<p>^ In most engineering fields (other than biomedical), that appears to be true. Nevertheless, Penn is a more selective university (with higher test scores and a lower admit rate from a truly national applicant pool). If you want an Ivy with strong engineering, but not too much more selective than Berkeley, Cornell comes closer (although it is more selective for A&S/engineering applicants than its overall admission stats suggests). </p>
<p>RML, Georgetown has no engineering programs. I don’t think it is particularly strong in physical sciences, either. It is more selective than Berkeley (lower admit rate, higher scores), although if you pull out the SFS and look only at Georgetown College, they may be pretty close.</p>
<p>UCLA, UC Davis, or UCSD match the OP’s requirements better than most of the schools we’re mentioning (unless you forget about engineering and definitely want some East Coast schools on your list for whatever reason.)</p>
<p>OP: do you mean public universities or do you mean private? Do you mean large or do you only mean prestigious? What criteria from UCBerkeley would you like to see in your East Coast universities?
Finally, what are your cost constraints?</p>
<p>There really isn’t any reason for the OP to seriously consider public universities in the East. The few that are about as prestigious as Berkeley for undergraduates (UVa, UNC) won’t have nearly as strong engineering programs as some of the UCs, and you’ll very likely pay a significant price premium. </p>
<p>I personally prefer private colleges because I dislike schools that are too large in size. I’m considering bio/chemical engineering or premed. I want the school to have a certain level of prestige and selectivity (I don’t want to attend schools way below my reasonable expectations). Remember, I’m really only considering these as my matches or safeties, I already have my top choice picked out. Cost is an important factor though because our income’s around ~35000. I think JHU and CMU match my criteria pretty well though they may not really be safeties, they’re still easier than Harvard/Princeton.</p>
<p>By this, do you mean a school with high general prestige (based on selectivity), even if its chemical engineering program is nothing special (or non-existent), versus a school known for being a top school in chemical engineering?</p>
<p>I prefer schools that are good all round because quite frankly I don’t know what I want to do in college (I have general ideas but they may easily change) and I want to have choices.</p>
<p>OP, you also need to be cautious of the fact that JHU is far more selective than Berkeley in-state. While easier than Harvard, I’d hesitate from calling any school with a RD percentage ≤ 15%, median admit SATs ≥2250, and requiring stellar ECs as a match. You’d definitely have better chances than the average applicant however, but ECs matter a lot. CC often conflates the importance of high academic stats when these profiles a dime a dozen at these schools. Remember, you’re often getting advice from 18 year olds who have no insight in the process. Having interviewed high scoring prototypical students from top Cali schools (irvine high, troy high, university high, Palo Alto high, gunn high), I’d be wary when applying to super selective privates and getting hopes up.</p>
<p>You’re right, TK, Georgetown doesn’t offer engineering. But as I was pointing out, I was listing schools outside of the West Coast that are generally perceived as prestigious as Berkeley, or something within the range of Berkeley’s prestige level. As to the claim Georgetown being more selective than Berkeley is highly suspect. It’s like saying USC is harder to get into than Berkeley. </p>
<p>We all know that Berkeley & Georgetown do not have the same admissions criteria – Georgetown weighing SATs more and Berkeley weighing GPAs more. And, while it is relatively easier for in-state applicants to get admitted to Berkeley, the case isn’t the same for OOS & Int’l applicants. And, if the OP was eyeing a slot at Georgetown physical/biological sciences vs Berkeley engineering, I would even more doubt it that Berkeley would be the easier school in terms of admissions between the two. </p>
<p>I would not put UPenn in a league above Berkeley’s for undergrad, more so, for physical sciences and engineering. Furthermore, the UPenn - Pennsylvania - name isn’t a more resounding name than is Berkeley. In the business community, maybe it is. But even in the business community Berkeley would be able to stand on its own, not only in the East Coast but throughout the world. I’d say that as a whole, I think they both belong to the same league, maybe Berkeley even having a more reputable & respected name in the academic community, as well as, in the engineering, tech, IT and science communities. I think Columbia and Duke fall in that group too.</p>
<p>^You can expect it, but don’t be shocked if you’re not (I wouldn’t be for one given how tough admissions is). I’ve seen more impressive candidates rejected</p>
<p>I’m a computer science grad, and in my world, the Berkeley name creates more clout than the Columbia name. I think the same can be said for engineering and the physical sciences. However, in business and law, they’re regarded almost equal with Columbia having a slight edge. </p>
<p>OP, the only schools I think are more prestigious than Berkeley - as a whole - are Harvard, MIT and Stanford. </p>
<p>I would say that Penn and Columbia are considered more selective than UCB for California students. I would say that for prestige, roughly, UCB = JHU,Emory, or Wash U at least based on East Coast perception.
