harvard, and Stanford. I told him I went to Berkeley and he was like “what is that?” All of his IMO/IPhO camp friends all had that same mindset, though a couple considered Yale, such as in the case of Xiaosheng Mu (Putnam fellow).</p>
<p>The middle-upper-tier students of China, however, treat Cal with great respect. Those are the international students we see on campus. In a sense, Cal is their ‘safety’ in that most come over to the Cal because they are rejected by Tsinghua and Beijing University or if their families have a lot of money.</p>
<p>^just my personal experience…</p>