Stanford and Berkeley
I would have gone into detail before, but couldn't as I wasn't on my own computer (but now I am--new computer ftw). For those of you who don't know, I am now officially part of the Stanford University class of 2012. And yes, I know I've always been such a Berkeley fan, but I've been a Stanford fan too.
So I took a trip up to both, and was amazed at both.
Berkeley: zomg, the city is amazing. We went to this really good Chinese food place + Blondie's pizza + Naan & Curry. Everything is so full of life--I thought even the traffic contributed to the "liveliness." I didn't see many homeless people, but they seemed pretty harmless anyway. Everyone seemed so "themselves," unconcerned with what others think (so many weird people, but it was endearing all the same). The city as a whole has such character and culture.
And of course the university was amazing. I took over 250 pictures. The whole campus is amazingly beautiful and is brimming with energy. I like the hilly aspect of it, too. Though I was sore at the end of the day, I like all the inclines and stairs and also the trees and the vegetation and zomg Strawberry Creek is so awesome and of course all the architecture is pretty.
Stanford: the city of Palo Alto is NOT amazing in any way, shape, or form. It's an upper-crust, gentrified, expensive city where the median house price is $1.6 million. Fortunately, Stanford students don't need to go off campus, and San Francisco and San Jose aren't far away.
The university, though, was awesome. The campus is beautiful--flatter than Berkeley's, very clean and well-kept. The buildings were very pretty, too. What dazzled me the most, though, was their attention to students: my room hosts were way more attentive to me than the one at Berkeley, there were tons of events to make profros (prospective freshmen) feel welcome, the resident fellow in Roble Hall (where I was staying) drove me to San Francisco Airport when my SuperShuttle didn't come, they spent tons of money on food and such (there was good food at pretty much EVERY event! so I was gordo the whole weekend), those at the linguistics table were very informative and helpful (one of them was the department chair, the other an undergrad/grad -- as opposed to the linguistics adviser who manned the stand at Berkeley), etc.
The dean of admissions Richard Shaw came and talked to the students at one of the (rather small) events, which was cool. While I was at a luncheon, one guy came to talk to me about the symbolic systems major, and some others, he, and I all had lunch together, talked about college and jobs and networking, which was all really cool--and then we found out that he's the hiring manager at Google. :O One of the other people we had lunch with there is a millionaire from his involvement with Yahoo's founding. I met the guy who discovered REM sleep, and a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote the widely-used AP US history book American Pageant (which I studied religiously junior year). It was all really awesome.
Hell, when I emailed the linguistics department, I got very thoughtful answers from two very prominent faculty members (well-known in linguistics and computer science). The letters I received from Stanford's admissions had handwritten notes from different officers, all commenting on my application / praising me, which was really nice. I felt more "wanted" (also in part because they sent me an early approval letter).
Money was also a concern. Stanford offered me a full scholarship (regardless of my performance). There were no loans, and only a little work-study, which I can get rid of with outside scholarships. Berkeley's required me to take out over $20,000 in loans, and even more work-study. For the Alumni Scholarships, I was notified by email that I did not receive the Leadership Award--which made me feel like shit--and then told that the last email was a mistake and that I was still in the running. That sort of pissed me off / sealed the deal and I was ready to accept Stanford's offer. I was also told that I'd received the Achievement Award (from what she said, 1 of ~25 students), but I had pretty much already chosen to go to Stanford, not to mention the award came with many conditions (certain GPA, attendance of meetings, involvement in certain events, etc.).
My mom was also pressuring me to go, but I tried not to let that influence me too much. In the end, we sat down and wrote down all the positives/negatives of Berkeley and Stanford, which you can see below.
