<p>Sorry I didn’t mention some sources. Here they are:</p>
<p>diversity.caltech.edu/dpg_reports/irvine06-04/Data.pdf</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ivysuccess.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.ivysuccess.com</a></p>
<p>you sound like you scored a 1200 SAT. You say SAT 1 doesn’t mean anything-so then what makes Harvard students great-anyone can get a 4.0 at a crummy public high school.</p>
<p>If that comment was for me, I got a lot more than 1200 on my SAT. You are completely missing the point. Getting a high SAT I score is not what makes Harvard students great. The fact that they are so academically great means that the majority of them score very well on the SAT; there is a fundamental difference.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? How can a high school student be academically talented? theres two ways: SAT and gpa. Everyone knows anyone can get a 4.0 at a crappy public high school and that extracurriculars,clubs, etc are a load of bs. </p>
<p>Now you aren’t even making sense anymore. If colleges just based it all on gpa, no one would attend a rigorous private high school, instead they would go to an easy public hs that hands out As like all the students at the UCs do. Thats not a secret. It doesn’t make you academically gifted to have a 4.3 gpa at a school that hands out As. If you can score 1500+, you are smart. Test prep can improve your score but once you get into a certain range, natural intelligence takes over. </p>
<p>Grades can be manipulated and skewed school by school but a standardized test cannot. Thats probably why everyone in the top law schools make fun of Boalt Hall at Berkeley (and why it is in free fall) because its student body has such a low LSAT range (or are you going to say now that LSAT doesn’t mean much?) for a supposed “elite” school, yet abnormally high gpa because it rejects MIT engineers with 3.3s in favor of a UC Riverside communications major with a 3.9. </p>
<p>Be honest here and deal with reality. Berkeley is riding past reputation and has a weak student body, through and through. Sure it has great faculty, but a very very average student body.</p>
<p>Ok. You go and post exactly what you have written on a more popular message board and see what people have to say. Please post “If you can score 1500+, you are smart.” in particular. </p>
<p>If you still haven’t learnt, after the entire college admissions process, that the SAT I means and shows very little in terms of intellectual ability, then there is no point in me even arguing with you. </p>
<p>In addition, to your question of “How can a high school student be academically talented?” there are a number of more measures other than SAT. When talking about the most selective schools in the US, academic awards, intellectual achievements and subject specific testing such as APs or IBs are all more accurate measures of intellectual abilities. </p>
<p>Lastly, you have no justification, unlike jwblue who has tried to provide some, of Berkeley’s student body being “very weak.” Please think before you post.</p>
<p>ankur87: nah man you’re an idiot; stern is awesome and that carries over to nyu’s biology department! it doesn’t matter that nyu is 3x the price and far less prestigous! stern’s average SAT score is like a billion points higher than berkeley’s! have fun at your 50th tier school while i’m chilling leeching off the awesomeness that is stern! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>quakerman: berkeley takes into account more than gpa… if you got a 1300 on your SAT I; a 1400 combined on your math and writing SAT II’s; and maintained a 4.0 gpa throughout high shcool (like the average berkeley matriculant) then you’re obviously academically talented. much moreso than the average student at other schools.</p>
<p>i don’t see how i’m very academically valuable with my 1500+ and terrible gpa; if anything that just shows i have a poor work ethic. i’m sure someone who had a 4.0 and got a 1250 would do a lot better in college than me.</p>
<p>let them use whatever criteria they want; it’s worked for them and when CA gets over its budget troubles i’m sure berkeley will shoot back up.</p>
<p>and if you want to talk historical repuation, up until ~10 years ago NYU was a second-tier commuter school that didn’t spend its endowment and had a good grad school. they recently started splurging and jacking up their tuition so their ranking has shot up.</p>
<p>you’re seriously insane if you think berkeley’s student body is on the level of tulane’s or usc’s. maybe uci or ucsb is on the level of those schools but definitly not ucb or even ucla or ucsd.</p>
<p>First off, look no further than the OP, accepted to Berkeley, waitlisted at NYU…at the very least, that ought to say something. </p>
