<p>I have a friend who applied to all three of those schools.
Accepted at Berkeley, rejected at MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>If financial aid isn’t an issue at all, and your are not an underrepresented minority or a woman, it is probably safe to apply to Berkeley for mechanical engineering (one of the easier engineering majors to get into) and not apply to Stanford and MIT, if you are 100% sure you want to go to Berkeley. It’s unlikely, with the above caveats, that you would get into MIT and/or Stanford and not also get into Berkeley OOS.</p>
<p>However:</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that Berkeley doesn’t look at letters of recommendation. So if for some reason you had exceptional letters of recommendation, from teachers or from your high school counselor, Berkeley would never see those.</p>
<p>Berkeley is not going to be able to judge, probably, the difficulty and quality of your OOS high school. Therefore you better have an extremely high GPA. You also better make sure you meet all the requirements, including the 1 year of fine art, so that you aren’t rejected from Berkeley by not being UC eligible.</p>
<p>If you were from some underrepresented state, it also might be an advantage at MIT/Stanford that you wouldn’t get at Berkeley.</p>
<p>All that said, I think you’d be crazy not to at least apply to MIT and Stanford to see what happens.</p>
<p>kenf1234, there are three paths to eligibility at the UC schools. One is them is eligibility by examination alone (high SAT/ACT). Unless I am mistaken, I don’t think I need to meet any of the “A-G” coursework requirements.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong. Thanks.</p>
<p>Source: [University</a> of California - Admissions](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman.html)</p>
<p>Don’t bother applying to MIT or Stanford. You’ve said it yourself. Berkeley is better “>” than MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>I assume you would never want to attend an inferior school. Go with what you want, Attend Berkeley.</p>
<p>First off, Don’t make these radical claims before you even get an acceptance letter from any of these schools. These are choices that you make after the fact you get accepted, not before. LOL</p>
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<p>Well, you need to meet them all if you want to be admitted to Berkeley, I would think. Maybe they would overlook the fine art requirement or something if you were UC eligible by examination. But if there were big gaps in your A-G requirements, it’s hard to imagine you’d be admitted to Berkeley, though you still might be UC eligible by examination.</p>
<p>Who knows, try it, I know an asian kid who got rejected from Upenn, princeton, harvard, MIT, standford but yet got into Yale.</p>
<p>Phead128, I never claimed MIT or Stanford was inferior to Berkeley. In fact, I consider them to be academically superior to Berkeley. Still, my preference (denoted by the >) is Berkeley, which is why I’m contemplating applying to MIT or Stanford (schools that I would love to attend if I were rejected at Berkeley). What radical claim am I making? How is deciding to apply to a school a decision I am supposed make after I get accepted?</p>
<p>kenf1234, thanks for the reply. I am only half a semester short of meeting the fine arts (F) requirement (my school does not offer year long art classes). Hopefully, this does not make a difference for an engineering applicant.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t look at it that way. If I were you I’d figure out how to satisfy the requirement.</p>
<p>The answer must be simple. Your own preference lays the grounds work to the final and ultimate decision of your life. Academically, you want to get the best education at the most academically superior school. I mean, it is that clear or do I need to repeat myself. Berkeley is the obvious choice, Forget about MIT and Stanford, they are insufficient and incomparable to Berkeley engineering. </p>
<p>Its weird you say flat out that one school is better than the next yet decide to create an entire thread dedicated to whether or not you should apply to the latter. You havne’t made up your mind yet?</p>
<p>To be real and honest, why do’nt you just apply to ALL those schools and see which rejections you will get or not get. From there, decide which school you would pick to go to for undergraduate studies. Do not limit your choices so soon…</p>
<p>kenf1234, I found a lot of threads about the issue. It’s nice to see you (with three English credits) were in a similar situation as me. But, I’ll definitely consider taking another semester of art.</p>