Berkeley had lots of pros, but more cons; Stanford had tons of pros, and few cons. I realized, also, that what was really going for Berkeley, and really holding me back from Stanford, was city life; but I resolved that I can go to the city when I went. (Seriously, if Stanford were in a city like Berkeley, it would have been a much easier choice.) What all this boils down to--what really is the most important part of my thought process--is the following: if I went to Stanford and didn't like it, it'd be easy to transfer to Berkeley (which accepts a few thousand transfers each year); if I went to Berkeley and didn't like it, it'd be nearly impossible to transfer to Stanford (about 20 accepted--for a 1.5% acceptance rate). It's not as though I'm going to start college thinking of transferring, but rather I feel better if I know I'm not trapped.
My decision, then, was Stanford. And I don't regret it one bit.
Berkeley pros:
-accessibility to city life
-course selection
-larger linguistics major
-strong computer science/ling major
-strong faculty, students, libraries, etc.
-pretty campus
-more students w/income below $40k (~30% Pell Grantees)
-prestige (not really a concern, though)
-weather
-proximity to the bay
Berkeley cons:
-less advising
-larger and growing bigger (despite budget cuts, Berkeley accepted 200 more students this year, expanding the class size)
-larger classes (14% over 50)
-less possibility of studying abroad (somewhat important to me--there are so many students who want to study abroad)
-no linguistics research until senior year (what a student told me--also very influential in my decision, since I want to do ling research)
-less safe (not too much of a concern, but still) -- in a city
-less accessibility to professors
-harder to get in on research (important)
-less funding ---> budget cuts (whose effects are becoming obvious--enrollment in East Asian language courses has been cut in half, and lots of courses, many of which are languages, have been canceled just recently)
-no medical plan included (as far as I saw)
-semester system --> starts earlier, fewer classes, etc. (starts in mid-August, and I need more time to work and such)
-less spending money (financial aid allots less)
-only 2 years guaranteed housing
-sometimes cramped housing --> mostly high-rises (which I don't like)
-no coterminal master's/bachelor's linguistics program (it does in CS, but I don't want a business/tech focus)
-known for weeding out, especially in CS (big problem)
-focus on cognitive/historical linguistics (fewer theoretical ling courses to take)
-less diversity (ethnic, geographic, etc.) -- not terribly important
Stanford pros:
-course choice in CS/ling
-smaller ling major
-better chance of studying abroad (basically, if I want to, I will--for multiple quarters, in multiple countries if I want--and Stanford will pay for it all. Also, there's more faculty support in the different study abroad locations--in fact, there are Stanford faculty with you)
-nearly impossible to flunk out
-no weeding (not in CS or any other department)
-strong faculty, students, libraries, etc.
-weather (less rainy than Berkeley's, but I like rain)
-prestige (not really a concern, though)
-tons of advising (I'm assigned like 234234 advisers)
-more spending money alloted
-coterminal master's/bachelor's program in computer science and linguistics (huge plus)
-guaranteed housing for four years
-better housing -- no high-rises, more comfortable rooms, more facilities (kitchenettes, computer clusters w/printing and scanning, big screen TVs with game consoles, billiards/foosball/ping pong, a theater -- at least my hall had this)
-medical plan included/payed for
-pretty campus
-small/more personal
-smaller class sizes (~75% classes under 20, only 10% over 50)
-more access to professors (who seemed to care about undergrads/interacting with them)
-easy to get in on research, esp. linguistics and computer science
-tons of funding (being the third richest school in the world in terms of endowment, it damn well better have lots of funding)
-lots of ling labs (LinGO, computational semantics, spoken syntax, LFG, HPSG, phonology, etc.)
-focus on theoretical/computational linguistics (big positive)
-more diversity (ethnic, geographic, etc. -- while at Admit Weekend, I met people from Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, etc. as well as Turkey, Tunisia, and China; my room host was from Israel.)
-dorm food is great
-better grad school placement
-I'd be able to work with QuestBridge (www.questbridge.org)
-quarter system -- starts later, more classes, etc.
Stanford cons:
-smaller ling major
-more elitism(?) (not really sure--76% of its undergrads receive some kind of financial aid, ~15% are Pell Grantees, accepted some 140 students through a low-income recruitment program, and 1/4 of the class is first-generation)
-fewer students w/incomes below $40k (~15$ Pell Grantees)
-distance from city/the Bay
Go Cardinal! =D
So I took a trip up to both, and was amazed at both.
