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http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm Berkeley ranks among the best in the world. I like this ranking methedology better than U.S News. Its done by a guy from a University in Shanghai, but its the official one for the European Commission on Education.

By Xtheonex (Xtheonex) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 10:03 pm: Edit

Mruncleramos, I think you got some wrong ideas. Notice that UCSF, which only offers grad programs, is ranked 17th. Obviously, this ranking is not comparing undergrad to undergrad. Berkley's grad programs are much stronger than its undergrad's. That is precisely why U.S. News ranking differs from that ranking. If you look at U.S. News rankings for grad programs, you will see that Berkeley is one of the best in nearly everything.

By Socalnick (Socalnick) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:08 pm: Edit

actually i believe ucsf offers a bs in dental hygene.

By Foreignboy (Foreignboy) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:10 pm: Edit

OMG, these rankings are even worse than US News. Chicago higher than Yale... What the?

By Kryptic (Kryptic) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:34 pm: Edit

The University of Chicago is considered an amazing school. They have one of the top economics programs in the world. Why is it inconveivable that, in a ranking that does not factor in 'prestige', they might not rank higher than an Ivy? I'd say a good percentage, if not the majority, of significant modern research and scientific/social discovery is made outside of the HYP triumverate.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 06:42 pm: Edit

Nobody is saying that Chicago doesn't have some strong programs. But I think that with the exception of certain programs, most notably the business school and certain PhD programs, it's difficult to make a serious case that Chicago is a more desirable place to study than Yale. As far as undergraduate programs are concerned, I think it's clearly true those people who are admitted to both Chicago and Yale are probably going to take Yale - in other words, the Yale yield will be higher. That doesn't mean that some won't take Chicago, but they are in the minority.

All ranking systems have their pros and cons. However, this particular one does seem to be notably flawed. #1 - as mentioned before, it makes no distinction between undergraduate and graduate programs. That's why predominantly graduate programs like UCSF and Rockefeller University can make the list and the LAC's are nowhere to be found. Most people here on CC are looking at undergraduate program quality. To pick an undergraduate school because the school has strong graduate programs is to put the cart in front of the horse - it's akin to picking a law school because the medical school is good. When you're going to undergrad, worry about undergrad quality, and when you go to grad school, then you can worry about grad school.

As far as Berkeley is concerned, nobody, least of all I, seriously disputes that Berkeley has great graduate programs. The question that I and many other people have is why can't some of that greatness extend to its undergraduate program? The Berkeley undergraduate program is pretty good, but it simply cannot compare to the strength of the graduate programs.

The second problem with that ranking is that its methodology is based on research. Review the methodology and you will see that what is counted are the number of articles produced, number of research prizes won, and basically everything having to do with research. Schools are more than just research centers. Schools are also supposed to be centers of learning and student-life. Just because a school generates lots of research does not by itself mean that it's a good place to study. Research is only one part of what makes a school strong, and particularly when you're talking about undergraduate education, research production plays a relatively minor role.

Finally, I believe the ranking weights size far far too heavily. You will notice that the methodology counts the absolute number of research articles, or the absolute number of alumni who win major research prizes, or the this and that other absolute number. This has the effect of boosting schools that are really really big. A big school is obviously going to produce a lot of articles and a lot of alumni who accomplish certain things, just because a big school has a lot of people period. What the ranking should be doing is taking measurements on a per-capita basis. Only in the last category does the ranking attempt to measure items on a per-capita basis by lumping all previous categories and then dividing them by the number of researchers, yet that category is only worth 10%. Instead of capturing per-capita information in a final category, the ranking should simply compute everything on a per-capita basis in the first place.

