Berkeley vs. UCLA

<p>So I now have the full picture of both. UCLA is a slightly better fit for me, although I don't like the concentration on sports and the huge number of ripped guys walking around making me look bad haha. I like Berkeley's campus as well but just not as much as the resort-like UCLA. My major is Engineering Physics right now but will try to transfer to EECS... is it easy to do that?
The deciding factor now is graduate school. I want to get an MBA at Harvard, Stanford, or MIT. But before that, I might want to go for something in Engineering. How easy is it to get in from either school? I don't know if Berkeley will kill my GPA that much to not be able to get in. I am 99% sure I will do extremely well at UCLA academically but am not sure at Berkeley although my scores are still above the 75th percentile.
I only have like a day to make my decision, and am leaning slightly Berkeley right now.
Any comments appreciated.</p>

<p>UCLA </p>

<p>btw I heard your priority goes down if you submit your SIR late, just a rumor though…</p>

<p>I would choose the school that would fit you better … which in this case UCLA.
Both both schools are great, the transfer to EECS in Cal might be troublesome, but still possible.
If you think you can get a higher GPA at UCLA, be in the top of the class, and still get some internships/research opportunities, then go for UCLA … that’ll help you more for grad schools than Berkeley.
Grad schools care about what and how you do (like your GPA, your accomplishments, your work and service experiences) than about where you go.</p>

<p>I would say difficulty between classes overall between Cal and UCLA should be roughly equal</p>

<p>^ Not if you’re comparing Cal’s EECS to UCLA’s CSE.</p>

<p>It’s not like you doing well at UCLA is not correlated with you doing well at UCB… i don’t see the dilemma here. gold shines everywhere. it’s not like cal is 50x harder than ucla. both are comparable, but EECS dominates lol.</p>

<p>don’t pick a school on prestige. if you like UCLA better, which is the impression you’re leaving, go there and be a happy person.</p>

<p>^completely true.</p>

<p>You seem to like LA but then you come out of the blue and lean slightly toward Berk?
It’s not a decision we can tell you. I was in the same situation, different major, last year. From what you’re saying though, I do think you’re actually leaning towards LA, despite the sports.</p>

<p>Well, one of the most senior members of CC who ahs a Berkeley undergrad and harvard MBA has access to HBS data bank and he once posted the numbers of Cal grads as well as UCLA grads who have gone to HBS. If you would believe on his data (which I do), you will find out that there are many more Berkeley grads who have gone to HBS than there were UCLA grads. In fact, according to his posts, Berkeley is in the top 8 in terms of schools with the most representatives to Harvard Business School. If you wouldn’t get into HBS, Haas, the business school of Berkeley wouldn’t be a bad alternative. It is a very prestigious business school and is currently ranked number 7 in the whole US.</p>

<p>But in order for those numbers to mean anything, you’d need to know how many applied to HBS from each school. It’s the percentage of acceptances that you’re after, not simply the number of people who got in. Maybe more apply from Cal?</p>

<p>strikemaster6, i’m in a really similar situation as you… i’m having trouble trying to decide btwn berkeley and ucla (i also like the ucla campus better but i cant seem to give up berkeley) and yea we have 1 day left until SIRs are due!! (i submitted my SIR to berkeley btw but i’m having second thoughts…)
so my opinion… honestly i’ve read so many threads on ucla v. ucb, but after all of it i realized that i became even more confused and too easily influenced by each and every post. like eyeheartphysics said, choose where you think you will be happiest… that is what i am trying to do. and i hope it’s a bit of a consolation that there is someone jsut like you panicking until the last day C: good luck!</p>