Anonymous wrote:Looks like UC Berkeley is hugely underrated in US.

I don't think so. I think it might be on the east coast. In California, it's where the smart kids go who want to stay in state. In the midwest, it is a large public schools that is better than the big 10 schools. It's just a weird east coast bias that shows up on this board because it is DC-based.

UC Berkeley has it's great reputation due to the quality of research programs in a broad range of fields, especially its graduate programs. In many areas, it is the number 1 program in the country. In terms of some of the research that is performed at Berkeley, it is one of the best universities in the world. It's particularly strong in STEM, however it's not like other areas are weak--it's got a great business school, law school, some top tier humanities departments, etc. In terms of foreigners who come to the US, many come as STEM grad students and postdocs, which means that its dominance in this area would be more known than its reputation for undergrad. This also explains why Harvard is much more well known internationally than Yale or Princeton--Harvard has more graduate students and bigger research programs within their graduate schools.

As far as Berkeley goes as an undergraduate experience, I think it would depend on the student. It's got all the disadvantages that large, research oriented universities tend to have (e.g. large classes, bureaucracy, superstar faculty who are sometimes more preoccupied with their research than teaching undergrads, etc.) and all the advantages (broad range of curricular options, the opportunity to do research in top tier labs, a lot of specialized programs, etc.) and favors independent self-starters. It's likely that Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, etc. might provide a more enriching undergrad experience unless a student was exceptionally directed and motivated as an 18-22 year old.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale and Princeton aren't as well known abroad as Harvard is. HYP is a very American grouping.

+1. Harvard is huge in Europe, few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. And no one of H/Y/P

Nonsense. Everyone has heard of Yale and Princeton.

Funny lady, this thread starts with "If you are a foreigner..." Are you? And, if you are, can you read the minds of all other foreigners?

This European can tell OP that in his not-English-speaking country few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. Everyone has heard of Harvard and Stanford

A friend said this was also true in his country (in the Middle East).

Anonymous wrote:The new acronym should be "HYPSMBC".

HYPOMGBBQWTF

The new acronym should be "HYPSMBC".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale and Princeton aren't as well known abroad as Harvard is. HYP is a very American grouping.

+1. Harvard is huge in Europe, few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. And no one of H/Y/P

Nonsense. Everyone has heard of Yale and Princeton.

Funny lady, this thread starts with "If you are a foreigner..." Are you? And, if you are, can you read the minds of all other foreigners?

This European can tell OP that in his not-English-speaking country few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. Everyone has heard of Harvard and Stanford

I teach at an International School in Europe and almost every European senior applied to Harvard, Penn, and Yale this year. Only a few of them have a prayer of a chance of getting in, but their parents are all convinced that being "able to pay" is going to get their kids in, and that these are the only schools worth applying to in the US (the other day, a parent told me that "there aren't many other schools in America anyway." The Eastern European kids have to be prevented from putting the fact that their father will pay full tuition to an Ivy into their Common App essays. Most of them are also applying to the schools our guidance counselor knows they have a shot of getting into, but the kids and their parents usually have to be persuaded that applying to other schools is a good idea. The American kids are more realistic.

Anonymous wrote:From a Chinese perspective, aside from HYPSM, Cornell, Columbia, the Wharton business school and Berkeley are well known.

Cambridge and Oxford are equally famous. And that's it.

The topic is more about "prestige" rather than being well-known, although the two may be related. For example, Boston University and George Washington Universities are "well-known" and popular among international students but not necessarily prestigious.

In terms of prestige, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Caltech, Columbia and Penn/Wharton in addition to HYP.

From a Chinese perspective, aside from HYPSM, Cornell, Columbia, the Wharton business school and Berkeley are well known.

Cambridge and Oxford are equally famous. And that's it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale and Princeton aren't as well known abroad as Harvard is. HYP is a very American grouping.

+1. Harvard is huge in Europe, few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. And no one of H/Y/P

Nonsense. Everyone has heard of Yale and Princeton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure many of them know of Georgetown as it has a huge international contingency.

OK, lets stop all this nonsense now. There are a lot of universities in the states that have a lot of foreigners. That does not mean that they would be considered prestigious. Before I moved here if someone told me they went to Georgetown that would have meant nothing to me, and I was by no means ignorant about the US.

There are only a handful of schools that your average well-educated foreigner would have heard of/consider prestigious, and they are h/y/p plus one or two others like MIT, Stanford, etc.

I have lived here more than a decade and have no idea what "SMU" is.

I was born here and I don't know what "SMU" is.

Southern Methodist University? Something like that? I've definitely heard "SMU" before but can't remember what it stands for. I think it's a football school.

I teach international students, and a lot of them only know Harvard, Yale, MIT, and UCLA (just because they've heard of it). Of course, none of them can actually get into those schools - if they could, they'd probably know more schools than that begin with.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure many of them know of Georgetown as it has a huge international contingency.

OK, lets stop all this nonsense now. There are a lot of universities in the states that have a lot of foreigners. That does not mean that they would be considered prestigious. Before I moved here if someone told me they went to Georgetown that would have meant nothing to me, and I was by no means ignorant about the US.

There are only a handful of schools that your average well-educated foreigner would have heard of/consider prestigious, and they are h/y/p plus one or two others like MIT, Stanford, etc.

I have lived here more than a decade and have no idea what "SMU" is.

I was born here and I don't know what "SMU" is.

Looks like UC Berkeley is hugely underrated in US.

Anonymous wrote:Yale and Princeton aren't as well known abroad as Harvard is. HYP is a very American grouping.

+1. Harvard is huge in Europe, few people have heard of Yale or Princeton. And no one of H/Y/P

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