Consider this example. What if instead of counting each and every campus in the UC system, the ranking system simply lumped all the UC's into one really big extended school - the "Greater" University of California - and then measured that school? Why not? After all, all the UC campuses are technically under one administration (UC President Robert Dynes and the UC Regents). So it's not impossible to think of UC as just one really big school with lots of and lots of campuses. Some of you might object that the schools are all geographically far away from each other and that admission to one UC campus doesn't imply admission to the others (for example, just because you get into Berkeley doesn't mean you get into UCSF Medical School). Well, think of it this way. Most of Cornell's schools are located in Ithaca - except its medical school which is located in downtown Manhattan, 4 hours away. And admission into one Cornell program doesn't imply admission into Cornell's medical school. So if Cornell is allowed to count its medical school as part of Greater Cornell University proper, then it isn't a stretch to say that UC should be able to add up all its campuses to form one really big unified school. I would have no doubt that greater-UC would then be far and away the #1 school in this ranking, just because UC's sheer size in terms of number of students and number of total articles produced in the entire UC system would blow everybody away. But would that really be sporting? In other words, should a school really be allowed to benefit simply from pure size?

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say the USNews is perfect. But I do find interesting that the same people who are so quick to criticize the overall USNews undergraduate ranking also seem to be the same people who have little problem with the USNews graduate-school rankings and/or the USNews departmental rankings. So is it really just a matter of preferring rankings just because they rank your school highly and not like those rankings that don't rank your school highly? Or bringing it back to the original point, is it that the OP just likes this particular Chinese ranking because it ranks Berkeley highly?

By Cornellgrad02 (Cornellgrad02) on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 06:50 pm: Edit

I think people who criticize US news undergrad rankings while recognizing some (read some, not complete) validity in the graduate rankings do so mostly because of methodology...not because they're bitter that their school is ranked low for undergrad and high for grad school. Most noticably, ridiculous stuff like alumni giving rate (which is so subjective as to not even warrant discussion).

just my 2 cents...

cornellgrad02

By Wutdeh (Wutdeh) on Sunday, August 22, 2004 - 06:08 am: Edit

sakky you made some good points, and I would have gone to Yale over where I'm currently matriculating at (Chicago) had I got in.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Sunday, August 22, 2004 - 04:30 pm: Edit

Cornellgrad02, I agree with you that the alumni donation rate category is a bit 'sketch'. But it's only worth 5%, so even if you exclude it, it's not like Berkeley is going to vault into the top 5.

To Wutdeh, I think you've hit upon one of the best ways to assess school ranking - which is to figure out where students really want to go if they had a choice. The reality is that a lot of students at Berkeley would rather be at Stanford but didn't get in. Hence, Stanford is probably a better school than Berkeley. By the same token, a lot of students at the lesser UC's would rather go to Berkeley but didn't get in. Hence, Berkeley is probably the best UC. The fact is, if a lot students at your school would rather have gone to some other school if they had a choice, and yet vice versa isn't true (few students at that other school would rather be at your school), then it's difficult to make a case that your school is better than the other school. How can you say that you're really the best school if your own students don't really want to be there?

None of this should be taken as a knock against Berkeley, but rather as a roadmap of what Berkeley ought to be doing. Berkeley's graduate programs, particularly its PhD programs are truly great and many of Berkeley's PhD students turn down admission to Stanford PhD, MIT PhD, Harvard PhD, and other elite PhD progams. The same unfortunately cannot be said for Berkeley's undergraduate program. I think we can all agree that unless money is an issue not too many people are going to turn down Harvard for Berkeley for undergrad yet plenty of people would turn down Berkeley for Harvard if they actually had that choice. That's why I think that Berkeley should enact changes to run its undergraduate program more like how it runs its graduate programs. If the Berkeley PhD programs can be as good as anybody else's, why can't Berkeley's undergraduate program do that?

By Kryptic (Kryptic) on Sunday, August 22, 2004 - 04:38 pm: Edit

You presume perfect knowledge on the part of students, which is far from a safe assumption. Students, like most people, are brand whores. They'll go where they 'think' they should go. Yale, Harvard, etc. have better brands. Just as we all know that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is not the best source for our pasta and chedder needs, I think we can all easily acknowledge that just because something is well known does not necessarily imply that it has the quality to back it up. By the very definition, you're also considering a metric based on ignorance - the students have never actually *been* to the institutions they ultimately decide on. Students choose colleges for a host of reasons, but there's little we can infer from this other than brand perception. It'd be very, very foolish to use this to correlate educational quality.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Sunday, August 22, 2004 - 04:54 pm: Edit

Kryptic, you are right. You are absolutely right - students are grade whores.

