<p>It’s really simple. Places like Stanford and Yale severely limit the number of people they accept. They identify all of the people who are super-qualified, and then accept about 20% of them. So there’s a lot of cachet in simply being accepted, and – while it’s not impossible for the admissions office to make a mistake – it’s likely that any random student there is a total winner with something (or more things) amazing about him or her. Then, the universities have a ton of resources that they devote to those few students.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s faculty and academic facilities are as strong or stronger than Stanford’s or Yale’s (or anyone else’s). But it admits far more people. The objective qualifications of the people it admits – things like test scores and GPA – are barely distinguishable from those of the people Stanford or Yale admits. But because it does not admit only 20% of those students – it comes closer to 100% – the mere fact that one has been accepted at Berkeley does not signal as much about how special one is as an acceptance at Stanford, and there will be a greater range of impressiveness among Berkeley students. Of course, Berkeley students who do really well there are as impressive as their counterparts at Stanford, but a bottom-half person at Berkeley may be meaningfully less impressive than the Stanford equivalent.</p>
<p>Then, on top of that, Berkeley just doesn’t have the ability to spend as much per student as Stanford or Yale does, especially on non-academic things. The dorms are not as nice, the athletic facilities less posh and more crowded. Low-income students can get more financial aid. Critically, lots of popular majors are constrained, and students can have issues getting allowed into popular classes, and required ones. If a student isn’t really careful and planning well, he or she can have trouble meeting all requirements and graduating on time. Plus, because of the volume of students, at Berkeley most people aren’t encouraged to do challenging things like honors theses or independent research. You can definitely do that, but its easier, and more people do it at Stanford.</p>
<p>I think the bottom line is that Berkeley CAN be just as good as Stanford, and a lot cheaper for people from upper middle class families, but only for some percentage of the highest-achieving students there. Berkeley is like Stanford plus some other, less impressive college, and you don’t get to figure out which version of Berkeley you are attending until the middle of your college career. Stanford is not necessarily better, but it is safer, more of a sure thing.</p>