<p>I’m not going to beat around the bush on this one.</p>
<p>Looking at the other threads, the only answer is UC Berkeley. Berkeley has been described as anything from a cold, dime-a-dozen, uninspiring state school to the second most prestigious institution in the country. The following exchange has happened over and over in almost every discussion comparing Berkeley to any other school.</p>
<p>Person one: “Berkeley isn’t elite because it has a weak undergraduate experience.”
Person two: “That’s true. But a university is more than its undergraduate programs.”</p>
<p>You decide which person is right…</p>
<p>So what institution are people second most misinformed about?</p>
<p>Only on CC do they have those attitudes. In California, very few people think that Cal doesn’t offer a phenomenal undergraduate program. </p>
<p>CC in general is misinformed about larger state schools and their research offerings. I’ve seen multiple threads where its claimed that, even in research universities with very few grad students, undergrads will only get to be beaker monkeys in the lab, never gaining the same level of research experience as a student at a LAC. The reality is, even the lower tiered UCs will likely offer better lab equipment, and more “important” research opportunities than almost all of the top tiered LACs. </p>
<p>There’s also a general misunderstanding that lecture only means sitting in a 300 person classroom where just watching a recorded video on Youtube would have been more helpful. Sometimes it seems like posters don’t understand the concept of discussion sections, which most of the time have less people in them than even the smallest freshmen classes at a decent LAC. </p>
<p>Finally there’s an over-reliance on “best” program rankings. The reality is, looking at best programs is often more important for a liberal arts college than most larger research universities. For instance, Colorado College has a fantastic geology program for a LAC. When high stat students ask for smaller schools with good geology, it frequently gets brought up. But even with its departmental strengths, a mid tier UC like UC Davis probably offers a stronger earth science department than Colorado College. Generally speaking, a good state school will offer almost all of the classes that a student in almost any major can take in their four years. The same cannot be said of a LAC.</p>
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<p>Disclaimer: I currently attend a liberal arts college and am quite happy. These are just some of the claims I’ve read on CC.</p>
<p>Oxford College of Emory University is a two year liberal arts college located about 38 miles away from the main Emory University campus. Upon completion of Oxford, students continue on to “Main Campus”. Basically Oxford combines many of the benefits of a small LAC with the opportunities of a major research university. </p>
<p>Among the Emory students, people are probably most misinformed about what Oxford is, but that’s another discussion. </p>
<p>Also Sally305, the reality is, over 2/3rd of all applicants are rejected from NYU, so most students just look at that and think “my god, how competitive”. What they’re not considering is WHO gets rejected when they look at selectivity.</p>
<p>Yes. I think NYU’s admission rate would be much higher if the pool of applicants were on the whole more qualified. NYU always ranks as one of the “most popular” schools to apply to and is a “dream school” for a lot of kids.</p>
<p>There seems to be a common attitude around here that “small private LACs are always better for all students”, as well as a large number of students (particularly from New Jersey) who want to go anywhere except their in-state public universities.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, do you mean to say that Emory students think of Oxford as “Emory’s feeder community college”?</p>
<p>To UCB’s other point about how students want to go anywhere besides their in state school, it’s always struck me as odd that students sometimes demand to be on either coast, and refuse to consider other regions of the country. The reality is, Atlanta has far more in common with Los Angeles than Arcata, CA (an isolated rural town in super northern California) is, even though Arcata and LA are both on the West Coast. IMO the urban, suburban, and rural designations are far more important than which region of the country a place is in.</p>
<p>It’s not that people are “misinformed” about UC Berkeley. I think they just don’t care about it, and it doesn’t loom as large as its boosters would like to think, outside California.<br>
Indifferent might be a better word. </p>
<p>Which, of course, doesn’t mean that it’s not an excellent school. But it’s just not so important to non Californians that they “educate” themselves about it, any more than I expect Californians to “educate” themselves about my state school (U of Illinois).</p>
<p>The perception of Berkeley is similar to those of other top public universities. Most “big state schools” are better than people generally make them out to be. The seemingly universal advice to discourage students from attending them is the biggest mistake high school counselors are making right now. </p>
<p>Every highly ranked school’s professors care about research more than teaching undergrads. Publishing research in a prestigious journal is the most important job a professor has. The major exception are the community colleges.</p>
<p>Research is readily available at every big state school. Most upper division classes are small enough for the students to know the professor well. </p>
<p>And of course, there are far more ways to branch out at a big school.</p>
<p>Did you attend a private high school? The only remotely similar sentiment I encountered from my teachers was that it was best to go to a community college before transferring to a Cal State, since it would be far cheaper. Most of my AP teachers who taught kids that stood a reasonable chance of getting into a UC thought that though they were ridiculously expensive, a UC education would be excellent, regardless of the budget cuts. </p>
<p>To be fair, there was one guidance counselor per 800 students, and since mine had to deal with kids with real problems other than what college to attend, I never asked her for advice. Maybe if I did, she would have told me to go to a private school, but considering that 90%+ of the college bound students in my class decided to enroll in a public institution, I doubt it.</p>