<p>Second, Berkeley is as concerned with SAT I scores as any other elite school in the country (even more so due to the numerical nature of UC admissions). The greater one’s SAT score, the better one’s chance to get into Berk, simple as that, please do not spew this BS about Berk not regarding the SAT as important. Anyone here: show me ANY credible evidence that proves Berkeley puts less of an emphasis on SAT than NYU. For CA residents, applying to Berkeley requires checking a box, no Berkeley specific essays or reccs…there is numerical formula for getting in, ECs arent even really factored in, and the SAT is a heavy part of it. Contrast this to NYU, where ECs, essays and reccs play a huge role, some NYU schools have auditions, interviews, portfolio submissions, etc. (where a great SAT is no guarantee to getting in…plenty of 1500 SATs have been rejected from Tisch for being untalented). Berkeley admissions is MUCH more numerical than NYU’s. </p>
<p>Also, whats with the SAT II nonesense?.. NYU doesn’t striclty require them but recommends them, and almost all admits have taken them and done well…this is well known. Call me crazy here, but dont’ people with higher SAT I scores normally have higher SAT II scores as well?</p>
<p>Crab: Of course you’re correct re: out of staters at Berkeley. For an out of stater, getting into UCB is probably harder than getting into Stanford, but this is 5-7% of Berk’s student body, and certainly very unrepresentative of the whole which is what is being discussed here. You obviously did something correct to get into NYU, and you should probably have more confidenece in yourself as unconfident people will not succeed in Manhattan. If you were in CA, you would have waltzed into Berkeley…no question, your stats alone would have got you in. Why any out of stater would even apply to Berkeley undergrad is beyond me since there is no benefit of in state tuition. I went to a top private school on the east coast, and nobody even considered Berkeley at my high school (look at where people from top boarding schools most go to college, Berkeley isn’t there).</p>
<p>In addition to having a higher SAT average, NYU draws more top students per capita than does Berkeley. </p>
<p>As far as # of national merit scholars in the entering class go (2003 numbers):</p>
<p>NYU: 155
UCLA: 127
Berkeley: 69</p>
<p>Source (you’ll need ms excel to open this):
<a href=“http://thecenter.ufl.edu/Top200-III/2_2003_top200_merit.xls[/url]”>http://thecenter.ufl.edu/Top200-III/2_2003_top200_merit.xls</a></p>
<p>Obviously more national merit winners doesn’t automatically mean better student body (even some state schools like U of Florida and U of Ohio have tons of merit winners since they are very popular with top students in the state by offering honors colleges), but it reflects a school’s ability in attracting academic superstars. One would figure this would be easy for Berkeley since top CA students would pay virtually nothing to go there, but its not the case, UCLA is outdoing it, and so are many other state schools in their respective states. Hmmm…there must be some reason for these top students not choosing Berkeley or we can choose to believe Inuendo’s arguments, say the SAT means nothing and these national merit scholars are not intelligent at all (sense the sarcasm). </p>
<p>Quakerman makes valid points regarding CA’s garbage high schools and how not all, but some of Berkeley’s student body reeks of average. Look 25% of Berkeley’s student body scores below a 1190 on the SAT I. However, this doesn’t include the DROVES of community college transfers infesting Berkeley every semester. Some community collegse in CA are virtual feeders into UC Berkeley, and its safe to assume many of these transferees didn’t crack 1200. While sub 1200 scorers may not be over 50%, its more than 25% at Berkeley. This undergrad student body is not equal to NYU…let alone in the same breath as HYPS. 1300 is the 25th percentile at NYU, you take out GSP, and the numbers are even more lopsided. </p>
<p>Berkeley is riding on past reputation and being surpassed by UCLA even within the UC system. On the other hand, NYU has become much better than it was 20 years ago, heck even much better from 10 or 5 years ago…its gets better every year. </p>
<p>If these schools were shares of stock, NYU would be Intel (the new kid on the block of an elite group), while Berkeley would be US Steel (delisted from the Dow Jones, akin to an old widow living on memories of years past)…I’ll let you guys judge which garners better returns in the long term.</p>
<p>uh…the bottom 25th percentile at NYU is below 1220. the bottom 25th at berkeley is below 1210. the scores for all intents and purposes are exactly the same!</p>
<p>and the national merit thing is a joke…i can’t believe you’re seriously using it as a source.</p>
