Waitlisted at CAS, do I have a chance?

Colleges & Universities New York University
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<p>It seems that people are using my experience as the norm. This is not so. Many of my friends who were accepted into NYU, were not into Berkeley. And besides me, everyone who was admitted into Berkeley and applied to NYU, got in. This includes 1 science major, 1 lit major, and two bio majors. </p>

<p>It is for this reason I made the thread. I was rather surprised that I didn’t get in, especially since my raw SAT I/IIs are better than those who got admitted (into bio at that.) </p>

<p>I suppose the best, most recognized truthful (and easiest) explanation is the one I keep coming back to…
College admissions are wholely unpredictable. I wasn’t considering NYU a shoe-in, but I was expecting admission when compared to my peers…</p>

<p>But, I’ve moved on…</p>

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<p>Ankur: Your experience only shows that NYU admissions is not as numbers based as that of state schools like UC Berkeley, even though NYU has a higher caliber student body. </p>

<p>Due to the point system, UC admissions are much more predictable than those of private schools. Though, on the aggregate, you’re right, anything can happen in college admissions.</p>

<p>Good luck wherever you end up.</p>

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<p>jwblue, your point on the number of National Merit Scholars is completely irrelevant and proves nothing in the context of this argument. As you hinted at in your post and crabluva<3crabs elaborated, a number of mediocre colleges have far more national merit scholars than stellar universities. NYU possessing more National Merit Scholars than UCB is no indication of a superior student body. </p>

<p>Secondly, "look no further than the OP, accepted to Berkeley, waitlisted at NYU…at the very least, that ought to say something.” is another stupid comment. If you go over to the UCB board or the Stanford board here at CC, you can see the number of Stanford acceptees and UCB rejects. Does that say something? </p>

<p>We can continue to argue about which of the two schools are better but it seems as though are views are irreconcilable. I still cannot believe that you can state that Berkeley is far from “being in the upper echelon of academia.”</p>

<p>PS: Usually, you categorically response to each of my points. But it seems that you have, perhaps unintentionally, omitted a response to my post on MIT and Caltech cross admits and selectivity. Did I create a chink in your immaculate purple armor?</p>

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<p>Ineundo, most people admitted to both MIT and Caltech will pick the later. The average student at Caltech can get into MIT, while the average MIT student cannot get into Caltech, let alone handle the most demanding courseload in the nation there. But enough of this, go to a general forum on this site and start a thread on whether Caltech or MIT has the superior student body…you’ll see what the consensus is. </p>

<p>As for things you haven’t addressed regarding NYU vs. Berkeley:</p>

<p>-NYU’s higher SAT average (50 points overall, more so for schools like CAS and Stern).</p>

<p>-You say the number of national merit scholars is irrelevant? Why? Because some mediocre schools as you arrogantly term them have more than some stellar ones, well consider 2 things: (1) Ivies aren’t allowed to give merit aid, thus you can see after HYP, the number of scholars for the ivies decreases significantly because the lower 5 ivies will often lose these superstars to other schools who give merit aid AND(2) some of these “medoicre” state schools are able to lure top students with generous financial aid and honors programs…you would think UCB would have some appeal with that cheap in-state tuition, but even UCLA is beating it. This may sound crazy, but I’d rather sit next to a national merit scholar in my college lecture than some sub-1200 SAT community college transfer of which Berekely has more than its share.</p>

<p>-Speaking of transfers and something else you’ve never addressed, Quakerman earlier made a correct point about the plethora of mediocre students at Berkeley. 25% of Berkeley freshmen have scored below a 1190 on the SAT, but this doesn’t even include the transfers (drawn mostly from California’s community colleges) who make up around 25% of Berkeley’s student body. Its fair to assume a good portion of these cc transferees didn’t crack a 1200, maybe not even 1100 on the SAT (not what I call a top rate undergrad student body). </p>

