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by jedberg 1830 days ago
> going to Harvard instead of Berkeley is also worth about 10 percentage points.

That's interesting to me. Most reputable rankings put Berkeley at #2 or #3, and Harvard is usually around #7 or #8 (and US News puts them at #16!). I wonder what the cause of that discrepancy is.
1 comments
WoodenChair 1830 days ago
CS program rankings are largely based on their graduate programs. The parent comment is almost certainly talking about candidates with bachelors degrees. For undergraduate Berkeley has a 16% acceptance rate and Harvard has a 4% acceptance rate. This will likely act as a filter in combination with the quality of the undergraduate CS program, which could be better at either institution but is hard to get a metric for.
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jedberg 1830 days ago
I was specifically looking at undergrad rankings. The acceptance rate is not a good filter because that's the acceptance rate for the entire school, not the CS program.

From what I can tell, anyone who is a Harvard student can declare the CS major if they pass the pre-reqs. At Berkeley, passing the pre-reqs doesn't get you into the major -- you still have to apply for a limited number of spots, which generally means having a 3.8 GPA or better in your pre-reqs. So effectively both programs have the same acceptance rate.

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usaar333 1830 days ago
> For undergraduate Berkeley has a 16% acceptance rate and Harvard has a 4% acceptance rate.

Berkeley EECS is sub-7%.

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