Overall as a school (taking into account academic reputation, undergraduate and graduate experience, quality of education, weather, food, etc. but emphasis on academics), how does Berkeley compare with top schools?
Here are some schools:
Duke
Northwestern
All 8 Ivy League
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
WUSTL
MIT
Stanford
CMU
JHU
Georgetown
For undergrad, it is extremely overrated. What is the enrolment about 40,000?
“For undergrad, it is extremely overrated.”
I’d say it’s extremely underrated.
I’d say it’s extremely underrated as well… just because class sizes are large doesn’t mean the quality of education is any worse. In fact, a significant number of the departments are in the top ten. Like the school is affiliated with 70+ Nobel Laureates and it continues to rake in those prizes. Faculty members are top notch.
I’m thinking of applying but I really don’t know how good it is.
Though undergrad students will never see those people. They are there for research not teaching.
We have been tracking large school vs small school performance for about 13 years and the kids that come from small and medium schools know more and perform better and work with others much better.
I would think that students would be able to get research opportunities with these professors that have won big name awards. Also, when I visited the campus, an adcom officer said that Nobel Prize winners or big name people do teach courses (i.e. Alex Filipenko I think was his name) but I could be wrong since it is such a large school
It’s good. Exceptional for some. Too large and impersonal for others. It’s an impressive public university. with deep resources. In terms of student life it’s very different from all the private universities on your list. There’s very little hand holding. You would need to create your social life, and your inner circle of friends and acquaintances. Many UCB students thrive in that environment and they successfully create a rich and supportive community around them. And then some UCB students are lost in the environment that is Berkeley.
Are you out of state? If so, can you afford the out-of-state tuition? There’s little financial aid or merit aid for out of state students. So for OOS students UCB is often not the best choice, especially if they are academically of the caliber that your list of top schools suggests.
Academic quality (however you define or measure it) can vary by what subjects / majors you are interested in.
For example, Georgetown is generally considered quite strong for political science, but weak in computer science other than topics which relate to politics and government (data mining, information warfare, etc.).
@batesparents2019, I see a lot of generalizing there. Access to profs would depend on the department and the prof.
And who’s this “we” who is tracking between large schools and medium and small schools? And are you/they normalizing for entering student ability? After all, the average student from PSU won’t be as impressive as the average student from UPenn. But the average student entering PSU wouldn’t be as impressive as the average student entering UPenn, either. But that doesn’t tell you much about whether the same student would do better or worse at Cal vs. Cornell or JHU or WashU.
@fogcity Yes, I am. But I’m not sure if I can get into those schools, except maybe CMU. I really like Berkeley and my parents can afford it.
My sense that if you can get into UCB as an OOS applicant you are also competitive for some of the other colleges on your list (e.g. Georgetown, JHU). UCB is very selective. Treat it as a reach. Without knowing your stats it may very well be a high reach. It’s unlikely to be a match for most applicants.
Berkeley is frequently argued about on this message board.
I will say Berkeley’s academic breadth and depth is really only rivaled by Harvard and Stanford.
For research, faculty quality and graduate studies its rivals are Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT.
Since Berkeley has a large undergraduate population due to its public charter and is not as wealthy as some other universities (primarily due to lack of a medical school on campus) it cannot provide the same care and feeding to its undergraduates. Therefore, from an undergraduate experience perspective, it is more comparable to larger privates such as Cornell, USC, NYU and top public universities like Michigan, UCLA and Wisconsin.
It is easier to get into Berkeley as OSS than into Georgetown and JHU, etc., because Berkeley needs the money from OSS.
@hzhao2004 Not true. They are capping OOS students from now on at Berkeley, meaning only a certain number of OOS students can enroll.
Berkeley admission selectivity does vary by division (and major within the College of Engineering). For example, an applicant may find that the College of Letters and Science is a “match”, but EECS or Bioengineering in the College of Engineering is a “reach”.
If you are out-of-state, can you afford to attend?
@ucbalumnus Yes, I can afford to attend. My income bracket is 200k+
@ucbalumnus I won’t qualify for financial aid anywhere
According to news reports, Berkeley and UCLA are capping OOS at current levels, which are at about 30% at the two campuses. Other UC campuses are not capping. Also those two campuses are not adding new spaces for residents. They’re holding the current ratios steady at two campuses and hoping for an increase at others because they do need OOS money.
“taking into account … undergraduate and graduate [school] experience”
They may not relate to each other and can be difficult to assess simultaneously.
I figure that anyone who has to ask whether Berkeley is “good” might deserve to be told that it is abysmally bad, thereby reducing by one the number of applications some overworked, underpaid assistant in the admissions office will have to read. I realize that you’re young, OP, but the most illustrious, celebrated, world-renowned public university in the nation really requires no additional validation.