<p>Obviously we can agree to disagree.</p>

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<p>You have no evidence, whatsoever, to claim that Caltech’s cross-admit rate in relation to MIT is higher. The data that I had provided in my previous post stated that Caltech has a far lower yield than MIT. In addition, it also noted that Caltech loses the majority of its merit scholars to MIT, which provides no merit scholarships, and that the yields of its merit scholarship programs are well below 50%. This goes completely against what you are claiming. Instead, you propose that we use the very subjective opinions of CC members as justification for Caltech being a more selective school than MIT (which is also false as indicated in my previous post) and possessing a better student body. You are blatantly wrong here. </p>

<p>Secondly, I have addressed your continued and very repetitive comments on NYU’s higher SAT I median. As I said before, and say again now, all NYU’s higher median score shows is that NYU admits, on average, are better at taking the SAT then UCB students, on average. That’s all. It is not, as you claim across all CC forums, justification for possessing a superior student body in any way. Your argument is based strongly on the assumption that the SAT is a very accurate measure of intellectual ability which, as numerous studies have shown, it unfortunately isn’t. It is, in fact, a very poor measure of intellectual or academic ability, as the majority of standardized tests are. </p>

<p>I agree to not addressing your comments on the apparent “plethora,” of transfer students from community college into UCB. I am not very experienced or knowledgeable in this topic area and so have chosen not to post any responses. It is better to not claim anything at all than post misrepresentative statements. </p>

<p>Since you seem to be very keen to garner CC opinions to bolster your argument perhaps you should visit the CC Top Universities section. I see University of California - Berkeley on the list, but fail to find New York University. Maybe I missed it?</p>

<p>And yes, ultimately we can agree to disagree, although to no avail.</p>

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<p>i dont really feel like diving back into this arguement, but most surveys show the contrary… that their is a VERY HIGH correlation between SAT scores and college/career success… the few that have gone agianst this have been from incredibly biased/unreputable sources.</p>

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<p>-Regarding Caltech vs. MIT, I think you’ve confused yield with selectivity. These scholars Caltech loses represent a very small portion of MIT students, not the overall average. Caltech’s student body is much smaller than MIT (like 1/4 the size)…the average Caltech student can get into MIT, while the opposite is not true (of course there are some MIT students who can get into Caltech).</p>

<p>“NYU admits, on average, are better at taking the SAT then UCB students, on average. That’s all. It is not, as you claim across all CC forums, justification for possessing a superior student body in any way.”</p>

<p>-First off, the data was on NYU students not admits (that is the students at NYU have a higher average SAT than Berkeley students even when the Berkeley transfers are not included and NYU GSP is). So then you tell me…what is justification for possessing a superior student body? Top 10% of class or GPA? I can give you plenty of examples of crappy CA public schools, while NYU has a higher proportion of its student body from private schools. </p>

<p>“It is, in fact, a very poor measure of intellectual or academic ability, as the majority of standardized tests are.”</p>

<p>-Most research says to the contrary. Even if we assume your false statement is true, then why do colleges place so much importance on the SAT, much more so than any other test including SAT II, AP, IBs, etc? Why do colleges even require it if its not a good measure of intellectual or academic ability? The reason is that the SAT provides a way to judge seemingly identical people (ie is 3.5 at high school X better than a 3.5 at high school Y)…and it does with better than grades or hs gpa ever can. </p>

<p>-Yes, I did notice you’ve stayed quite about Berkeley’s transfer infusion. The fact is, transfers make up 25% of UCB’s student body (contrast this to NYU which admits 700 transfers a year for an undergrad population of 17,000). Surely these transfers (mostly from CA community colleges) bring down the quality of Berkeley’s student body, yet their test scores/stats are not included in the freshmen admissions numbers. There is no way most of these CA community college transfers are getting into NYU, yet they will get Berkeley degrees. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/transfer.html[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/transfer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Trust me, Berkeley has no shortage of medoicre students. </p>

