<p>At elite schools, selectivity is based, in part, on yield. Berkeley’s yield is 37.4% whereas Columbia’s is 59.9%. If Berkeley didn’t have another university cutting into its yield every year (i.e. UCLA with 35.2%) I’m sure it would be significantly more selective as well.</p>
<p>TK, whilst the other UCs have managed to pull off sterling marks from candidates - registering numbers/data almost similar to Berkeley’s, in terms of GPAs, the fact remains that Berkeley is the most selective school amongst all the UCs. </p>
<p>I guess my point really here is, UNDERGRAD SELECTIVITY does not always rely on the undergrad’s high selectivity level. SCHOOL BRAND POWER is more of a product of having world class professors, world-class facilities, world class research, employability of graduates and having access to top grad schools and/or top-paying jobs. Amherst, for example, may have students with better stats than Berkeley students - in general. But I think it would be silly to say that Amherst - as an institution - is more prestigious than Berkeley. </p>
<ol>
<li>Columbia has limited resources and facilities thus couldn’t accept more students, or it would dilute its core education to a “state U level” where the ratio of faculty-to-student is higher.</li>
</ol>
<p>For Columbia to become as big as Berkeley, it would need to add more lecture halls, laboratories, classrooms, offices, and employ more people, perhaps triple its current size. Columbia couldn’t afford to do that without “diluting” its statistics. </p>
<ol>
<li>WALL STREET. That’s a no-brainer. Columbia grads have easier access to Wall Street. They send loads of grads there every year, thus their network in the financial center is relatively larger than Berkeley’s. But how easy (and successful) Columbia is in gaining access to Wall Street is perhaps the same level of access Berkeley has to Silicon Valley. I’m not saying it is nearly impossible for Columbia grads to gain employment in SV. They just have lesser access compared to Berkeley grads as they are outnumbered, and the field isn’t the school’s forte.
In the IT, tech and engineering world, Berkeley, perhaps, is bested by only two, three or four schools, and Columbia is obviously not one of them. </li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t know why you’re pushing Washington University in St.Louis so much, but in terms of prestige, especially in the fields OP posted about, Cal trumps the school you’re talking about. The only rankings (which IMO are good for determining ‘prestige’) in which WUStL beats Cal are in the US news, which has bias against public schools naturally. And even in those rankings, Cal trumps WUStL in Engineering and Biomedical/chem fields, which tbh Cal excels at compared to most schools. </p>
<p>You’re also not looking at the specifics-- OP is “interested in biology and chemistry although not necessarily on a premed track. I may consider engineering also.”, and you have to pick the schools right for those, that will give him/her the best research/internship/etc. opportunities in those fields! WUStL may be a “good school”, but is it the right one for those fields? And back to selectivity–the admission rates for each college in UC Berkeley are extremely varied. The admiss rate for the College of Engineering in 2012, for instance, was 12.7%. Berkeley is one of the top schools/research institutions in the nation for those fields, and thus in terms of “prestige”, def. trumps whatever school you’re trying to push. </p>
<p>So before you push whatever stats you’ve got at me, I’d like to say that, no, I haven’t made a mistake. I’d like to think that, as a student myself, I have a good idea about what schools are considered ‘name brand’ or not. WUStL may be a good school, but internationally, it doesn’t hold a candle to Cal, simply because of the subjects Cal is famous for.</p>
<p>As mentioned somewhere before, I feel like the more selective the school is, the more of a crapshoot admittance is, and a lot of it will depend on not just your “stats” and the numbers game, but your essays, extracurriculars, and everything else that makes a ‘well-rounded’ applicant. Though OP may be a ‘match’ for some of these schools in terms of numbers, nothing is really guaranteed-- for instance, I know people with much higher GPAs/stats than I did who got rejected from schools I got into (Cal, Yale, etc.). What college you apply to/body of work (if any) would be quite important as well!</p>
<p>Berkeley’s only (slightly) more selective than UCLA if you omit spring admits. If you don’t, it’s less selective.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It probably is in the northeast, whereas Berkeley is more prestigious in the world at large. While that’s always a nice fact to note, it, like USNWR rank, means very little in the real world. </p>
<p>Most UCLA alumni (~75%) live in California and I suspect a similar number holds for Berkeley alumni. So how powerful of a brand name it is in the U.K. or Italy or w/e probably won’t mean anything to most of its alumni.</p>
<p>For various reasons, Columbia (like the other Ivies) is able to draw applicants across a wider geographic span that Berkeley can. Columbia claims to cover 100% of demonstrated financial need for all students, including students from distant states. Berkeley only covers about 81% of demonstrated need on average. That rate probably is much less for OOS students. Columbia also attracts applicants from very wealthy families that have sent their kids to Ivy League colleges for generations (so it enjoys strong brand loyalty that, again, crosses state lines). </p>
