Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 16:39     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


What prevents Stanford from being a massive school and serving humanity better? They’re just hiding behind a false prestige of exclusivity.

Nobody would go there anymore — it would be too crowded.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 13:28     Subject: Re:Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:You are talking oos tuition. This is not graduate school and your point of comparison is way off. Go down several notches.

For example, would take USC over Berkeley in a heartbeat. Georgetown, BC, WashU, and on and on…


I'm a professor who has taught at several of these schools, but don't know about the undergrad experience.

Berkeley is elite in STEM with professors like me working closely with Ph.D. students. At most state schools, undergrads take large sections taught by graduate students and lecturers, unless they find small honors programs or until they get to to specialized upper-level electives.

There is a lots of research money for STEM, but this requires occupies senior professors writing grant proposals to fund laboratories staffed with armies of post-docs and Ph.D. students. Berkeley and Maryland have this. USC and Washington University in St. Louis have some. Georgetown, University of Virginia, and William and Mary not so much.

But I think you are pointing out that good private schools like USC will have mostly professors in the classroom, broad class availability, good advising, and better service overall. Charles Fefferman got his Princeton math Ph.D. at age 20, Terrence Tao at age 21 and Edward Frenkel finished at Harvard at age 22 or 23. Good graduate students like them need the very best faculty to access frontier knowledge and networks for professor jobs. Most students will not exhaust the intellectual STEM resources of a solid school like USC or WashU, and would be better off there than at Berkeley. Is this what you mean?
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 12:38     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


How does Berkeley suffer at the undergraduate level? It sounds Len you’re just using anti-Berkeley/public school talking points. U.S. News measures five major undergrad programs and Berkeley is ranked top three in almost all of them. Berkeley grads enjoy the highest salaries of any public school. Berkeley sends more to grad school than any school in the country. It’s recognized for producing more startups at the undergrad level than any school in the country. I don’t know how much mote achievements they need for you to admit they’re just better than most schools not named mit, Harvard, and Stanford.

I don’t see why these accolades are that impressive for one of the wealthiest states in the union. It’s not like California is Montana. The bay is an incredibly rich area and so is much of SoCal. It’s no more surprising to other state schools who are excellent at research-UDub, UT, etc. it’s more impressive that California has so many top schools.


There are other schools in California that are nowhere near Berkeley’s achievements. For instance, ucla is actually below Georgia tech, Michigan, and UVA in terms of student outcomes. Moreover, Berkeley (along with Stanford) arguably built California’s modern economy. Most of that tech stuff came from advancement in physics, which Berkeley famously led in the 40s and 50s. Some of the most important breakthroughs in CS and what would lead to the internet came from Berkeley and Stanford (ucla and San Jose state helped a little here). So, you can’t downgrade schools because of location. That’s like disparaging the third little piggie and saying, “he only survived because he built a better house.”
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 12:28     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


How does Berkeley suffer at the undergraduate level? It sounds Len you’re just using anti-Berkeley/public school talking points. U.S. News measures five major undergrad programs and Berkeley is ranked top three in almost all of them. Berkeley grads enjoy the highest salaries of any public school. Berkeley sends more to grad school than any school in the country. It’s recognized for producing more startups at the undergrad level than any school in the country. I don’t know how much mote achievements they need for you to admit they’re just better than most schools not named mit, Harvard, and Stanford.

I don’t see why these accolades are that impressive for one of the wealthiest states in the union. It’s not like California is Montana. The bay is an incredibly rich area and so is much of SoCal. It’s no more surprising to other state schools who are excellent at research-UDub, UT, etc. its more impressive that California has so many top schools.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 12:09     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


What prevents Stanford from being a massive school and serving humanity better? They’re just hiding behind a false prestige of exclusivity.


This is actually why a lot of rankings have shifted their methodology to emphasize on social mobility. Colleges are supposed to help the country as a whole by elevating people of al sorts of income level. Even USNWR has received the memo and added more weight on social mobility.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 12:07     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


How does Berkeley suffer at the undergraduate level? It sounds Len you’re just using anti-Berkeley/public school talking points. U.S. News measures five major undergrad programs and Berkeley is ranked top three in almost all of them. Berkeley grads enjoy the highest salaries of any public school. Berkeley sends more to grad school than any school in the country. It’s recognized for producing more startups at the undergrad level than any school in the country. I don’t know how much mote achievements they need for you to admit they’re just better than most schools not named mit, Harvard, and Stanford.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:58     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.


What prevents Stanford from being a massive school and serving humanity better? They’re just hiding behind a false prestige of exclusivity.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:56     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.

Berkeleys just a massive public school. There’s nothing really that unique other than California’s commitment to good funding and the club culture. Berkeley is a research institution that really suffers in its undergraduate education.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:54     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.


Not saying it’s not. But let’s face it, for much of their existence together, Berkeley was considered the more prestigious school. It if weren’t for us news, perhaps that perception would never have changed. Berkeley has more Nobel prize, it has more top 10 programs, it sends more to grad school, it sends more to tech, maybe even finance, it has a much more illustrious history, it has more discoveries and innovations, and we have an Oscar winning film (Stanford has that whack movie with tom Hank’s son). Stanford and its ilk are just hiding behind their exclusivity.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:50     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.

Stanford isn’t posing anything- it’s an elite school with elite alumni and elite academic programs.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:35     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.


Maybe they’re too busy creating more startups than any school in the country. Again, Stanford can’t keep hiding behind its exclusivity. I pose a challenge to Stanford: admit more students and let’s see if you maintain a level of excellence comparable to Berkeley.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 11:23     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

HYP is in league of their own. Ivy.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 10:14     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.

