oh my bad - I thought - I just red- your comment as living in London…thought you were OP.
California has the Cal Grant program. But the student wants to be in non-profit/public service.
Sorry - there’s just no discussion to be had here.
Would a Londoner recommend U of Leeds or Bham over Oxford or Cambridge?
AFAIK the grant is generous for a public university since it covers the equivalent of tuition and fees + housing (?), but then OP has to pay 7K to his UC (presumably from a 5.5K loan and work earnings over the summer) + living expenses in London. I assume housing is covered through the grant, but transportation, food, and incidentals are going to be added to the 7K that all UC students (“self help”) must pay.
Affording London without a stipend effectively restricts the program to people with about 5K in savings in addition to the 7K they’re all expected to pay. 5K may not seem like a lot to an upper middle class family but it’s a LOT of money for a working class family.
Regarding the costs of the summer and London fall in the GMP, they are estimated here: Tuition & Scholarships - Global Management Program - Berkeley Haas . The OP should check on how much of it is covered by financial aid. If not enough… the decision is obvious for Williams.
Even if the student has an incremental preference for the GMP experience over Williams, in this economic context, it isn’t worth the financial strain that will detract from the undergraduate experience, and the debt that will impinge on the post-graduation options of a student who hopes to do public-benefit work that may not (especially at the outset) be lucrative. And that’s all presuming that the Williams experience isn’t preferable, which is by no means a foregone conclusion. GMP is nicely packaged, but if you look for the various elements of that experience that you value, you can find most of them at Williams too, with full funding. True, Williams doesn’t have a formal undergraduate business program, but that doesn’t stop them from launching many a high-powered business career. And you could supplement what Williams offers by, for example, spending a full year (reiterating again, fully funded!) at the London School of Economics, or at Williams’ exclusive program at Oxford.
OP, Berkeley has granted you a coveted spot, to be sure. But Williams has not only granted you a coveted spot, but also backed up that offer by fully investing, financially, in your success. The potential effect this distinction could have on your quality of life going forward cannot be understated. And further, if you pass up Williams now, you will never go there. If you pass up Berkeley now, it will be there for grad school if that’s still what you want when the time comes.
I was a first-gen kid and attended a college very similar to Williams geographically, culturally and in size. My advice would be to grab this opportunity with both hands. You are young; you’ve lived in Cali your entire life. If at all possible, try to get out of town for your baccalaureate years. There is absolutely no experience quite like being a first-gen and/or student of color on a wealthy, liberal, campus full of adults (and quite a few students) falling over backwards to make you feel comfortable AND who have the finances to back up their efforts. You have the rest of your life to be a cog in a wheel in whatever scaled-up commercial setting you eventually wind up. Give yourself a break. My only reservation is the cold. What part of California are you from? EDIT: The Bay Area? I have friends from southern California who just pull up stakes the minute the leaves begin to fall in NYC. Personally, I think that’s crazy. YMMV.
@Theanxiousstudent Congratulations on your acceptances–what a tribute to your hard work! I’m another person who’s #TeamWilliams, but I understand your concerns. I would encourage you to reach out to the Williams Firsts Community if you haven’t already. I am confident that there are current first-gen Williams students who would be happy to speak with you–some of whom may be from the Bay Area. You can message them through their IG account https://www.instagram.com/williamsfirsts/
I hope that you are able to attend Previews, especially if you’ve never been to the campus. I think that meeting current and prospective students as well as faculty and staff will reassure you that Williams is a special community that’s deeply committed to undergraduate education.
Thank you! I am certainly happy to have all this help. This forum has greatly reduced my stress; I was at the crossroads before 
I was talking to some current GMP students who went to London last year! Basically, Berkeley will cover the airfare and housing in London. But, there’s no set “dining” plan, so students are expected to pay for their own groceries and cook their meals in the apartment style housing. Several of the students I talked to in GMP were also low-income, and they talked about how Berkeley left them no stipend, and the price of food in London was difficult to manage.