But don't you see the problem you're running into? The simple fact is, ignorance and prestige-whore-ism runs both ways. Let's face it. You say that Yale and Harvard have better brands. Well, Berkeley is a fully-fledged player in the game of brand-management as well. A lot of people are at Berkeley and not some other UC because they "heard" that Berkeley is better. You know and I know that a lot of Berkeley students chose Berkeley over some other UC without actually going to Berkeley, but just because of it's brand-name. You know it's true. So if you criticize people for choosing Harvard because of its brand-name, then you should also criticize people who choose Berkeley also for its brand-name.

To me, it's a wash. Whatever students Berkeley might lose to the Harvard brand name, Berkeley gets back in spades because of the Berkeley brand-name. Hence, the effect should wash out.

By Cornellgrad02 (Cornellgrad02) on Monday, August 23, 2004 - 12:23 pm: Edit

there are simply too many variables to account for to rank schools based on student preference. What if a student would rather attend UCLA but attends berkeley to stay close to home? Furthermore, student preferences can be biased towards certain schools based simply on heresay (i.e. "all my friends say Harvard is better than Yale). I would agree with Sakky and Wutdeh that if students used all the tools available (national research council, attending information sessions, emailing professors and departmental chairs etc.) than I would say it would be an excellent way to assess schools...unfortunately, I don't have that faith in a bunch of highschool seniors who, in my experience, rely way way to much on items such as USNews...

just my 2 cents
cornellgrad02

By Deferreddude (Deferreddude) on Monday, August 23, 2004 - 02:49 pm: Edit

"That's why I think that Berkeley should enact changes to run its undergraduate program more like how it runs its graduate programs. If the Berkeley PhD programs can be as good as anybody else's, why can't Berkeley's undergraduate program do that?"

I don't get it. Aren't graduate school rankings the primary source of prestige for a university? Harvard wouldn't be Harvard without its top notch professional schools. Neither would Stanford. So if that's the case, Berkeley is doing everything right. It's devoting resources to make its graduate schools rival those of Harvard, Stanford, and Yale's. If you stripped Stanford and Harvard of all their graduate programs, I doubt they would be as prestigious as Berkeley.

And if the strength of a school's undergraduate programs really do contribute to overall prestige, then why aren't the liberal arts colleges prestigious? After all, didn't you say that LACs offer the best undergraduate education Sakky?

There are some schools that primarily concentrate on their graduate programs to successfully garner prestige (Harvard, Stanford, Yale) Then there are schools that primarily concentrate on their undergrate programs to successfully gain prestige (Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown).
Then there are some schools that not so successfully garner prestige by concentrating primarily on its graduate programs (Berkeley, Michigan). And there are schools that not so successfully gain prestige by concentrating on their undergraduates (Pomona, Amherst, Claremont McKenna, Harvey-Mudd). So maybe prestige is something more elusive than strong undergraduate or graduate programs, and Berkeley is not doing anything wrong concentrating mostly on its strong graduate schools.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 04:57 pm: Edit

I see, deferreddude, so to you, it's really all about prestige-whorism, is it?

You're basically saying that it doesn't really matter if Berkeley's undergraduate quality really isn't all that good. As long as people out there think it's good, that's what counts, right? In other words, style over substance? Deferreddude, I think you might have a long and lucrative future ahead of you as a marketing or advertising executive. And I know that what you've been saying is exactly what Berkeley administrators want to hear, because it's exactly what they've been pushing for decades - offer an undergraduate education that is more hype than substance, where the hype is generated from the verifiably excellant grad-schools.

Now I can respect that, deferreddude, because at least I can respect the fact that you're being honest. But I do have 3 responses to that:

#1) The fact is, people who are in the know are aware of what's real and what isn't. True, you may well be able to fool the average Joe on the street with sheer prestige and I also agree that that often times has value. But at the same time, you must agree with me that you're not going to be able to fool the people who have real power.