Berkeley: zomg, the city is amazing. We went to this really good Chinese food place + Blondie's pizza + Naan & Curry. Everything is so full of life--I thought even the traffic contributed to the "liveliness." I didn't see many homeless people, but they seemed pretty harmless anyway. Everyone seemed so "themselves," unconcerned with what others think (so many weird people, but it was endearing all the same). The city as a whole has such character and culture.
And of course the university was amazing. I took over 250 pictures. The whole campus is amazingly beautiful and is brimming with energy. I like the hilly aspect of it, too. Though I was sore at the end of the day, I like all the inclines and stairs and also the trees and the vegetation and zomg Strawberry Creek is so awesome and of course all the architecture is pretty.
Stanford: the city of Palo Alto is NOT amazing in any way, shape, or form. It's an upper-crust, gentrified, expensive city where the median house price is $1.6 million. Fortunately, Stanford students don't need to go off campus, and San Francisco and San Jose aren't far away.
The university, though, was awesome. The campus is beautiful--flatter than Berkeley's, very clean and well-kept. The buildings were very pretty, too. What dazzled me the most, though, was their attention to students: my room hosts were way more attentive to me than the one at Berkeley, there were tons of events to make profros (prospective freshmen) feel welcome, the resident fellow in Roble Hall (where I was staying) drove me to San Francisco Airport when my SuperShuttle didn't come, they spent tons of money on food and such (there was good food at pretty much EVERY event! so I was gordo the whole weekend), those at the linguistics table were very informative and helpful (one of them was the department chair, the other an undergrad/grad -- as opposed to the linguistics adviser who manned the stand at Berkeley), etc.
The dean of admissions Richard Shaw came and talked to the students at one of the (rather small) events, which was cool. While I was at a luncheon, one guy came to talk to me about the symbolic systems major, and some others, he, and I all had lunch together, talked about college and jobs and networking, which was all really cool--and then we found out that he's the hiring manager at Google. :O One of the other people we had lunch with there is a millionaire from his involvement with Yahoo's founding. I met the guy who discovered REM sleep, and a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote the widely-used AP US history book American Pageant (which I studied religiously junior year). It was all really awesome.
Hell, when I emailed the linguistics department, I got very thoughtful answers from two very prominent faculty members (well-known in linguistics and computer science). The letters I received from Stanford's admissions had handwritten notes from different officers, all commenting on my application / praising me, which was really nice. I felt more "wanted" (also in part because they sent me an early approval letter).
Money was also a concern. Stanford offered me a full scholarship (regardless of my performance). There were no loans, and only a little work-study, which I can get rid of with outside scholarships. Berkeley's required me to take out over $20,000 in loans, and even more work-study. For the Alumni Scholarships, I was notified by email that I did not receive the Leadership Award--which made me feel like shit--and then told that the last email was a mistake and that I was still in the running. That sort of pissed me off / sealed the deal and I was ready to accept Stanford's offer. I was also told that I'd received the Achievement Award (from what she said, 1 of ~25 students), but I had pretty much already chosen to go to Stanford, not to mention the award came with many conditions (certain GPA, attendance of meetings, involvement in certain events, etc.).
My mom was also pressuring me to go, but I tried not to let that influence me too much. In the end, we sat down and wrote down all the positives/negatives of Berkeley and Stanford, which you can see below.
Berkeley had lots of pros, but more cons; Stanford had tons of pros, and few cons. I realized, also, that what was really going for Berkeley, and really holding me back from Stanford, was city life; but I resolved that I can go to the city when I went. (Seriously, if Stanford were in a city like Berkeley, it would have been a much easier choice.) What all this boils down to--what really is the most important part of my thought process--is the following: if I went to Stanford and didn't like it, it'd be easy to transfer to Berkeley (which accepts a few thousand transfers each year); if I went to Berkeley and didn't like it, it'd be nearly impossible to transfer to Stanford (about 20 accepted--for a 1.5% acceptance rate). It's not as though I'm going to start college thinking of transferring, but rather I feel better if I know I'm not trapped.