There’s also a lot of overlap with Accent (which is kind of like the co-manager of the program in London), and they arrange some outings such as to Edinburgh or Oxford University for free for all of the students. But, a lot of the low-income students talked about being a little socially isolated from not having the money to go to group pub outings or travel to nearby countries. So, it was like there were mini-cliques in GMP with the low-income students mostly staying in the dorms or taking advantage of London parks/museums while other groups went out to pubs and traveled to places like Paris and such.
I think the consensus with GMP students was that they enjoyed the program but felt like Berkeley left low-income students in the dust a bit. They told me that if they could go back, they would have taken a summer job to supplement the London finances as it took an unexpected toll on their plans.
Thank you! This is a very true. I have actually never left my state at all. The furthest I have flown is Los Angeles from San Jose 
It would certainly be a new adventure and a change of the environment I am used to.
This is a great idea! Thank you so much. I will have to reach out. I also reached out to William’s Questbridge chapter, and everyone was very nice. Williams paid for my fare to Previews, so I am most certainly going. I am also very excited to attend.
I just want to say thank you to you all for responding! This is incredibly helpful, and I am very appreciative. I wouldn’t be where I am without my parents as my main support system, so this is a very big thank YOU to all the parents here that support us as students This has given me great clarity.
Great. If you don’t mind please let us know which of the fantastic options you choose.
Take Williams fully paid and enjoy.
It’s a true gift.
I’m not surprised; you say yourself you’ve never even heard of Williams. I certainly know people who haven’t heard of Williams. I just would never ask them where I should attend school.
I’m delighted that you found my suggestion helpful. I admire your bravery for stepping out of your comfort zone. No matter which school you choose, I hope that you give yourself credit not only for your academic achievements but for your personal ones, too. Signed, an often anxious mom
I don’t get the reason for the snark - I hope it felt fulfilling. I was pretty open in admitting that my response was based on my knowledge of Haas and the OP’s goal of being in the bay area.
I can see that, though it wasn’t really my motivation. You have never heard of one school and then express doubt about whether it can compete with the school you know. Seems like you’re missing half the picture.
There are a lot of people who have never heard of Williams; and I’m not making fun of you for being one of them. But I think it’s rare among folks who care about where people go to school.
FWIW, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, at least not entirely. For one thing, I’d guess that a business school applicant is not typical of the type of student who wants to be at a high end LAC. But I may be oversimplifying it a bit.
Curious why you would say a business school applicant (for MBA after I suppose you mean) would not necessarily want high end LAC for undergrad ? Perhaps I misunderstood this comment - in any case I did engineering undergrad at an Ivy and then I did MBA at another Ivy and I found a lot of overlap with the courses I had taken stats / OPIM etc (of course I was able to take many new ones like marketing etc) where as I feel like someone at an LAC or my classmates with undergrad majors like history or something more social sciences would find / found an MBA very complementary to that undergrad experience. In any case I do not think the OP can go wrong with these excellent choices but a bit like my DS23 - the decision is iWilliams v big state school and those are such different environments there is a big personal preference element to it- I do feel however Williams is such a unique opp that I will be a bit sad if my DS passes that up- we re also embarking on revisits - best of luck anxious- rest assured there is no wrong decision for you-
I think @cquin85 meant a business school undergraduate applicant (e.g., Haas GMP.)
What @circuitrider said. The thread is about someone choosing between Williams College and a Haas BS or BA in Global Management. Williams quite deliberately has no business school.
I would also never say that LAC undergraduate preparation is incongruent with pursuing an MBA later on. In fact, it’s the idealized (to those in the LAC world) pathway for the person who wants a career in commerce. The LAC crowd values a more generalized and principled approach to undergraduate education and tends to eschew overly specific training, subject to some glaring exceptions.
At any rate, I would guess that the applicant pool to Williams probably doesn’t have a great many people who also have applications out to undergraduate business schools, though Wharton is so compelling that you might see a few of those maybe. Generally speaking, though, different crowds.
Your example of the undergraduate engineering student to MBA is very, very common.