The reputation of a university takes decades to shape and is tied to the reputations of individual professors. For the other schools to "learn to replicate" Berkeley's success, all of their professors would have to become the top experts in their fields overnight. If the professors knew how to do that, they would have done it already, and then a lot of them would have tried to move Berkeley because it has a better reputation.

I'm not saying the other schools have no experts, just that it's a situation where talent tends to concentrate.

> why can't the other UC system members learn to replicate whatever is necessary in order to work towards having a reputation in the same league as UC Berkeley?

Well, they're not independent. You apply to the UC system and you get a decision back telling you which schools you've been admitted to. So the system is free to decide that one campus is better than another one and implement that decision by assigning better students to the favored campus and worse students to the disfavored one.

I believe that's how Berkeley ended up as the 'top' campus in the first place - it was the best one because it was supposed to be the best one. UCLA is different; it "worked its way up" via applicant preference, by having better weather and/or proximity to Hollywood.

It wasn't designed to be the best one, it was just the first one. So every great scientist who wanted to live in a nice area with nice weather and great state support (which UCB had in the old days) went to UCB. Then when the other UCs were established it took a long time for them to work their way up. (Yes UCLA is also great! And UCSD and Davis are really good too.)

That's not how the UC application process works. You apply to the UC system but each school reviews applications independently and without knowing which other schools you applied to.

It is quite possible (although unlikely) to apply to UC Berkley and UC Merced but only be accepted to UC Berkley.

> It is quite possible (although unlikely) to apply to UC Berkley and UC Merced but only be accepted to UC Berkley.

It’s theoretically possible, but given that UC Berkeley is impacted in lots of places and Merced is under capacity everywhere, not plausible (actually, given certain system-wide guarantees, its far more likely to apply to Berkeley but not Merced and still get offered admission to Merced than to apply to Berkeley and Merced and get offered Berkeley and not Merced.)