My decision, then, was Stanford. And I don't regret it one bit.
Berkeley pros:
-accessibility to city life
-course selection
-larger linguistics major
-strong computer science/ling major
-strong faculty, students, libraries, etc.
-pretty campus
-more students w/income below $40k (~30% Pell Grantees)
-prestige (not really a concern, though)
-weather
-proximity to the bay
Berkeley cons:
-less advising
-larger and growing bigger (despite budget cuts, Berkeley accepted 200 more students this year, expanding the class size)
-larger classes (14% over 50)
-less possibility of studying abroad (somewhat important to me--there are so many students who want to study abroad)
-no linguistics research until senior year (what a student told me--also very influential in my decision, since I want to do ling research)
-less safe (not too much of a concern, but still) -- in a city
-less accessibility to professors
-harder to get in on research (important)
-less funding ---> budget cuts (whose effects are becoming obvious--enrollment in East Asian language courses has been cut in half, and lots of courses, many of which are languages, have been canceled just recently)
-no medical plan included (as far as I saw)
-semester system --> starts earlier, fewer classes, etc. (starts in mid-August, and I need more time to work and such)
-less spending money (financial aid allots less)
-only 2 years guaranteed housing
-sometimes cramped housing --> mostly high-rises (which I don't like)
-no coterminal master's/bachelor's linguistics program (it does in CS, but I don't want a business/tech focus)
-known for weeding out, especially in CS (big problem)
-focus on cognitive/historical linguistics (fewer theoretical ling courses to take)
-less diversity (ethnic, geographic, etc.) -- not terribly important
Stanford pros:
-course choice in CS/ling
-smaller ling major
-better chance of studying abroad (basically, if I want to, I will--for multiple quarters, in multiple countries if I want--and Stanford will pay for it all. Also, there's more faculty support in the different study abroad locations--in fact, there are Stanford faculty with you)
-nearly impossible to flunk out
-no weeding (not in CS or any other department)
-strong faculty, students, libraries, etc.
-weather (less rainy than Berkeley's, but I like rain)
-prestige (not really a concern, though)
-tons of advising (I'm assigned like 234234 advisers)
-more spending money alloted
-coterminal master's/bachelor's program in computer science and linguistics (huge plus)
-guaranteed housing for four years
-better housing -- no high-rises, more comfortable rooms, more facilities (kitchenettes, computer clusters w/printing and scanning, big screen TVs with game consoles, billiards/foosball/ping pong, a theater -- at least my hall had this)
-medical plan included/payed for
-pretty campus
-small/more personal
-smaller class sizes (~75% classes under 20, only 10% over 50)
-more access to professors (who seemed to care about undergrads/interacting with them)
-easy to get in on research, esp. linguistics and computer science
-tons of funding (being the third richest school in the world in terms of endowment, it damn well better have lots of funding)
-lots of ling labs (LinGO, computational semantics, spoken syntax, LFG, HPSG, phonology, etc.)
-focus on theoretical/computational linguistics (big positive)
-more diversity (ethnic, geographic, etc. -- while at Admit Weekend, I met people from Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, etc. as well as Turkey, Tunisia, and China; my room host was from Israel.)
-dorm food is great
-better grad school placement
-I'd be able to work with QuestBridge (www.questbridge.org)
-quarter system -- starts later, more classes, etc.
Stanford cons:
-smaller ling major
-more elitism(?) (not really sure--76% of its undergrads receive some kind of financial aid, ~15% are Pell Grantees, accepted some 140 students through a low-income recruitment program, and 1/4 of the class is first-generation)
-fewer students w/incomes below $40k (~15$ Pell Grantees)
-distance from city/the Bay
Go Cardinal! =D