Let me give you an example. Everybody in the world has heard of Harvard. But people who are in the know, and in particular, employers, know that Harvard isn't good at everything. In particular, Harvard isn't all that good at engineering, and top employers of engineers prefer to hire engineers from MIT. The fact is, the Harvard engineering department (the DEAS school) is trading off the excellence of the other Harvard schools. So getting a master's degree in engineering from Harvard (yes, you can do that) might really impress regular people because of the Harvard name, it's not going to impress a lot of engineering employers.

By the same token, getting a Berkeley undergraduate degree might impress the lay people, but other than those verifiably excellent undergrad programs like Haas or like engineering, it may be less impressive to those in the know.

That's why Berkeley undergrads don't win a lot of the big-league scholarship prizes like the Rhodes Scholarship, despite the fact that Berkeley churns out huge quantities of graduates and so from sheer numbers alone, Berkeley should have won many Rhodes. The Rhodes Scholarship committee knows full-well what the top undergraduate programs really are and the fact that so few Berkeley undergrads win it seems to speak for itself. I'll put it to you this way. In the last 3 years, Berkeley has produced 1 Rhodes Scholar, whereas Harvard has produced 17, despite the fact that Berkeley has almost 4 times the number of undergrads that Harvard does.

The same thing can be said for grad-school adcoms, another group of entities whose job it is to be in the know. That's why relative to other top programs, Berkeley actually doesn't have the greatest track record of getting its students into top graduate schools. Before you flame me, hear me out. Look at the statistics that the top law schools and med-schools require out of Berkeley graduates in order to get admitted. They're suspiciously high. For example, Berkeley's own law school admits Berkeley graduates who have an average GPA of around 3.8, a quite high figure.

http://career.berkeley.edu/Law/LawStats.stm#senior

Same could be said for UCSF Medical School as far as what Berkeley grads need in order to get admitted.

#2) Your honesty - I admire it.

Hey, deferreddude, whatever else we might agree upon, at least you're being honest. You're not going around trying to claim that the Berkeley undergraduate education is better than it really is. You admit you're just there for the name.

Now, let me be clear. There's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people go to certain schools just for the name. What I find disturbing is when people vociferously deny that that's what they're really doing. A lot of undergrads who go to Berkeley know full well that there are issues with the program, but go there anyway because they want the name. If you're going to do that, at least do me the courtesy of being honest about it. That's all I ask.

By Shyboy13 (Shyboy13) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Berkeley students have won 21 Rhodes scholarships. Go ahead all you want and talk about how many students Cal graduates and how many scholars Harvard has produced. The point is that 21 is not a small number in this respect.

By Stanfordman99 (Stanfordman99) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 07:44 pm: Edit

What's the big deal about Rhodes Scholarships? I don't see why getting a scholarship to attend Oxford is any more attractive than getting a scholarship to attend any number of top grad schools in the U.S.

Personally, I'd choose Harvard, Yale, and Stanford's professional schools over Oxford any day.

By Kryptic (Kryptic) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 08:36 pm: Edit

I'd wager the inclination to *go* someplace like Oxford would be much higher in someone that is attending Harvard. It's the epitome of the 'old boys network', more appealing to the stuffy set. Harvard also has a fairly long relationship with Oxford, and I'd wager cross pollination of students has been going on for over two hundred years. If a Harvard grad gets in, it's hard to say whether it's cronyism or talent. Certainly it's a vacuous metric, at best, to assess.

By Mruncleramos (Mruncleramos) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 11:36 pm: Edit

whoa, i just started this thread to foster berkeley pride, and look what happened. Shame on you.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 11:38 pm: Edit

Ah, but shyboy13, 21 is a rather small number of Rhodes Scholars when you compare it to the total number in history won by graduates of Harvard, Stanford, or any other school that Cal wants to compare itself to. Again, I would point out that just in the last 3 years, Harvard has won 17 Rhodes Scholarships. Just in the last 3 years.