<p>As for the CC top universities section…its a US News ranking from many years ago, it wasn’t done with CC’s own methodology. Berk has those high rankings from its so called “peer assessment” score of faculty, not the quality of its undergrads. Face it, UCB is riding on past reputation and grad. school quality.</p>

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<p>Do you know why Boalt Hall is the laughingstock of law schools?</p>

<p>Because it admits dummies with high gpas from crummy colleges and easy majors with low lsats in favor of intelligent people with high lsats and lower gpas in rigorous major, just like its ug. </p>

<p>NYUs law and business schools are both perceived as better than Cal’s. You should check out the lsat ranges between trhe schools, it is pretty funny. NYUS 25%ile is above Cal’s 75 %ile. LOL!!</p>

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<p>“contrast this to NYU which admits 700 transfers a year for an undergrad population of 17,000”</p>

<p>Where did you get this from? NYU’s website says that they admit 31.5% of 4,090 transfer applicants, which is around 1,290 students.</p>

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<p>mattistole: in the beginning of the sparknotes (i think) SAT review books there’s a figure…it’s not very high iirc. i threw away all my prep books so i can’t go back and check.</p>

<p>jwblue: in regards to the NYU engineering comment: <a href=“http://www.nyu.edu/cas/Academic/Programs/engineering/[/url]”>http://www.nyu.edu/cas/Academic/Programs/engineering/&lt;/a&gt;
i was responding to an absurbity with an absurdity.</p>

<p>as i’ve said a thousand times, berkeley cares more about SAT IIs than the SAT I (their SAT II score ranges are pretty high btw) and they care more about gpa than both of those. </p>

<p>“The University of California system, the hoped-for destination of thousands of California’s high school graduates, will give equal weight to the new SAT and subject test scores for this year’s applicants, said spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina. But admissions officials will still put more weight into students’ grade point averages than test scores.” (<a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/11411486.htm[/url]”>Super Bowl: Bettor uses phone app to bet $1.1 million on Atlanta Falcons)</p>

<p>and gpa is evidence of a superior student body as is class rank… but if a student had an insane GPA at a terrible school then he or she would be weeded out by their SAT II, SAT I, or AP exam scores</p>

<p>hell, look at this quote by the UC system president if you want some insight into how the UC’s view the (old) SAT: “Anyone involved in education should be concerned about how overemphasis on the SAT is distorting educational priorities and practices, how the test is perceived by many as unfair, and how it can have a devastating impact on the self-esteem and aspirations of young students. There is widespread agreement that overemphasis on the SAT harms American education.” (<a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/pres/speeches/achieve.htm[/url]”>http://www.ucop.edu/pres/speeches/achieve.htm&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>you do realize that the reason for the new SAT is because the UC schools were beginning to view the old one as irrelevant, right?</p>

<p>the private school comment is another false argument. at berkeley 85% of the student body comes from public schools; at nyu 69% does. even assuming that all private schools are excellent (which they aren’t and NYU draws a lot of students from local catholic schools which often aren’t better than the local public ones) 16% isn’t that big a difference.</p>

<p>interestingly enough 81% of caltech’s student body went to public school compared to 71% at MIT…</p>

<p>finally, as much as i hate using princetonreview’s rankings as a source:
The Toughest To Get Into:
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3 California Institute of Technology
16 University of California-Berkeley
(<a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=1&TopicID=10[/url]”>http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=1&TopicID=10&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>i do not see an NYU…</p>

<p>i would also recommend that you take a look at <a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/index.htm[/url]”>http://www.fairtest.org/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>quakerman: what are you talking about? no one is even mentioning law and business grad schools. you’re going off on tangents and just making yourself look dumb.</p>

<p>berkeley trumps NYU in just about every other field for grad school though…</p>

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<p>It’s called drawing and inference from similar cases, and college and law school are a similar enough sample for comparison.</p>

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<p>well considering that grad and undergrad schools in the same university are often completely different in terms of prestige, faculty, and admission requirements no they’re really not.</p>