This strikes at the heart of the issue, I think. For one, many people live in a state with an excellent public university of its own - Michigan, UT Austin, Wisconsin, UNC, UDub, etc., and there is little need to seek elsewhere for a similar experience. For another, Berkeley is quite expensive for OOS students, and with its record of poor OOS financial aid, most students would rather attend an in-state university or a private university with better financial/merit aid. Even at full cost, many prefer the smaller classes and pampering that often come with LACs and some elite private universities. To each his own. </p>
<p>Berkeley is undoubtedly a desirable university, and I doubt anyone can say it lacks good applicants. Last year it received a whopping 62,000 freshman applications and 16,000 transfer applications and had a very respectable yield of 37%. </p>
<p>If you asked the common man on the street his opinion of Berkeley, he’s probably vaguely heard of it, probably knows it’s in California, and maybe associates with its lingering reputation from the 60s as a countercultural hotspot. That’s a good bit more than most colleges get for reputation! I just flew back to Los Angeles this week after spending Christmas on the east coast, and a man in the airport asked the guy next to me wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt (a) what Dartmouth was and (b) where it is. Only on CC do Ivies and similar colleges receive an inordinate amount of attention. Most people are misinformed about ALL colleges. </p>
<p>I don’t think Berkeley is any more or less misunderstood than any other college on these forums, at least among the publics; it has simply attracted the most controversy and debate due to its preponderance of rather enthusiastic supporters and detractors. (Which spawned which, of course, seems to be a “chicken or the egg?” type of question.)</p>
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We are all familiar with your championing of community colleges and public colleges like Truman State and Minnesota-Morris. They are right for the right kind of person, but like any college, they will not appeal to everyone. You’ve been around long enough to know that, of course – for example, you are quite fond of saying that math majors might be most happy at a university with many advanced or graduate offerings. </p>
<p>I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone claim that LACs are for everyone. They are not. I have seen the reverse - the mantra “you can make a big school small but not a small school big” inevitably comes up whenever someone compares the two. The fact of the matter is that the US is fortunate in having many different types of schools – small private research universities, community colleges, women’s colleges, military academies, flagship public universities, directional state universities…each of these can be a fit for the right kind of person, and I think most CCers recognize that. </p>
<p>A friend of mine transferred from Duke to UNC after deciding she wanted a larger atmosphere, and another transferred from Furman to Boston U for the same reason. Likewise, this year’s transfer class at Dartmouth includes students from Berkeley and UCLA, who undoubtedly wanted the smaller, more intimate experience at Dartmouth. None of these students could go wrong with such great colleges, except in forcing themselves to attend a college they don’t like.</p>
<p>If you read people’s college application lists on CC, you’ll find that few students apply to “liberal arts colleges” or “large public universities.” Rather, most have a blend of LACs and research universities or of private and public universities. It’s not unusual to find Pomona and Stanford on the same list; you also see Wesleyan and Brown, Carleton and Michigan, Emerson and BU, etc. Heck, my own application list included LACs, small/medium research universities, and large publics. Too often, I think, people get wrapped up in categories. Though both LACs, Amherst and Warren Wilson are as different as night and day. Likewise, Ohio State and CU Boulder are quite different from one another. That is why many posters suggest schools as disparate in size as the College of the Atlantic and Humboldt State for someone interested in ecology and a hippie feel, or schools as different in size as Oberlin and Michigan for someone who wants an intellectual environment and a strong music school. There are many different ways in which a college can “fit” a student, with size and public/private status being only two of a long list.</p>
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Bubbles, there is much misinformation about a good many colleges on CC. It is a very good resource, in fact an excellent one if used properly, but it is only as good as its contributors. </p>
<p>Reading CC, one comes across similar themes. Hopkins is cut-throat and only good for pre-med and the sciences. You can’t find partiers at Chicago, and you won’t find intellectuals at Dartmouth. Harvard is full of arrogant snobs, and Yale is far more humble and undergraduate friendly. There are no depressed people at Brown and Stanford, and you’ll be miserable if you don’t join a frat at Vanderbilt. I could go on. In fact, I once created a rather lengthy list of such things:</p>
<p>Rather than complain about how mistreated a college is, I think it’s more productive to correct misinformation as it comes along and provide suggestions that are suitable to the topic at hand.</p>
<p>I can’t think of a certain university, but I see a lot of people that say they will only go to school on the east or west coast. There are some great schools in the Midwest, and the area is definitely not just corn fields and rednecks!</p>
<p>UCSB seems to be misunderstood. Everybody is afraid of the party reputation and they seem to take a chunk out of the academic quality because of that rep when evaluating it. And I agree Berkeley has too much controversy, I don’t know why people try bringin it down for being a public school</p>
<p>LACs aren’t a university, but on a whole I feel like they are often misunderstood. Liberal art colleges don’t have to be liberal, as CMC, Davidson, and W&L are conservative. They don’t have to be artsy, as Amherst, Williams, Pomona, and Swarthmore have alumni in all disciplines and have far more humanity/science majors than creative expression and arts. Not all of them are located in rural areas, feel isolating (many are in consortiums), have limited courses, lack research opportunities, or lack money- many have the endowment per students and research per undergraduate capita comparable to research universities, and the nation’s best financial aid policies. I don’t quite understand why a liberal arts curriculum is scoffed at when nearly all the top universities replicate the model for their undergraduates.</p>