I’m lucky enough to make the decision above. I prefer the location, campus, and size of Chicago, but for me these are relatively slight considerations. I also think I’d enjoy the academic experience there more, though I do not know enough about Berkeley to make this decision—this factor matters to me. The other factor that matters the most to me though is whether I’ll be able to be happy and make friends at the university, and at the admitted students reception for Chicago I felt that it wasn’t a good fit for me because I thought that too many of the kids were, in my very subjective opinion, too weird for me and on the extreme side of nerdiness. I’m having trouble making the decisions and don’t know how to decide. I’ll got the Berkeley admitted students reception of course, but after that the only way to get more information is the ovenrights. I don’t want to needlessly shell out hundreds of dollars, so does anyone know if overnights will help me make my decision? Will I get a feel for the academic experiences and more importantly student bodies?
Yeah, an overnight will no doubt give you some insights, but don’t make the mistake so many people make of assuming their overnight host or tourguide reflects the whole school. I’m still amazed that people will write off a university of 30,000 students and staff that has a 200-year record of academic excellence just because their ONE tourguide was tired/rude/boastful/uninformed/oddly dressed during the 2 hours they spent him/her.
I would shell out the “hundreds of dollars” to go on the overnights since it will better inform a very important decision that will cost much more in time and money that it will take to go to the overnights. Also, just because you got into UChicago and Berkeley, that does not mean you must force yourself to go to one of them only because they are highly ranked. Surely you got into other schools you may want to consider as well.
@Sam-I-Am Thank you for your answer. On the matter of other schools, I did but it would be very hard to convince my dad to let attend one of the other schools I’m into because he’s being elitist about the whole thing, so I’m basically forced to choose between these two.
I’d say UChicago if you can afford it, not because I am a parent of its graduate, but because its class size is much smaller and class allocation is much easier so you can graduate in 4 years or less. Berkeley is very close to where I live and many graduates in the family are from there, some did very well. However, its OOS cost is as high as UChicago, if it is in state, I’d more lean into it.
This all boils down to Net COA and which one you fit well. So, visit and get a feeling for yourself. They are both excellent schools, but the culture is very different.
Net price at each?
In another post, you mentioned CS or biology as likely majors.
For CS, Berkeley has a local advantage in terms of proximity to lots of small computer companies in the area. However, students in Berkeley College of Letters and Science must earn a 3.3 GPA in prerequisite CS courses to enter the CS major (if you are admitted to Berkeley College of Engineering EECS, you are already in the major).
Regarding if kids are too weird, it is very subjective and only you can decide after overnight. The kids I am familiar with from UofC are not weird, quirky maybe.
UChicago has over 5000 undergrads, and they run the range from nerds to jocks to preps to hipsters and everything else. Yes, everyone will be smart and the nerd/oddball quotient will be higher than at most (any?) other top school, but you will be able to find plenty of people who you can relate to, whoever you are.
Berkeley is a world-class school, but your academic experience will be very different at UChicago. At UChicago, you will have significantly smaller classes, no impacted required classes or majors that you can’t get into, far easier access to research, closer and better relationship with your professors, far, far nicer dorms (that will be available for all 4 years), and more personalized career counseling. You can do any majors you like, experiment, and switch if you change your mind. These are pretty much all of the academic advantages of a LAC, but combined with the advantages of a major research university.
Berkeley will give you better weather, better off-campus food, and more sports/rah rah culture. The faculty is top tier, and a handful of undergrads manage to have close relationships with a professor, but it is not typical. This is not surprising when you have 28,000 undergrads. Typical Berkeley classes have hundreds of students in them until almost the very end of your college career. The first year core classes at UChicago have about 15 students. The overall student/faculty ratio at Berkeley is three times higher than it is at UChicago.
You can get a great education at Berkeley. But all of the special things that a few students manage to get if they really hustle and get lucky at Berkeley are available to all of the students at UChicago. Look at the Metcalf internships, for example. UChicago will directly arrange summer internships next year for over 2200 students, with businesses and non-profits all over the country. That is nearly half the entire student body, which means that pretty much anyone who wants one, gets one.
If you are really concerned about fit, definitely do the overnight visit (but keep an open mind).
For CS, I am fortunate enough to know about half of the UofC’s Class of 2013 CS students( total of 16). Other than one guy who is too rich to do bartending in NYC, everyone else in the class is employed by Major Computer companies in the same level of Amazon and Google.
CS students in Chicago have quadrupled or more in recent years, still, it is much less than 2000+ CS majors in Berkeley