Columbia is about as hard to get into as Stanford so it’s not really comparable.
It seems to me that UCB is in the top few world-caliber public universities with UMich, UNC-CH, and UVA, with the next group far below.
The undergraduate experience is likely to be more pleasant at private universities simply because they have more money but that doesn’t mean the students aren’t as strong or the faculty less gifted researchers. For engineering, I agree that they’re even in terms of selectivity, with an edge to UCB. On the East Coast, UCB is not considered superior to Columbia – it really depends. Nation-wide, their name recognition is the same, overall, considering they’re not football/basketball powerhouses and the people who need to know about both know enough not to make a difference.</p>
<p>OP: I would say matches for you would be NYU, Emory, Tufts, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon (not CS), perhaps Cornell.
A university with 20% or less admit rate is automatically a crapshoot so JHU would be a match if not for selectivity. It’s difficult for high-stats applicants to find true matches (UCB would be one, because you’re in-state).</p>
<p>Based on my experiences in prestige driven business fields on the east and west coast, wustl and emory have almost no prestige relative to Berkeley or Hopkins. WUSTL is disfavorably positioned in the midwest and is far far overshadowed by Northwestern and Chicago within its region while Emory plays second fiddle to Duke in the south. Let’s stop confusing prestige with selectivity however. Vanderbilt and WUSTL have stronger freshman academically based on test scores than Stanford, Cornell, Brown, Penn due in large part to merit aid. Yet would you equate Vandy or WUSTL to any of the latter four schools based on “prestige”? Same goes for Columbia. Not exactly comparable to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford from a prestige standpoint.</p>
<p>I seriously wouldn’t consider UNC-CH’s prestige level equal to Berkeley’s, in general, even if we say the two have an almost identical selectivity level. Look at the peer assessment of both schools and you can see there’s a glaring disparity between the two. This is congruent with the data at the top BUSINESS and LAW school admissions offices’. </p>
<p>Berkeley’s College of Engineering admission rate is around 10-11%.</p>
<p>Also, bear in mind that UCB is a public school and their mission is to serve all students of all SES, thus they weigh more on applicant’s GPA than SAT/ACT scores. I’m sure with 70,000+ applicants if they decide to boast their average/median scores, they can do it in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>Not only Berkeley but also other UCs (UCLA, UC Davis, UC SD, UCSB) have very high average entering GPAs. (3.9 or higher). I wonder whether that is due to extraordinary levels of academic achievement in California, or to something more like the Lake Wobegon effect. </p>
<p>Anyway, if you sincerely believe schools like Cornell and JHU belong in your “match” pile, fine. Certainly, they are a bit less selective than Princeton or Harvard. Some students with very high stats do get rejected from private schools less selective than Cornell or JHU. You can read through the sad histories on College Confidential. However, as long as you also apply to at least one true admission and financial safety you’d be happy to attend, you should be o.k. </p>
<p>If UC Berkeley is just as prestigious or accepted as Columbia, why is Columbia so much more selective? What advantage does a Columbia student have over a UCB student?</p>
<p>UCs report the UC/CSU-weighted HS GPA, with up to 8 semesters of +1 points for honors or AP courses (out of the usual 20 to 28 courses in 10th-11th grade that high school seniors present grades for in applications). This means that the reported GPAs are typically 0.29 to 0.40 higher than the unweighted 10th-11th grade GPAs that the students have, at least at the more selective UCs where most applicants have more than 8 semesters of honors or AP courses.</p>
<p>California is also a very large population state, and the UCs are just 9 of the 32 state universities with undergraduate education. There are also among the most selective ones (along with Cal Poly SLO, and some majors at some other CSUs). The state universities that admit the students with 2.5 (UC/CSU-weighted) HS GPA and 900 SAT CR+M are the unimpacted CSUs you probably never heard of.</p>
<p>Probably recruiting for investment banking and consulting jobs, which tend to strongly favor those from schools with the highest overall prestige and admission selectivity.</p>
<p>For engineering jobs, Columbia may have an local/regional recruiting advantage in New York (particularly with smaller employers), but Berkeley is generally better known for engineering. This is probably true for most Ivy League schools versus many of the state flagships with well-regarded engineering majors. Princeton and Cornell are often considered the stronger Ivy League schools for engineering, but if you want a top reputation in engineering and investment banking and consulting recruiting, look at MIT.</p>