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<p>Well, I don’t find this to be a particularly fair characterization either. Let’s keep in mind that the Nobel Prizes didn’t even exist until 1901. Berkeley was founded in 1868. Stanford was founded in 1898. Now I agree that it takes some decades for a school to fully establish itself, but it means that both Berkeley and Stanford were both well-established schools during most of the eligible timeframe of the Nobel Prizes. From the standpoint of the Nobels, it doesn’t matter that Harvard was founded in 1636 when the fact is, Nobels didn’t even exist back in those days. You can’t win a prize that doesn’t even exist. </p>
<p>In the case of Berkeley in particular, Berkeley had 33 years to establish itself before the first Nobels were even handed out, and 33 years ought to be sufficient time. As a point of comparison, MIT was founded only a few years before Berkeley was. </p>
<p>Furthermore, like I said in my previous post, US universities were not real science powerhouses before WW2, relative to the univeristies in Europe. Before WW2, Harvard profs had only won 3 Nobels. MIT hadn’t won any. So it’s not like Harvard/MIT had built up some huge lead from a Nobel prof-winning standpoint. It was during WW2 that Nobels began to proliferate at many US schools as the big-time science in the world shifted from Europe to the US.</p>