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<p>You can say that or add more if you want to just boost your credentials but they’re all useless unless we have the data. You, your profs do not represent the whole. Show us the data, not your personal experience.</p>
<p>Okay, how about Berkeley’s own site?</p>
<p>You may say that professors don’t count, but who do you think really decides whose departments are any good?</p>
<p>[Rankings</a> of departments](<a href=“http://www.berkeley.edu/about/honors/grad/]Rankings”>http://www.berkeley.edu/about/honors/grad/)</p>
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<p>Then the better for me. But we need to see that data right? Where is it?</p>
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<p>Here we go again. You gave me the ranking for grad programs. Weren’t we talking here of ugrad?</p>
<p>vangie,</p>
<p>How is there going to be some huge difference in the department for undergrad?</p>
<p>The fact remains that the only good rankings of departments that exist today are for research and grad output. Something tells me that there’s a good reason for it, too.</p>
<p>Because they can be quantified readily; but as the quote I used earlier says, it doesn’t address what they do with the undergrad program and where the undergrads go. That was said by a director of a highly ranked program.</p>
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<p>So, you’re saying now that the grad ranking is = to the ugrad ranking? Is my understanding correct?</p>
<p>Hoo boy. Pandora’s box with that post.</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that the departments aren’t going to change much in terms of their character. An undergrad and a grad at Berkeley are both going to have access to many of the same professors.</p>
<p>However, undergrads have an intrinsically different experience at a university from grads.</p>
<p>^ but how come berkeley’s grad programs have so much respect while its ugrad has have barely?</p>
<p>Berkeley’s undergrad program gets TONS of respect.</p>
<p>However, it is not quite on the level of many of the top privates. For one, the mission of a public university is fairly different from that of a private, and this becomes especially apparent at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>It’s not that Berkeley’s undergrad is “bad.” It is just the weakest link in a spectacular school.</p>
<p>I have been accepted to UMich Engineering with $30,000 and Berkeley Engineering with $20,000. Which one do you think I should accept. I am from New York and I love sports, especially football. I also like hot weather. Please help.</p>
<p>Nelish,</p>
<p>Consider starting a new thread. You’ll get no coverage on that topic here.</p>
<p>hi,</p>
<p>i’m an international student who wants to go into molec biology/genetics as an undergrad. i am choosing between duke and berkeley also. i think i am leaning more towards duke because of the student-teacher interaction, and the quality of education i would get there. would definitely consider somewhere like berkeley seriously for post-grad though. what do you think?</p>
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This is a key point. Graduate students specialize in a specific discipline and must produce original research and defend it in order to get their PhD so being exposed to and mentored by the foremost professors in their field is of greatest importance. However, at the undergraduate level, most students don’t even plan to get a PhD and even those that do need to master the basics first, procure good recommendations and get good research experience. The latter is done better at a smaller private school with more personable class sizes, more faculty interaction and assistance in the application process. Going to Carnegie Mellon over Yale or Illinois over Duke for Computer Science just because the former schools are rated higher in that department is silly if that’s your sole driving factor for choosing the school since all 4 schools will have enough depth and breadth in their curricula and satisfy any student. The difference in research output of the faculty members isn’t noticeable to undergrads until long after they have mastered the basic material which is what they primarily learn in college.</p>
<p>Alas, some of the smallest liberal arts colleges have been training grounds for some of America’s greatest luminaries today.</p>
<p>Closing this very old thread.</p>