<p>Phead128, the general consensus is that MIT and Stanford are tougher on admissions than Berkeley. Since Berkeley is the better school (for me, remember), I’m questioning whether I should bother applying to MIT or Stanford (both of which are seen as tougher schools to get into).</p>
<p>Why don’t I apply to all of them? I want to save myself the money. Obviously, it’s not a good reason for a decision of this magnitide. But if the chances (of being denied at Berkeley but accepted at MIT or Stanford) are as slim as I think they’d be, why not just save the $150?</p>
<p>I have the temptation of just giving you the money right now so this discussion could get over with. $150, dude, I make that in two seconds just day trading stocks. (not to sound too cocky or anything) If a choice of this magnitude exist, take it. We’re talking about regret here. Don’t be stuck in a position that you will regret taking. (oh damn, I should’ve applied to MIT/Stanford to see whether or not I would have gotten in. Oh well, life moves on)</p>
<p>The thing is, I need to know the magnitude of those chances. After all, I’m the one that’s going to decide whether to apply to these schools.</p>
<p>MIT/Stanford rank above Berkeley in selectivity, but Berkeley ranks above MIT/Stanford in personal preference. Logically, MIT/Stanford should be removed from my list (as I’ve been doing with all my other match/safety schools). But I’m not sure how big the selectivity difference is, so I’m not comfortable removing MIT/Stanford from my list yet.</p>
<p>$150 is $150, and I don’t want to throw it away on what seems like a lottery ticket (reject at Berkeley, admit at MIT/Stanford) unless I’m convinced the chances are greater than I think they are.</p>
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<p>First, I was in-state and not applying to engineering. Second, that was a LONG time ago. The trend since then has been to de-emphasize test scores, focus even more on grades and rigor of courseload. </p>
<p>btw, just in case you haven’t heard of it, there is a full-ride scholarship for mechanical engineering, the Drake Scholarship, check it out. It’s NOT need-based.</p>
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<p>I have difficulty distinguishing between #1 and #2 in quality (which Stanford and Berkeley fight for). :p</p>
<p>berkeley pales in comparsion to stanford and mit…what a joke of a thread.</p>
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<p>lol, there you go again ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>I think it’s ridiculous to count on any of these schools being a sure bet for anything, so I think it’s silly to write off MIT and Stanford under the assumption that you’re a slam dunk for Berkeley. Why don’t you apply to all 3 and see how you do?</p>
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<p>While you should go with your heart and pick the school you prefer, IF the issue of maximizing your chances AND potentially saving money has any importance, please realize that you are not approaching this in the right way. </p>
<p>Inasmuch as your chances of gaining admission with your credentials is way higher at Berkeley because you will be in a much higher percentile among the Berkeley applicants, you need to consider the impact of financial aid. Unless you obtain substantial OUTSIDE aid, you will pay more at MIT than at Stanford, and you will pay WAY more at Berkeley than at MIT and Stanford. Unless you believe that California will magically earse its fiscal problems and that the funding issues at Berkeley will disappear overnight, this should be an important issue for an OOS applicant. </p>
<p>Fwiw, a betterment of the financial aid at Berkeley is as improbable as your scenario of rejected at Berkeley but accepted at both MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>I’d say it depends on the applicant. A 3.9 student with a 2200 SAT score has a better chance of getting into MIT or Stanford than Cal Engineering. A 4.0 student with a 2350 SAT score has a better shotof getting into Cal than into MIT or Stanford. That’s because Cal Engineering admissions is more number-based and predictible than MIT or, to a greater extent, Stanford admissions.</p>
<p>One thing is certain, for out-of-staters, all three should be approached as reaches.</p>
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<p>Yes, and that is why Berkeley has higher SAT scores than MIT. </p>
<p>A 4.0 student with a 2350 SAT score has a better shotof getting into Cal than into MIT or Stanford. And so does a student with a 2300, a 2250, or a 2200 … Despite the fact that admissions are holistic and that exceptions confirm the rule, the undeniable fact remains that Berkeley admitted and enrolled classes have a lower selectivity and lower SAT scores.</p>