UC Berkeley is much better than Cornell, UC Berkeley has more Nobel Prize winners (25, ranking 4) than Cornell has. In all major area or programs, including Business, Engineering, Science, Library & Information studies, you can find UC Berkeley is in the top 3 or 5 or 10, but Cornell does not.
如果一个大学的研究不强,本科教育也好不了那去,教授只上课没研究没Funding,能教出好学生? 教科书上的东西不难掌握, 谁都会看,研究项目和实验室才是学真本领的.
You should look for the school's scientific and academic archivemnets, not name, age, and accept rates (the schools could make the accept rate lower). Some people like the schools which has lower teacher-student ratio, the lower is better, how about the ratio is 1:1, come on, are you looking for baby sitter? if your kid is good, it does not matter how big the class size, the good one is still good.
UC Berkeley is
No.1 in Science & engineering awarded Rank
No.2 in Faculty in national academies Rank
No.3 in Faculty receiving significant awards Rank
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2010/national_university_rank.php
Some schools have more funding than UC Berkeley has, but their scientific and academic archivements are not as good as UC Berkelty is.