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Why Choose Berkeley?

Below you will find valuable information about the admissions process to University of California, Berkeley graduate programs.


Why Berkeley?

If you're considering graduate school, you may be asking yourself two questions: Why pursue a graduate degree? And where should you undertake a graduate program?

Why Pursue a Graduate Degree?

The answer is as individual as you are. It depends on your career goals, academic interests, and financial resources.

Graduate study offers the personal rewards of learning and discovering in your chosen field, of developing your skills and knowledge as far as you care to go. But the decision to undertake a graduate program also has a practical component. Undeniably, graduate school demands a major investment of time, money, and effort, particularly if you choose to enter a Ph.D. program. Many prospective students weigh that investment against what they will gain in salary and career advancement if they complete a graduate degree.

Berkeley’s doctoral students have found that the prestige of a Berkeley degree often opens the first door to interviews. According to a recent Berkeley placement survey, nearly 90 percent of Berkeley doctoral students who earned their degrees between 1995 and 2003 found professional employment. Almost 60 percent of the newly employed Ph.D.s accepted academic positions; 25 percent are employed in industry; and 9 percent are working for government agencies or labs. Others chose to seek further study, to take time out to raise families, or to pursue other interests.

Where Should You Undertake a Graduate Program?

Again, the answer depends upon you as an individual and particularly upon the field in which you want to earn a degree.

As you weigh the merits of various graduate schools, however, consider that the broad range of faculty expertise, course offerings, and research facilities at Berkeley is difficult to equal elsewhere. Among Berkeley’s distinguished faculty are seven Nobel laureates, 131 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 85 members of the National Academy of Engineering. Over the past five decades, Berkeley faculty members also have been the recipients of 468 Guggenheim Fellowships.

The university’s excellence attracts the finest student scholars as well. Since 1988, for example, Berkeley has attracted more recipients of National Science Foundation Fellowships than any other public institution. And over the past 10 years, Berkeley awarded more total doctoral degrees than any other university (National Science Foundation statistics).

When students and researchers worldwide come to Berkeley to study with outstanding scholars, they can also take advantage of the superior research facilities available here. Berkeley’s graduate students conduct research in more than 50 organized research units, including the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Institute of International Studies, the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the Institute of Human Development, the Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics, and the Institute of East Asian Studies. In the hills above the campus, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation, are important resources for students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics.

Additionally, the university library system is the top-ranked research collection among public universities in the United States, according to an annual ranking by the Association of Research Libraries. Current collections include over 10 million volumes and about 79,400 current serial titles. Library facilities on the Berkeley campus include the Doe/Moffitt Libraries, the Bancroft Library, the East Asian Library and 15 additional subject specialty libraries.

The Berkeley Campus

The campus stretches eastward from the center of Berkeley (pop. 102,743) to a range of hills that commands magnificent views of San Francisco, the Bay, Mount Tamalpais, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Just north and south of the campus are typical student communities, with shops, restaurants, places of religious worship, and student housing. Telegraph Avenue, a business area south of campus, has a quirky magic all its own. There, you can find sidewalk vendors, musicians and artists, retailers offering books, fashion, and high-tech equipment, and an eclectic mix of coffeehouses, restaurants, and pubs serving food and drink from around the world.

The student population reflects this diversity. About 34,000 students attend Berkeley, with every state and more than 100 foreign countries represented. About 10,000 are graduate students, enrolled in more than 100 degree programs.

The university was founded in 1868. The Berkeley campus now covers 178 acres of lawn, wooded glades, and creekside vegetation, including native redwoods. One of the original buildings, iron-crested South Hall, still stands. In recent years, the campus set new standards with a totally wired building for computer science, a modern complex for the business school, a reorganized and expanded university library, state-of-the-art bioscience facilities, and a new building for research in chemical engineering and chemistry. Current completed projects include a new freestanding library for Berkeley’s extensive East Asian collections, an innovative crossroads facility for multidisciplinary programs in the sciences including new hybrid fields, a new music library, an addition to the Goldman School of Public Policy, and a state-of-the-art broadcast facility for the Graduate School of Journalism. Modernization of research labs and facilities continues across the campus.

When you need to get away, Berkeley’s location provides easy access to the cultural and recreational offerings of northern California. San Francisco is a short commute across the Bay Bridge or a quick trip on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), which has a station one block from campus. The scenic coastline of Carmel and Big Sur, the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma counties, and the lakes and forests of the Sierra Nevada are just a few hours away. The hills directly above the campus feature popular trails for hikers, runners, and cyclists. Berkeley is home to many parks, including Tilden Park, which is part of the East Bay Regional Parks system, a greenbelt extending 21 miles through the East Bay Hills.

The Bay Area climate is moderate year-round, with temperatures seldom dropping below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in the winter and only rarely exceeding 70 degrees Fahrenheit  (25 Celsius) in the summer. The warmest months are September and October, when temperatures occasionally soar into the 90s (30s Celsius). Annual rainfall, most of which occurs between November and March, averages about 23 inches.

Financing a Berkeley Education
Berkeley offers several options for students seeking financial assistance for their graduate studies:

Underrepresented Students
For information about resources available to underrepresented students, please visit these pages:

Health Services, Housing, & Child Care
Graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley can take advantage of the following services:

Campus Visits
Interested in visiting the Berkeley campus? Learn more about campus visits and tours from the following resource:

 

Last Updated: August 28, 2008 2:01 PM