As your C O A C H, I advise you to go to Stanford. There's no comparison between the undergrad experience you will get as Stanford vs. Cal. If you'd choose Oregon over Stanford, well, all I can say is, you belong at Oregon, not Stanford.
As your C O A C H, I advise you to go to Stanford. There's no comparison between the undergrad experience you will get as Stanford vs. Cal. If you'd choose Oregon over Stanford, well, all I can say is, you belong at Oregon, not Stanford.
Unless you are from Oregon or a nationally ranked athlete, Oregon should be dropped immediately from your list.
Stanford will definitely be best for your career as its name value is only surpassed by the likes of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Then again Berkeley is no slouch either, and since it is (presumably) in state, it will be cheaper. I'd say visit both and see how you like the atmosphere. My guess is that the differences will come down to a) the extra name recognition b) the money and c) the big public school vs. the smaller private school environment.
Stanford, Cal, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, other UCs, USC, Cal Tech, Claremont Colleges each have many dozens of world reknowned academic departments. These are the top research institutions in the world in their particular fields.
UCLA, USC, and Stanford rank 1, 2, and 3 when it comes to NCAA athletics team championships. Stanford has won the Sears Cup for the best NCAA Athletic department many times in a row. UCLA and USC are the world's two top track and field schools with hundreds of Olympic T&F and IAAF World Championships medals.
Notwithstanding, Oregon has a very highly ranked and well regarded math department. I can't speak for the other departments at Oregon.
Stanford. A degree from that school will mean a lot more. If your running career doesn't pay the bills, you'll need a fall back plan.
yeah i heard a degree from oregon is better than one of the best colleges in the country..you should choose oregon because running is everything in life and you can run forever, you'll never need to use your degree.
i don't think it makes a lot of sense to spend a ton of money on an undergrad degree. save your (or your parents') money and go to the state schools for undergrad; get your masters degree from stanford. if you do well, you won't even have to pay for it. . .
A degree from Berkeley carries as much weight as an Ivy school. It's a wash with Stanford.
Nothing is more important than money, which you can only achieve through going to the best schools. Stanford is the obvious choice.
All sarcasm aside, I actually would probably pick Stanford. People say it depends on what you want to study, but for undergrad as long as you go to a quality school and perform well (being active outside the classroom helps too) you'll be setting yourself up nicely for graduate school or a good entry level job. Save the subject-specific school searching for graduate work.
It depends on what you want out of college. The three schools you suggest are all quite capable of educating you to be a secular robot toeing the line at the altar of political correctness, self-absorption and an attitude of anything goes. Drugs, sex with anybody bah..morals...make up your own!
However, if you want an education that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life with a moral base and a heart for others, I suggest something along the lines of Pepperdine. Can't beat the campus setting or the access to great surf beaches either. They also have their own campuses worldwide for study abroad programs.
You do know Oregon has no state sales tax, right? It also has the second highest number or strip clubs per capita in the U.S. Choose Oregon. You've got mountains in the west, desert in the east, and the ocean to the west. You've got it all!
I've had family go to Stanford and from what I heard it's a great school, but the "world-renowned" reputation applies more to the graduate programs and less to the undergrad. Either way its a great school, but take this in to consideration when you consider rankings.
Secondly, I imagine the students and the campus are very different. Berkley is across the bay from San Francisco is very liberal and open, whereas Stanford is inland in the suburbs and will have a different feel with more of your standard private/prep school students. Go to the school with the students who are more like you.
You can go to Berkeley, but if you want to go to the University there you will actually be attending, the University of California, better known as Cal. This is not a small difference, the City of Berkeley hates the university.
littlemeatchunks wrote:
i don't think it makes a lot of sense to spend a ton of money on an undergrad degree. save your (or your parents') money and go to the state schools for undergrad; get your masters degree from stanford. if you do well, you won't even have to pay for it. . .
Anybody who actually believes this has been fed a lie. It is pretty much impossible to convince someone otherwise while on a message board however sit down and talk to someone who has attended Stanford or a similar quality school. They will give you much better insight than anyone here can. I would love to have a real conversation with people who believe this myself and see how there minds work and what they value.
Your writing is horrendous. What school did you attend? That should help the OP make a decision.
Loyal alum wrote:
You can go to Berkeley, but if you want to go to the University there you will actually be attending, the University of California, better known as Cal. This is not a small difference, the City of Berkeley hates the university.
heyyo wrote:
Go to the school with the students who are more like you.
I think that if you want the best education and experience, you should do the exact opposite.
I would pick Stanford over Berkeley for the same reason I picked Dartmouth over Columbia when I was your age. I was told by an adult I trusted that I'd probably spend the rest of my life in a city (and he was right, actually, it's the city Columbia is in) and why not have an experience that was unlike the one where I'd have my professional life. Why not indeed?
You should visit all three schools to see which one feels like the best fit for you. Stanford and Cal are different universes, even though they are not too far apart from each other. It should really be based on what you want to study. Oregon is a really beautiful place, and totally different from the other two. Go visit and trust your gut feelings.
I wouldn't go to Stanford if I was a Liberal, I wouldn't go to Cal if I was a conservative....you want to feel comfortable on the campus.
Be a Duck
I would pick Stanford. Right now Cal (along with all the other state schools) are cutting lots of classes because of the budget cuts. As a result, it is very difficult to get into many classes needed for graduation or your specific major. Stanford, being a private school, doesn't really have this problem. The budget crisis is only going to get worse, state schools WILL suffer, private schools won't be hurt nearly as bad. I have friends at Cal and it is already pretty difficult to get into the classes that they need because of the cuts. You don't want to have to deal with that, trust me.
birthday boy wrote:
A degree from Berkeley carries as much weight as an Ivy school. It's a wash with Stanford.
Perhaps Berkeley is as good a school as the Ivys, but in terms of reputation, I would say it is more like a Duke or perhaps a Villanova. I suspect Berkeley stands out a lot more on the West Coast, but on the East Coast there are so many excellent schools that may have never heard of such as Bucknell, Swarthmore, Amherst, etc. that Berkley would not stand out as much. It is debatable whether the Ivys deserve their reputation, but never-the-less, they stand alone in terms of reputation.
TrackCoach wrote:
Perhaps Berkeley is as good a school as the Ivys, but in terms of reputation, I would say it is more like a Duke or perhaps a Villanova. I suspect Berkeley stands out a lot more on the West Coast, but on the East Coast there are so many excellent schools that may have never heard of such as Bucknell, Swarthmore, Amherst, etc. that Berkley would not stand out as much. It is debatable whether the Ivys deserve their reputation, but never-the-less, they stand alone in terms of reputation.
This is crazy talk. I went to law school in the midwest, and have worked my entire life in the southeast, and Berkeley is below only Harvard, Yale and Princeton in terms of pretige where I'm from. It's on par with Columbia, among the Ivys, in terms of reputation.
More puzzling is the notion that Villanova belongs anywhere in this discussion. There are 50 schools along the east coast that are better than Villanova, and the only people that would put Villanova alongside Berkeley are 80-year old grandmothers in Philly whose grandkids go to Nova.
I interview people from good undergrad schools all the time, and while I acknowledge that Stanford is a great, great school -- one of the nation's best, for sure -- I would get just as excited to see a kid from Berkeley. U. of Oregon would be several notches below those two schools, though it sounds like it's a neat place to go to school.