<p>Calkidd and Sakky have it right. On average, Stanford and Harvard students are way more qualified than Berkeley students. However, if you look at a major like EECS at Berkeley, your average Harvard student would get creamed in the most severest way possible, even if he was good at math and science in high school. Brilliant students exist at all the schools. It’s pretty clear Berkeley has some majors that are very hard. So does Stanford – engineering there ain’t a joke, but as Sakky says, it seems Berkeley’s is an order of magnitude harsher. Because the average Stanford student is more qualified than a Berkeley engineer <em>academically</em>? Not really. On this count, it seems Stanford just doesn’t see it necessary to make it harder to get good grades, and frankly I agree with that philosophy – it’s HARD to get an A in tough engineering classes there, but I don’t think splitting hairs and making it harder is better.</p>
<p>EDIT: A little other thing. I have found that unfortunately, the hardest majors at Cal often have both some of the hardest material AND hardest grading! Cal is broken into people A) Not academically qualified enough to get into HYPS and B) More than academically qualified, but lacking in other personal factors. The (B) variety will often end up in these hard majors, and will bash heads! One of the sad things. How glad I am that I have avoided this.</p>