FYI, the College of Chemistry at Cal is tough (average GPA 3.31 as of 2017-2018). If you are looking to protect your GPA for med school, think carefully on this one. And I say that as a parent of a current Cal STEM kid.
I agree. Also the same for biology and the life sciences. However, it you perform well in those sciences, it would be very impressive for top medical schools or health profession schools applicants.
Intended majors:
Berkeley: chemical engineering, college of chemistry
UCLA: CS with bioinformatics focus
USC: Biochemistry
-Premed for all
I am strongly leaning USC because of the sheer amount of money they are giving me. USC may be a bit less prestigious than UCLA and Cal, but I’ll get more personalized advising/attention, won’t be sitting in jam-packed 1000 student auditoriums, struggle to get the classes I need.
I’ll be posting this in all 3 school’s forums so I get a more nonbiased idea. Which school would you guys recommend? Any reasons I should attend UCLA (or Berkeley) over USC?
There is virtually no difference between these universities, (other than that USC is private) as far as there prestige goes, I would head to USC no brainer. In fact USC will probably be more prestigious in the future as it doesn’t have to deal with the state legislature and the pressure to keep tuition low for in state students.
For premed, save the money for medical school.
USC will provide you a fine premed education and will have options if you do or don’t go to medical school.
Thanks for the input. I have committed to USC. My family income is too high for need-based aid at a UC, but 15k is still a lot of money. At the end of the day, Berkeley will cost almost twice that of USC and USC’s grade inflation will help me with med school so I chose USC.
Oh, I also wanted to add that an important deciding factor was also the student culture. For me, enjoying my next four years matters so much more than prestige and the difference in prestige between USC/Berkeley/UCLA really isn’t that significant. For me, the atmosphere at USC was so much more laid back than Berkeley, and the students looked much happier. Several USC students approached and congratulated me and offered me their phone numbers in case I had questions – I didn’t feel the same sense of community and support at Berkeley.
Cal’s College of Chemistry is awesome. Lotsa of smaller classes, but then they are usually the advanced versions of what other premeds are typically taking.
One other thing to consider is how easy it is to switch majors if a 19 year old realizes that what he wanted to study at 17 is different than what he wants to study right now.
Congrats on such great offers, and on making a solid decision. Berkeley Regents would be tempting for sure… but you don’t sound as if you’re all-in for either ChemE or CS, and both are tough majors to complete along with premed requirements and pull out a med-school-worthy GPA. As a private university, USC is better able to give you flexibility to explore your interests, change majors, add double-majors/minors/etc. (For example, https://dornsife.usc.edu/bisc/minor-in-cbo-and-bioinformatics/ could definitely enhance your biochem major without your having to do such a specialized program as your UCLA major would have been.) And a $60K price difference over four years is nothing to sneeze at. I think you made the right call, and hope you have a great four years at USC!
USC all day long!!
[quote=CU123]
There is virtually no difference between these universities, (other than that USC is private) as far as prestige goes, I would head to USC no brainer. In fact USC will probably be more prestigious in the future as it doesn’t have to deal with the state legislature and the pressure to keep tuition low for in state students./quote
I beg to differ with the part in bold…
Both UCLA and Cal would have no problems overcoming any shortfall in state funding or tuition (if this makes sense as tuition isn’t funding but more of a reimbursement to the state) by taking more International (“Int’ls”) and out-of-state (“oos”) students. For the academic year 2018-19, UCLA enrolled 20% (I think it was closer to 19%) oos and 10% Int’ls. I think this is a capped out number, but most transfers to UCLA are in-staters, so the threshold wasn’t exceeded. Berkeley was a bit less for both this year because they had higher numbers the previous year.
So if the state cuts funding to the UCs or tuition is held at a steady level (which it should be, inclusive if this is indeed a factor), look for both universities to step up the enrollment of full-tuition payers. There are plenty of parents willing to pay full tuition because their kids want to experience life in California. Cal may not be quintessential CA, but UCLA is probably only a step below UCSB as being viewed as such. Both universities’ names as feeders to top-notch grad programs will also be a great draw. However, I wouldn’t recommend anyone enrolling at a UC who has to take out loans or significant ones.
Noted: I didn’t close the first brackets… besides CaBeachMom interrupted my edit. 
@firmament how did I interrupt your edit?
I had a reply [edit, elide CU112] in which I was having some quote-format problems from cu123.
I stated that both Cal and UCLA would admit more Internationals and out-of-state students to overcome any shortfall in state funding – they’d need approval from the Regents – and in particular any shortage of tuition because it is held stationary – besides, which, tuition is probably more of a reimbursement to the state rather than income to the UCs. If both need more $$, they’ll just admit more full-tuition payers, because both have great reps outside of the state with both being highly desirable because of ancillary things like the CA lifestyle and with very primary things as the academics. The quality of both will remain high regardless of state funding.
As I was editing my problems with cu123’s quotes, you posted, and my edit blew up to where it disappeared. No hard feelings though.
Take care…
My caveat of course with respect to both admitting and enrolling more full-tuition payers is that these students’ parents have the ability to pay without their kids having to go into moderate to deep debt.