Berkeley vs MIT

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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Well, there was the financial side too, Berkeley offered me like 15k in aid, whereas the privates didn't offer that much, and most was through working or loans or other crap. Harvard never really interested me too much, but at the end it came down to MIT Sloan or Berkeley Pre-Haas, and with a better campus and less super nerds, Berkeley just seemed like a cooler place to be.

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<p>Well, personally, I find that a bit dangerous when you consider the fact that there is a significant probability that you won't be able to get into Haas. At MIT, anybody who wants to major in Sloan management is allowed to do so. Something like around 40% of Berkeley continuing-students who apply to Haas will not get in. And of course that's just talking about those who apply - plenty of people don't even apply because they did so poorly in their Haas prereqs that they know they're not getting in. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/statsucb.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/statsucb.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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Looking at EECS major. </p>

<p>Differences in research opportunities, course difficulty, course diversity, amount of electives, professor involvement?</p>

<p>Also, how is the support system different, social scene, college city, weather?</p>

<p>Reputation of EECS major? Likelihood of finding fairly good paying jobs? Which would look better to a grad school?</p>

<p>I am offered similar aid packages, and I get to decide between these two. Any opinions would be helpful, thanks

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<p>If the cost is the same, I would take MIT. If for no other reason, MIT allows you to easily switch between majors. If you find out that EECS is not the right major for you, it's trivial for you to switch to something else. It's not quite that easy at Berkeley. You might easily end up with low-enough grades in engineering that no other college at Berkeley wants to take you, and so you're stuck in engineering. I've known people who have suffered from this - can't get out of engineering because their grades are too low. </p>

<p>Furthermore, if you find that EECS is right for you, then you can probably take advantage of the MIT MEng EECS program, which is arguably the greatest 'home-field advantage' of any top graduate engineering school in the country. Something like 75% of MIT EECS undergrads qualify for the program after their junior year, and a strong majority of them will enroll. {Note, don't be intimidated by the 4.0 GPA stipulation, as you should keep in mind that MIT grades on a 5.0 scale, hence a 4.0 GPA is a B average}. </p>

<p><a href="http://www-mtl.mit.edu/%7Epenfield/pubs/meng-report-p.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www-mtl.mit.edu/~penfield/pubs/meng-report-p.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Contrast that with the Berkeley EECS BS/MS program which generally requires a 3.5/4 GPA. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/FiveYearMS/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/FiveYearMS/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>While there are obviously other countervailing factors (most importantly, that the competition at MIT is probably higher), the upshot is that it is probably easier to fulfill the conditions necessary for an EECS student at MIT to get a master's than it is for an EECS student at Berkeley. That's what I mean by 'home court advantage'. </p>

<p>UROP is another reason to prefer MIT. The truth is, it's often times not that easy to get into good research projects at Berkeley. Sure, you may be able to get into gut-work research projects where you just end up doing a lot of monkey work that nobody else wants to do, but high quality positions are not easy to come by, especially if you are looking for something that will help you in your career (i.e. get your name on a publication). True, there are some positions available, but there are also plenty of other students competing for those positions. In contrast, at MIT, UROP provides high quality research opportunities starting from freshmen year. </p>

<p>I would choose Berkeley over MIT if Berkeley turned out to be cheaper (which doesn't seem to be the case for you), or if you have a strong suspicion that you may end up majoring in the humanities (which, again, doesn't seem to be the case).</p>

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<p>If I was good enough to get into MIT I'm sure I can get into Haas. And besides, like half of Berkeley students are retarded.</p>

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<p>I didnt mention it because i hadnt gotten in yet. Look at the date of that post, I got a duke/dartmouth likely letter, but not a harvard acceptance letter.</p>

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If I was good enough to get into MIT I'm sure I can get into Haas. And besides, like half of Berkeley students are retarded.

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<p>Well, I don't know about that. Whatever you might think about "that half" of Berkeley's students, they aren't who you're really competing against for spots at Haas. Like I said, the worst students won't even apply to Haas at all because they know they won't get in. </p>

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I didnt mention it because i hadnt gotten in yet. Look at the date of that post, I got a duke/dartmouth likely letter, but not a harvard acceptance letter.

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<p>I'm afraid I'm confused. First off, if you only got a "likely" letter from Duke/Dartmouth, then why did you say that you got accepted on that other thread? Secondly, are you saying that you got admitted to Harvard in the interim?</p>

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<p>unlimitedx: Well, there is bound to be bad apples when admitting over 9000 students...</p>

<p>hey, nice grammar</p>

<p>mpoon2489: im deciding between mit and berkeley too
in terms of social scene and city life--i would argue that if you want to party, you can do that at either school. if you want a quieter social life, you can have that at any school. both campuses are close to cities (either sf or boston) and theres a lot to do in both. you can find whatever you want, whereever you go.
i thought this site was pretty interesting and might help you..<a href="http://www.campusdirt.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.campusdirt.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>im choosing berkeley. to me it comes down to the intangible: i refuse to live in the cold. i just recently asked someone about boston weather and he told me, "it's great! the spring and fall are gorgeous. and the winter..well its the winter..what do you expect? we don't go outside for a couple months." i find that completely miserable. plus, its close to my family. its next door to silicon valley, and there are endless internship opportunities. </p>

<p>ultimately you have to figure out what matters to you. are you interested in the MIT MEng EECS program, because sakky's got a point. do you plan on takign advantage of urops. can you reach out to professors on your own?</p>

<p>to me, the distinction between mit's prestige and berkeley's prestige is slim. and even if it isnt, i find myself sacrificing my personal happiness for a place that is "more prestigious" to grad schools. honestly, companies and grad schools are concerned much more about your skill set and your work experience than the difference between mit and berkeley. cal is the place for me and i know i wont regret it.</p>

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<p>No, I meant look at the date of that thread. 3/17/07. I hadn't received most of my acceptances at that point. For example, UC Berkeley and Harvard released decisions after that date, while MIT and UC Davis released it before. A likely letter is basically an acceptance.</p>

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<p>yea. i has perfect grammer and speling :)</p>