<p>for example, upenn (undisputed king of b-school undergrad) is #3 for grad b-school and nyu (the number 2 for b-undergrad) isn’t even in the top 10 (unlike a certain norcal business school).</p>

<p>just look at med school rankings for more examples of this.</p>

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<p>Um the Economist, FT has Stern in the top 10 in the world, BW has it 13. All of these have Stern above Haas, except USnews, which no one in the business world actually follows.
Admissions policies are similar enough the inferences can be made.
But show me the wisdom of a 18 yr old since you obviously know more about this than me.</p>

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<p>“31.5% of 4,090 transfer applicants, which is around 1,290 students”</p>

<p>-Not every transfer admit enrolls Einstein…about 700 transfers come into NYU every year…contrast this to UCB where transfers make up 25% of the undergrad population,</p>

<p>Crab said: “gpa is evidence of a superior student body as is class rank”</p>

<p>Thats one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard on this forum.</p>

<p>Example of how class rank means nothing (especially in CA public schools): </p>

<p>UC Riverside: 94% of freshmen in the top 10%
Middle 50% SAT range: 960-1190</p>

<p>At what kind of a high school do people ranked in the top 10% score below a 1000 on the SAT?..the answer is a crappy CA public high school that sends students to the UCs…including Berkeley.</p>

<p>As Crabby stated, a greater portion of NYU students come from private schools. Most elite private schools (including the one I attended) have NYU as one the schools that their graduates most attend. Stuyvessant (a top NY public…pretty decent school) is the most heavily represented high school at NYU. </p>

<p>The fairtest website is left wing garbage.</p>

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<p>jwblue, you need to watch what facts you quote because there are clear gaps in many of your statements. Can you please post some evidence of NYU enrolling 700 transfers each year?</p>

<p>I am not at all confused with the data that I have provided regarding MIT and Caltech. Additionally, I have shown you two sets of rankings that measure MIT as being more selective than Caltech. The point I was making was that even merit scholars who are admitted to Caltech and MIT are choosing the latter over the former. There was not talk of a Caltech student is good enough to get into MIT and not vice-versa. That is mere speculation on your part, and once again, you have no evidence to justify this claim.</p>

<p>With regard to your persistent quoting of NYU’s superior SAT I percentiles, crabluva<3crabs has provided a quotation that indicates that UCB does not weight SAT I scores highly in their admissions decisions. They place great emphasis on SAT II sores, which NYU does not even require. If we compared average SAT II score, perhaps the percentiles would look very different and tip in UCB’s favor. </p>

<p>Your statement that colleges place the greatest academic importance on the SAT is also incorrect. If you read most college’s admissions process details you should find that they claim that the High School Transcript is the most important factor in making admissions decisions. In other words, factors such as class rank and GPA are valued most by universities. If we assume that there is asymmetrical information in the market for undergraduate education, which is probably true in reality, and universities “know” more than students, then the fact that the majority of colleges factor the High School Transcript higher than the SAT suggests that the transcript is a better indicator of academic ability. </p>

<p>Such a course of argument would deem UCB’s student body to be superior to NYU’s.</p>

<p>“The fairtest website is left wing garbage.” The dean of admissions of Amherst is recently quoted as saying “If we only admitted students with high SAT scores we would have a class or rich, white students.”</p>

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<p>OK, I wasn’t trying to be rude when I was pointing my facts, you idiot, but now I am. I am so sick of you, first of all, pretending that NYU is some super elite school simply because you are an alum, and two, that you know everything about the school. You graduated five years ago! Why don’t you read what the current NYU students think about you and all your comments at the NYU Live Journal?</p>

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<p>hahahahahaha, jwblue i caught you!</p>

<p>maybe the reason stuy is so heavily represented at NYU is that they’re literally 10 blocks from eachother?</p>

<p>and i know lots of stuy kids (my ex-gf among them) and they all view NYU as being for kids who didn’t get in anywhere great but were rich enough not to go to suny-binghamton. they use it as a safety school. NYU is NOT respected at all by stuyvesant.</p>