<p>cornell and emory aren’t even in the top 50; the university of freaking oklahoma is above NYU; and oberlin and grinnell are above far superior LACs like swarthmore, amherst, williams, and pomona. but oh man ASU has so many national merit scholars i better start filling out my transfer application to the number one party school in the country so i can booze it up at the 14th biggest academic powerhouse in the nation!!!</p>
<p>then again i guess i should be happy to be going to a school that’s better than upenn, northwestern, and duke. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>no offense but that is possibly the worst methodology i’ve ever seen for comparing schools.</p>
<p>all it shows is that NYU is more likely to admit national merit scholars (ie people who scored well on the PSAT)…proving my point that NYU is heavily numbers based.</p>
<p>i think you’re falling into the trap of “high sat score = good student”. i did better on the sat than anyone i know – i’m also a worse student than just about all of them because i can’t focus and am incredibly lazy. i’m definitly no better than someone with a 3.5 and a 1400; how am i more valuable than someone with a 4.0 and a 1300?</p>
<p>Why is everyone (including my cousin who is an NYU alumnus) so surprised that I got into UCBerkeley but not NYU?</p>
<p>I understand that they are both top tier schools, but I thnk the general sentiment of students is that UC Berkeley is more difficult to gain admission to than NYU…</p>
<p>“uh…the bottom 25th percentile at NYU is below 1220. the bottom 25th at berkeley is below 1210”</p>
<p>NYU 50% range is a 1300-1450, the average of last year’s ENTERING (not admitted) freshmen was a 1352.</p>
<p>Sources:
<a href=“Undergraduate Admissions”>Undergraduate Admissions;
<p>Last year’s freshmen class:
“Freshman academic quality, as meas-ured by high school grade point averages and SAT scores, is at an all time high. The incom-ing class posted an overall GPA of 3.6 and anaverage SAT score of 1352”</p>
<p>Source:
<a href=“http://www.nyu.edu/ogcr/newsletters/Fall2004.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nyu.edu/ogcr/newsletters/Fall2004.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>NYU’s SAT is at least 50 points higher than Berkeley’s and the numbers for CAS are even more lopsided. </p>
<p>“all it proves is that NYU is more likely to admit national merit scholars” </p>
<p>No, it proves national merit scholars are more likely to attend NYU because they would have gotten into Berkeley as well…and you ignored the UCLA portion of my argument. Heck, by your logic, national merit scholars have the best chance to get into Harvard since it has more than any school…get real. </p>
<p>Cornell, Emory: They don’t give merit aid, however Berkeley has the sweet inducement of instate tuition, and yet still can’t attract these top students like UCLA can.</p>
<p>LACs: They are smaller, and of course ones that give merit aid will atract more…saving money is normally a good thing.</p>
<p>Ankur: The reason for people’s surprise is that, again Berkeley is riding on past reputation …the current undergraduate student body there is not spectacular.</p>
<p>'In addition, to your question of “How can a high school student be academically talented?” there are a number of more measures other than SAT. When talking about the most selective schools in the US, academic awards, intellectual achievements and subject specific testing such as APs or IBs are all more accurate measures of intellectual abilities."</p>
<p>my school does not offer IBs, but the AP classes/tests are not measures of “intellectual abilities”, they are measures of how much effort and how much one has studied and prepared for the test…if i don’t prepare for the test, i’m not going to pass, regardless of my “intellectual ability”, and vice versa…i know plenty of people that studied endlessly for APs and still didn’t pass them simply because they didn’t have this “intellectual ability” you speak of…</p>
<p>-katrina-</p>
<p>sorry for using the old stats for nyu’s sat range…i was going by the princetonreview.</p>
<p>anyway, look, i got into NYU and Emory (Emory i was waitlisted and accepted about a week later). i was also a national merit semi-finalist. there’s also simply no way i would have gotten into any UC better than santa cruz. </p>
<p>i have friends in CA who were accepted to privates like bard, kenyon, u-freaking-chicago, and waitlisted at ivies who were rejected at berkeley and ucla. one of these guys had a higher gpa (but pretty close to mine), SAT scores, SAT II’s, and some other stuff. hell, the reason the SAT I was changed was because the UC system wanted to stop using it.</p>
<p>how do you know that just because someone is national merit that they’ll be accepted to berkeley? i think all you’ve done in this thread so far is demonstrate how clueless you are about the UCs.</p>
<p>as i’ve said, berkeley cares more about achievement than your sat scores, which is why they focus on SAT II’s, gpa, and AP’s more.</p>