<p>Columbia is a richer school with a bigger endowment for far fewer students than the entire University of California system. Columbia offers smaller average class sizes. < 5% of Columbia classes have 50 or more students, compared to 14.5% at Berkeley. There are no “impacted” majors at Columbia. Every undergraduate is a first-class citizen of the whole college, which pretty clearly is the best college in the heart of America’s premier city for finance and the arts. Columbia students not only have easier access to Wall Street firms, but compared to any state schools they probably also have better “feeder” rates to top medical, law, business, and PhD programs (though that may be in part because they were stronger - and more affluent - students to start with). </p>
<p>Columbia also enjoys a certain historic cachet. It’s the country’s 5th oldest institution of higher learning. It educated 5 of the country’s Founding Fathers. It has a long, long list of notable alumni (both historic and contemporary, including the current President of the United States.)</p>
<p>Will any of that really add up to a better education than you could get at one of a half dozen California state universities? Hard to say. </p>
<p>I guess TK was looking at Columbia from a different angle. I’m not going to argue him on that.</p>
<p>Whilst it is true that Columbia attracts students from the wealthy class and Berkeley has a predominantly middle-class student body, Berkeley has its own fair share of students coming from the very wealthy class. </p>
<p>Columbia and Berkeley are two very different universities: Columbia is associated with old money while Berkeley is associated with new money. So while Columbia is better for things like Wall St., Berkeley is better for Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>Columbia undoubtedly has a very rich history (in particular because the country expanded from east to west.) But we shouldn’t forget that Berkeley has quite a rich history of its own. It’s the oldest elite university in its state, which includes universities such as Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, among others. Its rich history have given it associations with dozens of Nobel laureates, a few elements on the periodic table (of which arguably two bear its name) and a strong scientific tradition which to this day have helped it have top programs in nearly every field.</p>
<p>We also shouldn’t forget that Berkeley is one of the premier universities in the state with the largest GDP in the nation, for which it has produced a large number of alumni, and in which it is very well respected. Like I said, these universities are very different, and I’m not exactly the type of person you’d normally find defending Berkeley. However, its fairly clear that both of these universities are excellent and have provided excellent opportunity for their students even if one of them happens to be significantly more selective than the other.</p>
<p>For Berkeley, it is probably very close to 100% for California residents, but very few non-California residents will have their need met (only by specific rare merit scholarships like Drake (not sure if Regents’ does it)). Columbia has a lower student self-help contribution ($5,400 vs. $8,500, according to net price calculators), but uses its own methodology (vs. FAFSA only for Berkeley).</p>
<p>Look, the OP is right to be asking, “what’s the big deal with a school like Columbia?”
One can try to explain its appeal, but if he doesn’t get offers from his top choices, there may be no compelling objective reason for him to leave California. UC Davis or UCSD are better “low match” alternatives, for a prospective engineering student from California, than UVa or UNC. Depending on net costs and specific interests, UCD or UCSD may be better alternatives (and in any case are more likely to accept him) than JHU or Cornell. Columbia definitely isn’t a “match” and for some students would not be clearly preferable to Berkeley.
<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>For the zillionth time, though, though, RML, within the United States, Berkeley’s “brand power” is mostly in California. It’s just not on the radar screen much outside the west coast. You may passionately want it to be, but people just don’t think of it all that much in the Midwest and East, unless they have personal connections / ties to that area. That doesn’t make it not a good school - it’s a fine school - but please stop pretending that the brand power it has in California is national. it isn’t. Most people will never come across a Berkeley grad in their lives. For most people it’s “oh, someplace out in California” with a bit of historic hippie vibe thrown in for good measure. </p>
<p>Amherst more prestigious? In the northeast? Oh god, yes. Absolutely. </p>
<p>Prestige can ONLY be answered by “among what audience, in what region.” </p>
<p>I’d say Pizzagirl is correct when it comes to Berkeley’s reputation among the general public. People think it’s a hippie school. Among scientists and engineers, though, it’s definitely a top name no matter where you’re located.</p>
<p>According to my Asian wife, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley are the three most prestigious university names in Asia.</p>
<p>Strangely enough, here in the SF Bay Area there are so many Cal grads that their sheer numbers make it seem like they’re a dime a dozen.</p>
<p>Hi there chiming in as a UCB alum, I have to say that the international recognition I have gotten is much much higher than national recognition for my (Letters and Science) degree. In the mid Atlantic where I am now, Berkeley is a hot brand for Asians I have met. And the hippy rep is real IME, but I was there after the hippy times.</p>