<p>your comment about UCR is just funny. of course those kids didn’t get into berkeley…their test scores weren’t high enough. UCR is the worst UC school and they get the worst students.</p>

<p>quakerman: gpa is the standard UCs choose to use…berkeley is one of the most respected law schools in the world and i seriously doubt anyone besides you goes “lol berkeley doesn’t use the lsat it’s full of idiots lol”</p>

<p>anyway, berkeley’s lsat range is 160-168 which is basically the same as similarly ranked law schools like duke (162-169) and gtown (165-169)…but average undergrad gpa is much higher at berkeley than either of those schools so i’d say it balances out.</p>

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<p>“anyway, berkeley’s lsat range is 160-168 which is basically the same as similarly ranked law schools like duke (162-169) and gtown (165-169)…but average undergrad gpa is much higher at berkeley than either of those schools so i’d say it balances out.”</p>

<p>It doesn’t balance out. You are flat out wrong. I know MIT engineers with 3.3 and well over 170 rejected in favor of communications major with a 3.9 and 161. That doesn’t balance out. This is Boalts rep. I think lsat is more important than SAT because there are such huge variations among majors and colleges in terms of material, rigor, and grading that a single standardized test is needed to provide a measure of ability independent of this and even it out more or less-surely you can agree to this.
I think you can see what I am getting at, but are too stubborn to realize what I am saying. Look at Boalt rankings drop and you will see what I mean. </p>

<p>NYU is firmly within the top 5-6, while Boalt has been steadily declining.
I agree that SAT isn’t perfect, but you must admit a LOT of high schools just hand out As that weren’t deserved, so SAT is probably more unbiased.
Last I am pretty sure Stern requires 3 SAT IIs, I know it did for me.</p>

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<p>quakerman: i have no idea why you keep bringing up stern. this thread is about CAS. would you bring up tisch in a stern vs. haas thread?</p>

<p>btw, SAT IIs aren’t required for stern according to nyu’s website.</p>

<p>maybe the communications major had killer internship or study abroad experience? maybe he fed starving kids his lunch everyday for three years? maybe his dad was the dean of admissions at the ucb law school? i don’t know and sometimes admissions can be random and you can’t use isolated examples to make generalizations about a whole school.</p>

<p>if those MIT engineers got “well over 170” then they should have gotten into much better schools than berkeley so i don’t see what the big deal is.</p>

<p>i mean, i know someone who was waitlisted at UCONN (instate too!) with a 1560 (800 on the math section) and a 3.3 gpa. it happens.</p>

<p>i agree that NYU law school is great and definitely better than berkeley…i also think NYU law will be number 2 or 3 in a couple years. berkeley isn’t top 10 but its LSAT ranges aren’t that different from other schools of similar rank so its not like there’s a huge schism between it and other schools.</p>

<p>SAT is hugely biased imo towards kids who can afford prep class and tutors. SAT IIs are probably the most fair because they can back up grades…if someone didn’t deserve that A in math then it would be reflected in their SAT II score.</p>

<p>SAT is a test of ability; SAT IIs are tests of achievement. berkeley is looking for achievement which is why they focus on the SAT IIs and grades.</p>

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<p>My guidance counselor told me not to apply to Berkeley and its really not quality at the undergraduate level, I guess its because I’m outside of California, and go to a private school where we don’t think much of state schools in general. If I had to pick a really awesome state college, I would say Virginia and not Berkeley. </p>

<p>SATs is also much more important than class rank because most good high schools don’t rank. A 4.0 at a ghetto public school is really not a big achievement. A person with so-so grades and a great SAT score can still get into good colleges but a person with great grades and a low SAT is going to have real trouble getting in anywhere respectable. The SAT I tests natural ability since its not based on any class you took in school and even the best prep course wont give a great score to an idiot, so intelligence is the main factor here.</p>