Let’s just say you sound like a Cal transfer student. As to what you missed by not attending a more prestigious undergrad school, I can only say that ignorance is your bliss.


Then let me wallow in my ignorance, my cal-induced salary, and the 100k that I saved to get it.


It's ok. You are a transfer student who knows no better because you couldn't get better. If you did, you would be at Stanford right now.


Is this how adults speak? This is crazy. I hope these are comments by some immature kids.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 01:53     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.

Let’s just say you sound like a Cal transfer student. As to what you missed by not attending a more prestigious undergrad school, I can only say that ignorance is your bliss.


Then let me wallow in my ignorance, my cal-induced salary, and the 100k that I saved to get it.


It's ok. You are a transfer student who knows no better because you couldn't get better. If you did, you would be at Stanford right now.
Anonymous
Post 10/15/2025 01:52     Subject: Berkeley vs HYP

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:some myth busters from a Cal alum and Cal father:

1. it's not hard to get classes at Cal, especially for your major. the only impediment to a 4-yr graduation is rigor - cal is hard AF! in fact, there's a saying here in the bay area: it's hard to get into stanford, but easy to get out; it's easy to get into berkeley, but hard to get out. this makes perfect sense - stanford and the ivies rely on student satisfaction for endowment so they need to tread carefully when hazing their students. Cal gets funding regardless so they can be much more tiger momish.

2. professors do the lectures and grad students (GSIs) conduct small group discussions. this is more or less similar to privates.

3. it's easy to get research opportunities at cal, even for ones unrelated to your major. my buddy did a bunch of athro research as an engineering student. tbh, however, cal puts so much on your plate it's hard to find time to do research.

4. most of your classes at cal will be 25-30 students. imo, perfect size. any less, i feel like you're being deprived of diversity of ideas and experiences.

5. professors have office hours so there's plenty of opportunity to get to know your professors. how do you think cal sends more students to grad schools than any university in the country?

6. transfer students are amazing, hard working, and just as talented as traditional students. I was a transfer and had no problems getting a high gpa. same goes for my transfer colleagues. in fact, we tend to work harder because we have a chip on our shoulders.

7. berkeley is indeed on par with the HYPSMLGBT whatever. don't get mad at us for believing so, get mad at the rankings. only one ranking has cal outside of the top ten. times higher education considers cal as one of the world's elite six along with cabridge, oxford, mit, stanford, and harvard.

lastly, to answer the question posted by the original poster, save your money and go to cal. your kid will be challenged, but he/she will be better for it in the end. forbes came out with an article last year detailing the growing disillusion companies have with private schools due to the over-coddling and lack of real world education they're giving their students. you should check it out.


As a LSJU alum, this is some massive amount of cope. No one at HYPS legitimately thinks of Cal as on par for undergrad. It's why the vast majority go to HYPSM vs Cal as evidenced by Cal's mediocre yield. Cal if anything has to rely more on student satisfaction for funding with a paltry $3.1B endowment, but they choose not to as professors care more about research.

There's nothing to be proud of to say your school treats you poorly as some euphemism for "rigor". At Google, we hire more from Stanford on a per capita basis and within the applicant pool than Berkeley as well. Always has been.


Yeah, keep telling yourself you work at Google. What is up with this website? I’m pretty new here and notice a lot of people lying their behinds off just to prove a point — and you can tell they’re lying coz they’re spewing a festering mass of nonsense.

No HYPS grad thinks Cal is on par with them at the undergraduate level? Like, you’ve actually spoken to them? You really think that they think EECS, engineering, CS, business, physics, mathematics, psychology, etc students at Berkeley are inferior? Do you know that for some of these majors, not only you must navigate Cal’s overall admission rate, then you have to prove yourself the first two years to be able to major in them?

As someone who met Ivy League transfers at Cal and new people at Stanford, I can assure you that while that might be the mindset for some as ignorant high school students, that attitude quickly changes the moment they get to university and meet people from other schools and see their curriculum. It’s completely gone by the time they start working and see themselves surrounded by elite public school grads at some tech company. You can ask any Stanford kid right now who knows anything about Berkeley and he will readily admit that Berkeley is the more rigorous school. This is common sense around here. And it’s not for lack of resources to help students, but premeditated hard arse curriculum. I once asked a GSI in an introductory logic course if they covered the same crap. His response was, “lol no, wee never covered this at Dartmouth — this is beyond introductory stuff.”

Berkeley sends more people to tech than any other school and hiding behind exclusivity will not exonerate Stanford and the ivies from that fact. The easiest thing to do is gobble up the highest achieving nerds and send them to places they would’ve gotten to regardless of what school they went to. The true barometer of a great institution is how well it uplifts people from all sort of social classes. Nobody does that better than Berkeley, Michigan, ucla, UNC, etc.

Lastly, I fail to see what yield rate has anything to do with Cal’s near-mythical prestige. There’s plenty of reasons why people choose to attend a school. Some might want to be closer to home, some might like snow, some might like sun and the beach, some might like rigor, some prefer balance — but one thing you’ll never hear anyone say when explaining why they chose a school over Berkeley is because it has better academics than Berkeley. Unless the other options are MIt, Stanford, and maybe Harvard, there’s almost no subject where you pick a school over Berkeley because of academics. Facts.


Near mythical prestige? lolz. Pathetic. Go look up berkeley's career website. It's placement relative to the hundreds of EECS grads a year is underwhelming. The thread title HYPS vs Berkeley. That's what we are discussing.

You're free to meet me at MTV or MP Google campus anytime you want.