<p>also, emory DOES give merit aid – they’re one of the best schools for it (<a href=“Financial Aid at Emory | Emory University | Atlanta GA”>Financial Aid at Emory | Emory University | Atlanta GA). they even give a 1000 bucks to national merit kids… ivies also give “need-based merit-aid” heheheheh.</p>
<p>that list is by no means an admissions chart; a national merit scholar who was probably instate and got into UF probably isn’t getting into columbia which has a lot fewer national merit folks.</p>
<p>i’m not mentioning ucla because it’s a non-issue…you seem to have just brought it up completely randomly as a way of saying “lol berkeley sux”.</p>
<p>maybe ucla gives free segways or a really sweet health insurance policy to national merit kids. i don’t know and i really don’t care. it’s complete BS to compare schools based on the number of national merits they have.</p>
<p>treeexoxo: i think all you just did was prove inuendo’s point but w/e. there’s more to intellectual ability than innate intelligence.</p>
<p>“there’s also simply no way i would have gotten into any UC better than santa cruz.”</p>
<p>Thats because you’re OUT OF STATE, in state, you’d waltz into Berkeley. The more important question is why you’d even bother applying to UC if you’re not from CA…you can go private (USC, Stanford, and Pepperdine) for about the same price. Also why do you keep bringing up out of state…its a non issue (5-7% of Berkley’s student body), we’re talking overall here. </p>
<p>Your “friends in CA” are the exception, not the rule. The average in-stater at UCLA and Berkeley as about as much of a chance of gettting into an ivy as the Lakers have of winning the championship. </p>
<p>Again, if you really want to go to Berkeley that bad, go to a community colllege in CA and transfer in (its not hard, get a 3.0 in community college):</p>
<p>“The Cooperative Admissions Program (CAP) gives students the opportunity to combine lower division study at a community college with a guarantee of admission to the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) upon completion of 60 UC-transferable units and a minimum GPA of 3.0 (specific majors may require a higher GPA). The program is specifically for students who apply in high school to UCB for freshman admission, and are UC eligible (meet the minimum admission requirements for freshmen), but were not admitted as freshmen. Each participating college at UCB has specific academic requirements. Additional information about the Cooperative Admission Program is available in the Counseling Department.”</p>
<p>Source:
<a href=“http://www.communitycollege.net/transfer/[/url]”>http://www.communitycollege.net/transfer/</a></p>
<p>i don’t want to go to berkeley…i would like to transfer to upenn (applied there ED, rejected) or columbia if i end up not liking nyu.</p>
<p>berkeley is still tremendously difficult to get into instate – just read this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=46656[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=46656</a>.</p>
<p>also, who said that kids who got into ucb would waltz into ivies? i’m sure they’d waltz into schools that are similar in rank like emory or CMU though. definitly nyu too.</p>
<p>in regards to the OP: i know people with worse stats than he who were accepted to NYU with fat merit scholarships.</p>
<p>“in regards to the OP: i know people with worse stats than he who were accepted to NYU with fat merit scholarships.”</p>
<p>Well I guess this negates your previous argument that NYU admissions is heavily numbers biased. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>nah, i’m just saying that he should have waltzed into NYU. i have no idea how he got waitlisted.</p>
<p>people get unlucky sometimes.</p>
<p>He’d be fortunate to get into Stern</p>
<p>Stern >>>>>Berkeley. This is fact.</p>
<p>ok but he didn’t apply to stern so the fact that stern is better than haas is completely irrelevant and i have no idea why you’re bringing it up.</p>
<p>hey wait berkeley engineering is way better than nyu engineering! IN YO FACE NYU!!!</p>
<p>“hey wait berkeley engineering is way better than nyu engineering!”</p>
<p>Umm, NYU doesn’t have an engineering school. </p>
<p>The facts are this: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The OP didn’t get into NYU and got into Berkeley. That should be an immediate indicator as to which school is more selective and has the superior student body.</p></li>
<li><p>NYU’s average SAT is over 50 points higher than Berkeley’s, even though NYU has GSP and non-academic schools. CAS’s average is even higher (at least 70), and Stern is over a 100 points higher. The average Berkeley IN STATE undergrad is not getting into NYU-no way; this is to say nothing of all the mediocre community college transfers who come into Berkeley after getting a 3.0.</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley is a has-been as far being in the upper echelon of academia, while NYU has become a very hot school.</p></li>
</ol>