Now of course, I'm not saying that the Rhodes Scholarship is the greatest thing in the world. It's just one datapoint, I agree. But you look at any datapoint - Truman Scholarships, Marshall Scholarships, or whatever, and Berkeley undergrads tend not to fare as well as undergrads from HYPS, and things really start looking bad from a per-capita basis.

And to Stanfordman99 - you say that getting into HYS professional schools are important to you. Well, again, Berkeley's record of getting its undergrads into such schools is not that good, compared to the record of HYPS. For example, last year, Stanford Law accepted 34 Yale College graduates, and 2 Berkeley grads. Yeah, that's right, 2. Last year, Harvard Law accepted 70 Yale College graduates, and 3 Berkeley grads.

Hell, let's give true home-field advantage to Berkeley grads, and let's talk about who UCBerkeley's Boalt-Hall Law School accepted last year. Now we're really stacking the deck because relative to Yale grads, more Berkeley grads are California in-state residents and are therefore mandated by law to enjoy easier admissions to Boalt. Not only that, but it's Berkeley's own law school we're talking about here, so Berkeley grads should be favored. So what are the numbers? Boalt accepted 19 Berkeley graduates. How many Yalies did Boalt accept? 42.


http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2003.pdf

http://career.berkeley.edu/Law/LawStats.stm#senior

When you consider the fact that Berkeley has about 4 times more undergraduates than Yale does, the disparity is truly shocking.


So I agree that if you just look at Rhodes Scholar numbers, a single data point may not tell you much. But take all the information together, and the picture becomes quite clear. In particular, ask yourself why even on an absolute number basis, Berkeley's own law school admits more than twice the number of Yalies than Berkeley graduates? Surely nobody is suggesting that the old-boy network or other institutional unfairness is causing Berkeley to screw over its own undergrads?

What this unfortunately points to is that Berkeley grads seem to be sorely lacking not just against Yale grads, but I would suspect, also against HPS grads as well (for I suspect that the HPS data is going to be similar to the Yale data - does anybody have a good reason for why it wouldn't be?). No matter what category you look at, Berkeley grads have problems in matching up. Either Berkeley isn't doing a good job, relative to HYPS, in preparing its students to win major awards or admission to big-league grad-programs, or Berkeley simply isn't admitting a high enough quality of student body in the first place, or both, I don't know. But the point is that clearly there is significant room for improvement here.

By Dstark (Dstark) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 01:25 am: Edit

Sakky, your data is incomplete.
Check footnote 4 for your career.berkeley.edu link.
Berkeley isn't as good as Yale but it isn't that bad.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/college.php
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions/jd_profile.html
http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html2002/law/students.html
My guess is Berkeley does better at Boalt and Stanford than your incomplete survey states.

By Dstark (Dstark) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 10:16 am: Edit

This is the Harvard link.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php

By Shyboy13 (Shyboy13) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 12:22 pm: Edit

I say that Cal is easily one of the greatest institutions in the US. Notice who you are comparing Berkeley to Sakky. You are comparing it to what most consider to be the absolute best. That by itself is impressive.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 04:07 pm: Edit

The Berkeley data may be incomplete, but so is the Yale data I presented. Students at both places have the choice of shielding their data. The question is whether Berkeley students would tend to shield themselves more than would Yale students.

The Yale link you presented is problematic because it only talks about institution attended, without specifying whether that institution is the undergraduate institution. As I'm sure you're aware, some people get other graduate degrees and then proceed to law school. So which institution - their previous graduate school or their undergrad institution - they're listing is unclear.

However, the Harvard link you presented is clear and does serve to prove my point, particularly when you scale everything on a per-capita basis. How and why does Stanford get almost twice the students that Berkeley does into Harvard Law despite Stanford being less than a third in population?

Not to shyboy13, yes I am comparing Berkeley to the very best, and you might say that that's impressive. I've always maintained that the Berkeley undergraduate program is pretty good, all things considered. But that's not the point. I compare it to the best, and it still loses, and usually by a not-small margin. That means that Berkeley still has significant room to improve.

