Hello everyone! My first post on the forums 
I was super excited to get into UC Berkeley, but now I’m torn if I really would prefer to go there over UCLA.
On one hand, Berkeley has a better academic program and interpersonal network, but I’m worried about the rumors I’ve heard about STEM Berkeley students being super stressed and the supposedly dangerous neighborhood around the school.
Any advice about academics or lifestyle at either school that would help me make up my mind?
The math programs at Berkeley and UCLA are equally strong.
Majoring in STEM at either university can be a stressful experience. The rapid pace of the quarter system at UCLA is not forgiving to students who fall behind.
Try not to generalize about “STEM”. Math, biology, CS, and various engineering majors can be quite different from each other, including whether the students are “super stressed”. Pre-meds (any major, but tend to be heavily represented in biology) may be “super stressed” anywhere, since undergraduate is basically a weed-out process for pre-meds (A = acceptable, B = bad, C = catastrophic, D = disaster, F = forget about it).