Let me put it to you this way, shyboy13. Are you satisfied with Berkeley being pretty good, or do you want it to be great? I want it to be great, and to be great, you have to beat the great ones. Or let me put it to you this way. I see that you work hard and you're proud of your academic achievements. Are you satisfied with just getting a B+, or would you rather have a solid A? My take is that the truly driven people in this world are not satisfied with getting a B+. They want to get the A. You don't enter a contest hoping to get just 2nd place. You want to win.

By Dstark (Dstark) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Sakky, how old are you?

By Sakky (Sakky) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 05:45 pm: Edit

What does that have to do with anything?

By Dstark (Dstark) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 05:47 pm: Edit

You're right.

By Shyboy13 (Shyboy13) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 05:49 pm: Edit

Sakky, your last point is well taken. Let me remind you though that I didnt go to Berkeley. I went to UCLA and USC. I want them to be the best. Generally, when I talk about the greatness of Berkeley, I speak relatively objectively of the school as a whole. I always say that a school’s greatness is a function of many things. Now, we can compare individual aspects of a school and that is perfectly fine. Cal is not the best in everything; it is good at many things. You bring up interesting points regarding Berkeley’s undergraduate system. Many of your arguments are indeed valid. The major problem is that undergraduate education is innately difficult to quantify. I think that getting an education at a school like UCLA (or Cal) is better for me because it brings out my competitive nature and forces me to study extra hard. I also like the excessive resources and stimulation that a school like this has to offer. Some people like the spoon-feeding atmosphere of an LAC. Some people don’t mind the limited resources and prefer the higher resource per capita offerings of such school. It all depends on how one likes to learn. I like being taught cutting edge theories by world class professors whereas someone likes the one-on-one interaction with a lesser professor. These are some of the reasons why I find it difficult to truly say what type of undergraduate education is better.

By Mysticwistful (Mysticwistful) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 11:38 pm: Edit

Not to put Berkeley down or anything, but shouldnt it be compared to the lesser ivies and Duke rather than HYPS?

I personally do not think Berkeley has surpassed the Johns Hopkins, UPenn, and Dukes of this world. It's not that I'm against Berkeley, it's just that I think its real competition are schools like Cornell rather than Princeton or Stanford.

By Foreignboy (Foreignboy) on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 11:47 pm: Edit

I agree, Mysticwistful, but the question is, where does Berkeley want to stand? Who does Berkeley want to compare to? Every university in the country wants to be one of the best, if not the best university, but that will never happen if they concede to being inferior to others.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Friday, August 27, 2004 - 07:48 am: Edit

Shyboy13, I agree with you that undergraduate quality is different to quantify.

But just because something is difficult to quantify doesn't mean that you can't or don't need to improve upon that thing. Case in point - it's difficult to say quantify who's a better artist. But just because that's difficult to quantify doesn't mean that we all have some inkling that some artists are good (i.e. most people would agree that Michelangelo is a very good artist) and that people can't get better at art by improving their skills and technique. After you've taken some art classes and practiced making your own artwork, you're probably a better artist than you were before. Exactly how much better is, I agree, not easy to quantify, but I think we'd all agree that you did get better.

The way I see it, there is no 'physical' reason for why Berkeley's undergraduate education can't compete with the best. By 'physical', I mean that all the resources are there. For example the top-notch facilities are there, the expansive library system is there, the fabric and milieu of scholarship and research is there, the top-notch faculty is there. Besides, if you just looked at Berkeley's PhD programs, most of us would agree that Berkeley would be a top 3 school, and arguably the #1 school in the nation.

What that means is that Berkeley clearly has the potential to deliver a fabulous undergraduate education. Hence, Berkeley doesn't suffer from any 'physical' reasons for why it can't deliver an education that is as good as anybody else. The reasons seem to be political and cultural. It's not that Berkeley can't deliver a #1 undergraduate education, it's that Berkeley seemingly doesn't really want to. And that to me is the most frustrating aspect of this whole thing. I think Berkeley should want to deliver the undergraduate education that it clearly has the potential to deliver.